Step Six

Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

As an addict I can say that I felt I was at this place for a long time before I started working the steps. Some addicts don't want to get better and only want to learn to control their lust, to enjoy it without the negative consequences, at the beginning of every meeting we even read a passage that mentions that specifically.

I felt and would say for a long time that I wanted God to remove these defects of character. I didn't want to deal with the problems they caused and I simply wanted to live life without the hassle.

Now, I realize that I wasn't truly ready to have God remove these character flaws, I was ready for him to remove the trouble they caused. After seeking out true contrition towards God I was able to really come to a place where 8 could say that I wanted to be done with lust and the behaviors it caused.

For the longest time in recovery I had come to a point where I could admit my life had become unmanageable and it was due to lust. The problem was that I would have been perfectly content with having the lust without the problem. As I mentioned in my prior post, after I asked God for forgiveness for not living as he intended did I come to realize in my heart that lust is unmanageable, not the consequences.

Now, I am in a place where I wouldn't want lust without the problems, I have surrended to the way I am made. I must decrease, He must increase. I must accept myself and be who I am to be.

Under the Mercy,
MS

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

sexaholic sexaholism 12step 12+step step+six step6 step+6 porn+addiction lust recovery

Journal 20070701

Tonight, I went to my weekly meeting. Tonight one of our members gave his first step. I know that this was hard for him to do. It took up most of the meeting and his recounting encompassed probably over 30 hand-written pages. This step was a recounting, a disclosure, of how life had become unmanageable by lust. It is amazing how deep his hurt had become. How much pain had he experienced in his life. How lust had overcome him. Many people I know and popular culture would have you think that all of these activities: pornography (still and video), fooling around, masturbation and yes even some people prostitution; are all perfectly normal and legitimate activites for people to partake in.

This realization hascome to me that those of us in the meeting are sexaholics. Just like those working steps in AA are alcoholics. Their are many people out their that are drunks that are not alcoolics, alcoholics go to meetings. Many people in our society are sex drunks, sex addicts, they just haven't admited that they have a problem. Their are people I know that sexual fulfillment is how they feel loved or how they find meaning in their life. They do not see the bigger purpose and that sexual fullfillment comes out of their intimacy with another. Being "intimate" isn't about laying someone down, spreading their legs and ravaging their body so that you have a pleasurable experience.

This is not to say that one can be in the fruits of intimacy in one moment and then something can change or happen that makes them begin to lust. I have had that experience and it was hard to surrender it. WIth his mercy and the true love of my wife I was able to get to that.
I love you, my dearling.

And to those out their struggling, keep coming back it works if you work it. And you are worth it.

Under the Mercy,
M

step+one 12+steps sexaholic sexaholism alcoholic journal lust intimacy

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

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

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

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

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.