New member to the blogroll

I haven't done this for anyone yet but this blog particularly touches my heart (from what little I have read, ahhh, love being busy) as I can see the fire she posseses. The blog is written and called, The Wife of An Addict. I will have to put together a permanent post that has a little bit about each member. I found The Wife of An Addict through one particular post that I commented on over at her site about Birth Control and being an Addict's wife. As a Catholic I have some strong beliefs about Birth Control, they are not just dogmatic but I continue growing in understanding them. If you want a little more insight a good place to start is at Christopher West's website, he has free audio files and links to his cd talk series (when I bought his 10 cd talk series it was at another website and was extremely economical..let me surf for it). His 10 cde audio set is available for only $3.90 each here. I don't get kick backs from any of these places but I firmly believe in the message. God bless.

Under the Mercy,
MS

p.s. I have met Christopher West and listened to him in person and he is awesome and on fire with the Holy Spirit and has had his own struggles with this affliction/achilles heel.

Journal 20070628

One of my favorite songs from adolescence is For Crying out Loud as performed by MeatLoaf. It still to this day strikes a chord in my heart. However, as I grow and mature I have come to realize that it describes the addict in me and my true self. It is a portrayal of the conflict inside my being.

I am thankful that I have found my wife for she found me at a time when I was able to give myself to her but the addict soon returned, and I didn't realize I was an addict. I am thankful for her as she has helped/pushed/moved me to work this program of recovery. I have learned more about myself by knowing her, by having children with her and by experiencing true love from her.

I was lost till you were found
But I never knew how far down
I was falling
Before I reached the bottom

I was cold and you were fire
And I never knew how the pyre
Could be burning
On the edge of the ice field. . .

I truly felt this way, I had a poor self image of myself, I placed my self-image in her. In some ways my self-image is still tied to her, I am still working on my own self-image. Having a positive self-image is something that is hard to do when you are an addict, you hate yourself for the pain you cause and the slave you are inside.

. . . Oh I know you belong inside my aching heart
And
cant you see my faded levis bursting apart
And dont you hear me crying:
Oh babe, dont go
And dont you hear me screaming:
How was I to know?

I'm in the middle of nowhere
Near the end of the line
But theres
a border to somewhere waiting
And theres a tankful of time
Oh give me
just another moment to see the light of the day
And take me to another land
where I dont have to stay

I tied up all my fear and all my hope and ll my being in my wife and her approval, I was alone without her adoration of me. I wanted to be lusted after, I made myself a God. Really, I wanted myself to be a God to her. In reality I was all alone and a crying little boy, I had stopped growing up. Lust had stopped my development as a person.

And Im gonna need somebody to make me feel like you do
And I will receive somebody with open arms, open eyes,
Open up the sky
and let the planet that I love shine through

For crying out loud
You
know I love you

This is the thing that every addict says. Everytime they are asked to stop, they mean it when they say they will. They really do mean it. The problem is that they mean it so that they will have your approval and the high will come from you, they are still searching for the high. They have to admit that seeking the high has made things unmanageable. They have to surrender it, show real intimacy and not seeking the high.

For pulling me away when Im starting to fall
For revving
me up when Im starting to stall
And all in all
For that I want you

For taking and for giving and for playing the game
For praying for
my future in the days that remain
Oh lord

For that I hold you

To hold and to want. Two of the things that addict always wanted, these actions are things that can be a product of addiction and they can be a product of intimacy. I can participate in the marital embrace and it can be the most lustful acting out ever or it can be a fruit of intimacy and love between my wife and I. Sex is not inimacy, it is a fruit of intimacy. I thank my wife for sticking with me and praying for me and for keeping me going forward in recovery.

Ah but most of all
For cryin out loud
For that I
love you

When youre crying out loud
You know I love you

I really, really love my wife, she is my other half, I do not know where I end and she begins. That is the truth, even when she is not by my side she is on my heart, pressed upon it. My thoughts are of concern for her, for her welfare.

Under the Mercy

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Lust Versus Intimacy

One of the biggest things addiction to lust, more commonly know as Sex Addicts or Sexaholics, does to a person is it makes them incapable of sharing with anyone else who they really are. It could be due to embarrassment, shame, guilt or a variety of other reasons but the sex addict disconnects and begins to connect to the unreal to make him or herself feel real or whole.

