sdf8 recovery journal

[sdf8]

Try to stay connected to the greater good. its not just an addiction to the computer screen but a lifelong singular pursuit of the satisfaction. Its the drug in my body that I am addicted to. Porn and MB is the tool which I became addicted to to reach the sensation of comfortably numb. AS the hormones faded the need increased to recreate the fleeting moment of nirvana. Nirvana has become a prison encapsulating my heart and my desires and my behavior. It robs me of success and freedom and I hide with in a blanket of shame and remorse. I can no longer isolate my self from my family, the twisted pursuits can no longer dominate my plans for the furture. I look forward to the day when all this fades away and I not preoccupied on a daily basis on wanting, hiding lying pursuing obtaining and pretending the shame and drepression that follow will not be so strong. The shame only grows stronger the remorse only gets greater the efects on my family , my income my potental, my life becomes so clearly evident that there is no place to hide except back with in the cycle. for just that one fleeting moment of nirvana will make all okay but it is a lie. but here I have found hope. In the darkness if nty reflected computer screen i was alone. No longer I am connected the greater good. the consciousnesses of the many will give me strenght in the darkest day to grow and to transcend the darkness. I feel your strengh even at this lonely beginning I know I can change and will evolve to into a greater man and good man and righteous to my core. Thanks

[sdf8]

destroyed all the porn i had left on the computer and erased all links sadly i had to peak before i deleted. kind of sad. but they are all gone now. just have to make it 24 hours to get through my first day

[sdf8]

okay its been about an hour and honestly i feel lost and confused. taking that peek earlier has really cost me. that peak drove my hormones up and now i feel the physical change in my body that would normally be fixed with another dose. The object is not to find a replacement for the high but to become accustomed to my natural state of being. So i need to work and not seek to hide when i become insecure or challenged but discover new ways of being. I did have a minor victory while i was trying to avoid the computer i was going to watch some tv shows on netflix and I find my self choosing shows which i thought may been unedited and show some skin. Once i realized what i was doing i said no and chose a cartoon instead. So Now I need to start my day. i think i can now hopefully with a let less baggage going on in my brain.

[Phil413]

destroyed all the porn i had left on the computer and erased all links sadly i had to peak before i deleted. kind of sad. but they are all gone now. just have to make it 24 hours to get through my first day

Way to go, sdf8. =D>

Getting rid of all that stuff was a big step, and I'm sure it wasn't easy. You'll be glad you did, though. Here's to your first day clean!

Phil

[sdf8]

Just got back from my morning runs and its my alone time till about 5. If i was was a well adjusted normy I would sit down and organize my work for this afternoon and start making phone calls and setting appointments. Okay time to be rigorously honest. What I would normally do is turn on my TV to my porn subscription channel and make my calls while watching porn the entire time. it was like a mild form of speed to keep me going and to make my work "fun" but eventually the calls would dwindle as I became to transfixed and preoccupied to try and make money. a consequence of this action is that i am constantly broke and my family lives in near squalor simply because I am not living or working to my full potential, I always have excuses to cover up for my failures but the truth is that its my addiction that holds me back from being a success. There is always an opportunity cost . How much have I lost string at the screen. how much money have i not made, what i have failed to teach my children. these are the opportunities which I must no chase and take full advantage of and not just simply waste my time pounding my pud

[sdf8]

yesterday was really kinda of weird. up till the time when my kids got out of school i was pretty much useless. The computer sat there on my desk mocking me, staring at me and beckoning me to have a peek and spend some addictive time together. I really hate this relationship I have with the computer because its always there. It has the capability to feed you addiction like cigarettes. you can steal quick hits and fixes throughout the day or night just to keep you going. I never just sat down and watch a porn movie from start to finish. it was always 10 minutes here, fast forward to the other parts and bam i get a quick dose and I could keep myself going. So now what to do. How do I form a beneficial and productive relationship with my computer? I guess I may have to treat it like a girl friend cause truthfully its been the only sexual partner i have had for nearly 8 years. So now what.

I also wonder who I am. So many of my sexual idiosyncrasies were developed after decades of consuming porn. So as the leafs slowly die and wither and fall from my tree I wonder what will remain. Am I gay? maybe will I become just normal or will I just lose interest in pursuing sex all together. I guess at one point i am going to have to accept that my sex life is over and just forget about. at 52 married in a sexless relationship I should probably just give it up. I just don't know. My wife and I are the best of friends she just went down a different path years ago but i still love and respect her to allow her to be who she is. She also tolerated my porn addiction to a degree but i doing this for myself but i certain that it will also benefit our relationship in some way. but she live several hundred miles away we shall see. Being alone only feed into my addiction and really made it worse. So its okay to be alone and its has to be okay to leave sex alone and its okay just to be me.

last night was weird. when i went to sleep and closed my eyes its like the entire storehouse of all my porn memories started to flood my vision. However i like I was shooting clay pigeons every time an image would start to manifest itself and start coming towards me the image would explode and fragment as a clay pigeon. Honestly I tried to MB but my body was not responding. Over and over again images would appear and then explode until my box was empty and there was no more. then I feel asleep

Today I need to get back to work. yesterday was a waste. I need to do the work i need on the computer and then turn the machine off and move on.

Thanks to everyone here because I feel connected to the greater good even when I am not on the board I feel like I am not alone and I do want to let you all down either so I shall persevere.

