Some background...

The morning after that, I slipped again. The slip lasted for roughly 10 seconds - I saw a picture of a woman on a non-porn site, checked the URL of it, and followed it back to where it came from (and that WAS a porn site).

The site opened in my browser - I saw the page swim, filling with other images of the same woman - then my heart raced, my head swam, and I closed it, guilty as hell, confused and feeling hopeless. That was the whole of the slip. I didn't know what to do now. I couldn't stay sober even for half a day, even with all the support and love in the world. I felt hopeless and lost, and couldn't see how recovery could ever be possible for me. I talked to my wife that day, confused and baffled. She supported me, but really didn't know what to say. I didn't know what to say either. What could you say, really, after a promise was broken so quickly and so easily?

The day after was a Saturday. That day, my wife and I talked at length. Neither of us wanted to give up the relationship. We both wanted me to be sober. I sure as hell didn't want to feel this crappy anymore. And somewhere during that conversation, I had an awakening...a kind of revelation that was hard to put my finger on. I rode high on that, and realized that I COULD break this addiction. I decided, then and there, that I would make all the changes, do all the work, give up anything I had to in order to make the sobriety stick. In the end, I knew it would be worth it.

At first, my wife was my support and sponsor - we never really planned for it to be permanent, but we thought it would be a way to start, until something better could be found. As it turned out, though, nothing better ever did - and through the recovery, we grew much closer, and much stronger as a couple. It was hard at times. It hurt sometimes. But in the end, today, it has been worth it all.

My recovery, in the end, proved to be a mix of many things - psychology lay at its root, and as I progressed through my recovery, I learned many things that ended up flowing through into other areas of my life, helping me to really start to recapture the energy and vibrancy that I had in my youth. As I recovered, I began to realize just how tightly chained I had been; just how heavy the price of my addiction had been, and just how lucky I was that I had found a way to break out before the price included my relationship.

And beyond...

Today...I've left behind many of my old beliefs, and I've recaptured new ones. My hopes and dreams are starting to live again, and I've found the energy and confidence to pursue them.

As a young man, I had chased success with all the energy of my being, but after the disastrous impact on my life of my addiction I had grown used to the possibility of failure, and grown afraid of it; instead of hunting for success, I had started to put barriers up to keep my fears at bay. I had stopped doing, and had started reacting. My life had changed, not through any great change in my own situation, but instead, through a drastic shift in the way I viewed the world.

During my recovery, somewhere along the way, I saw it. I realized, then, how much of my life was shaped not by my situation, but how I looked at it; how much of my potential was crippled by the simple, but powerful belief that I somehow wasn't up to the task. I had changed my potential, simply by losing faith in it.

So, then, I started to make changes. I started to make myself look, once more, at the things I COULD do, the potential I DID have, and the hopes and dreams of my life that I had somehow let fall. I chose to pick them up and start chasing success again, instead of running from my fears, and hiding from the possibility of failure.

In the end, after all, failure is a gift to us. It teaches us what we did wrong, and if we are open to the experience of learning from our failures, it teaches us how to succeed. Nobody succeeds all the time. I hadn't as a child. But I had always believed in my ability to succeed, and it had carried me through.

Today, I believe again. And that's where this journal really begins.

An overview of my recovery, Part 1

Although the passages I posted above give a reasonable, if undetailed overview of what I went through on the way to recovery, it really doesn't touch on what I did to actually recover. So before I begin with journal proper, I'm going to post a fairly brief summary of what I did, and what I learned that really helped me on the way. I don't expect it to be complete; I'm sure that there will be a lot of elements missing, as it'd take me a long time to recall everything that happened in the last year and more. But to keep it a little easier, I'm going to break it down into what I think is a reasonable order - that is to say, the order in which they either happened, or I became aware of them.

Step 1 - Sobriety
First things first, and the foundation of everything - I got sober. Sounds simple enough, but as people here are more than well aware, really it's not. Building my sobriety was a challenge in and of itself. As I mentioned in the post above, I had slipped and fallen numerous times before - but my mindset was different this time.

It's not completely simple to describe, but the feeling was not just one of determination - that I'd had before. But this time, instead of a dread of failing and a degree of panic, I felt hopeful...and more than that. Underneath it all, I felt a certainty that I hadn't felt before; a knowledge that I could do it, and a belief that I would.

The two most basic elements for sobriety, to my mind, are these - the willingness to put your sobriety first, ahead of the other things in your life, and the willingness to make changes and sacrifices to support and protect it. More than once, I've likened sobriety to a child; at first, it can't stand on its own, and it needs all the help it can get both to be supported, and to be protected. Left to fend for itself, it simply won't make it. Sobriety becomes a way of life; but at first, it is anything but.

