Stages of PA and Recovery

[Rowlf]

Hey LPA,

Some real wisdom there - It's really good stuff!

Thanks!

[OpenEyes]

I was rereading this thread and wanted to look at LPA's point 3, "Outside help: Going without it is like building a house without foundation. Enough said."

I am getting this help now, and I am amazed at even with a little, I am feeling better. My SO and I are so close, that the help she offers is unseen, dismissed or not understood, as it seems from inside the problem, than from outside the problem. I am recognizing this, and I know it frustrates her, hurts her, and I am still trying to figure out how to make it better, but, an outside source of help IS NEEDED!

Thanks again for this thread!

[want2bebetter]

This thread was helpful to me because I feel like I'm just at stage one or entering the euphoria stage, and it's good to know what might be ahead. Thanks man. A lot.

[sick&tired]

Daniel, this write-up is very helpful. One day my euphoria stage quickly took me to the indecision stage which led to a relapse. Wish I read this some time ago so I would have know these negative feelings were coming and would have been better prepared to deal with them.

[Daniel]

Thank You s&t.

The instigation came from a combination of what I had felt in the years leading up to Finally getting things under control -my own experiences etc., and then seeing our membership of recovering PAs experiencing same or similar emotions in their respective journeys.

The parallels were too hard to ignore and helps demystify the process for those puzzling/stumbling/learning their way through (all of us!).

Daniel

[Misty-Eyed Matthew]

I was in the first stage for at least the last 2 years. I knew I wanted to quit but didn't know how to really stop. In the last 30 days I've went to the 2nd stage & through most of the 3rd. Maybe in the next 30 days I will be in the 4th stage, we shall see. I'm very confident in my recovery with God's help & the support I've got here. Thanks for the info, it was very helpful to see were I am at this point. God bless TTF!

[Teemo]

I like the word "combat" for stage three. It seems to describe where I am. I am truly fighting for control of my mind. I have achieved some distance from P (ten weeks) with much support from my counselor, from my accountability partner, and from lots of folks here at TTF. Now I'm fighting.

It is not just about preventing relapse now. It is about destroying all traces of the images and fantasies that I have nurtured in my mind for so long. It is about cleaning out all the poisons that have built up in me. It is about defending my life, my marriage, and all my relationships from anything that still threatens them. I know that the only hope I have of getting to the next stage is if I allow no part of the addictive thinking to live in me.

Teemo

[ToddR]

. . . apparently, I am deep into STAGE FIVE --- even though I am only six weeks clean, I have had a fierce and at times a losing battle with the monster from within -

Yet -

As concise and detailed as your stages are -

My recovery followed a different disjointed path then you have posted here -

I spent years toggling between "Realization" and "Indecision".

Spent hundreds of dollars on vintage soft porn and then reach a breaking point which ended with all of it going into the trash >>> always hundreds in a dumpster many many miles away so that I would not be tempted to extract them on second thought.

Then with the easy access of the internet I spent hundreds of hours staring at that screen and again reaching a breaking point being one last MB and the dumping of the history. Unfortunately, my computer was within walking distance which allowed me to "build" that collection without driving or expense.

Fate brought me to this site six weeks ago upon searching for a porno forum to replace the one I got kicked out a year ago today (see my "Recovery Journal" for more on that nonsense) for having experienced a major meltdown.

Since then, I have used this site to log my progress and success. And, by revealing what has been internalized for years, I have allowed myself to cleanse myself. And, by making this site into my "Big Brother", I have made myself transparent to all of you so that you too can track my progress. No. You may not be truly watching over me but I have convinced myself that if I fail that I fail in the eyes of so many that believe in me.

Upon logging on six weeks ago, I switched from STAGES 1 & 3 to STAGES 2 & 4. Within the last two or three weeks, I have slipped into STAGE 5. By embracing the emotional scars and memories of what I had become, my mind and desires simply are repelled by the extreme pain that I caused myself.

I do have the curiosity as to what it would feel like to open up one of those old sites that gave me the sick comfort of pornography but in doing so I would view that as cheating --- cheating you --- cheating me --- and cheating my wife --- not just cheating her but cheating on her. By equating even the thought of relapsing to that of being unfaithful to my wife, I have managed to attach even more pain to the entrance to online pornography.

I have said this before and I will repeat it here -

. . . DAMN this feels good!!!