Persistence Journal

[Persistence]

2 days P free

Here I am again starting a journal on a recovery site. I'm feeling pretty good about recovery so far this time. I just moved over here from another site where my username was RichInRecovery. Basically I'll get 10 - 20 days or so away from P; I'll start feeling good, and then the obsession starts to overtake me again; I get so stressed out from something and my resolve wavers. I tell myself that I'll only use P once and maybe if I just do it every 10 days or so it's not a big deal. By the next day I've usually used P 3 - 5 times and I'm feeling tired and depressed again. Sometimes this relapse lasts for a while. Anyhow that's how the past year has been going for me. I'm tired of it and I'm ready for a change. I'm a believer in 12 step programs: it has helped me to recover from many addictions.

Step One:

We admitted we were powerless over our PA, and that our lives had become unmanageable.

My key thoughts on this step starts with "We" - why I'm here. My addiction keeps me isolated. I hope coming here and connecting with others will help. There is no SAA in my small town.

I am certainly powerless over my addiction once the craving starts. If I give in to it once, I give in more and more. I start to use even when I'm not craving it, and it takes over time that I don't want to give it. I can see that it is progressive, and I don't want to follow down the path that it leads.

Unmanageable is a little harder to swallow. I can say my addiction is unmanageable. I can tell myself I'm only going to use every two days or so, but the control is impossible. It's all or nothing. So it's time to let go and strive for nothing (no P use anyway).

Persistence is the one thing that I know works.

[Persistence]

3 days

Step 2: Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

This is a gradual step for me; coming to believe means that it takes time. I need to admit that what I have been doing is not sane. I keep repeating the same behavior and expecting things to be different this time. I tell myself I don't want to do something and then I do it anyway. I have had my struggles believing in God. I am not very religious. I believe that each person needs to come up with their own concept of God or higher power. I have read and explored may religions and theories and have found truths in many. I am currently exporiing the principles of Buddism and have found what I believe to be truths, specifically the Four Noble Truths (my paraphrase): Life is full of suffering. Suffering is caused by attachment (or craving). The cessation of suffering is possible. There is a path to the cessation of suffering. In relation to P, I definitely feel the suffering that it causes. When I engage in looking at P, I am craving or desiring things that are not real. I lust after a life that is not my own. I lust after women who I can not have. I create Karma that leads to the suffering of others. I can stop this suffering if I can stop the craving. I can stop the craving by following the Right Path (or the Eightfold Path as they call it in Buddhism.

There is knowlege out in the world that can help me to overcome this addiction and return to sanity. Some of this knowledge is embodied in the 12 Steps, some knowledge (for me) comes from Buddhism, and some knowledge comes from the experience of other recovering addicts (like on this board). All of this knowledge is a Power greater than myself and comes from outside not from within.

[Persistence]

5 days

Step 3: Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to God as we understood God.

This step has always been difficult for me. My addict mind, trying to make things more complicated than they need to be, says that I need to know what God is and discover what His will is for me. Then, I need to follow that path tirelessly. Am I supposed to become a monk or something? That is no longer my interpretation of this step. My problem is self will. My self will only wants to feel pleasure, all the time. I seek it and follow my self will. I need to give that up. I need to accept things that I can not change. I need to have trust that stressful things in my life are going to turn out ok in the end. If I see a path that I know is not Right, I need to decide not to take that path.

Now that I admitted that I am an addict, I have two choices. I can continue down the path that I am on: the path of the addict, which may lead to all the terrible places that I see other addicts reaching. Or, I can make a decision to recover and change my life. This step challenges me to make that decision.

Today, I will will make a decision to seek out recovery from my addiction. I will cease following my own self will which leads me to short term pleasure and long term depression.