One more important element, though, is this - taking responsibility for your actions. You can't just point fingers and blame the world, or the past, or the pornstars, or anyone else for your addiction. The addiction is in the present, in the here and now, and is a part of you - and to be able to deal with it, you first have to accept that you are responsible for it. The other factors may well be responsible for helping to bring the addiction into existence - but YOU are responsible for bringing it to a close.

Anyway, as I mentioned - it's important to be willing to make changes and sacrifices to protect your sobriety, especially early on. The changes I made include, but weren't limited to :

Destroying and throwing out DVDs.
Not porn DVDs, but the regular old Hollywood kind. Any film that I had ever used as porn in any way, went. Any film that I had considered using as porn, went. And later, if I realised a film contained something I hadn't noticed, it went out, too. Each DVD was cut in two, then thrown in the trash.

Throwing out a great many magazines.
I also quit buying magazines for the most part - the magazine section of most shops, even when the shops aren't stocking what is officially called "porn", is touch-and-go at the very best. Car magazines, bike magazines, fitness magazines, beauty magazines, sports magazines and many others use images on their covers that, within the last 20 years, you might well have expected to SEE on the cover of porn.

Changing my routines.
I changed routes to and from work to avoid certain shops which I knew displayed porn magazines out front. I stopped going to those shops which stocked the same kind of things, too, and for some things, I stopped shopping altogether - DVDs, for example, were too suspect to buy in the stores, so I would only purchase them online, from Amazon. I also avoided areas that were associated with other areas of my sexual addiction, such as places I had gone to ogle women. The biggest problem with this was not so much making the changes, but being willing to see the old behaviours, accept them and change them, without chaining myself down with guilt and shame for them. Sometimes, that was very hard.

Writing out a book of Reminders and Affirmations.
A small, blue-denim covered pocket book, around 3 inches high and 2 inches wide, bound by a piece of blue elastic - I carried it everywhere I went, and had it sitting beside my desk at work. In it, I had written reminders to myself - short, succinct, direct reminders about what I wanted for my recovery, what I would be giving up if I chose to quit, what I was going to lose, what I had already lost, and the pain I had already gone through sometimes. The first page said, in blunt English, to focus on each page and think about each point for at least five seconds. Reading through the book helped me break out of addictive craving on many occasions; it acted as a reminder, a form of meditation, and a very effective pattern-breaker. The book never left my side for over six months.

Alternative behaviours.
I planned ahead, buying up crossword books, new books to read by authors I liked, and taking a notebook so I could scribble sketches and write when I wanted. I planned places I could go to get out of the office and get a breath of fresh air, away from the internet-enabled computer where I did my daily work. I planned simple excursions to a nearby store, which would cost me around $3 to buy a snack and a low-value drink, but which would break me away from the computer for around 15 minutes, enough to break the cycle of an addictive haze. I also learned a little about meditation, and practiced applying it to calm my racing thoughts. I also wrote down people I could call for support. Every single idea I had was prepared for, and every single one was written into the back of my pocketbook, one line each. On the front page of the book, I wrote a simple reminder to myself - that the back of the book contained alternatives for me, if I needed to use them.

Breaking my beliefs.
I wrote, often, about my addiction; about what it was doing to me, and had done. When I didn't understand it, I would sit and write about it, trying to see what was going on. I wrote about the beliefs that strengthened my addiction; the beliefs in the fact that porn was harmless, that it was only natural, that all men were this way, that it was healthy; and I broke them down, each in turn, by smashing away the unsteady legs that they had been built on. This really took full flight in later recovery, but in the first couple of months, it had its maiden voyage, helping me to start to explore and understand the real depth of my addiction (though I was nowhere near ready to truly address it in those first weeks).

Planning.
As with all the things above, I planned. I spent time, thinking about all the things that had caused me to fall before. All the situations that had led me to fall before. All the chains of thought that had led me down unhealthy roads, and brought me to failure. Every time I found a new one, I thought about how to break it; how I could prevent it from occurring, or how I could deal with it in a way that wouldn't leave me turning to addiction.

Talking, and support.
One of the single greatest weapons I had in my sobriety was the support of my wife; not simply because she was my wife, but because she had a lot of experience of addictions. She was able to help me understand many of the mechanisms of addiction, which were helpful, but the single most helpful thing in all of it was this one thing; when the days were hard, when it all felt dreadful and I didn't feel like it was worth it, or like I could hold on, or had begun to feel like an emotional wreck, she was able to comfort me, to understand how I felt, and to promise that if I held on, it would pass, and it would get easier. That one thing, repeated to me often enough, was what gave me the strength to hold on more than once - simply faith in the fact that it wouldn't last forever, and I could beat it, I could ride it out.

