The toughest post I've ever written

[no_excuses]

I just spent an hour writing a long, emotional introduction, then clicked "submit", but my session had timed out or something and it was lost! Now I'm emotionally drained and don't know if I can recapture everything, but I'll summarize.

I've never admitted to ANYONE, even my wife, what I now say in public: I'm addicted to P. No one in my life knows. I'm a fairly private person and, as such, pretty good at hiding things. I've tried to quit dozens of times over the last decade or more, but always fail within two weeks, which creates the familiar cycle of self-hate, swearing to stop, then desire creeps back in, surrender, etc. What encourages me about this time around is that I feel my recovery techniques have advanced to the point where I'm an airplane on its last bumps before finally taking off. The other encouraging thing is this forum - speaking with others for the first time in my life about this awful, destructive addiction, and taking strength in my brothers and sisters in arms.

I've learned a few things from recent experience, and have seen them validated by others here and on other forums:

1. A zero-tolerance policy is mandatory. If I give in to even the most rated PG-13 desire, there is a 100% chance that within a few days I will be lost in an internet search for material so vile it makes me disgusted with myself. It's not a slippery slope, it's a sheer cliff. I cannot allow myself ANY manner of sexual pursuit (internet, magazines, even daydreams) outside of my marriage.

2. Lust is physiological. I have inadvertently trained my brain over the last 2 decades to be addicted to P, and it will take a long time to train it otherwise. But there are immediate things I can do. For instance, I read long ago that it is physically impossible to be angry if your body is relaxed. I found it to be true - you can still be against something, but anger itself has dispersed. When desire comes on, I feel my heart rate increase, my breath becomes faster and gets caught high in my chest, and I can't think straight. It's literally like there's a sandstorm in my mind. To counter it, I have to calm my breath, which calms my heart, and I focus on emptying my mind. This will only hold off the desire for a few moments, so once calm and reasonable I then quickly have to shift thoughts to my bedrocks.

3. My bedrocks. If I forget these, I'm lost. If they lose their value to me in a moment of passion, I'm lost. My first bedrock is that I am not meant to be this pathetic, selfish, broken, weak man. It's not correct, natural or right. I am meant to be honest and have integrity, and that feels soooo much better than where I've been. My second bedrock is that if I continue this activity I will eventually be discovered and disgraced in front of my whole family, and quite possibly lose my wife. I cannot let that happen. So these thoughts are the carrot and the stick. I may modify and clarify them further with time.

4. Recovery is practice. I have to be PROACTIVE daily, not just defensive in times of crisis. I have to read this forum every day and sometimes post. I have to have a conversation with myself daily to make sure I still viscerally feel how important this issue is. I have to switch things up, adjust my research and meditation so that the practice stays constantly alive and real. I have to watch my stress levels and workaholic tendencies, and make sure I have only one drink with dinner. I have to focus on my deep and real love for my wife. I have to simply remain clear-minded and good.

Thank you so much for being there. I hope I can someday help others win this terrible struggle.

[JenMac]

Welcome no_excuses!
I am glad you are here!
I am sorry about your first post. It must have been awesome! I know this because your subsequent post was great!
If I had a dollar for every time this happened to people... I learned to copy each post before I hit submit to ensure that I had it to start over. There is also a tool that will help with this built right into the site. It is called 'restore' something or other, and if you are taken away from the page you are posting on, you can go back and hit the 'restore' button and hopefully it will be there waiting for you. :)
I remember my H mac losing his first post twice after pouring his heart and soul out.
Seems to me NoE, that you have a lot of good thoughts and perhaps even practises put in place for yourself. It is now a matter of finding support for yourself and to hold yourself to what you know will help you succeed for the long term. I hope being here will help with that.
I know that you have said that this is a secret and I assume that means your wife does not know. NoE, there are many couples here working throught his together and so if or when you decide to share this with your wife, this would be a good place to introduce her to to enable her to get the support she would no doubt need to work through this.
NoE, I am heartened that you are here of your own free will fighting this. That, to me, says a lot! That is not always the case. Many Hs here come here intitially because their wives have discovered their use of p and their life has fallen apart because of that. That is the case in my H and my situation. So, the fact you are here on your own is amazing NoE. It tells me you know the damage this is doing to you, and subsequently to your marriage. It will of course be entirely up to you whether you choose to share this with your wife. The only thing I would say to you, is if you decide not to share this with your wife, you run the risk of her finding this out on her own. And if that were to happen, you will have given up the opportunity to be open and forthright with her about this. Please consider that seriously NoE. It is a serious decision you have to consider.
NoE, I hope you find TTF to be what you are looking for in your recovery from this soul destroying addction. I hope you will find strength and support through the members here. I hope even more that you are able to find the strength and determination within yourself to take you to a better place.
Wishing you all the best! Listen and learn, and keep coming back!
Jenn

[no_excuses]

Hi Jen,

Thanks so much for your reply. I've read some of your other posts and appreciate your wisdom and time. I usually do copy and paste something before submitted, and even thought about it doing it here, which really made me want to kick myself after I lost the post!