Don’t get me wrong, at times the Sexaholic can connect with other people very well. I have personally experienced many times that I connected to those around me; the problem was a small period of time that came afterward when I would have self-doubt. That self-doubt is about the other person not connecting with the real me, with what I really wanted, the pleasure, the lust, the acting out. In reality the other person had connected with the real me, the cripple, the part of me that I allowed to define me that was not the real me.

I was ashamed of the things I had done in secret, those were the things that I kept to myself and never shared with anyone else. If I had ever shared them I would have risked my status as a person, the funny thing is that it increased the addiction, allowed it to have more control over me and made the risk greater, I just thought I was controlling it.

The answer to the problem is sharing oneself, your true self. I had to learn to share all of me, who I am and the addict. The true me was on the inside, I was scared of the acting out and the addiction, the things that I had done in my life or fantasized about. I was beginning to let the addiction define me; I was losing my life and my identity.

The sharing of ME is where intimacy comes into play. Lust, the addiction, was where I took from others what I wanted of them as an object and took from them what I wanted for me. My conscience was withered inside me but it made me feel bad in what small ways it could, because I never felt quite right about having used someone, be it internet pornography or any other way of acting out.

I had to learn to integrate myself and be honest with those closest to me. I had to learn how to share myself, this is intimacy, the SPICES of life (Spiritual, Physical, Intellectual, Emotional, Sexual). This began in the group. This began by sharing all of who I was in the group. I came to learn to share myself, my sins and my successes, I learned it didn’t kill me for others to know how bad I was. I have learned to replace old patterns with new ones. Instead of internet pornography, I share some of myself here. Instead of using the internet in secret I am here with my daughter across from me working on her schoolwork and my wife a little further beyond her.

Instead of lusting after women, I attach feelings to them. They are someone’s little girl and I know how I would feel about someone who treated my little girls the way I have treated others, even though the little girl in question is a “consenting adult”. I am surrendering myself and amazingly it has been given back to me.

Under the Mercy.

Lust	Intimacy
Avoid Consequences	Accepting Consequences
Protect Self	Make Self Vulnerable
Opaque	Transparent
Share Part of Self	Share Whole Self
Take	Give
Conquer	Surrender
Self-Centered	Other-Centered
Reacting to Feelings	Attaching Feelings
Secrecy	Honesty

sex+addiction sexaholic sexaholism lust intimacy step+one secrecy 12+steps meetings journal

The road is long....

I don't know if any of you have the song running through your head that I do right now:

He Ain't Heavy

The road is long, With many a winding turn, That leads us to who knows
where, Who knows where, But I'm strong, Strong enough to carry him, He ain't
heavy, he's my brother. So on we go, His welfare is my concern, No burden
is he to bear, We'll get there, For I know, He would not encumber me, He
ain't heavy, he's my brother.

by Sidney Russell and Robert Scott

At times it is easier to bear other people's burdens then our burdens. The things that are the cross on my shoulder are the things that I don't want to deal with anymore, but because they are on my shoulder I must carry them. However, I can not carry them on my own. Well, I can but its like walking a tightrope.

Walking the tightrope up higher and higher without a safety net and without a balancing pole to keep me steady. When I have others around me, accountability partners, my recovery fellowship and I am accountable about who I am that is my safety net, just knowing it is their makes a difference. My balance pole is another wonderful thing, it is what keeps me steady, it is my sobriety. Sobriety is the momentum that keeps me moving forward with my eyes on the prize.

The burden is lighter when the fellowship helps. Kind of backwards because when I step into the fellowship I put my burden in a pile of burdens and help carry a much larger pile, but working together with others makes it lighter.

One thing that I have talked about before is the fact that we are love cripples, that we only know lust, and not love. Intimacy is something that we refuse to follow, I am hoping to post on the differences between the two and show how true Intimacy is the road to overcoming lust, or at least that is what I think right now. I will say that it appears that the fellowship is that place where we start practicing intimacy, we begin to share ourselves and accept others and what they share as gifts.

Under the Mercy.

Keep coming back, it works if you work it, and we are worth it.

12 Steps fellowship SA sobriety accountability lust intimacy,

Journal 20070621

The kids are sick, one of them just vomited on the carpet in the front room. I just finished cleaning that up and I am working on school assignments with the oldest child. I am exhausted, probably ready to come down sick myself but unable to as every instance of sick time at work has a negative impact this year. It is just the way the policy is. Needless to say part of me is all out of sorts and the other part of me is fairly calm. Its just the out of sorts part of me is retty big.