===

In the end, some of these changes wound up being permanent for me, while others became more relaxed later on, such as no longer needing to carry the little book everywhere I went. But they were only ever relaxed when I was certain that I could deal with things healthily - I never tried to "test my sobriety". I only ever removed the supports of my sobriety when I was certain that it would stand on its own without them, and then only with careful planning and consideration in advance, to make sure I was doing it in the right way, and for the right motives. I think it's very important.

There is one note here that's very important. Porn is only part of the problem, in so far as you look at what society has deemed to be considered p*graphic. If you use lingerie catalogues the same way - if you look at the women in them for sexual arousal, then jerk off to it, for example - then it makes no difference whether it is "officially" porn, or not. The addiction doesn't distinguish between the two; and you need to be careful that you don't, either.

===

For now, I'll leave this here. I'll follow it up later with some comments about my recovery as it progressed after the first few months of my sobriety.

Thanks, BlackSpiral.

Your posts are always a treasure to me. I could flatter you to the nth degree, but I know thats not what you are about. Your posts are so incredibly informative and also so personable and caring, as as your replies to others.

Besides all the details in your posts which are so helpful, I could sum up what I get from your posts in just a few thoughts.

Being sober and working on recovery takes an incredible amount of committment, bravery to analyze and truly explore the inner core stuff which I try to escape from via porn; attention to detail,etc. It is very hard work.

Sobriety may be the first step, but recovery is necessary to stay sober. Can't whiteknuckle it forever.

When approaching SA as you have, you will learn a tremendous amount about yourself which will help you in many ways that you might not ever have imagined.

All the hard efforts are so worth it.

You are truly an inspiration to me. Reading your posts should be required reading for both new and old posters. As they say, take what you will and leave the rest, but I am confident everybody will have a lot to take from your posts, and very little to leave.

My best
CL

An overview of recovery, part 3 - emotions
At around 2-3 months, as well as what I wrote above, I started to find that the addiction had been so tightly bound to my emotions that I hadn't actually had to deal with them! The situations that would normally have caused stress, or anger, or frustration, simply bypassed all the steps between and had been going straight to the point of craving. I wanted the addictive substance, and the reason why was buried so deeply that I wasn't even aware it existed.

At 2-3 months, that relationship was largely broken though. And as a result, the emotions that I hadn't had to deal with in all this time were showing up like a hurricane.

It's difficult to describe what it felt like. Since my older teens, I'd had something of a reputation for being fairly stable, thick-skinned, capable, able to cope with stress and emotional pain. But all of a sudden, I was an emotional mess - I had feelings that I didn't know how to deal with. My temper shortened, my stress levels jumped. I was more easily frustrated, I was more often depressed. I was happier, though, as well - it was like being trapped on some kind of emotional ferris wheel, one minute up, one minute down, and all the while feeling like it was at the whim of whoever ran the wheel. At the time, it certainly didn't feel like I was the guy in control.

It hit my relationship hard, too. I wasn't able to cope or handle things very well, and my partner had relied on me for years to be her rock of support; all of a sudden, though, I could barely support myself, and I felt drained, incapable of really supporting her as well. Her need for emotional support had not decreased, and my ability to act in the role had largely collapsed; worse yet, my own situation was actually increasing the stress on her. It was a hard time for both of us.

The whirlwind lasted for a few weeks in total, during which, things seemed to be a struggle for us. But after it passed and the storm calmed again, I started to really see what had been underneath my addiction all the time, and by virtue of that, I began to understand what I would need to do to deal with it. Sometimes, minor stresses and frustrations were the driving force, simply things that hadn't gone my way during the day. Other times, there were other things at work - such as frustrations with my current lifestyle and situation, or money, or many other more persistent problems. I realised, as I began to see, that I needed to learn how to deal with these things properly, and healthily.

Coping with feelings, and longer-term thinking
The feelings, I realised, were probably the primary root of my addiction. The bulk of my acting out, and certainly the key reason why I had failed to quit in the past, had been down to the fact that I had allowed the porn to evolve into an extremely unhealthy need. It had become my primary emotional support, my means of survival, my key coping mechanism to get through life. I also realised, at the same time, that this pattern was repeated in other areas of my life - and most of all, with food.

