tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71230272024-03-13T23:04:20.480-04:00Rae's ConfessionsMy own brand of therapy.Raehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13352920897908430774noreply@blogger.comBlogger406125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7123027.post-63277446199202462442011-03-30T02:46:00.003-04:002011-03-30T03:00:37.271-04:00Seeking SurrenderOn page 120 of the Big Book of AA, it is written, "If a repetition is to be prevented, place the problem, along with everything else, in God's hands."<br /><br />I have fought for control in every way, shape and form I have known, for as long as I can recall. I live a "scared shitless" life when I'm not in control. Yet time and time again I have been shown the grace and comfort that can be found in simply letting go and letting my Higher Power take the reigns of my life.<br /><br />This fear of what will come with a lack of control does not leave me for long. It is a part of my "thinking problem," and as an addict, I find myself in states of irritability, dis-ease, panic and obsessiveness before I even know what has hit me. <br /><br />The answer to peace and harmony is always in surrender and acceptance. But that surrender and acceptance is so much easier to think about and write about than it is to actually do. <br /><br />My prayer today is that I can remember, one moment at a time, that there's no need for my control, no hope or peace in it. There is only peace and harmony in gentle surrender to the God of my understanding. I don't have to know what it looks like or have God all figured out ... I simply have to let go. Just place whatever I need to hold on to in God's hands and let go. <br /><br />I can accept that it's natural for this need for control to come up when I am stressed. I don't have to resent it. I can simply recognize it as part of a disease that I have been living with all my life and will continue to live with into the future. I will never be rid of the "stinkin' thinkin'" completely. It will try to use old coping mechanisms to help me get through tough times. But I pray that I continue to seek a more gentle path.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://www.bloglines.com/sub/http://raesconfessions.blogspot.com">
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</a></div>Raehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13352920897908430774noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7123027.post-32129812509633835112011-03-18T23:30:00.003-05:002011-03-19T00:13:28.077-05:00Conflicting thoughtsAs I begin to find my foundation, I have truly embraced the journey of life and become thankful for every part of my path. Occasionally, though, something stops me in my tracks and makes me ask if there is something fundamentally wrong with my thinking. That's when it helps to write through my thoughts and sort them out so I can look at them.<br /><br />So, clearly, I had one of those "stopped in my tracks" moments recently when I was signed on to Facebook and saw that one of my friends had posted a link to a list of sex offenders in her county. The local sheriff's office had posted the names, addresses and pictures of registered sex offenders in the county. There were a few comments that made it clear that people felt safer knowing who the sex offenders were who lived around them. <br /><br />Those who know I was molested as a child probably could reasonably think I think it's a great idea to expose all those "perverts." I suspect a few people might be aghast that I actually cringe at the notion of shaming people in this way. But it's not my job to think for anyone else. I'm just trying to think for myself.<br /><br />As I looked through the names and faces, I saw men and women, old and young. Some of them even looked like the "typical" sex offender, if there is such a thing. But a few of them looked like exactly what they were before they got a big red label pasted across their foreheads that said "SEX OFFENDER." They looked like local grocery store clerks, fast food and factory workers, business professionals and teachers. <br /><br />My sexual behavior, which was at one point outrageous by any definition, was a part of who I was. For a long time, I let the shame of that behavior and the shame of my past define all of who I was. I think differently now. I know that it is only by God's grace that I am not on a list of sexual offenders in my county -- not because I ever got anywhere close to a child (even the thought of that repulses me) but because in my county if a person gets caught engaging in public sexual activity then you go on the sex offender registry. I never got caught, but I certainly engaged. That's not something I'm proud of, it's just a fact. In a world where sex is the drug of choice, parked cars often become the "party room."