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Post by JohnG on Jan 17, 2007 6:34:42 GMT -5
Also,
God help me to stay out of the P's forum. The first few days I went looking for understanding, but for the past 24 hours at least I have been going looking for a rush. I get a rush even when I don't respond to some perceived slight just by reading them. A friend in AA used to say all the time, "my brain will always seek out strong feelings and emotions if I let it." That is definitely what I have been doing there.
Thanks.
JohnG
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Post by JohnG on Jan 17, 2007 7:33:38 GMT -5
Repost from something I said in dijit80's journal and need to say here as well:
I will give you an example of the kind of nastiness and dishonesty that my brain is capable of:
I have just thought a minute ago about how I myself need to go over to my journal and correct something that I said about not having urges yesterday. I saw a movie called the Kovak Box and there is a scene where a very pretty young woman is laying face down on a bed, topless. I couldn't see her breasts but you see her in her underwear. I don't know how to label when I experienced, but I felt something, and I didn't look away.
Now, my point is not that I forgot to include this earlier - that was an oversight, but rather that when I was framing my post in my mind, I was thinking of saying, "I didn't exactly have an urge, but I didn't look away from a scene that could have been triggering." THAT would not have been totally honest. I looked, I knew I shouldn't (because it is bad for ME). That kinid of thing, left unchecked, and if I don't share it here, will lead me back to P and MB. So what exactly is my point? My first impulse was to share it, express it in a way, that would minimize it.
Edit: there was also a shower scene - I looked at this too.
I didn't feel in danger, but I wasn't really safe either. I really must retrain myself, sooner rather than later, to just look away. It must become natural. I saw the term "bouncing" your eyeballs off of stuff on the Partner's side. This can be learned I am sure so that it is more second nature and not such a struggle, but you have to start doing it and not just talk about it.
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Post by freshstart on Jan 17, 2007 8:44:07 GMT -5
Hey JohnG your honesty is very inspiring. People say that secrecy is the lifeblood of addiction. I think it is certainly a part of it. I wish you all the success you deserve because you really seem to be going about this in the right way.
Best wishes,
FS
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Post by JohnG on Jan 17, 2007 9:21:34 GMT -5
Thanks FS. I was just in the old journal pages. There are a total (to date) of 37 pages of journals. And guess what? After the first few pages, none of them have been posted in in a long time. Very scary when you see the same story over and over and over. I sure you and I are here for the long-haul FS. But for now, let's just focus on today. __________________________________________________________ I was struck by a post from back in 2005 from one of those old journals. The poster talked about how he thought at times that maybe he could do P/MB just once in a while. He was encouraged after a slip, he said, by the fact that at least he had cut down. I remember using this thinking to get back into a binge. "Hey, you are doing really well." That is part of the danger in counting days without real work. You give yourself the "you deserve it, you have been good," routine. I also remember once after a week or less of abstinence closing the browser window before I finished. That was ok I thought, somehow I hadn't "really" just used P. Or using photos of a actual people that I know - ex GF, that sort of thing. Or using non-nude stuff and saying that I wasn't "really" using P. Or even just trying to MB without P - I always ended up in the same place. Inch by inch I got back there. Please give me the strength to do this. To do the work and not just flap my lips. I also read a good post from a guy who left way back when: lightwave.proboards48.com/index.cgi?board=journal&action=display&thread=1121629402&page=15#1125972651He is checking out of the board which is too bad but he has some important things to say about his own motivations for posting. I am linking it for myself and anyone else who wishes to look at it. Trying to look good on the board or in meetings is something that I am constantly guilty of. No P/MB for next 24 hours, ok? Ok. JohnG
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Post by Disciple on Jan 17, 2007 12:32:18 GMT -5
JG
I know that I am guilty of wanting to say things on this board that make things seem better with me than they are. I want people to think I have my act together rather than saying whats going on. I get the sense that this is what you are saying. Well here I sit, just coming off of the P sites, wishing that I was more honest.
Disciple.
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Post by JohnG on Jan 18, 2007 8:37:23 GMT -5
DAY 8
I have been readin here for about 2 1/2 hours straight. You could read the forums day and night and never get to the end.
I need a break but first a couple of thoughts.
Thanks for your comments Disciple. I did mean that - I have to be careful about trying to look good in my posts and I have to be honest about it. Maybe you never get over the ego building thing but just have to be honest about it, like everything else.