I had been a stress eater, and it struck me then that food, too, was something I had used to medicate and cope with my emotions. If I wanted to really develop a healthy way of dealing with my feelings, inside, I needed to make sure that I addressed ALL the unhealthy things I did. I didn't want to just dump porn and gain a hundred pounds - by this point, I'd already gained more weight than I cared to anyway. I didn't want to become a computer game addict either, or a smoker, or a drinker. I wanted to develop a healthy, internal way of dealing with my feelings, and make a complete break with addiction.

From this point on, I started to be very careful, considering exactly WHY I wanted to do something before I ever did it. If I wanted to get food because I felt stressed, or tired, or bored, then it was no-go. If I wanted to play games because I felt worried about something, I had to put it on hold. I didn't have to give these things up, though - I enjoy food, I quite like to cook, and I do enjoy playing computer games sometimes. But motive was fundamentally important.

The second element, which mixes into this, is learning to think in the long term.

The fundamental attractions of porn, food and computer games, or even books, music and films, are all the same thing - right here, right now, they can give you pleasure. And there's nothing wrong in that - the things we enjoy are almost universally things that give us pleasure in the present.

The trouble is, especially in the addict, that examination goes no further than the current moment, the current act - it does not consider either the long term impact on your life, or even the immediate consequences of your actions, beyond the pleasure that you want - this includes morals, as breaches of your own morals have definite long-term emotional impact. As addicts, this short-term tunnel-vision can blind us to the truth of what we are fighting against.

If you were able to know in the moment that using porn could cost you your job, your dreams, your emotional or even physical health, your happiness, your security, your family - and in exchange, you'd get a rush and a high - and if you were able to then balance those two options in a healthy way to make your decision, it would be a no-brainer. Quick high and mangled life versus no high and happy life is not a difficult choice.

But in the addiction, we just don't see the long term. Make no mistake, though - I don't mean we aren't aware of it. I always knew about the long term; logically, I understood it. I knew what I stood to lose. I knew what was out there, what it could cost me. Not completely; but at the very least, I knew my relationship was riding on it. But in the moment of considering the action, none of that really existed to me. All I saw was the high, and the positives. I knew about the long term, but I didn't see it.

Learning to see both of these elements - motive, and consequences - allowed me to choose my actions cleanly. The consequences of my actions allowed me to make sure I made decisions that were right for my life in the whole, not just in the here and now - and by checking my motives, I was able to make sure I never fell back into the pattern of compulsion. Motive, though, is a little more complex, and runs on into the need for emotional handling.

Emotional handling
With motive, the main key is simply learning to handle your emotions. If you know you want to eat because you're stressed, then the key isn't to resist the urge to eat. The key is to deal with the stress. As I said, my feelings were at the core of my addiction. Because of that, I knew that if I could learn to seek out healthy ways of dealing with my emotions, I would destroy the single strongest root that the addiction had. It wouldn't solve the problem, but it would be a great step in the right direction.

Easier said than done. For many years, I realised, I had habitually run to other things - food, computer games, porn, films, TV, sometimes alcohol - to escape from and bury my feelings, rather than address them. And although I wasn't caught up in the cycle of compulsion anymore, when I was going through the emotional hurricane, it sometimes seemed that it just wasn't worth it - that the trade-off was just too heavy. Even my wife once commented that it was almost better before, when I was still using the porn. And even after I got through that, the urge to run to other things was still very strong.

The method for dealing with the feelings was easy enough, really. Identify the feeling, identify its source, and then consider the healthy course of action. If it's stress from work, then often, the healthy course of action was simply to let it go, and relax (sounds weird, but sometimes, just realising that was enough to make it happen). If it was money, then spending a little time working through a budget sheet would help deal with it, and writing out plans to work towards a solution could help too. If it was something I didn't want to do, but needed to, then the solution was simply to do it, if possible, or arrange to do it at the next opportunity.

At one time, this would have been a nightmarish task, but sobriety had already laid the groundwork for it - so breaking the pattern was not as hard as it would once have been. The strongest of the compulsions had been the porn, and with that one broken, I had two advantages - firstly, I was able to see the emotions I was needing to deal with, so the problem was more apparent. But secondly, and very importantly, I had already proven I could break a strong compulsion, and had no doubts about my ability to break these weaker ones.

True enough, the pattern broke - but it wasn't flawless. I was still fighting against the porn at the same time, and although I had sobriety, it was still quite young. Added to that, I was really only starting to discover the emotions again, and discovering how to deal with them - though easy enough to describe above - didn't come all at once, or nearly as plainly at times. But I never gave up, I kept on trying, and importantly I never let it slip from my mind - I talked about it every day with my wife, and I kept thinking about how I could deal with my feelings, and how I could learn to respond healthily. Over the next few months, it all started to take root, and by around the 5th month, it seemed like it was really becoming a reality; recovery was actually starting to happen for me.