[JenMac]

Hey Persistence!
My H Mac and I have been to a 12 step group as well. We learned the steps through Alanon. We found them to be quite lifesaving in our time of trauma during a loved one's struggle. I remember when we first arrived there, the steps did not mean that much to us. We found the slogans and serenity prayer much easier to grasp onto. But with time we came to understand the steps and the wisdom they evoked.
I think it is wonderful that you are using the steps to help you in your time of despair. I really believe that they can help to put us in a better place. I found that I needed to continually work the steps as just because I thought I had mastered one of them one day, for sure I would be struggling with it at some point in the future.
I am a little sad that we no longer attend our group. Haven't really since this upheaval in our lives. But I have come to think of TTF as a similar support, but one that is here 24/7.
It is good to see that you are reaching out in both ways Persistence. Use whatever works for you!
Wishing you all the best!
Jenn

[Persistence]

6 days

Home alone again today. I think this is when I relapsed last week. I just read something on this board that really hit me hard. I'm a little unable to articulate things today. But I'm here and clean for now.

[Persistence]

7 days

Step 4:

Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

When I was around 10 years old, I found a SC magazine that my dad had hidden around the house. I was hooked. I looked for and collected images of a sxl nature from then on. In college, I would collect numerous magazines and keep them together in a secret P box. Periodically I would feel guilty over my collection and purge the box. In the early days of the internet, I learned how to surf newsgroups and rebuild binary image files from multiple text based posts, it was very time consuming. Back then I would have a collection of files on my computer, and again I would regularly purge them when I wanted to try to quit. I always came back. Then the videos started hitting the web. I would download and collect them too. Then the cycle of guilt, purge. Now everything is streaming. The P sites keep my collection for me, and all I have to do is look. My only means of purging now is to put a filter on my computer and then not disable it. In the meantime, I became an alcoholic and an addict. Ironically, I also became extremely successful in my work life. I retired at an early age, and now I have all the time in the world to be an addict. I finally recovered from drugs and alcohol, leaving me with P as one of the few ways to self-medicate. I've programmed myself over these many years to look at women in a sxl way, all the time. Now that I am on a more spiritual path due to my recovery, I can't stand having this addiction in my life. I know what it's like to be free from obsessions, and I want to be free from this P obsession too.

[Persistence]

9 days

I made it through the week! My best tool this week was just getting the hell out of the house when the cravings hit.

Step 5

Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

There is something fulfilling in telling another person about my addictions. I have found someone who has had some of the same struggles that I have and has gotten through it. I think sometimes the 'admitting to ourselves' part of this can be difficult, sort of an extension of step one. The nature of my wrongs is entirely self seeking behavior. I want it all and I want it now. If anyone had something I wanted I immediately created a resentment against that person. If I got something I wanted, I always wanted more. I told God about all my addictions but he already knew and said he loves me anyway.

[Persistence]

10 days

Trying not to focus so much time and thinking on P and how I'm trying to quit. I'm trying to focus on other things in my life. This week has been a week of reflextion and will continue to be. I'm going to be sharing my story with my home AA group on Friday. I'm trying to get my head around my recovery process and how I've changed over the years. Until I got all the other stuff out of my system, I couldn't even start thinking of trying to rid myself of the P demon. 10 days is not alot. I'm still having a difficult time getting away from this. It's just been such and easy fix for so long in my life (25 years or so of regular use).

[Persistence]

Lonely and isolated. This addiction really knows how to isolate me. With any other addiction there's times and places where I would use with others, the need to socialize to find a dealer. Not so with P. All alone. It doesn't even cost money for me. Just sit down at the computer (alone) and plug in. I know of only one f2f person that I can even talk to about it all, and he hasn't really been accessible lately. I've been trying to plug into an online community, but it's not really helping much. I'm tired and depressed today. Wait, I know where I can get a pick-me-up! Oh yeah, I don't do that anymore.

[JenMac]

Hey Persistence,
I am sorry that you are feeling so alone with all of this and that you are not finding it helpful to be here. It does take a little time Persistence to become comfortable here and to connect with others. I think it is the same for most anyone who arrives at these doors. Give it a little time.
I also want to suggest that you try to pop in to the men's chat that happens on Monday evenings at 9PM EST. There you will be able to talk to others who have experienced the same as you have.
Keep coming back Persistence. It is really worth the dedication. Just needs to be given a little time.
All the best!
Jenn