A year passed

[zscured]

I was a long time porn viewer, but I quit about a year ago. Just stopped, it was done with. (If you want to know the whole story its posted in the "my wife found me out" thread) I just have a few tips for those of you trying to quit:

1) The reason slips happen is because you allow yourself to think about looking at porn for more than say, 1- 2 seconds. A thought entering your mind is difficult if not immpossible to control, but a thought thought through is a thought considered is a thought turned to action. You
MUST
learn to discipline your mind.

2) Prayer

3) Tell someone. You have to. I know that is difficult to hear because as men, we hate showing others our failures. However, this is one failure that in my limited experience will not go away until someone you care about knows about it, and hates it.

4) MB will make your problem worse. I would still say get rid of the porn first, as it is by far worse and keeps you at such a distance from God, who is your only true help. Just understand that in order to get at the root problem, MB will have to go too eventually.

5) You've heard this one before, but get rid of
everything
sexual in nature. For the things you cannot get rid of, look the other direction. All things sexual are a poison to your mind, especially when you look are addicted to porn.

I wish all of you well and I will pray for your recovery from this horrible disease. You cannot even imagine the intense feeling of freedom and closeness to God that ensues. Quiting is possible!

[carl]

great words of inspiration for me. I agree esp. about not letting thoughts "Warm Up" thanks

[leopold]

Dear Zscured:

My abstinence (6 months porn-free) involves all 5 of your recommendations. The first one is important for me since one of my bottom line behaviors is "ogling" women. My only addition is that I believe that I have access to the Voice of God in my life through my own heart, the words of wise people who love me, and the written words of wise people. I listen to that voice, and do what it advises me without bargaining or resisting.

Congratulations on 1 year! Awesome!

Leopold

[mustwin]

Dear Z,

Congratulations! You are a true inspiration to me - I can see that this thing can be overcome. This will be 33 days for me and I pray that I will someday be able to post here that I've been clean for a year.

I have done all but one of your recommendations - telling someone. The embarrassment would kill me. I'm not afraid of admitting my failures but I am afraid that the person I tell would see me as a pervert, which is what I feel like myself when I have acted out in the past. I have used that fear as a weapon against myself, against slipping. I tell myself that I have learned so much from this board about how to stop but I haven't told anyone and if I can't stop then I'm going to have to tell someone. I imagine in my mind telling it to my brother, then another friend and another. I imagine the embarrassment. It has become a motivation for me not to slip. It's working so far and I pray I won't slip and find that I do have to tell someone.

I have a question for you. Does it get easier?

Best wishes.

[cain]

CONGRATULATIONS ZSCURED !

Great advice. I find myself continuaully fighting adultery thoughts all the time. No matter where I am, if I see a women that is remotely attractive, I have a very hard time of NOT having sexual thoughts.

One comment about MB. I've been told all my life that its normal & healthy...by sex ed teachers, friends, doctors, etc... Is it true or not and how can one fight these impulses?

Cain

[speedhealing]

Zscured,

Great job on being clean for a year - that is just awesome! Your advice is very sound in general, and well taken on my end. I assume that you did not literally mean getting rid of everything sexual permanently, as that would discard an important aspect of spiritual interpersonal relationships (I have no intention of willfully getting rid of the physical relationship with my wife, for example, although I feel I did benefit from an extended period of celibacy). Anyway, I hope to join the 1-year club in about 4 1/2 months myself. Thanks for the inspiration.

-speedhealing

[zscured]

Mustwin,
If you have been able to go for 33 days without looking at porn and without telling anyone about your problem, then I would say continue doing what you are doing to extend the streak until it attains permanency. The post important thing for you now is to break the addiction, and it looks like you are well on your way to doing it. Just understand that if you do not tell anyone now, you will end up telling someone later, as will be, and already is, a matter of honesty. Also consider that telling someone now might not be so bad, considering you aren't even viewing it now, and that it might give you that extra motivation to make sure you don't look at it ever again. Awesome job on 33 days, keep it up. Oh yes, it does get easier by the way. So much easier that I don't even think about doing it anymore, and havn't for a long time.

Cain
Unfortunately our health teachers lied to all of us. While MB certainly isn't abnormal in this day and age, it is harmful. MB is like walking your mind into oncoming traffic, it makes it very easy for you to start thinking about sexual situations/images. These images slowly but surely contaminate your thinking and pretty soon, you see sex everywhere and everything becomes sexual. MB is the organism which the parasite of sexual addiction feeds off of. It took me a long time to let it go, but I eventually was able to stop. You can too, I am sure of it.