Its not like I am chomping to act out or going crazy or anything but I just want to get in bed, pull up the covers and be left alone for about 15 hours. With my job, a short temper is a recipe for acting out or getting in trouble. Something to surrender I guess, hopefully I will have some quiet time to pray before I take off for work, but I doubt it. Will have to do that as I work. I pray for strength, I am tired.

Under the Mercy

journal sexaholic sex+addiction recovery lust

Journal 20070620

Today my life is a just a little bit harder in some ways than it was yesterday, but it is easier or more normal in other ways. It is time for me to integrate living in a more normal life and keeping up sobriety. This is one of those ways, replacing the old habits, the bad ones, with new ones. Honesty is replaced by deception, reality by a counterfeit. I wish some of my coworkers would learn this lesson as well, I don't want them to learn it as painfully as I did but I wish they would learn it.

Two related articles on addiction, though it just calls it "pornography" addiction and a silent killer, remember that the real problem is lust.

http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentinel/living/17394054.htm

and

http://mondaymorninginsight.com/index.php/site/comments/the_silent_killer_in_our_churches/

and

http://stevengibbs.typepad.com/steven_gibbs/2007/06/the_porn_talk.html

Under the Mercy.




lust journal sexaholic pornography addicyion

Jounral 20070618 "The F-word"

Today, my wife and I had our couple’s counseling appointment. I really didn’t want to go, not in the least. Well, not because I am through with my marriage or anything but because I just want everything to be back to normal, I want the magical pill, the Viagra of relationships. I want the magical pill that cures everything wrong between us and makes us magically back together during a 30-second commercial.

Anyway, we are more and more hopeful, less fearful, resentful and angry. The session went
well. However, the dreaded F-word came up. This word is probably the one that a sex-addicts wife has the hardest time with, it is something that an addict truly craves. The F-word is
FORGIVENESS. Forgiveness is something that is hard to define, what does it mean?

Does it mean that we go back to the way it was before we had the blow-up? Does it mean that we choose to love each other anyway without regard for the fault? I am diving deeper into me for this one. When I forgive my wife, I give up any right I have to be angry. I may still be mad
about the situation and I still understand that there are consequences but I forgive the person, not the action.

In some ways it is something I do more for me than for the forgiven. Don’t get me wrong, I know it benefits them but it is for me and for my healing as well. L pointed out that there is a difference between reconciliation and forgiveness. D has always had trouble with what forgiveness means but I think we realized that reconciliation is what we are working on now instead of calling it forgiveness.

As we walked out we looked at the Lilies planted next to wheelchair ramp outside the building, they are bigger plants than the ones I have at home, they have had years to grow and mine are brand new this year. Dawn looked at me and stated that she felt even more hopeful for us. After reading last night’s post she said she felt more hopeful and now she is even more hopeful. Yes, through time we are growing, individually and together, bigger and stronger.

Under the Mercy.

journal diary lust abstinance forgiveness sex+addiction 12+steps

Dawn Eden hits the Nail on the Head

The linked article written by Dawn Eden hits the nail on the head. How many people do I know that work to find fullfilment in sexuality and are always chasing something better and never happy.

Under the Mercy





dawn eden, lust, sex culture,

Journal 20071017

Sexual Emotions.

These are not emotions in the truest sense of the word emotion but are desires that can be triggers. In some way they are things that are out of control that sex addicts try to meet or find in lusting.

One of the hardest things about being a sex addict is that the ultimate expression of my addiction is something that is built into every human being. We are made as sexual creatures. Sex itself isn't the problem but misplaced driving forces behind it are the problem.

If I were an alcoholic I would be addicted to alcohol but the consumption of alcohol isn't coded into the very fact of humanity. Sexuality is coded into my very being. It is a strong power that God has given to us so that we can share our very being. It is so strong that it is designed to bring out new life in this world.

The "sexual emotions" are things that I mistake for true intimacy. Sexual intercourse, the marriage act, should be a fruit of intimacy (caring/giving/loving) my wife but I feel that at times my yearning is from these "sexual emotions". Maybe it would be better to call them sexualised desires, for that is what they really are. Emotionally, I have a need to be accepted, loved and wanted and that is a hard thing for me to deal with right now when my wife is sexually unavailable to me by her choice. I have assented to that choice intellectually but I also know that I desire her.