I hear you regarding telling my wife. The thing that stops me is that it would be a terrible, awful thing for her to go through. If I can save her from that while fixing myself, I have to do that. This was a problem I created for myself, and I'm hopeful I'll find all the communication and support I need on this forum. I can't cause my wife such pain if it can be avoided. If I were afraid of more relapses, it might be a different story. And maybe I'm being overly-confident against something that has kicked my butt 100-0, but this is truly where I draw a line in the sand against addiction. The other thing is my wife is fairly innocent in her upbringing. She doesn't even understand my active but fairly normal dating history, and I know for a fact she would not understand addiction. So beyond the pain it would cause, there is a very good chance I would lose her. And that is something I cannot risk any more than I already have.

[Teemo]

no_excuses,

Welcome! It sounds like you have done a lot of studying of this problem, maybe a lot of reading here at TTF. Your description of what is needed for recovery sure looks good.

I see some of my own history in your words. Like you, I came here to get help, fearing that I would soon be discovered if I did not do something about my addiction. When I started here a year ago I had already told two people about my problem: a counselor, and a close friend who agreed to help as my accountability partner.

I think your no-tolerance approach is exactly right, and you describe well the danger of seemingly innocent thoughts and images. For us, as addicts, none of that is safe.

You have put in place a number of rules for yourself, and I think that is an excellent way to build the discipline that we need to keep going on this journey. You may find that you need more rules as you go along. And yes, watch those drinks with dinner. It's amazing how quickly a drink or two can help us forget the rules we are following.

I hope you have good plans to block all access to P. We have to make it as difficult as possible to fall, because there will be moments when the safety measures are all we have.

Hoping to read much more as you travel along.

Teemo

[no_excuses]

Thank you for the kind words, Teemo. I can't tell you how encouraging it is to hear from someone who has made it a year, I can't wait until I'm in that boat. I appreciate your feedback!

[Disillusioned]

Hi NoE,
Welcome to TTF. We are a diverse group of people, different ages, different continents even, but we all have in common the fact that p has hurt us. You are right, we are brothers and sisters in a battle. I understand your feelings about protecting your wife, but keep in mind, this is a life long problem. Yes, it will get easier as time passes, to stay away from this, but it will never entirely be gone. While you are abstaining, you are essentially rebooting your brain and this is great. But s-xu-l thoughts and images travel the brain circuitry 2% faster than ordinary thoughts and images, so you really have to be ready to stop them quickly....and that takes time and lots of intervention on your part. You will never be entirely free of this urge to go back. So, at some point you might consider telling your wife. I understand your need to avoid causing her pain, but again, as our Jenn said, this will take an entire life time of hiding your efforts from her. I wish you good luck on that.
Something that might help too, is to identify your triggers. Those things that make you want to go where you cannot allow yourself to go. Sometimes they are images from advertising, magazine ads,stuff on tv. Sometimes they are situations, like coming home to an empty house. Make yourself a list and have something in mind that can help put the brakes on. My h says that he read somewhere that if you can delay an urge like this for 20 minutes, it usually loses intensity or goes away. So, if the empty house is a trigger, as soon as you find the house empty, grab the vacuum or empty the garbage or do 20 push-ups...something that is an absolute, as soon as you hit that empty house.
Your first post was amazing and like Jenn, I am happy to see you identifying this as a problem and something to be eradicated in your own life, instead of being drug here by a wounded spouse. As an SO, I can tell you that the pain from learning about this was like having a gash in my chest...it actually hurt, and I was amazed that it could hurt as badly as it did, and I could not see the gash; nor could others.
I wish you all good luck on your journey and efforts to get rid of the 'beast' as our fellows call it. I applaud you for wanting to take the higher road in your life.

[no_excuses]

I appreciate the thoughts, Disillusioned, and it saddens me to read of the pain you went through. I can only imagine what a shocking stab to the heart that must have been. I'm very sorry. My first day or two "clean" I was riding high on purpose. Now as my view of reality becomes clearer and clearer, what's hitting me is the massive amount of pain and waste I've contributed to. I actually logged on to write a new post about this, so I'll explain more there and ask others' what their experience has been. For me, it's depressing. Not in a trigger way - I have absolutely no urge to watch P or MB, and I'm staying aggressively on top of that. And it's not depressing in a "no way out" type of thing. It's depressing in the way anyone would probably be depressed upon realizing the depth of the wrong they've done for years and years. But that's part of the recovery, and something I'll just have to get through day by day.