<br /><br />So, as I think of this fact -- I never got caught. My stepfather never got caught. There are people recovering from sexual addiction around the globe who have never been caught committing a crime. Then there are those 37 people on that Facebook page who did get caught. For every one of them, with terms after their names like carnal abuse, sexual assault, rape, solicitation, there are dozens more who are using sex in dangerous, inappropriate ways that never got caught, whose names will never be smeared, whose families will never feel the burning shame of their "outing." But these people, like me, like my stepfather, like the fathers and mothers and uncles and neighbors and teachers of so many of my friends and loved ones, have horribly hurt other people. Had we made it to those registries, we would have been looked at with total disgust too, because no one would understand or care that we were more than sex offenders. <br /><br />I've been thinking of my stepfather recently. He was more than my abuser, more than the sum of all his horrible attributes. He was creative and talented in his vocation and avocations. Given the chance at an education, he could have been a very successful designer and engineer. Before my sex addiction took over my life, I was a glowing professional, filled with confidence and ability. It's taken me a long time to reclaim the parts of myself that are still useful. Embracing them is still difficult. <br /><br />Don't get me wrong, I am not advocating that we should let people free because there are far more sex offenders than will ever be caught. In fact, I don't think I'm advocating anything. I am just typing out loud, trying to sort through these feelings of sadness and confusion about the people whose names and faces I saw on that Facebook page, and show up in one too many I Phone apps for sex offender registries. <br /><br />At times when I've considered future career options, I've thought of pursuing a career that would allow me to help women who have survived incest. It took me only a very short time to realize that it is not the victim we should focus on helping. Once the abuse, the incest, the violation -- whether covert or overt occurs -- it is too late. The damage that will take years and years to overcome has been done. It is the fear of what will happen as a result, just how fucked up one will become as a result of what has happened that is the worst damage of all. But what if more was done to help those "would be" sexual offenders to begin to live lives they could be proud of, lives of self-awareness that prevented them from making that first move to ruin the lives of others? I don't know what help -- other than therapy -- there might be, but I know there must be something more helpful than this horrible shame.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://www.bloglines.com/sub/http://raesconfessions.blogspot.com">
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</a></div>Raehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13352920897908430774noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7123027.post-82027556329830014192011-02-07T02:24:00.004-05:002011-02-07T08:57:16.435-05:00There is purposeMy thanks to fellow bloggers and followers who continue to check in now and then. I write here rather infrequently now, despite my best intentions. In this digital age, there is so much technology to distract all of us and me specifically, that writing short tidbits of thought in social media has become the daily norm, as opposed to sorting out my thoughts through lengthy blog posts. And while I think I need to make it a habit to journal and share my thoughts with others in the recovery community, I have found that sharing thoughts via Facebook with people who I know or have known is helping to bring together the pieces of my life into a whole person. <br /><br />I have shared here many times about the pain and confusion of living parallel lives. It goes beyond simply having a public life and a private life. For as far back as I can remember, I have lived a compartmentalized life. As a child, I had my family life, I had the secret life of abuse and a parallel life of my own escapism, I had my school life and I had my church life. There's always been a part of me that excels and seeks to lead and a part of me that I long to live undetected. <br /><br />After many years, I am coming closer to living a more integrated life. I have friends who I allow to see my flaws, and I have made a conscious effort to become more humble and less manipulative. Rather than trying to shape others opinions of me by "leading" them and wowing them with my "perfection," I am learning to be myself, accept myself as perfectly imperfect and flawed, and let others be themselves. Perhaps they are in a place to form opinions of me, or perhaps they really don't give a shit about what I think or do -- despite my once grandiose ideas that I was the center of everyone's universe. Either way, I have no stake in what others think of me. Instead, I have a vested interest in how I feel within myself.<br /><br />It may sound as if I am being a little too harsh on my past self. Trust me, I love myself more today than I have in a long, long time -- maybe ever. And it's not because I'm so much better than I was before. It is because I accept this journey that I am on as my pathway, my journey. I am simply at peace with what is. <br /><br /><blockquote><span style="font-style:italic;">In music, in the sea, in a flower, in a leaf, in an act of kindness... I see what people call God in all these things.</span> <span style="font-weight:bold;">Pablo Casals</span></blockquote><br /><br />This is not to say I don't struggle with non-acceptance and self-hatred and feeling overwhelmed at times. I most certainly do. These are emotions that sometimes show up every day. But those are not the places that I dwell. I seek, today, above all things, peace in my soul -- peace with all that is around me. And I find it not in complacency, but in acceptance and and immense gratitude that, thus far, the God of my understanding has found a purpose for me. <br /><br />I may be a fat, depressed, sex and love addict, without a real job, with more questions than answers sometimes -- but despite those things, God has found things for me to do in this world. The AA Big Book talks about "We had a new employer." And I am grateful beyond words that among the work that was meant for me was the task of making peace with myself. It seems to be making all the difference in being at peace with the world around me. <br /><br />Again, I don't mean to imply in any way that my life is perfect. It is not, and I am learning plenty of things the hard way. I am simply saying, I know more peace than I have known in a long time, and for that I am immensely grateful.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://www.bloglines.com/sub/http://raesconfessions.blogspot.com">