So last night and today I have been trying the "bouncing eyeballs" technique to stop scanning women. It helps, but I have noticed that if I am careful I can avoid having to do it. In other words, I can tell sometimes that I see a woman in my peripheal vision and my eyes gravitate in that direction to do the categorizing thing (would/wouldn't sleep with her). So I am trying to just not let me eyes go. It is so very disturbing, once I became aware of it, to realize that as soon as my radar picks up a woman at the edge of the scope, my eyes start seeking out the target - if I don't conciously stop them. So bouncing eyes is ok but I think it needs to be more than that. Not static, look at my shoes eyes, but eyes that just don't do that seek and paint the target routine. I noticed too that if I walk down the street car bumpers don't have the same effect. I conciously started seeking out a looking at car bumpers everytime I passed a car. That movement, I thought, is exactly what I do with women. But with car bumpers it seems unnatural. It just seems that some guys say, but you can't help it - they are right there in front of you, how can you not look at them? Well, I guarantee they are not looking at car bumpers. The difference is, do you FOCUS on it?
Can you retrain a sick brain to not do this? I sure hope so.
Please help me to make it though the next 24 hours with no P/MB.
I feel good but tired from reading.
JohnG.
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stopmb
Full Member
Hoping what's next is peace and serenity
Posts: 137
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Post by stopmb on Jan 18, 2007 9:04:57 GMT -5
I understand how you can get tired from reading the boards. I, too, spend a great deal of time reading. It's partly to keep me out of the muck of P and MB, but also partly to keep realizing that I am not alone in this struggle. However, we all have to do things in our lives, and so sometimes I think I am procrastinating.
About retraining a sick brain. I certainly hope we can do it. I am also trying. We can do it if we will it.
-Stopmb
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Post by JohnG on Jan 18, 2007 11:34:17 GMT -5
I almost forgot to give myself a pat on the back.
14 years today without alcohol.
There was a time that seemed as impossible as quiting P seems today.
Now I am going to bake some cookies for my AA meeting tonight.
Johnny G
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Post by Disciple on Jan 18, 2007 13:31:17 GMT -5
JG Congrats on 14 years- no alcohol. Thats awesome. A big pat on the back from me!!
Disciple
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Post by Disciple on Jan 18, 2007 13:46:36 GMT -5
JG
I just want to say how much I appreciate the insights you have brought to this board. I was reading what you said in dijits journal about how the mind tricks you. As I sit here, feeling demoralized by the binge I'm doing right now, I can see how little slips and temptations brought me to this point. It seems overwhelming to think about how "perfect" I need to be. Just want you to know how much I appreciate you being here!
Peace, Disciple
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Andy
Full Member
Posts: 233
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Post by Andy on Jan 19, 2007 3:35:45 GMT -5
Hi JohnG,
Sorry I havent been in touch for a while ive been prety busy but have managed to keep away from P and MB luckily. Im getting pretty stressed about the amount of work that Ive got to do at the moment as I have to do a presentation at a meeting next Thursday and have to right a paper for the 10th of February. This on its own is not to bad, the real problem is that I havent got much in the way of results to present or right a paper on.
Anyway all this stress is manifesting itself in me reverting back to my old ways of thinking, which is blaming my feelings on a lack of sex and generaly getting agie at my girlfriend. This is a perfect excusse to use P and MB back in the day. Its easy to loose sight of the way ahead and start to fall back down the hill again!
I think my ultimate goal is to have a relationship with my girlfriend in which I can look in to her eyes when we are making LOVE and also to not be addicted to P and MB (when I say not addicted I mean have it under control). The last couple of days I have been out doing some field work (going round Quarries and taking water depths in boreholes) this was allright only I discovered how sensative my addiction is we had to pull a long cable out of one of these boreholes as it was broken. it was wound up and I asked the guy with me if he had anything to tie it up with, he had an old rag, it was a revealing ladies top, i couldnt believe it but it was a trigger. It kind of sparked a mental image that I had to shake out of my head. Im a bit annoyed that im so programmed.
Thanks for getting me to post again JohnG you have been a great help, i might start a journal on here, it seems like a good idea.
Keep up the good work.
Cheers
Andy
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Post by JohnG on Jan 19, 2007 5:01:12 GMT -5
DAY 9
StopMB, Disciple, and Andy,
Thanks for your thoughts! Hang in there and never stop fighting ok?
___________________________________________________________________________________ Last night was a really really good AA meeting. I baked cookies (in my group on B-days you have to bring something to eat in the break with the coffee). They were chocolate chip cookies and nobody had tried them before (I am in Spain). I had about four dozen and they all disappeared before the end of the break.