Earlier, I posted about my fear of having lust removed from my being. I wonder in some ways if what I was and still am holding onto is in some ways me wanting to retain my lust in a small way. I want my wife to desire to be with me, I want to feel accepted and loved by her. I wonder if that is in some ways lust. I already know the answer to that question. It is just another form of lust.

I am not saying that it is bad to be comforted by being accepted or to feel loved. What I am saying is that I have to surrender that feeling, that need so that it doesn't drive me. Otherwise, I will just end up lusting after the next fix.

My wife tld me the other night to stop pressuring her for sex. I didn't think I was doing that but now I see that I was. I wasn't telling her that I was struggling or needed her to keep from acting out but I asked her to make love with me. I was trying to have my desire to be loved, wanted or accepted fed.

I hate being abstinate with my wife when it is a choice and not for a "good reason" but I know that it is a good thing for me. It has given me a chance to dig deeper than I ever have before, it is boiling to the surface all the different ways that I have acted and the 'modes' of my addiction. I now know, by trusting in God, that I will not lose desire for my wife by the removal of lust from my being.

All of this is scary but it is making my life deeper and richer. I am understanding more about myself all the time. Eah step seems like it will kill or distort me but it is making me what I truly want. It is making me more and more who I am supposed to be.

I am grateful for my wife. I am grateful for the meeting I attended tonight and eceryone that was in attendance. K used the phrase "sexual emotions" in passing but God spoke it in my heart and it revealed something to me. God bless you. If you are reading this please say a prayer for me and please say one for my wife. Let us both find healing in ourselves and together.

Under the mercy.




sexaholic, sex addiction, abstinance, emotions, desire, lust

Step Two

Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

Again, I find two things laid at my feet in this second step. The first thing is something that should be obvious from the condition the addict finds themselves.

As an addict I am fully aware that a power greater than myself does have an effect on my life. I believe it was Lewis that said something to the effect that a human being can’t be static. You are either are going to be becoming more saint-like or you will become more hell-like.

A power greater than myself will control my life if I decide to be in charge and have my way. This is the way of an addict. This is me when I act to take what I want. This is what happens when I succumb to lust, that becomes a power greater than me.

When I choose to surrender myself to a higher power, to let go of my hyper-emotional wants, to give of myself in service of others, which is when the other Higher Power takes over. This is the true higher power.

At first for some the higher power is the group, or an accountability partner. Remember, we are love cripples and our intimacy is broken, we don’t know how to truly connect. Eventually, God comes into the picture, it takes time though.

Under the Mercy


12+steps sex+addiction recovery step+two lust

I would call it more a crisis of sin and addiction

Hey all, just wanted to touch base with everyone. Its been kind of a rough 24 hours, I was a little more than irritated at this time yesterday. However, its also really busy and today is budget day so the wife and I have been working on that. I am hoping to have a chance to write a bit more tonight while I am on overtime at work.

Oh, and this is realted and of interetest.

Under the Mercy



lust sex+addiction journal diary frustation

Porn Stars up for execution

CHT to xxx Church's blog. Its a sad commentary but I imagine many people or it would seem due to the media would come foward decrying the death and punishment of a porn star but the ongoing death of Christian's is casually mentioned if at all.

Under the Mercy,

Ge the full story here.




sexaholic, sex addict, porn, addiction recovery, capital punishment

Journal entry for the Morning of 6-14-07

Wow, I worked for 12 hours yesterday, skipped going and working out afterwards. Its probably a good thing as I hade to get up about 0900 as my wife had somewhere to go and someone needed to watch the kids. Just sitting here and drinking coffee, the kids are behaving well, just heard the trashman outside and remembered the cart needed to be at the curb and I forgot to do that last night when I came home in the pouring down rain. It wasn't a particularly hard day, I guess their is part of me that finds strength in physical touch. I don't think its lust but their is something about human connection that is comforting. I read something one time ( I will have to look it up) about the reason that some kids have sex at a young age is due to the fact that we no longer have the family bed, they each have their own room and minimal to no physical contact. Their is part of me that would like to have relations with my wife but it is not the driving force, at times their are passing moments that feel more animalistic but I "pray them away" with a prayer for God's will for my wife. Part of me just feels a want for closeness or oneness with her. I do't know if the desire for oneness could be a type of lust in disquise.

