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Support Board :: General :: General Discussion Board :: Sobriety plans Page 1 of 6 » Jump to page   Go     Author Topic: Sobriety plans (Read 6,126 times) Al Tribal Elder member is offline Ride the bike. Do the work. Keep the faith. Joined: Mar 2003 Gender: Male Posts: 4,843 Location: Central New York Sobriety plans « Thread Started on Dec 2, 2003, 2:44pm » It's been suggested that we keep a thread for our sobriety plans. New members might want to check out this thread for ideas on formulating their own plans. Old members might want to look for ideas they hadn't yet considered. Keep in mind that every plan is unique, because every addict is different. In fact, the same addict will most likely have several plans, as his understanding grows and where his plan evolves over time. Be well, Al « Last Edit: Dec 5, 2003, 9:07am by Al » Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged Recovering since 9/20/2002, but not perfect. Al Tribal Elder member is offline Ride the bike. Do the work. Keep the faith. Joined: Mar 2003 Gender: Male Posts: 4,843 Location: Central New York Re: Sobriety plans « Reply #1 on Dec 2, 2003, 2:48pm » Al's plan. A work in progress. 1. Understand that recovery is not ever-increasing. Just because one day is lived in strength and perfection does not mean the next one will be. Likewise, a bad day may give rise to a series of good one. Do not get discouraged. 2. Realize that porn is everywhere. There's not much I can do about blocking it in general, but I'll make every attempt to block any websites I've come to know by name. Don't ever seek it. What I can't block, I'll look away from. 3. Read and be encouraged by stories told on this board. Try to tell some of my own story. 4. Be sober, daily. Don't worry about day-counting; that will just come naturally. 5. When the urge comes, get up and walk away from the situation, or take a nap. 6. Love God, love my family. That means talking to them about my feelings. Here are some threads that have inspired me recently. ================================================ http://lightwave.proboards48.com/index.c....read=1133160718 ================================================ Below this line are some legacy plans. =========================================== Al's first well-articulated plan 5/28/2003 (source: http://lightwave.proboards15.com/index.c....ead=1054170256) The plan has two parts. A short part and a long part. The short part is that I get rid of all the pornography in my life. All the videotapes, all the magazines. All the internet images. All the bookmarks. I have a program someone suggested called Silkquit. It's targeted to smokers, but it works just as well for any other addiction. You enter in the date that you stopped using, and it counts the months, days, weeks, hours, minutes. It's good for keeping track. The other subpart of the short part is that you begin to address what's making you sad in your life that you would resort to porn use in order to medicate that. That's a hard thing to understand. But ultimately, most of us come to the same conclusion: that we are simply not reacting properly to the troubles of our lives, and we are hiding, or medicating, or procrastinating, or just plain feeling good, with porn. That leads to the longer part of the plan. The plan to re-train your mind to look at life differently. To avoid being triggered into porn use by everyday things. To find replacement activities, better things to do. To live fuller in your beliefs. To seek wholesome relationships with other people. To realize that you really are addicted for life, and all you can do is manage this. But managing it well is its own reward, and let's face it: it's better than looking at porn. =================================================================== Al's revised plan 6/20/2003 (source: http://lightwave.proboards15.com/index.c....ead=1056101388) My attitude has been about fighting, not being. In my mind I have made the addiction an external disease that I am trying to treat, not a part of my natural self. I have posted up a frenzy on the support board in an effort to combat urges and focus on what is good, but I have not really effectively made a dedicated self-challenge to embrace recovery as a natural part of a new life. I jumped away from porn, with fury and determination. But porn was attached to me with an rubber band. The harder I ran, the harder porn flew back into me when I stopped running, even for an instant. I am developing less spastic approach. I am going to nail porn's feet to the floor, and walk away. I will not look back. Instead, I will do the things I am meant to do: 1. I will walk with my wife 2. I will ride my bicycle 3. I will paddle lakes and rives in a canoe 4. I will read 5. I will write technical papers and computer programs 6. I will develop my faith 7. I will love instead of lust. I believe that I am strong. Not only do I believe in the depths of my heart that I want to quit, in the depths of my heart, I have already quit. Now I must work to get the rest of me in line with that heart. ======================================== Back-to-basics plan A. Preventative measures 1. CyberPatrol internet filter 2. Window blinds raised-fully, except the one that shields my eyes from the sun. 3. A note, taped to the inside of my office door, reminding me not to close the door. 4. Hyperlinks to devotional sites on my Browser startup page B. Daily life 1. Blurring my vision when any unwanted sexual material crosses my path. Making a game out of counting the number of vision-blurs I do in a single day. 2. Avoid watching television commercials 3. Getting back on track with bible-reading. Short personal morning devotion, longer evening devotion with my wife, reading the whole text through every three months. 