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</a></div>Raehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13352920897908430774noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7123027.post-20454650918049386252010-11-12T07:39:00.003-05:002010-11-12T08:50:15.415-05:00Just a sip<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ZnWb6FXIkKo/TN02YJs-_5I/AAAAAAAAAGk/lJsCM__xIV8/s1600/Just%2Ba%2Bsip.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 126px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ZnWb6FXIkKo/TN02YJs-_5I/AAAAAAAAAGk/lJsCM__xIV8/s200/Just%2Ba%2Bsip.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538642905284935570" /></a><br /><br />I became aware at last night's meeting that I was trying to control everyone and everything around me. I was telling someone else to lead the meeting, then taking over by telling that person everything they needed to do. One member suggested to me that we cut the reading short to accommodate more shares. I said no, then changed MY mind and told the leader to cut the reading short. Some of the men in the meeting were acting silly and I was feeling so chaotic ... I just was ill at ease with myself. <br />One of the things I am working on in my recovery is humility. A part of that is stepping back from being "the leader." With the help of working the Steps and the revelations of my Higher Power, I discovered I always put myself in positions of authority or leadership so that I can be in control of the outcome of most any situation. In doing this, I also separate myself from other people. I can cause others to feel intimidated. I can appear busy and inaccessible thus leaving me alone. And, oh how my addicted self loves the misery, loneliness and self-pity it finds in isolation. For it is in that isolation where I long for just a small foray into my diseased behavior. I rarely feel any desire to really get fully involved in my disease, but there are times on a regular basis that I feel so uncomfortable in my skin that I just want some release from the discomfort and pain of feelings and emotions -- simple ones even -- that I don't seem able to deal with.<br />Unfortunately, in sex and love addiction, like all other addictions, there is no such thing as "just a sip." If I go on to one of my old websites "just to see" what people are looking for or engaging in, I am participating in middle circle behaviors that will no doubt -- NO DOUBT -- lead to acting out. It's like an alcoholic sniffing the bottle of whiskey. I cannot begin conversations with past lovers or potential new lovers pretending to just want someone to talk to -- the equivalent of taking a sip of whiskey from a completely full bottle -- without finding myself fully involved, making plans, and eventually feeling deep regret and being forced to start all over again searching for some semblance of peace and serenity in an otherwise chaotic world. <br />Because of the cyclical nature of addiction, I have to be hypervigilant about maintaining my spiritual condition, identifying those moments when I'm feeling that life is spinning out of control and compelled to stop it by grasping anything and everything that can cause me to feel in control. It's important that I'm fully aware of those impulses, so that I can remind myself to give the reigns to my Higher Power. In order to do that, I need to get quiet and humble and prayerful and let the storm pass. It won't last forever. If I give in to that voice that says ... "Take just a sip, it will relieve the pressure. It's not going to hurt anything," I lose all access to my Higher Power, all access to manageability, and I find myself taking a sip that might never end. <br /><span style="font-style:italic;">God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and thank you for the wisdom to know the difference. May thy will, not mine be done.</span><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://www.bloglines.com/sub/http://raesconfessions.blogspot.com">