Under the Mercy

Serenity

Serenity. In searching for blogs that are out their with people in recovery I found this prayer again that I say so often.
This is a slightly different version than I know by heart, so I will post it here.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful worldas it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him Forever in the next.
Amen.
--Reinhold Niebuhr

Under the Mercy

An Era of Prohibition in my Marriage

"...this meant no sex with themselves or other, invluding not getting into
relationships. For others it also meant "drying out" and not having
sex with the spouse for a time to recover from lust."

--From "The Solution, Page 204 of SA's White Book

This was a really hard thing for me to deal with when it came up almost 2 months back. My wife and I are basically in a co-dependent relationship. She would be in a place in which she wasn't sure if she could trust me but she would give herself to me physically and all would be right for 10 minutes but then she would feel worse about us, herself and the situation.

When I had failed to do the things financially that I was supposed to do (not moving money to savings when it should have been and moving money out for things and not letting my wife know beforehand that savings is how we were affording these activities) I went to be that night in the front room. A few months prior when my "acting out"/fantasy/inappropriate banter had shown up (really it was lust pent up in me) we had been apart for a short period of time but our "need" for each other ended that quickly one night when I was invited back into the conjugal bed.

Now, even though we are at times sleeping in the same bed (more often than not) it has been right about two months. Though I yearn for my wife it is different now than it was before. Before I could have lust filled sex with my wife. Literally lusting after her and wanting sex to go certain ways because that made for the better high. I wanted the high to be with her but the high was for me. She was at best an object of my desire for my benefit.

Now I know something else and I am learning what it is to have physical attraction for my wife and to desire her but to want to do so intimately. I want to give myself to my wife. Words like tender have replaced words like animal. Now, physical intimacy is a fruit that will come from the other types of intimacy. As we plan for school next year, talk about our children's future and our future children, my wife has read this blog and she is free to continue doing so. I just want her to know and I will continue to tell her that she is beautiful and I desire to hold her again and to be able to tell her again, "I don't know where you begin and I end."

Under the Mercy

The problem with our culture isn't that it overvalues sex. The problem
with our culture is that it doesn't have a clue of the value of sex.

--adapted from Christopher West

Step One: My life is unmanageable due to what?

We admitted that we were powerless over lust -- that our lives had become
unmanageable.

This step has two parts that are very distinct in it. When we begin this process it is out of an admission that our lives are unmanageable, but first our lives have to beome unmanageable due to lust. How does that happen?

In my journey of recovery I have met several people that exemplify several different types of unmanageability in life. I have met a few people that had abused children and had dealt with criminal consequences. Some were trying to heal marriages damaged by affairs or strings of affairs. Still others were driven by religious conversions of themselves or spouses.

My recovery was very motivated by my wife's conversion and in some ways what I would call my reversion to the faith. I had lived a wide and varied past and experienced things not uncommon to many teens and twenty-somethings today. I was caught in relationships of fantasy, use of pornography, erotic literature, strip clubs, using my wife as an outlet and masturbation.

These things were my "problem" to be fixed. Behaviors that needed stopping before they escalated further. Behaviors that harmed my relationships with others at the different stages of my life. My wife began to think ill of them, the ones she knew about and as she found out about others. For a time we explored some of the fantasies, for a time that is all they were but after attempting one of the more harmless ones things began to change.

Part of my insides saw a door opening and it yearned for fantasy to become real. Fortunately, the door was closing my wife made a definitive turn down the path of conversion and for that I thank give thanks to God to this day. Pressure from her was a large motivating factor for me to begin my journey to recovery. It is just now, years later that I am realizing that I was only really focusing on behaviors, not acting out, instead of what the addiction truly is, on what had made me a love cripple. That is lust. That is what has made my life unmanageable.

I have to admit this and it is not easy to admit but I am learning day by day to express myself intimately and not lustfully. To give without expectation of return instead of taking with the expectation of getting more.

Under the Mercy,
MS

My fear about ridding myself of lust.

One thing that I want in my life is the removal of lust from my being. I struggle to surrender that to God and work to lessen its control over me every day. Lust is my vice that I struggle with. My fear is that in trying to remove the impulse of that vice I am afraid of what may happen.

