Zacharys' Journal

[Zachary]

I'm not sure how to do this, how to start, so, I guess from the beginning would be best. I started using P when I was young, thirteen at the youngest, maybe fourteen or fifteen even. I was an awkward young man, I thought what I was doing was normal. More importantly I never for a second thought that it could hurt anyone, myself or people I would meet later on in life. It was magazines back then. I snuck out, once or twice a year to an all-night corner store, kept them hidden. At first I was ashamed, but I consoled myself with those thoughts again:

It's normal, right? Everyone does it, don't they?

Unfortunately, as I matured I fell in with crowds that validated the excuses I pacified myself with. I never used P in a group, but the friends I had were all very open about their use, thus making me feel normal. My medium expanded to a few DVDs I'd managed to acquire.

Then, I got my own computer.

My usage exploded. Tripling, then quadrupling in weeks. Now living on my own, I'd stay up all night. It was horrible. I had no idea what I was doing to myself or others. No idea what the reality behind the images I saw was. No idea how badly these other human beings on my screen were being treated, and that I as a viewer was contributing to it by creating demand for more, ever more. I became a shameless talker, nothing said without innuendo, it was all I could do just to try to get the chance to recreate some of what I saw. My relationships were short lived. I never blamed myself. I was a nice guy, right? And besides, I always had my computer for the rebound. I got worse and worse as the years went on.

Two years ago I met my SO, the best person I'd ever met. She's the love of my life, my best friend and the person who changed everything. As we became closer, she expressed distaste with my terrible innuendos and attitude towards women. I, at first, had no idea what she was referring to and steadfastly refused to change. Why should I? I thought. This'll all end sooner or later, she'll just leave me for some reason and life'll go on. But she stuck with me. For this, I thank her. And my secret usage continued.

Until one day, while I was at work, she noticed my computer was running slowly. Being that she has technical experience, as a favor she did a massive cleanup. Which is when she found everything. I'd never made any attempt to hide my tracks. I was not computer savvy. She was crushed. She wanted to leave. I begged her to stay. I said I'd never look again. She agreed, against her better judgement. But she stuck with me. For this I thank her. And I thought I'd never use again.

But, I slipped one night, and she found out. I was angry at her. I said she violated my right to privacy, which of course meant I had something to hide and she found it. She was crushed again, but began to educate me. Being an ardent feminist she showed me not only why P is terrible for the user, but for those involved in its' production, for those that have to live with a user, for society as a whole. My eyes were opened. I could never look again. My change had begun. I begged her to stay with me, to help me get well. She agreed again, against her better judgment again. For this I thank her. Our lives took a step towards normalcy.

In the weeks and months after I'd quit, I began to develop withdrawal symptoms. I'd be moody, easily agitated, prone to fits of anger and depression. Worst of all, I developed a wandering eye which I've managed to temper but not completely disable. It's been hard, much harder on her than it should have been on anyone. But she stayed. She helps me, even when the memories hurt her, even when she feels inadequate because of my old habits, even though our intimate life is in recovery because of what I've done to myself, even though I steal a glance in public occasionally without even knowing it. She stays. And for this, I thank her. I would not have been able to come this far without her, and I shudder to think of the person I was and might've become.

It's been just over one year since I've used. Life is on the whole much, much better and gets better every day. I joined this site to start taking some of the burden off her, to take the reins for the rest of my recovery. I have not been tempted to relapse, I just want to try to re-wire my brain back the way it was before the addiction. And I want to help anyone who wants to quit as well. If we can destroy the demand, maybe the P will just go away.

Then we can all finally be happy.

[IN NEED OF HELP]

Zachary
First I would like to say, Welcome to TTF.
Thank you for sharing your story. it was very moving to me.I see that you are already over a year, of being free from this addiction. This is great news. There is not much I can really say, because I can see that you have a good recovery plan in place, just by having that year free.

We will do what we can here to help you to continue in your recovery. as you know, this road is long and bumpy, with many potholes, I am sure that you have already hit a few of them in the past year.

It is a sad thing that we allowed ourselves to let P come in our lives. as you already see, it can hurt the ones that we love so dearly. It just makes me sick to see how I just screwed up my relationship with the woman I love more than life itself. It is great to hear, that even though your SO is hurting inside, she is still by your side, helping you.

I now encourage you to come here as much as you can, and continue to write in your journal. even if you are still doing good in your recovery, we want to know about it. we just dont want to hear that you are struggling, but we love hearing the good stuff to that is going on. I for one, am already encouraged by you. you have all this time under your belt in being free, but you still feel that you must come here for encouragement.