[dan]

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Zscured. You have identified the problem in your life, and you solved it by changing the way that you think. You are an inspiration today.

Be well,

[guy]

Hello, Zscured:

5) You've heard this one before, but get rid of
everything
sexual in nature. For the things you cannot get rid of, look the other direction. All things sexual are a poison to your mind, especially when you look are addicted to porn.

"All things sexual are a poison to your mind"? I have issues with the words written down in black and white in this post. Sexual anorexia is something that some in my SLAA meetings have described as a serious, destructive, addictive force in their lives. It's the flip side of the coin in sexual addiction. Instead of using and abusing sex to deal with one's issues, the anorectic shuns all sexual feelings and thoughts in order to do the same. The result is really tragic. I've copied over a piece from the SLAA Site that deals with this issue:

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Anorexia: Sexual, Social, Emotional (excerpted © 1992 S.L.A.A.)

What is Anorexia?

In Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous®, we suffer from addiction to sex, love, relationship, fantasy, romance, and codependency. However, there is still another addiction some of us suffer from: anorexia. As an eating disorder, anorexia is defined as the compulsive avoidance of food. In the area of sex and love, anorexia has a similar definition: Anorexia is the compulsive avoidance of giving or receiving social, sexual, or emotional nourishment.


Some Varieties of Anorexia

Some of us may not have had sex or been in a close personal relationship in years. Or we may be in partnerships, but find it difficult to be emotionally close. We may be the members in S.L.A.A. who seldom speak in meetings, disappearing the instant the meeting is over. Or we may be those who, outside meetings are barely social. Or we may be the kind who do not have intimate friendships. We may have many acquaintances, but no one we're really close to. Or we may have close relations with only certain people, our children say, but keep our distance from anyone else. There are many other varieties of anorectics as well. But whichever kind we are, all of us in some important way have distanced ourselves from experiencing love.

As anorectics or as people with anorectic tendencies, we may have a wide range of feelings and responses. Some of us feel overwhelmed in social settings. Others of us get high by socializing with a great many people in order to keep ourselves from intimacy with any one person. Some of us feel incapacitated by shyness in relationships with others. Others of us are in relationship but are passionate only in one area of it; for instance, we may be emotionally invested in the relationship but remain sexually or socially unavailable.

Just as our feelings have a wide range, so do our behavior patterns. For some of us, anorexia might take on the form of an overwhelming dread of making phone calls. Some of us function well in particular situations, such as the workplace where intimacy is not usually valued, but find we are distant with family and friends. Others of us have used alcohol or drugs to become emotionally withdrawn. Or we used them to become sexually, emotionally, or socially daring, while essentially remaining out of contact with others in any meaningful way. In this way, we have used other addictions to act out anorexically.


Are You Anorectic?

Ten of the fifty questions from the pamphlet are provided here to help you decide if this pamphlet may be of use to you.

1. Do you go for long periods without being involved in a sexual or romantic relationship?

2. Do you go without social activities for extended periods of time?

3. Although in a relationship, have you found that, for a long while, you have not experienced: romance? sexuality? intimacy? friendship?

4. Are you alone more than you want, but feel unable to change that?

5. At work do you have trouble developing relationships, talk only when absolutely necessary, or hide out in the work?

6. Do you avoid relationships with a certain gender?

7. Do you stay aloof when in groups?

8. Are you afraid of being noticed?

9. Does being in the presence of others exhaust you, even if you like them?

10. Do you habitually panic or push people away when they start getting too close?
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sort of like jumping out of the frying pan and winding up in the fire itself. Anyway, just my take on the post to which I'm replying. I wish you the very best, Z. In the end, I've found, it all comes down to one day at a time for any of us addicts here, whether any of us have been sober for a day, a month, a year, five years, a decade and longer. Let's stay sober, just for today.

Grace and peace,

Guy

[brian16]

ZScured,

I, too, find this thread to be both encouraging and refreshing and want to thank you for it! I wish more people would come back and share their success stories to give HOPE to those who are just starting their recovery or continue to struggle with their recovery. And that seems to be the one common thread between ALL of the success stories that I have heard----HOPE. Thanks again for taking the time to remember where you came from and to lend a helping hand to the many in need! God bless!

Your brother in the struggle,
Brian