I'm Movin' Along

[somedude]

Every morning when I get to work, people greet me with the usual how are you type of greetings. I frequently reply "eh, I'm moving along". I think that's a good theme for this journal.

I'm moving along...
...away from porn
...away from self destruction
...away from escapism
...away from secrecy
...away from shame
...away from the dangers of getting caught

...towards sobriety
...towards self discovery
...towards living in the moment
...towards living in openness
...towards confidence and pride in myself
...towards living a single life without fear of getting caught

This is Day Three of my journey.

Today I will be porn free, reply to some posts on the board, finish the last of the tasks needed to dismantle my little porn collecting infrastructure, and actually work at work.

tim

[recoverer]

Well it is a good thing that you are turning away from porn, you are not alone on this journey, it is going to be hard to quit but it is well worth it.

[MJ]

Hey somedude,
Glad to see you've started a journal. Journaling definitely helps in recovery.
Peace,
MJ

[somedude]

Well, let me see its Day 6. That's good.

The weekend went ok, my wife and I are still working out the kinks in our schedule and home life with her new job and new work hours. Nights and weekends again. Those hours leave me to do a lot more of the house work, which sucks. She always notices and thanks me for the extra effort, but I've been a little pissy about getting no help at all from her. Anyway, we worked that out this weekend.

I found and downloaded Patrick Carnes "Out of the Shadows" audio book on mp3 this weekend. Man was that a frickin stressor. I had to hide that like I had to hide porn. But its been acquired, and that's the last thing I'll ever have to hide about my computer usage again.

I have quite a bit to do at work this week, and I'm leaving early on Thursday to get up to the Packers Vikings game, and taking Friday off, so I need to get moving on some stuff. That's all for now.

tim

[somedude]

Hey its Day 7. Spent some time this morning trying to figure out how long I've been a porn addict. I'd say since the first time I saw some, say when I was maybe 11, I was interested. But it wasn't until I had more regular access to it that I became an addict.

It was the local grocery store that had lots of porn mags on the top shelf of the magazine rack. In those days the mags were not in plastic bags. Kids would go in to look at comic books and music mags and take the pornos down from the top shelf and slip them into Rolling Stone, or some WWF wrestling mag. It was easy, just pop over to the store to get a comic book, or a wrestling mag, or nothing, and get a look at something. I would go there almost daily for stretches, but at least once a week otherwise. That started when I was 13. I'm 36 now. That's a lot of time.

Once, my friend from across the street who was a few years older brought me over to this kid's house who had some porn to trade. The kid lived in a big apartment complex and would dumpster dive for mags in the complex where he lived. He also dived the dumpsters of stores that sold mags about the time that the new issues would come out, because the old ones that didn't sell were just tossed out in the old days. He had a lot of stuff. I have no idea what we traded him, but the friend across the street, one of my best friends, always had newish mags. When the grocery store caught on to the neighborhood boys and started harassing us when we would browse the magazine rack, this was my only source of porn.

Then we found some in an abandonned silo that some older kids used as a fort. I was 15. Soon after my friends and I got drivers licenses and we could get "gag gifts" at the adult stores along the interstate. Those places never carded, and we sould always get a few mags along with the gag gifts. Around then, an older brother of a friend had a storage space at one of those u store it type places. The kind with the garage door. He was getting ready to go to college and had some used furniture and apartment type stuff in there as well as a lot of booze and porn. He was the sharing kind. We shared.

Throughout college I would come home from my school about once a month. Some of those times I had a car and was alone. I would always stop at an interstate bookstore along the way for a fresh supply.

Then I graduated from college and moved in with a friend who had a computer. About the same time, the BBS systems that he used, almost never for porn, died, and the internet was born. This was 1995. I used Mosaic, the first widely used internet browser, and Gopher, and Netscape and found porn. That's when it started to get out of hand.

So, on the General Board someone wanted to know whether we would be addicts without the internet. I was. The internet made it more convenient, and more pervasive, and introduced me to some harder things, but I was an addict first.

So now I'm here.

Not that my morning wasn't moving along at a happy enough pace, what with my super fun personal history of porn addiction playing out with my morning coffee. Not that discovering, at 36, that I've likely been an addict for 23 years wasn't really great - but I recalled something else.

I also recalled the incident. The one where an elementary school aged Tim, say 4th grade, was on the way to play with his friends, but got approached by a teenaged boy and his "babysitter", an 18 to low 20s aged guy, to come on in for a second. The second turned to a few hours and I was tricked into disrobing, and though no one touched me, I saw some things. My friends were pissed that I was so late in getting there and didn't talk to me for a few days, and I was scarred for life.

So its been a super great morning, and at least I'm at work, and I've typed this all out to release myself from it for the moment. Its 8:23 am, and I've already had enough of this sh!t today. I have stuff to do here.

I'll be clean today.

Tim

[somedude]

I got a huge pain in the ass project done and off my mind today. Normally, this would clear my day to go on a binge. After all, I did a really good job and finally got a big problem fixed, why not waste the day?

Anyway, I did nothing of the sort. I've been lurking here, and doing some other recovery related stuff. I started another big project, got motion on a different ongoing project, and kept positive.

Finally, I ducked out of the building for a few minutes. Work is close to a large department store that I got a gift card to for Christmas from my Mom, so I ducked out and looked at some shoes for a bit. I didn't find any that I liked, but I got out on a sunny day, and I broke the approaching trance, and stayed clean.