===

Next, I'll follow up with some of the things I learned while reading in this time, and the changes that occurred between my 5th and 7th months of sobriety.

BlackSpiral,

Thanks so much for sharing all of this. I am learning alot from what you shared, and am definitely going to look up the Tony Robbins book and try the stop-thought process exercises. I may look up the other book as well. I look forward to reading the "next installment."

Sincerely,

'75

My own experience of sexualisation and objectification was disturbing to me. I began to realise that I had looked at the world through very sexualised eyes - women, regardless of who they were, would be seen and assessed as possible sexual partners. Men, on the other hand, would tend to be viewed as sexual competitors. It stunned me to realise just how much of my perception that had become at times, and how widespread the problem in my life appeared to really be.

I've heard it said that it's "just a man thing", or "normal male behaviour" to look at the world this way, to see women as objects, as a collection of potential sexual partners. I don't buy it at all. I can recall a time before the addiction, when I was an older teenager, and when my behaviours weren't so out of control, and when my beliefs and perceptions weren't so warped. I can trace a path backwards to see where many of these changes occurred, and how, and why. There are elements of male behaviour within them, but they've become warped, under the influence of the porn - itself, essentially a corruption too.

At first, when I approached these, I did buy into some of those things. I wondered if I would be able to change them - I wondered, too, if it would be even normal or healthy to TRY to change them. I asked the wrong questions, and focused on the wrong parts. With things like ogling, I considered that to be natural attraction - wasn't it therefore normal to find women attractive, after all? Isn't that just normal, healthy male behaviour?

Well, maybe attraction is. But ogling isn't attraction - it's an unhealthy response to a sexualised interpretation of attraction. Most women will tell you that being ogled by men isn't a pleasant experience. A handful may enjoy it - the vast majority, however, do not. Equally, once upon a time, I regarded it as a rude, offensive way to treat a woman. I had respect for other people. As time went by, though, and I lived in my addiction for a while, my beliefs shifted until it seemed like "just a natural thing".

Well, okay, maybe it is natural. But so's cancer - neither of them is healthy, and neither I wanted in my life.

This whole subject, of course, is controversial. Some people think it's normal to ogle women. I'd have to agree, it's normal - in so far as normal means "of the norm". But just because most men are down there doesn't mean I have to be, nor should I accept it as a status quo. I won't simply decide it's okay to ogle other women so that I fit neatly within someone else's comfortable beliefs, either. If it's comfortable for you, fine - ogle and be happy. Me, I don't want to act that way. It feels wrong; it violates my morals. And as I've said more than once, the big key to being happy is managing to live comfortably within your own morals.

Related loosely to that, there was another question that threw me for a loop. If I did manage to break away from this response to other women, would I suddenly find myself unattracted to my own partner? Talk about shallow and narrow-minded. The whole question reeks of a world and perception so rooted in sexualisation and superficiality that it doesn't understand that the OTHER parts of life play a role in the question. How I feel, act and respond is NOT a simple, basic product of superficial attractiveness. There are a wealth of other motives - mostly far deeper ones - that influence how I feel about someone, about a situation, and how I choose to respond to it.

The question seemed so sensible when I asked it of myself, though. I guess that's one of the things about growth - being able to look back, and wonder how you could ever have been so blind to things that seem so obvious to you now.

The path forward from here wasn't quite so black and white, though. Issues of motive, experience, health, nature and learning all came into play, and although some clear influences were easily addressed, some things were far trickier customers - some continue to be today. I'm not recovered yet. What I am, though, is confident in the fact that I WILL be recovered. Every now and then, I notice another small change - another little step forward - that helps tell me that I've moved a notch further along my path of recovery. A situation that was uncomfortable once, suddenly isn't. A problem that I'd used to have, suddenly just isn't there anymore. Every time I notice another one, it's wonderful.

There's work to be done, there are changes to be made, and there is damage to be healed. But I am doing the work, making the changes, and healing the damage, and I have faith in the fact that it will all work out. It really seems like things do, in the end.

===

Finally, to finish off the introduction to my journal - I'm going to focus on what recovery has given to me, in my life. It's been a rough road, and I imagine it still will be, from time to time. But it's been worthwhile, and I'm going to go over some of the most significant things that recovery has given to me.

This is very useful to everyone, SAs and SOs alike, Black Spiral. Thanks for sharing the details and taking the time to organise them logically.

At a future time, you may want to consider a career in motivational speaking - a la Robbins. You have a real gift.

Still