[sdf8]

okay this is my plan for today:

a make a list of things to do
b. turn on music - not tv nothing visual I turn on music because in my addiction days I keep everything quite so i could here if some one was coming this way rarely was caught. so with music i can't hear anybody and distracts me from the the my own thoughts.
c. Do whats on my list
Simple .

I person gotta have projects with out projects i will do nothing but bad. idle time is the devils plaything or something like that

[thatguy]

okay its been about an hour and honestly i feel lost and confused. taking that peek earlier has really cost me. that peak drove my hormones up and now i feel the physical change in my body that would normally be fixed with another dose. The object is not to find a replacement for the high but to become accustomed to my natural state of being. So i need to work and not seek to hide when i become insecure or challenged but discover new ways of being. I did have a minor victory while i was trying to avoid the computer i was going to watch some tv shows on netflix and I find my self choosing shows which i thought may been unedited and show some skin. Once i realized what i was doing i said no and chose a cartoon instead. So Now I need to start my day. i think i can now hopefully with a let less baggage going on in my brain.

OH MY GOD! I peeked yesterday it was my third of recovery and my body suddenly super charged just from that little peek and arousal. That's when I came to realise that I seriously have a problem. Like I was feeling tired and drained but after I had that peek my body was awake! What is that?

[sdf8]

OH MY GOD! I peeked yesterday it was my third of recovery and my body suddenly super charged just from that little peek and arousal. That's when I came to realize that I seriously have a problem. Like I was feeling tired and drained but after I had that peek my body was awake! What is that?

it a combination of the dopamines like serotonin and others which are your pleasure chemicals which provide calming and blissful sensation and pain relief to your body. It as regular human beings this endorphins kick in through things like laughter, love, the runners high, dancing and good fun they are also exhibited in group celebrations like singing, church, worships etc.... I am a drug addict and i go right to the source. Habitual porn and the associated MB released excessive quantities into our system and I get stoned. And just like nicotine or heroine when the supply in our bodies decreases we seek more. we become adjusted to the elevated state and uncomfortable in the normal state.

Their is one very serious problem that develops in me. Is the body ability to store and produce these endorphins is limited and we can cause almost permanent damage to our brains from years of over use. the glans which produce the chemicals and get destroyed and burned out. They can recover with time but time is painful and uncomfortable two states i do deal with very well so I seek satisfaction. I have found times when no matter how porn i watch or how ferociously i mb it was hard to get to get to the Zone. Cause my body had nothing left to give. When this happens I really do down into depression and anxiety and discomfort. If exactly what happens to anybody on ecstasy. After the high the body has no way to produce enough dopamine and such to keep us balanced and we tank into deep darkness. by the opposite token there time when I have allowed quantities of the endo stored up and I can feel an bender coming on. On those occasion I would spend hours and hours literally coaxing ever last bit of my chemicals. Its is a viscous cycle. Kicking the habit of your own brain chemicals is just as hard are nicotine, alcohol or heroine. we just don't put anything in we just use porn and mb to achieve the same dependence. Dude I never learned balance when i was young and I am still earning it now. I knew all this but i am and was still helpless over it. I justified a millions different ways and keep lying to myself and others. I am just know beginning to see how much it dominated my existence and controlled my behaviors. What i am trying to learn for me "what is the normal state" and be okay with it. and to rediscover old hobbies and activities which i enjoyed but no longer do and start new ones which bring contentment, happiness and joy. contempt, happiness and joy will provide a nice slow release of the chemicals as we were designed to operate I will feel better balance and consistent without fear or shame. Do not be afraid or a shamed to try completely different things anything do do anything new no matter how weird or embarrassed you may be at first. after all what can be more embarrassing or shameful then our previous life style.

[chasman62]

Not to hijack anyone's journal here but there is an awful lot of pseuodscientific stuff that gets posted on here that really confuses a lot of people.

thatguy....you experienced sexual arousal. Not really surprising is it. The only difference between you (assuming you are a compulsive PA) and the average guy is that you probably then had a very strong craving to look at more, find more, maybe spend hours obsessing over what you could find on the next weblink or whatever. That is an impulse control disorder which is what PA/SA is. Same as gambling, shopping, video gaming, and a host of other things. Then once you were done, you would feel guilt, shame, embarrassment, and all the other negative emotions associated with having acted out. If you have an SO you probably feel that you have betrayed her trust and that you are an unworthy person. That feeds the cycle of depression which leads to more acting out and on and on and on.

This is NOT a chemical dependency. It is true that sexual activity causes the release of chemicals that create the sensation of pleasure and your body cant tell the difference between MB and the 'real thing' but you cant overdose on them, or develop tolerance to them, or any of the other silly nonsense that people ascribe to impulse control disorders. You certainly cant 'damage' your brain. Your body has perfectly good control mechanisms for preventing that. This is by no means as physically demanding addiction to end as chemical addictions like nicotine or alcohol or narcotics.

That is why the keys to recovery are to stop the behavior, to DISCLOSE that you have a problem to both keep you accountable and to break the cycle of secrecy and self loathing, and to work on discovering what led you to develop this secret obsession in the first place. Many if not all PAs have a secret side that existed before the P even came into play (self-doubts, insecurity, parental rejection or whatever) and this just fed right into it.

Once you let the light of truth in it is amazing how that old obsession can disappear. I would not have believed it myself this time last year but I will be 6 months clean in a couple of weeks.