Feed the Right Wolf

Hi friends in recovery,

After 9 sober days I acted out today but only once. now I'm back on my recovery path. After acting out I went to confession and heard consolation words from the priest, after all from God. I made progress and I'm going to do even more from now on. Although it"s stiffly , but everybody has a stiffly life therefore i should"t complain.

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Alas, I acted out yesterday and today in the morning twice. It was only after 1 sober day. Where was the lapse?

Yesterday in the evening I read a blog of a former porn star and thought that she is against porn as Shelly Lubben who started an anti porn web site, but it occured that she was pro and on her site there were links to some pornographic web sites mostly to women porn directors.

I only wanted to see what the sites contain and what people accepting porn write, but it was as always thoughless soon I lost control and craved to see some pictures or extracts of videos initially out of curiosity and I have relapsed for the first time .

I controled my addiction for over 2 months gradually increasing the amount of sober days . Yesterday and today the plan collapsed . I must be very carefull now in order not to make a binge.

I must pray more, make the running more, do more activities and have more time for my family. I must listen to God much more in my conscience and do what written in Scriptures

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Hi Mombasa,
Seems that you are a religious Christian Catholic I presume. I had the same problem for years.
First of all you should not be looking for material from porn stars or even ex-porn stars in the first place. I used to look at a lot of related material and documentaries related to porn and it helped some what, but not really enough.
After I got into the habit of viewing porn which was after I got married by the way. It was very difficult to stop. I sometimes would stop but it would take a lot of will power and mental stress.
The trick that seems to be working for me is to reprogram the mind and spirit. It is not enough to fight the demons on your own.
As a kid I used to like blood pudding until some one told me what it was actually made from. Then I told myself I did not like it any more. Guess what? From that moment I did not like it any more. In fact I would puke if anyone gave it to me now.
This is what I call reprogramming. You simply put yourself in a meditative state and tell yourself that you hate porn. After a while you will start to believe it. I used to do it for ten minutes a day. I meditate for longer now because I am getting to like meditation. It is also helping me with my anger issues as well.
I used to stay away from porn by fighting demons and all that but now it is no longer stressful. I simply made myself believe that I hate porn, like I made myself believe that I don't like blood pudding. I have full internet access and absolutely no urges since I started reprogramming.

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I will cease being a slave to my past.

Thanx dpacrepentance for your advice and message,

Alas again. In the last days I fell into a P/M binge. I did it uncontrolled 5 times and round about 12 hours watching porn. It was terrible, I was afraid that I lost control again. But on Monday morning I decided to go to confession and to renew my efforts.
I"ve got a new idea – I think the sense of life is to live in total harmony with my own conscience . I decided to listen to my conscience hour after hour, minute after minute. I recognize the voice of my conscience as the voice of God – He tells me through it what I have to do now and what”s my best choice. I know it will be difficult to live so but it”s not easy to live according to myself, to my own will because that entails life with addictions, weakness , bad choices and bad results , besides, such a life is meaningless, dull ….
I hope this diverting of attention to a life according my conscience, God”s Word will result in quitting my addictions and emprove my relationship with wife , children , other people and to fulfilment.

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My Mombasa,
You sound just like me a while back ago. I am a Christian with a Catholic background because my mother was Catholic. She is now dead, but while she was alive I attended Catholic church out of respect for my mother. I am a church musician and I still play music for the Catholic church and attend services. I am really a member of a Pentecostal church. Musicians for various churches are scarce in my country and I do play for many in various denominations. Have you ever wondered why there are so many denominations? The differences can be as small as Mary being considered ever Virgin. For the life of me I could never explain to my Mother that Mary did not remain ever Virgin nor any catholic for that matter who understood their faith. This belief worked for my mother and I don't knock it for that reason.
I am Pentecostal simply because I am in agreement with most of their doctrine and that's all. Because of my unique ability to be close to many various denominations I am able to tell you that I am yet to find the perfect church. I am very close to many religious people and a good friend of mine who is a Nun tells my that I am practicing Syncrotism. I don't even know if syncrotism is a word.
I can tell you that using religious and spiritual methods to fight porn is difficult at its best. Porn is more of a physical and mental problem. What I am doing is to teach my mind to hate porn and that seems to be working. In a meditative state the mind seems to be more mailable. Maybe you can ask your priest if their is a Catholic way to go about meditation.

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I will cease being a slave to my past.

Hi dpacrepentance and
everyone here ,

After 3 clean days I fell in a binge again. The cause were my quarrels with wife and my indecision. I looked for relief and did P/M 4 times during in all 10 hours in two days. the binge has finished today with my another confession. the priest said - " ask Jesus for liberation".

I think now I am really not allowed to give in, even after lots of clean days or weeks because if I give in only once , my body will require a binge ( the time after fast when your body dreams about an uncontrolled binge in order to make up for the renunciation ).

So it seems to me I have no choice I must give P/M a miss for good.

dpacrepentance, I was engaged 20 years ago in meditation, yoga and my experience says me - it was my lost time . That didn't help me and even worse that caused additional problems.
You know for me it's simple - the only One who can resolve ALL my problems including P/M is Jesus.