4. Limit alcohol consumption strictly: one drink per day. C. Slip-prevention 1. Live by a "to-do" list. Avoid sloth, fidgeting, web-surfing. 2. Going outside for walks, 15 mintes in morning and afternoon to clear my head 3. If the false desire to surf porn arises, say a 30-second prayer, go for a quick 2-minute walk outside D. Long-term goals 1. Seek a vocation of service 2. Deepen my Christian faith 3. Enjoy the gift of every single day. Don't worry so much about tomorrow. Don't worry for a minute about yesterday. « Last Edit: Jul 14, 2006, 5:38am by Al » Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged Recovering since 9/20/2002, but not perfect. BlackSpiral Tribal Elder member is offline Joined: Nov 2003 Gender: Male Posts: 1,626 Re: Sobriety plans « Reply #2 on Dec 3, 2003, 6:06am » My sobriety plan is a little eclectic - I've picked up ideas from here and there and bound them all together into a big lump. But I'll run over it, all the same. The Aim Well, that's simple. My aim is to lead a moral life. In my previous efforts to quit, I've tied myself down too tightly to analysis of specific behaviours. Looking at X was acceptable, looking at Y was not. And this holds the simple problem that it's practically impossible to look at every single possible behaviour and decide which list it belongs on. I've found a moral "benchmark" to be more binding - it's harder to rationalise away or excuse behaviours if you know they go against your morals. This is made stronger by my fundamental belief that personal happiness, at the root, lies almost entirely in just one thing - living a life that fits within your morals and values. How I Expect To Do It Well, not least by learning to recognise the truth of these behaviours. I'm on day 54 of my commitment today, and I had a wonderful day yesterday - when I realised that, inside my head, I really was starting to see and think about the porn differently. Not on a logical level, where it was always recognised, but on a fundamental, deeper level. That gave me a lot of hope about the future with this, as it's the first discernible sign within myself that my efforts are taking root. My Actual Actions This is the breakdown - not of my aims and hopes, but of what I'm doing to achieve those aims. Some of these I don't expect to be entirely permanent - others I expect will be. 1. I carry a little book around with me, containing my affirmations and reminders. This is a source for me; my own inner thoughts and beliefs in black and white, for when they're too clouded or fogged to see inside. 2. I change my routines. I walk different ways to work; I avoid certain shops. In some stores I have to go to, I change the route I travel through them to avoid certain areas. I threw out over 30 DVD films and TV series (non-porn - I've never owned a porn film). I threw out a few of my computer games, too. 3. I practice the stop-thought process, teaching myself to recognise dangerous thought patterns and stop them before they take root. This was by force of will at first, but lately it's started to become instinctive. 4. I spend a part of my day, each day, learning about the addiction - other people's struggles and beliefs, as well as documented research. This helps keep my aims in my field of vision, and helps reinforce my changing opinion of pornography. Distancing myself from this would allow my old thought patterns time to reestablish themselves before the new ones had become strong enough to stand alone. 5. I'm going through a structured process to deal with the issues that underly the driving force behind my addiction. I can break free of porn, into a moral lifestyle, but other abuse - food, for example - isn't immoral in nature. Dealing with the issues underneath will allow me to make a HEALTHY break with these patterns, instead of substituting one addiction for another (which, to my mind, always leaves open the door for you to walk the other way). What I Hope To Gain Well...at the root, I hope to gain control. The life I have crafted for myself so far is okay, but falls very short of what I had hoped to achieve, and what I was capable of achieving - had I devoted the time to my life that I instead devoted to my addiction, I would be in a much better place right now. So, I hope to gain control over my own thoughts and actions. But more than this, I hope to gain something that, in fact, I have been experiencing for several weeks now - an increased sense of personal inner peace, self-respect and self-love that has been missing in my life since I became a young teenager. And, perhaps somewhat ironically given that this is one of the hardest periods of time that my relationship has gone through, I finally feel like I deserve the love my wife is giving to me. I'm facing my problems, not running from them; and by doing so, I'm able to finally give my wife what she has always deserved from me. Onward and upward, as they say! Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged BlackSpiral Tribal Elder member is offline Joined: Nov 2003 Gender: Male Posts: 1,626 Re: Sobriety plans « Reply #3 on Dec 3, 2003, 11:53am » What I Forgot! Almost completely forgot about this, but it's important. In addition to my other steps, one thing I do every day is talk to my accountability partner about what I've gone through that day, and any feelings or thoughts that I've been experiencing. Simply talking out those feelings can be a tremendous help to me. And when I don't have the option of talking them out, I write them out instead. Bottling them up is a bad idea, as that bottle's gonna be poison come the end of it all. Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged runningman Guest Re: Sobriety plans « Reply #4 on Dec 4, 2003, 5:20pm » A great idea, Al. Your sincerety and honesty in your approach to your recovery and your soul-searching posting on this site are a real inspiration to me. Thank you. Thanks for sharing your detailed plan Black Spiral. I will have to keep refering back to your post! I'll post my plan below(however, in a much less articulate fashion, I'm afraid!). Runningman's Not Necessarily Prioritized Recovery Plan 1. Pray to God daily and try to maintain constant contact with Him throughout the day. 2. Destroy all forms of p*rn from my home, car, etc. and continue to keep my home, car, etc. p*rn free. 3. Install and maintain a filter on my computer. 4. Read and post on no-porn.com daily. 5. Share my feelings and thoughts with my wife daily. 6. Treat my wife like a queen. 7. Stop entertaining tempting thoughts by thinking of "STOP" or an emotionally powerful memory (my son being born, my friend dying, etc.). 8. Do not watch or view any program or material that can cause me to think sexual thoughts. 9. Read recovery books (12 & 12, SLAA book, Carnes, et al.). 10. Work the 12 steps. 11. Attend SA meetings as regularly as possible 12. Work with a therapist on a regular basis. 13. Write in my recovery journal daily. 14. Excercise in some way daily. 15. Surround myself with people who are morally strong. 16. Refrain from acting out in any SA form including and especially mb. 17. Delete all unknown email (especially porn email) without opening. 18. Review this plan regularly and edit as is necessary. Any input is greatly appreciated! God bless... rm « Last Edit: May 16, 2004, 9:05pm by runningman » Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged cleantoday Full Member member is offline I am grateful for sobriety today. Joined: Sept 2003 Gender: Male Posts: 239 Re: Sobriety plans « Reply #5 on Apr 28, 2004, 2:20pm » My sobriety plan has become my way of life. This is a list of what I am doing habitually to stay sober. I don't watch TV. None. I read this board several times a day. I am strict about not looking lustfully at women. I know from experience that if I am loose with this boundary, my sobriety is severely threatened. I pray a lot. I avoid resenting and criticizing people. I must remain clean in all mental and spiritual ways to the best of my ability if I truly wish to continuing enjoy the gifts of recovery. I write when I am able. If I am blocked I seek to understand what in my heart is keeping me from accessing my thoughts and feelings. I then deal with those things, and seek clarity so I can express myself. I keep pictures of my wife and children in front of me as I work. I deeply connect with those images. I seek to avoid any commercial images each day that are in anyway trying to use human images to sell me things. I put these two actions in one paragraph because my intimate connection with the real people in my life is damaged by our commercial media culture only if I let it in. That's all that comes to me right now. Cleantoday « Last Edit: Apr 29, 2004, 9:11pm by cleantoday » Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged Empty Mind blinded Guest Re: Sobriety plans « Reply #6 on Apr 30, 2004, 1:28am » Here's my initial outline: 1. Share every feeling and fear and worry about this problem with my SO. No more lying, no more hiding. It's my problem, but it's interfering with OUR relationship. 2. Computer stuff. It does not go on until I am up and showered in the morning, and it goes off before I am changed for bed at night. The Proxomitron filter does not get turned off for any reason. No looking at "acceptable" things to replace the p. Use posting here as a way to fill the time if I feel the urge to act out. 3. The bedroom door stays open unless I am sleeping or changing, no exceptions. 4. Daily devotional and prayer time at night, which is the time of most temptation for me. 5. Change my thought life as well, it's more than just actions. All people are people first. Thanks for this thread, it really helped me get some ideas of how to take these first steps, and hopefully keep walking down the RIGHT path. Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged runningman Guest Re: Sobriety plans « Reply #7 on Apr 30, 2004, 4:36pm » Blinded, Sounds like a good start! Don't forget to incorporate recovery reading into the mix...any book by Patrick Carnes is good, but I recommend "In the Shadows of the Net" it really addresses the addiction to cybersex, internet porn, etc. a great book. I am amazed at how much I need to learn about this addiction. The more I learn about it the better able I am to combat against it. It is so insidious...it can sneak up on me and kick my a$$ if I'm not constantly working my program. Good job...Be well, Rm Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged detrmnd Senior Member member is offline Joined: Feb 2004 Posts: 313 Re: Sobriety plans « Reply #8 on Apr 30, 2004, 4:39pm » Al, This is a great idea. I often suggest the link you have on your profile for plans, now I'm just going to list this link on my profile. Hope you don't mind. Here's my sobriety plan: Immediate Actions: 1. Get rid of all forms of pornography in the house. 