Most people as a knee jerk answer will say that purity is the coresponding virtue that I need to develop to fight lust and its ill effects. Purity just seems to have such negative connotations for me or from how I hear it described. Purity seems so very dispassionate in my heart. My mind knows better but my heart doesn't.

An important item of note is that my wife and I are practicing continence (no sex) right now, by choice as we are healing the damage in our relationship. The physical expression of my desire for her is muted, and while I do not wish to lust after her at times I want nothing more than lust filled sex with her. Don't get me wrong, at times I have very pure motives of desire, self-donation and the want of union with the other half of me. The times that I most lust after my wife is when things are tense or stressful and these also happen to be during times that if we were being sexually active currently, it would be logistically impossible.

The problem that this lust for my wife creates a time where I am vulnerable or feel very weak in my ability to deal with lust if it should present itself at the store, on the way to work or wherever I may be. However, with God's mercy these times pass.

Returning back to my fear that with the removal of lust via suppression of sexual desire by promoting 'purity' I will end up with no desire for my wife. I feel that purity is a quality of my actions but not a way of life. I have started to think that the best way for me to fight and conquer lust is to promote a virtue that will combat all of my being a 'love-cripple'. I believe that the answer is practicing intimacy as a virtue.

Intimacy is the appropriate sharing of my being with others in all aspects of my life and in a special way with my wife. It is a gift of me to another person that they can receive or reject as they will. Lust is me taking from something for my own personal gratification. Intimacy is receiving another as gift but more importantly giving myself without demanding or expecting anything in return. Today I pray to God for the gift to worthily and freely offer myself to my wife.

Under the Mercy

Journal entry 2007-5-10

Sorry for not posting more, its been crazy around here, found this and thought I would share:

Last night I asked Dawn to give me an external perspective of where I was and what she thought the benchmarks of “recovery” are for me. If I am truly just in a de-escalation phase as she fears/thinks I am in then I need input as to what I need to do to achieve “recovery”. I am a person that has struggled sexually for a long time. I feel that over the past several years I have gotten better and better in managing my acting out and have been able to live a purer life as I have grown. After the birth of our last child I did make inappropriate remarks to people that I know. I did some of this on a social networking internet site and they were found by Dawn. I had not hid the site from her or the fact that I had a page on it but she got on it and saw the bulletins/mails to and from people I know. For me the comments I made are acting out but to the social group of the people that they were made to they are just ornery bantering.

I have worked really hard in the period of time since then to reform my life and continue to grow in what I thought was recovery. I have gone from use of strip clubs and online fantasy relationships to just some inappropriate banter/overtures. Some of the stories from the books say that you have to make small and manageable steps and the way I have grown would be consistent with that.

I am working on a continued plan for growth, however, as we are sleeping apart I am very interested as to what Dawn’s benchmarks are for growth to recovery as those are what get her and I back together in the same bed. I feel that us cuddling (physical intimacy) is an important part of us growing back together. Not that the physical is the only or most important part, I talked with her last night about making sure that we focused on other things than just the problem so that we don’t burn out on the problem. We talked about camping trips together or going and seeing a movie or an overnight trip together. Making plans and pie in the sky dreaming together makes, me at least, feel like we are sharing and enjoying each others company.

However, back to benchmarks for recovery that Dawn thinks are important. Dawn feels that I need to get rid of toxic shame. I need to feel that I am worthwhile. This is hard to do when I feel that I am under a lens of constant criticism from her. She also wants me to go back to SA to search for support/help with my problem. She also would like me to develop a support network. The support network of men is the most daunting task I feel that is in front of me. Guys don’t relate well to guys. Also, the time I spend with a guy needs to be focused and just plain male companionship/activity and time to help work out the problem as I don’t want to spend too much time away from my family.

Under the Mercy,

5-10-07

sexaholism sexaholic sex+addiction lust recovery 12step 12+step twelve+step

Journal entry

Today I had to go testify in court in reference to an aggavated assault with gunshots fired. After I came home for what I thought was going to be for a few short hours to celebrate my second child's fifth birthday until I had to return back to work.

Well, the best laids plans of mice and men began to fall apart on my trip home when my alternator belt came apart. Not a huge deal, I go outside and start working on replacing it. My oldest daughter decided it would be fun to watch dad replace the belt on the car. Well, she felt that way for about five minutes and then it was time to ride her bike and then the birthday girl came out to play as well. The next thing I know I hear a crash and as I turn around their is no doubt that Mary's arm is broken.

