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spe102580
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Posted: Tue Nov 13th, 2007 02:54 pm |
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| I had gona a long time, a month completely sober and then I binged last night. I was tempted all day SUnday and all day Monday and then finally gave in. I went on the comp and downloaded $100 worth of porn and masturbated. I feel crappy because I vowed that since I turned 27 almost a month ago, I wouldn't do anyof this stuff anymore, but I caved in last night. I went onto the computer way late last night around 11 or so and then did all that stuff. I found an accountability partner but he doesn call me or really ask or try to find me. I think I"m figuring out that I just have to have enough discipline to defeat this thing myself.
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sam
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Posted: Tue Nov 13th, 2007 03:18 pm |
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| sorry to hear it spe, but you know what? if you could be perfect and not sin by shear will power, where would your need for christ be? i know firsthand how discouraging it is when we slip and fall, but today is a new day. i hope you have a good and godly one.
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Seeking God
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| Joined: | Wed Aug 15th, 2007 |
| Location: | Jakarta, Indonesia |
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Posted: Tue Nov 13th, 2007 03:41 pm |
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Spe,
I'm sorry to hear this....
Don't lose heart, you are not alone. Your temptations are not unique that no one can understand nor help you. I face those temptations too spe, just now, I was tempted to compromise, but Praise God for making me read bible instead, and how refreshing it was.
May I help you, by asking, how the devil tempted you? by insecurity? by need of acceptance? by need of peace?
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TimM
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Posted: Tue Nov 13th, 2007 05:12 pm |
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Spe,
Your experience sounds like so much of my life. Every time there was some event on the calendar I could use as a marker, I would say, "This is the last time. After this date, never again." I'd do that with birthdays, new years (civil and academic and ecclesiastical), fasts or feasts in the Church, you name it. I always meant it. I always wanted it to work. I always had some way of convincing myself that this time was different. And I could always hold on and white-knuckle is for a few days or a few weeks or a few months, an then I would always slip back again into my addictive behavior.
I think the last birthday I said that sort of thing to myself wasn't my 27th. It was my 51st. Think about that.
So I really relate to your story. Thanks for sharing.
I'm not sure that all your conclusions right now match my experience, though.
First, you're annoyed at your accountability partner because he hasn't chased you down, but is that his job? Isn't it our responsibility to contact people when we need to talk to them? Whose recovery is it, anyway? My sponsor and I talk at least once a week, but I think he is very wise in not calling me but in forcing me to pick up the phone and call him. I have to be working to find freedom because I can't stand to live in active addiction, not because somebody outside is making me do something I don't want to do. Symbolizing that by making me pick up the phone and dial seems to me to put the responsibility and commitment right where it belongs. On those moments when I don't want to talk, when I want to isolate, when it's hard to pick up the phone - and I've just been through a couple fo weeks like that - I think it's important for me to see that and to think through what's going on insie myself, rather than just to drift along complacently because somebody else is doing the work for me. My recovery has to matter to m more than it does to my sponsor or to anybody else.
Perhaps that's what you mean by saying you need the discipline to defeat the addiction yourself - that you need to be willing to do things like making those calls on your own. If that's what you mean, then I absolutely agree. Great insight! Now go do it.
There's another thing you might mean, though, which is that you have to stop practicing openness and accountability and trust with other people, and to pull back into a mode of isolation and independence and struggling alone to overcome your addiction by strength of will. I hope that's not what you mean. That approach didn't work for me, and it didn't work for me for decades, and I have trouble thinking of any addict I know for whom that road was the road to recovery. I think the whole addictive worldview rests on isolation and independence and the illusion of control, and that the path out is a path of trust and honesty and interconnection, a path of building relationships with other people, with God, and with ourselves. I think the big thing I learned in my 4 fun decades as an active sex addict was that I'm not in control and that I can't do it alone.
Coming here after the slip is therefore a great decision, and I'm sure a hard one. Sharing our failures and our temptations and our struggles is a huge tool in depriving them of their power to shame and to control us. Are there other things you can do to build more openness and trust with others, with God, and with yourself? Are there more meetings you can attend, for instance, or more people you can share with in honesty, or might more work in counseling help you to face yourself with more openness and less fear? By talking to other recovering addicts about their faith and trust in God, could it be possible to deepen your own trust and to release more to Christ?
I don't ask those questions because I know the answers. I ask them because for me, all those sorts of things have been very important in my recovery, and because questions like that are among the many questions I would ask myself if I were to slip today. Asking questions like those is part of how I and other addicts work to make slips occasions for growth and for better and deeper recovery.
Good for you coming here and sharing. You're at a place it took me another 25 years to reach. May you be able to keep stepping out of the darkness and shame, and to keep growing in sobriety and peace.
Tim M.
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