There were no women last night which I took advantage of - I haven't been talking much at meetings for the past year really and yesterday I talked for over 20 minutes. It was a huge help - it was really important to talk about this in front of physically present people. My sponsor is still very sick with pneumonia so I haven't dumped it on him yet.
I talked a lot about what I have learned about PA/SA and how there are 12 steps for it too and how since there are none down south here I have to use this board. I also talked about the similarities that I see in the difficulties that I had with alcohol and ridding myself of that obsession and how this obsession also consumes my thoughts and how the whole thought process that leads you back to the booze or P is exactly the same.
I went on and on and I haven't shared like that in a really really long time. I talked about all the guys we see come and go - they are there for a night or a week or a month and then they vanish and how I see the same thing in this board - go back and looked at the archived threads and journals. There are TONS of them that have just been abandoned. One day a post just like any other day and then nothing.
I said I don't want to be one of those - one of the ones who gives up. It is not a pride thing, it is about having a better life. I pray that all those people have found an answer but I think we know that most have not. In AA of those who make it 4 years more than half don't make it to 6. Is it any better for P? Probably not. In a way booze is a little easier - you quit it entirely where with sex you have to reclaim a normal relationship with a natural function of your body. It would be sort of like trying to drink normally.
________________________________________________________________________________________________ Last night my GF and I had relations. We went out to dinner for my AA b-day and after, in bed, she draped her leg over me. Of course I am more receptive now so things happend and I didn't fight. I am not trying to abstain from relations, just P and MB. Part of the reason is that I have not told her about my problem and I am still undecided what I will do (or maybe I have already decided - I can't really say if I am being honest about that). We are going to split after I close on my house and move. That is the plan anyway.
Anyway, if I were honest with her I would be doing this without intercourse for a month. But I have seen that some people do recovery while still maintaining relations with an SO. I am doing that and we will see if this was the correct choice. It will take longer to regain a normal brain chemistry but it will happen (I have read) assuming I am not MBing.
Now I have to say honestly (and because I don't want to say it - so I must need to say it) that our relations, while better than normal, were troubled for me. I could maintain arousal without fantasizing but I could not finish. Or I believed that I could not finish and gave up and said ok, I will play some old fantasy. They were less disturbing (in content) than last time and again, hard to conjur - in part because I was having a whole dialogue in my head about it.
It occured to me after - next time I will not give in. If I don't finish, so what? If she is satisfied she does not dwell on it if I don't finish. She is happy as long as I don't seem frustrated or upset with not finishing. So nobody is saying I have to finish. I am going to see what happens if I just do not fantasize. I have to start retraining my brain and why wait? It is tempting to say, "well, just for this little thing, I will continue to fantasize - but at worst I am feeding my addiction and at best I am delaying doing some hard work.
So, that's all I have to say about that for now. __________________________________________________________________________________________________ Today I renew my promise to myself: no P or MB for the next 24 hours. That I think I can do. Just 24 hours, ok?
JohnG
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Post by choselife on Jan 19, 2007 5:13:04 GMT -5
That is some darn good stuff, both for you to have those insights, and then for the action you plan to take (no fantasizing) based upon those insights. When I have insights that fit my situation, it always makes me feel good. And I have also felt even better when I take action upon those insights. It truly improves my sense of self-worth and integrity. I wish the same for you.
I also frequently think of those who are on the board for a day or two, or perhaps a month or two, or for a year, and then you never hear from them again. That has not been me, and I do give myself credit for that. I have not given up.
CL
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Post by JohnG on Jan 19, 2007 8:24:01 GMT -5
Thanks CL.
I came back to admit something that is bugging me. I still sometimes look at the controversial threads such as "Should P be legal?" - this thread is meaningless, we all have our opinion, no one is there (me included) to really consider the topic, we have our minds made up, and what does it have to do with my recovery? Nothing. But there was a nice little flame war there for a bit that feeds my addictive brain nicely - getting worked up about something, anything, feeds the need for strong emotions. Anything for any little chemical rush in the brain.
Stay away from threads that don't help me.
Edit: I just remembered - when I first came in here I clicked on the thread titled: New!! Support Board for FEMALE SA's
Am I a female? Nope. Am I unwell? Absolutely. JohnG Just for 24 hours.
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Post by JohnG on Jan 19, 2007 8:32:08 GMT -5
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