He can say to me what to do through priests, Scripture, people, specialists and people on this site but it has to be compatible with my faith. You know - suppose satan came to me and said - if you want I can set you free from P/M - I would anwser - even if you could set me free I know that I would become your slave and that you want to trick me because you're a lier, I prefere to die with all my addictions because addictions are like a sickness. I can remain sick but I must pay attention not to listen to satans lies because my salvation could be at risk.

Besides, if Mary was an ever virgin we both don't know and nobody alive knows it - it's the matter of faith . The knowledge will come after death. I only know - beside catholics - orthodox and eastern orthodox believe in it and that causes no problem for us, no damage...

thanks dpacrepentance for your concern

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I don't know that much about yoga but I don't want to impose anything that you disagree with. The spiritual stuff is important but don't forget, you are battling your mind and not necessarily demons. I spent years myself thinking of this addiction as a spiritual war and to my relief I found that there is nothing wrong with me spiritually. When you begin to realize that your mind is more easy to control than you are thinking right now, that is when the job becomes easier. I haven't sold my soul to the devil or anything like that.
I did not bring up the Mary belief to cause contention but merely to demonstrate how small a difference in belief could make a whole new denomination. We all read the same Bible, as far as I know, only the Mormons and Jehovah Witnesses changed some aspects. There are even Christians who believe in Jesus and not in Bible. See if you can figure that one out. I try to lead as many to Jesus as possible without causing any contention. After all the church was not built by Jesus, but we with all our frailty are his bride. I tend not to judge anyone by their church but on their belief in Jesus.
Jesus said to pick up your cross and follow him. The patriarchs said to put to death the old man. You need to come up with better strategies than just fighting the old demons head on.
Just another piece of advice. Don't blame quarreling or any other thing for a porn binge. We look at porn because we like it. I have problems with anger management and i don't use this as a crutch to go on porn binge. So whenever I do something stupid when I get angry, I don't say that this is a good excuse to now further spoil my day with porn. Now that I have trained my mind to dislike porn, I can now work on this separate problem I have with anger. I don't combine the two problems so that a fail in one does not cause a fail in the other.

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I will cease being a slave to my past.

Dear Mombasa,
Let me know if I am stressing you out. If so I will stop.

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I will cease being a slave to my past.

Hi dpacrepentance,

You don't stress me, you're helpful. We exchange our views which are sometimes different, but it's very profitable for me to talk to people having different point of view because they see a problem otherwise and I can discern my shortcomings better.
A friend of mine told me some time ago - " If you want to find someone who always agrees with you , you must get married to yourself"
Don't worry I think you as my friend in recovery and I know you've got good intentions.

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Mombasa here is my way.

First I decided to just quit. Simple as that. Secondly, I began to pray to God to help me quit. I prayed all day every day (I still do). I began to read my bible. I went to confession and confessed my sins to my priest and I go as often as I can. I told my parents. My wife told her parents. I spoke to my in-laws about it. I found this website and read the articles posted by the Wolf. I watched the videos to help me understand.

I also began to think about my kids. I did not want them to have a father who was an addict. I did not like the person that I was. Always being grumpy and irritable and having no patience. Will power is a strong thing. When you decide to stop a bad habit and begin new good habits you can beat any addiction.

I have found things that I like to do to direct my mind to positive healthy things. I do crossword puzzles, sudoku, I exercise, I read, I watch movies (things that don't have a lot of sexual visual stimulants), I am trying to eat healthier and I try to play with my kids more.

Also, having a strong support system in place will help tremendously. I have spoken to no less than four priests (one of whom counsels me now), I have my parents and in-laws, my sister and brother-in-law and his wife, and I have all the guys I work with who are very good close friends. All of them understand what I am going through and are supportive of me. Also, having everyone here at the forum has been a big help. By having fellow addicts supporting each other during recovery we can all help each other be accountable. We can tell each other things that work and things that don't work so that we can all try different things out to find those tools that will help.

The only person I don't have supporting me is my wife. I hurt her by my actions very deeply. We are trying to work on things, but that will take time and only God will decide when the time is right for us to be together again.

Also, seeing a counselor and being able to talk about things have helped me figure out the why of all of this. That has helped me keep focus on what I am fighting for. Myself, my wife, my kids, my family and marraige. My future.

Lastly, have a positive attitude. If you stay positive and believe that you can do it. You will. Make the effort to succeed and you will beat this disease.

I also sent this to cojerc.

I forgot to add that I also use the K-9 web filter on my PC. I also had the internet on my cell phone turned off by my priest ( he put a password on it ). I can't believe I forgot to mention this one. It is such a big one. Getting rid of the temptation to act out by not having things to look at helps a lot.

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Sobriety date: November 6, 2011
In all you do, remember the end of your life and then you will never sin. Sirach 7:36

Love and time can heal just about anything.

Failure is not an option.