No matter how long we have been fighting this beast, or how many days we have been free, we still have a long journey in front of us. we still need to continue to make changes in our lives. We never know just when or how, this beast is going to try to attack us

Again, welcome to TTF, and I will be looking forward in to hearing more from you

Good luck in your continuing recovery

[JenMac]

Welcome Zachary!
I am glad you are here! I love that you are here after a year clean and that you are seeking to take the burden off your SO! That is very telling. That says to me that you are a kind and caring person and that you want to further your recovery.
I would like to suggest that perhaps your SO might like to join us too. There are a few of us couples here who find great support in being here together. There seems to be healing here for all 3 recoveries, his, mine and ours. And it seems to work well for each and perhaps because each recovery is ongoing.
I know, for my H Mac and I, we have all but stopped watching TV and we are very conscious of where we go and what we do with our time. We have had to take the time to heal and some things we worry about triggering may not only be for mac but for myself too, as I find that I am easily pushed back to thoughts and feelings I am working to get past. I guess in a way, we have cleansed our life as much as possible. It seems to be helpful to us at this time.
I hope you can find what you are looking for here Z! I know this is a wonderful resource for healing! I know you will find much support and friendship here! I think your SO would feel the same way about TTF if she chose to join us!
All the best!
Jenn

[Mac]

Hi! Zachary
Welcome to TTF. I find it very interesting that your reasoning for coming here was to take some of the burden of your recovery away from your SO. That is an awesome thought on your part to do that. You now have huge group of people here at TTF to help take up the reins of recovery with you. Who knows, with the added support you get here, maybe it will leave more time for your SO to be able to focus on herself and more time for work on your relationship. I hope that is the case.
I am coming up on a year of sobriety myself and I like you simply would not be here without the support of my beautiful wife. It has been one hell of a ride over the last year and she has never left my side. WE just need to be sure we never forget what got us this far. You talk a lot about how your SO stuck by you. Well, be sure to show her everyday that she made the right choice. Her reward and yours as well, is the new you.
Being able to give back to your SO and support her, and to also come here and help others in need is a real bonus to your recovery.
Congrats on a whole year of P free living.
I know it feels great to be where you are, I certainly know for me it does. I think there is lots more we can do. Keep it going my friend.

Al the best
Mac

[Zachary]

First and foremost, thank you to the people who read the first journal post, and pledged your support. It means a lot to me. I'm so glad to see that there are others trying to beat this thing in all various stages of your recoveries. I wish each and every one of you the best.

INOH: Thank you for your kind words. I'd be happy to come here and post in this journal regularly, be it a good or bad day. One year means that maybe the cravings are gone (for me, at least) but that doesn't mean the damage done has completely healed for me or my SO. There are still struggles and triumphs, and I'd like to share them.

JenMac: Thank you for your response. Perhaps in time, my SO will join and tell her part of the story. If she chooses to, I'm sure it will only benefit her. We also are very careful about what we view, checking the T.V. listings rather than randomly flipping channels, looking at content advisory for movies and also giving lots of thought to where we go in public. The last one has proven to be our greatest hurdle, and is the hurdle I'm currently trying to leap.

Mac: Congratulations on a year of sobriety! You must've worked very hard and I think it's a wonderful milestone and should be celebrated. I hope things between you and your SO will continue to heal and strengthen. I can only wish that the damage P has done to every otherwise loving couple could just be erased and we could just start again. Thank you for your kind response.

Well, I just wanted to post my thanks to those who responded. I'm in a bit of a rush today, but I have a post planned for tomorrow that I'm quite eager to write. Best of luck everyone! I'm rooting for all of us!

[IN NEED OF HELP]

. I can only wish that the damage P has done to every otherwise loving couple could just be erased and we could just start again.

My friend, those are very nice thoughts, but I do wish it was just that easy. I am the one that caused all this trouble in our relationship, and I have to man up to it. I cant run from this one.

But the one thing that still gets me low, makes me feel depressed, is all the Pain, that I caused to my Beautiful SO. I would do anything to be able to snap my fingers, and erase all of her pain

[Zachary]

Today I'd like to share one of the things that helps me not even consider relapsing. I have my SO, she's wonderful, my whole world. I want to be better for her, as I've stated in past posts. I want to be better for me, as well. For my own piece of mind, so I feel like a complete, good person as well. But, from research I've done there's another, very important reason to quit P and never, ever return to it as well. And that is the pain and suffering P causes to every, single human being involved in it, save those inhumane monsters who profit off of it.

