Sawyer's Walk

[sawyer]

During my engagement and my wife’s pregnancy I journaled for almost 2 years fairly heavily. It was one of the best tools I had for an exciting but stressful and chaotic time. I truly don’t know what I would have done without it.

The decision to move forward on sexual sobriety has not been completely made to be honest. However I thought while I am working this out internally, I should record my thoughts not only for myself – but maybe for the benefit of others.

I don’t know if anyone is interested in even following my journey, but I open it up to everyone.

Because I am used to journaling tools, I converted from this thread based message board over to livejournal. To stay linked in to No-Porn, I am going to post when I update here and will check both this forum and my LJ Comments section for any feedback.

I write for myself, but if this helps someone else – or helps provide me with any support. I am all for it.

For those that are interested, I offer “Sawyer’s Walk” – sawyerswalk.livejournal.com

[sawyer]

5/21/07 Update
- Do I take the step forward?
- Telling my Wife
- The Urge to Explore?
- Few other odd's and ends.


Sawyer's Walk has been updated - sawyerswalk.livejournal.com

[sawyer]

05/24/07 Update

• Intimidation and Starting the Journey to Sexual Sobriety
  
• My counselor Visit
  
• Books that helped me
  
• Rationalizing and defending my behavior
  
• The Sheer Size of this thing, can I do it?
  

Please comment if you visit - the encouragement from others already has been a tremendous help. Just click the "leave comment" link under the journal entry.

Sawyer's Walk has been updated - sawyerswalk.livejournal.com

[sawyer]

05-27-07 Update

• Overwhelmed out the gate
  
• Sex in Marriage
  
• Rationalization
  
• The "Perfect lover"
  

Please feel free comment if you visit - the encouragement (and corrections) from others already has been a tremendous help. Just click the "leave comment" link under the journal entry.

Sawyer's Walk has been updated - sawyerswalk.livejournal.com

[sawyer]

05/28/07 - Update

• Making the mistake of explaining things poorly.
  
• Getting help vs. Being Judged
  

Sawyer's Walk has been updated - sawyerswalk.livejournal.com

[sawyer]

05/28/07 - Update

- Just a quote that hit home for me.

Sawyer's Walk has been updated - sawyerswalk.livejournal.com

[Clean2day]

I have read your sawyers walk and find it very interesting. One thing you must either wat to be free or not. With the look that "if I fail is no big thing" will be a hanycap for you.

I also incourage you to tell/confess to your wife, maybe a good way would be to get her involved with your councelor. As a third party this way it wont come out as, "I have a problem, and it is sometimes your fault...." {I am not blasting you} But when we get ourselves in a corner it is easy to start pointing our finger.

You say you are Catholic, can I recomend another site that might help. www.trueknights.org You also kept talking about a patron saint. Maybe they can help. The guy that runs this site is on EWTN and is very good. {A catholic site for sexual purity}

I myself am Pentacostal, and raised Lutheran so I don't reallly understand alot of things like that. Although my wife was raised Catholic and sometimes talks about things over my head. I do watch EWTN and enjoy Scott Hahn.

Please keep coming back and posting I will pray for you and ask for your prayers. If you just leave I will worry about you.

Another thing please don't be so hard to the SO's I remember when I first came here and they were talking about setting up boundies I thought, "Yea, right. you talk about us guys trying to run tthings and not giving any room to grow..... " That is not what their boundies are all about anyway A true wake up call and they have helped me an awful lot with my wife. Sometimes it took a kick to the balls, but in the end I found most of the time they were right on the money.

Feel free to PM me will be watching for you,

C2d

[sawyer]

C2D -
Thank you very much for the words of encouragement. I actually don't have much time to write so I follow with another post or PM here over the weekend.

But one topic I may be discussing here or in the recovering addict's forum is the problem of telling a SO that us unaware and how many people (Counselors, SA leaders, Sponsers) are telling me NOT to - not yet anyway. Still learning the reasoning why -- but I am starting to understand. It is something that WILL and HAS TO happen though, don't get me wrong, but apparently the timing counts.

CTD and Others-
I finally came to the decision to take the step into sobriety, it was a big shock and happened before I knew what was going on. But the being on the fence thing was dangerous ... Although I am glad I gave myself time to come to this decision.

So, with that said...

5/31/07 - Update

• Seeing through the fog of addiction
  
• Getting Pissed Off
  
• Stepping forward.
  

Sawyer's Walk has been updated - sawyerswalk.livejournal.com

Soon, to come (probably tomorrow morning sometime)

• The results of my first SA meeting
  

[sawyer]

06/01/2007 - Update

• Getting the courage to go to my first SA meeting
  

This was a big deal for me, I don't believe I journaled so hard and so fast in a while.

[DoubleA]

Sawyer, I found your latest blog post interesting. I am thinking about going to a meeting myself, so was curious about your experience.


It sounded like a positive step for you, and I hope that it gives you a nice push in the right direction.


DoubleA

[sawyer]

6/3/07 - Update

• Saying the words "I am an addict" out loud for the first time.
  
• Working the 4th and 5th steps in 12-Step recovery.
  
• The best feeling in the world washing over me.
  
• Calling "Legion" out on the carpet.
  

[JohnG]

Congratulations on the step with your pastor. You are making some very important steps forward.

I would recommend getting a sponsor in your SA group if you are going to do the steps. They are in a certain order for a reason. The fourth step is important but must be done on the foundation of the first three. I big reason is that to do the fourth step correctly you should have the guidance of an experienced addict. And to do that (and get the full benefit of the step), a good third step is absolutely critical. It took me a long time to understand what this step meant - I assigned it little importance. But not having done it well was the reason that my fourth step was incomplete. If I had done this correctly I would have saved myself a LOT of aggravation later - some serious issues I have had in the past few years are directly attributable to having done an unstructured and unguided fourth step in AA.

Nevertheless, you are doing really work and you are being honest. Those are critical components of good recovery.

Your friend,

JohnG

[sawyer]

JohnG -

Thanks for the heads up. From what I understand the workbook I am working with my counselor is modeled after the 12 step program and the units leading up to this would be the equivalent of steps 1-3. I guess my counselor would also be the equivalent of a sponsor - seeing he has been sexually sober for 15 years now.

However, to make sure I am not too off base, I am going to start reading thw SA white book today to make sure I am not completely off base. I see my counselor tomorrow too, and will ask. Finally on my meeting Thursday I will poke into finding a sponsor.

Thanks for responding!

[sawyer]

06/04/07 - Update

• First Withdrawl Symptoms
  

Sawyer's Walk has been updated - sawyerswalk.livejournal.com

[lemontea74]

Hi Sawyer,

Just wanted to pop over to your journal to say hello. Especially after all the constructive advice that you have kindly left on mine.
I was going to leave the message on your page on the other site, but got a bit confused with the liveID business, so I took the easy route instead.

I hope your sobreity is going well and that you are not F.I.N.E. !!!!! lol

Take care

Lemontea74