2. Get & read a few books about porn addiction (PA). 3. Place a more restrictive filter on home computer. 4. Identify “triggers” that push me toward looking at porn. 5. Develop coping mechanisms for times when triggers are present. 6. Live more by a daily “to do” list. 7. Exercise, exercise, exercise. 8. Meditate, meditate, meditate. 9. Read and participate at the No-porn.com bulletin board on a daily basis. 10. Continue counseling. 11. Secure temporary work or multiple volunteer opportunities. Potential Additional Actions: 1. Join a support group. 2. Begin a journal. 3. Eliminate computer and/or cable modem line. Peace, detrmnd Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged What if God was one of us? Info on sobriety plans: http://lightwave.proboards15.com/index.c....&num=1070394268 runningman Guest Re: Sobriety plans « Reply #9 on Apr 30, 2004, 5:16pm » Looks good detrmnd! I often struggle with whether or not I should just unplug this thing. Today...the best reason for me not to is this site. There is also the fact that I want to recover without having to disconnect. I do use the net for productive purposes too. Thanks...Rm Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged detrmnd Senior Member member is offline Joined: Feb 2004 Posts: 313 Re: Sobriety plans « Reply #10 on May 1, 2004, 3:35pm » Thanks, RM, I'd hate to have to go to that length too. But there was a time where using it for bad purposes became the focal point. If for any reason that returns, I'd probably remove the internet access first, then the computer as a followup. My best, detrmnd « Last Edit: May 7, 2004, 3:51pm by detrmnd » Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged What if God was one of us? Info on sobriety plans: http://lightwave.proboards15.com/index.c....&num=1070394268 paradox Tribal Elder member is offline Joined: May 2004 Gender: Male Posts: 2,058 Re: Sobriety plans « Reply #11 on May 22, 2004, 11:20pm » This thread is long overdue for a bump So . . . . . . BUMP!!! Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged Clean in the Present Moment: Sober for Eternity. An ascent of a hundred strides begins beneath one's foot. - Tao Te Ching We have met the enemy, and he is us. - Pogo Paradox's Mantra: balance, Balance, BALANCE!! ProdigalHusband Full Member member is offline ... and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. Luke 15:15 Joined: Feb 2003 Gender: Male Posts: 104 Re: Sobriety plans « Reply #12 on May 28, 2004, 12:00am » I am a new member. I found this board yesterday with my SO as we were working with my pa. We have found the new member thread and many others. I decided that my first post would be here. As part of my Sobriety Plan I intend to post regularly to be held accountable (so I hope that you folks will be able to put up with me). I will post more later, but first here is my plan: 1. No secrets from SO. Keep her informed daily! 2. Read Patrick Carnes book, "Out of the Shadows” and write in my journal about it. 3. Meditate on my experiences. 4. Write daily in a journal. 1st Journal project will detail my experiences with pornography and masturbation. After that I will work on the Carnes book. 5. Sobriety Date – 5/23/04 6. Learn to recognize my thought processes that lead to acting out. Learn how to use thought stopping, when I recognize the thoughts beginning. 7. No porn, no masturbation. 8. Do happy things with my sweetie. 9. Join an online support group. Check in daily – possibly share journal experiences with the group. 10. Redeeming the study (were the computer is). 11. Treat my wife like a queen! (thank you runningman for this one) Thank you all for being here. PH Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged Clean2day Tribal Elder member is offline What God has washed Clean; No man can make dirty Joined: May 2004 Gender: Male Posts: 1,284 Location: Ohio USA Re: Sobriety plans « Reply #13 on May 28, 2004, 12:25am » PH Welcome aboard and congradulations to having the help of your wife. Mine has helped me SO much! It sounds like you have a good plain just keep it up. A word of warning for now that you have started, don't take it hard if you find yourself slipping into the old thoughts, when this happens say a prayer and "put it on the alter of God'. Sometimes thoughts continue for some time espeicly when we are at either the places we used the fantisy or when we are alone. Good luck and keep up the goo.... no the GREAT work. Get a copy of a 12 step and try to use it all the time. KvL Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged "When you need a victory, Jesus gives it. When you need a friend, Jesus will be there. When you need to talk, Jesus will listen. And if you need to cry, Jesus will hold you close. Rev E. O. Hilt 1908 - 1988 joshuagoodbad Full Member member is offline P/MB free since 5 Jun 07 Joined: Apr 2004 Gender: Male Posts: 128 Re: Sobriety plans « Reply #14 on May 28, 2004, 3:11am » My Plan is: 1 Go to bed same time as SO 2 No porn at home or work PC 3 Dont drink excessively 4 Keep up to date with work/assigments 5 Be organised/Time manage/Dont procrastinate 8 Disconnect softporn channel 9 Read bible daily 10 Keep busy 11 Get adequate rest 12 Read Board stories for strength 13 Update regularly on board 14 Pray 15 Focus on keeping your thoughts clean God bless Mike Good Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged I am a strong person who resists temptation. 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