I'm proud to say that the things I did today to stay clean, were successful. I'll be home in a bit less than an hour, safe a clean for another day.

tim

[reconstituting]

tim,

This is going well. You can do it. Keep on thinking about it and planning and as time goes on it gets a bit eaisier, I've found (a bit over 3 months down the line).

Best wishes

Recon

[MJ]

Hey somedude,
Thanks for sharing your story with us. It helps all the more when everything is out in the open. That really helped me when I first joined this site because before that I had always kept everything to myself. Keep up the good work---we're here for you.
Peace,
MJ

[somedude]

Hey, thanks for your support reconstituting and MJ!

Well its Day 8.

I have plenty to do today. There is a "broken" pc here from one of our branch loctions - user error most likely, but I'll fix it. There is a new pc that's all ready to hand out, and 5 more new pcs in boxes that I need to prep for handing out. I have a list of new music from the latest issue of Alternative Press to download, a support board to hang out on, and either a recovery nation module, or a chapter of Carnes' Out of the Shadows to listen to.

I really have a lot in common with Ryan. We both have porn at work habits that are quite similar. Its good to know that not everyone has a porn at home issue.

Time to listen to some music and get some work done.

tim

[choselife]

I got a huge pain in the ass project done and off my mind today. Normally, this would clear my day to go on a binge. After all, I did a really good job and finally got a big problem fixed, why not waste the day?

Anyway, I did nothing of the sort. I've been lurking here, and doing some other recovery related stuff. I started another big project, got motion on a different ongoing project, and kept positive.

Great job breaking a pattern. I can relate, and I know that it is not easy. Keep doing it, and it will get easier (I tell you and myself)

CL

[somedude]

Thank you for your support, CL. It's a nice boost when someone with some time in recovery takes time to offer a little encouragement. That's one of the great things about this board.

Wow, its day 9. I'll be out of here early today, headed to Green Bay for the Packers Vikings game, GO PACK! Tomorrow I'm off, then its the weekend, Monday is Christmas, and Tuesday I'm off, so the next day back will be the 27th, and since the days I'm not here are always porn free, I'll be on Day 15 when I get back. That's good.

Should be an easy day today, I'm bailing at 2 or 3 this afternoon. I need to spend some time trying to find rain gear, since its going to rain tonight, and I have plenty of work to do.

Merry Christmas to all! I know holidays can be real difficult times for some people, so I'll pray for us all while I'm away.

tim

[MJ]

Thanks for the Christmas wishes, Tim. Thanks for praying for us all.
Peace,
MJ

[empower]

Thanks also from me, Tim. Good luck with your journal / recovery / holiday.

Empower / Rob

[somedude]

Back from my little break. Great time at the Packer game Thursday night, they won! Christmas was nice also. A few good days off, only a few work days this week, things are looking good there.

Its Day 15. I will be clean today. Unfortunately, I will be super busy with piddly crap today, while the big stuff goes undone.

I discovered a massive amount of guilt during my time away. It taints everything. All of my reactions to my wife are awash in it. I need to get over that. The guilt makes me instantly defensive and it gives me a real short fuse when she's unhappy with me.

There is also some financial stress again. This summer I had to take full control of our horribly screwed up finances in order to save us from my wife's mismanagement, and keep our house. She was very relieved and happy to be free of it. Over the months since then, I got busy and she offered to do some of it. I stupidly let her. As we got to the holidays, she was back to running the show as the primary shopper. Yesterday I got two overdraft letters from the bank, one with 4 fees, and one with 3 fees. That's $175! We're dangerously short on funds for the next week and a half as a result. Like we have $140 for gas and groceries for that period. Why the hell does she do that all the time? That $175 is the difference between massive stress and calm coasting.

So anyway, I'm back to running the money, and as usual, its all screwed up. We can make the next 10-12 days with some belt tightening, and by mid-January we'll be all caught up with bills. But it sucks a lot even if its kind of minor.

The phone has been ringing, and I have a bunch of stupid piddly crap to deal with...

tim

[somedude]

Its Day 16.

Going to be a busy again, but at least I'll be too not bored to struggle with urges today.

I'm really disappointed in Marvin for his recent reply in MJ's journal. It's like, oh you may be gay? Well, I've turned off my brain and my heart and I only have the ability to spew out some ridiculous "Christian" response. So let me tell you its a sin and share with you how to reframe those sinful feelings into some other feelings and how to NOT be gay the "Christian" way.

Christianity defines gayness as a sin. There are many sins, all equal in God's eyes. A sin is a sin, a little white lie is a sin, just as murder is, just as adultery is, etc. There are no grades of sin to God. The issue is repentance. All sins are equal under God, to be forgiven with repentance. However, things like being actively gay, ie continuing to sin without repentace, or a continued pattern of sin and repentance and the same sin over, is considered a lack of repentance. God's not big on the unrepented sin. There is a struggle within the Church over whether to accept the unrepented into the fold.

I have an idea. Why not just work among all people preaching the love of God and the message of repentance and an afterlife in the Kingdom of God without lacing the message with judgement? God's job is to judge. Those who wish to spread the word are sinners just like the receivers of that word. If the preacher truly wants to be heard by all, then maybe the preacher needs to spare the judgement for the message.

Oh you're gay, well that's a sin, but you can be different. Well, maybe, but if that's what God wants then God will work through that issue within the heart of those who have been touched by God and have chosen to walk in his footsteps.

Marvin - guide people to the Path and let God work from there.

tim