Long story short, lots of people helped and visited both the birthday girl and the injured girl. Dawn acted marveously today and I felt so close to her and wanted to hold her but I am still shut out. It takes time to network so I can be in ``recovery" and we can discuss our reunion.

Under the Mercy,

5-9-07

Journal entry

Today I had to go testify in court in reference to an aggavated assault with gunshots fired. After I came home for what I thought was going to be for a few short hours to celebrate my second child's fifth birthday until I had to return back to work.

Well, the best laids plans of mice and men began to fall apart on my trip home when my alternator belt came apart. Not a huge deal, I go outside and start working on replacing it. My oldest daughter decided it would be fun to watch dad replace the belt on the car. Well, she felt that way for about five minutes and then it was time to ride her bike and then the birthday girl came out to play as well. The next thing I know I hear a crash and as I turn around their is no doubt that her arm is broken.

Long story short, lots of people helped and visited both the birthday girl and the injured girl. Dawn acted marveously today and I felt so close to her and wanted to hold her but I am still shut out. It takes time to network so I can be in ``recovery" and we can discuss our reunion.

Under the Mercy,

5-8-07

Journal entry

I am not worthy to be loved. At least that is how I feel today. You see, I have an addiction to sexual fantasy/release. Not quite 24 hours ago I gave my wife a full disclosure to cut through the years of deception. I feel as if my attempt to break through the wall I had built around me out of shame has caused others to build isolation around me. Shame was and is the drive of my addiction. My guilt and lack of self-worth made me feel shame when I acted out. This made me do things to hide what I had done and thus more shame. Acting out was a way to relieve stress and feel validated. The problem was that it would build the shame higher.

Now I am isolated by myself, sleeping alone and fighting temptation and the devil in the dark alone. I do not have human physical attention for comfort. Instead I am crucified by the just scorn of my wife. I am however blessed by her great love. We are beginning a long road together of journeying back together. My suffering is a mercy from God, it is His mercy to strengthen me to be true to my calling.

Under the Mercy,

5-7-07

What is an addiction

I guess the first thing that I should write about is to tell you what having a sexual addiction means. In some ways this is a very hard thing to explain as most people don't understand this specific addiction, it makes them uncomfortable or they think that sex addicts are all child molesters.

The reality of sex addiction centers on behaviors related to lust and "acting out" in some way or ways very compulsively. This can be very 'innocent' such as being triggered to masturbate by the lingerie ads in the newspaper or more dangerous behaviors like trolling the streets for anonymous sexual encounters.

Their is a search for ever increasing highs, searching for the connection that will make you whole, the ultimate high. However, nothing fits the bill and the addict begins to deal with stress with fantasy and masturbation.

Becoming a disconnected love cripple is the next step on the journey. No longer are things sexual part of intimacy but they are merely a way to take from others. Intimacy becomes a long forgotten thing and lust is a way of living. Many times it is a double life that is hidden from those that appear to be close to us.

One thing that many people in twelve step programs will be familiar with is cross-addiction. The alcoholic can begin to turn to drugs or food for release as an outlet in place of or with their addiction to drugs or alcohol. In my journey to recovery with sex addiction I have found a pattern of sober alcoholics with periods of recovery that end up having to come back and work the twelve steps again as they find out that a more root addiction for them is sexaholism.

I think that part of this has to do with people being sexaholics, not realizing it, not finding meaning in their relatonships and then hitting the bars, drinking to spice things up on a night out and using alcohol to deal with the disconnect they feel from their spouse.

Sexaholics are all around us in this culture. Most people don't realize they are one. They are not just the perverts that molest children. They are people who have affairs, watch pornography, go to strip clubs, flirt inappropriately at work, stare at people at the swimming pool, or just fantasize in their mind and wish for some type of sexual connection that will make them whole.


If you have ever wondered if you might be a sex addict or don't know feel at peace with your sexuality, considering answering these questions for yourself.


Under the Mercy.

Why this is here

I am going to try to write this blog as a history of me and also as a chronicle of my journey. I am doing this without revealing who I am for a time as some of the wounds are new and fresh. My hope is that others will come, read and learn so that we can support each other. This weakness is something that affects both men and women. It affects people from all walks of life. This affliction is something most people don't want to talk about. I hope that others will draw strength from what I share here and that others will begin to share so that together we may achieve recovery.



Under the Mercy