I believe that P addiction should be treated a bit differently than alcohol or drug addiction, due to what I call the abusive triangle. An alcoholic hurts him/herself and the people around him/her, but no one ever says "Oh, that poor beer probably never wanted to be consumed in the first place. A drug addict hurts him/her self and the people around him/her but you never hear "That's so sad. That cocaine was taken from its' family and forced to be a narcotic." But P is different. P hurts the user, the users' loved ones and it also hurts the subjects, 99.9% of which are not there of their own volition, who are being mistreated, worse than anyone could ever believe another human could be mistreated. But, P makes us believe that they are not human, so this slips our mind. That is the very nature of P, to dehumanize, to objectify which is, of course, to turn into an object.

So, if you can't do stay away for someone you love, maybe if you don't have a wonderful, supportive partner and you can't quite do it alone, think of this if you feel yourself starting to slip:

• The human being you are about to view most likely does not want to be there.
• The human being you are about to view may have been taken and forced to do this.
• By viewing, you are creating a demand for more human beings to be forced into this.
• The conditions these people are forced into are inhumane.
• The person you are viewing may already be dead.

Anything created and pushed on society like this is based on demand. Remember, abstinence does more than free you from its' grip. When you opt out, when you say no, this lessens demand. In an earlier post, I said I wished that P would just go away so we could all be happy, and I believe that it IS possible. If no one is consuming, if it was unprofitable, P would simply go away. All of us have the power to have a hand in that. To help ourselves, the people we love and the people we don't even know whose lives are ruined and ended every day by the insidious monster called P. We can do more than abstain. We can, and must fight back. And abstinence is the first, most important step in that fight. Especially for those of us in recovery. We owe it to everyone.

[Zachary]

Today got off to a difficult start. My poor SO has serious body issues due to my history of P abuse. She feels inadequate, ugly and fat which couldn't be further from the truth. In reality she's amazing, loyal, beautiful and perfect in every way, but my history has taken that from her. I've done such damage to her self-image that sometimes seems irreparable. It is my greatest wish that she could feel as beautiful as I see her, that I could take away the pain I caused her. She's so sad sometimes, and when I try to console her about it, sometimes she gets mad at me. This was not one of those times, but even if it were, she's completely justified in doing so. In the past, I broke a lot of important promises to her and I mean to break no more. I want to show her that she can trust me. She's my whole world, I'd do anything for her. I just wish she could feel good about herself again.

=((

[IN NEED OF HELP]

My friend
I do know just what you are saying, and what you are going through. my SO and I have had a good past week together, but today, wow, here pain is back. We just need to understand, that we just torn our SO's hearts in to many little pieces.
They are going through such a emotional roller coaster ride at this time because of what we done everything that you said in this post, is as if I wrote it myself
As I am finding out, this is a long road for them also. we made our beautiful woman, feel worse that a piece of dog crap on the the ground. I wish there was a magic wand I could use to make my SO feel better. Why us men do this to the women we love, is beyond me. I just dont understand how I allowed this to happen

All we can do is to give them the time and space that they need. we need to continue in our recovery, to make us better for ourself, and for our family. We need to still be there though for our SO's. we need to somehow, find a way, to show them that we care about what they are going through, and that we want to help. This is a tough one that us addicts got ourselves in to. our addiction, not only hurts us as users, but it DESTROYS, the ones we love

I like to read through the SO's journals, and see how they are struggling. and if they write something down, that they wish there SO would do for them, I take it to heart, and see if that will work for me, to do with my SO. I dont give a damn how long I need to suffer with my addiction, I just wish my SO didn't have to suffer with it

I just wanted to say what I did. I am so sorry that your SO is feeling this way at this time. WE did this my friend, we need to find a way to make things right.
I am here for you if you need me

[Zachary]

Today is good thus far. I got a new job today, and things with my SO are ever improving. I hope I'm getting better for good. I have absolutely zero cravings for P, I would never EVER want to use again. Everything in my life seems to be on the up for now. As always, I'm sure there'll be difficulties in the future, but I feel better prepared to deal with them these days. I owe that to my SO. She's wonderful. She saved my life. I plan to donate some of my free time to becoming an anti-P activist, to try to fight back against the overwhelming amount of P that seems to be everywhere. To me, that seems to be a good way to make up for some of the hurt I've caused people, especially my SO. Well, wish me luck everyone! I'll keep posting regularly, good or bad! Best of luck to all!