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</a></div>Raehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13352920897908430774noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7123027.post-24111566013219327892010-11-08T14:43:00.002-05:002010-11-08T16:15:36.070-05:00Goals, SmoalsForgive me a moment while I express some emotions that aren't really that positive, but should be expressed nonetheless. <br />I've heard all the theories that we are what we think, the things we focus on are the things we manifest, negative thoughts yield negative results, blah, blah, blah. The variations of the same message are endless. They even include the story of the Cherokee elder, which I love. <br /><blockquote>One evening, an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, “My son, the battle is between two ‘wolves’ inside us all. One is Evil - It is anger, envy, jealousy, greed, and arrogance. The other is Good - It is peace, love, hope, humility, compassion, and faith. ” The grandson thought about this for a while and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf wins?” To which the old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”</blockquote><br />I was listening to an audio presentation by Brian Tracy called "Goals" this morning. His basic premise, which is not a new one, is that without goals we are directionless. You know, the old adage, "If you don't know where you are going, you're going nowhere." <br />So as Tracy goes on and on about the process of getting clarity about what you want from life and doing one small thing every day to work toward those goals in all areas of your life, all I can think is, "What's the point?" I can set goals until the sun rises in the west, and tell myself I am going to work toward them every day, but in the end I know I will just give up. It will require more effort than I want to give or I will be more inclined to sleep than to exercise or go to class. I will get to work at my dream job and the computer will be sitting there, drawing my attention away from the things I want to achieve and before I know it, I'll be right back to square one -- feeling like absolute shit. <br />Clearly, I'm having an issue with self-confidence at the moment. It's been quite a battle for a long time. The disparity between the confident, ambitious, dependable, capable person and the person who simply feels like the only thing left to do is to give up is growing wider and wider, as my ass does the same. It is so frustrating. That higher self KNOWS that setting goals and achieving them and getting recognition for them builds self esteem, but the lower self asks herself again, "What's the point?" I suppose I believe that no matter what I work for, no matter what I achieve, it will never last, it will always be stolen from me and in the end, like all things, it will never, ever be enough.<br />Inside me somewhere right now is a voice crying out, "Challenge those negative thoughts! Ask them what right they have to be in your life? They aren't true and they sure aren't helpful." And when I "hear" that faint voice, still fighting for life, right now at this moment, all I can feel is tired. I just want to close my eyes and forget about these struggles, to slip into the nothingness that doesn't include goals or ambitions, the place where there is no fight left. I am sad to say that at this moment, that is the place that feels safe. <br />Truth is, I know that in that place I go much deeper into darkness, into the place where the attempts to feel alive become desperate and more risky. Risk is the only thing that brings a spark of life in those moments. Then comes incredible regret, that insatiable desire to just be "normal," the resurfacing of the struggle, even stronger and more insistent than before. The addictive cycle, the clinicians call it. <br />As I sit here, I struggle with a dozen things: whether to go to a meeting or stay home with my husband who I am sure will be too tired to deal with me once he gets home, but not too tired to be irritated that I chose something else over him. I struggle with my lack of desire to fix a healthy meal and my guilt in ordering some overpriced takeout that is not healthy. I struggle with the need to go to the gym, fix dinner, get ready for the meeting, take care of my pets, return program calls, and again, the desire to just lay down and say fuck it all. <br />I know I won't feel these things in an hour or two, but I do know they will be back. I suppose my true desire is that I live at peace with myself and my decisions and that I be happy with life no matter how much effort it takes. I'm not there today and the best I can do is acknowledge that and get up and do the next right thing and realize that nothing is going to go wrong today that is going to kill me and if something does kill me, the struggle will be over and I can quit bitching. <br />Grateful to be alive one more day. Grateful to be honest with myself and others. Grateful that my life is filled with all kinds of feelings, and I can experience them as they come without overreacting.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://www.bloglines.com/sub/http://raesconfessions.blogspot.com">
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</a></div>Raehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13352920897908430774noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7123027.post-40671097686267696162010-11-05T02:10:00.004-05:002010-11-08T16:20:48.250-05:00Searching for meAs I read <a href="http://ettuhusband.blogspot.com/2010/11/my-final-trt-group.html">Bernadine's letter to her trauma recovery therapy (TRT) group</a> at <span style="font-style:italic;">Et tu husband?</span> I thought how good it was to witness someone come out on the other side of the struggles of a recovery cycle. <br /><br />Bernadette wrote in her departing letter to her TRT group,"I had known about (my husband's) addiction for a year and a few months when I started the group.<br />By then, the person I had been -- was gone."<br /><br />Later in her letter she wrote, "I realized, just this last weekend, that I’m back to me now."<br /><br />Oh how I long to be "back to me." <br /><br />I had occasion recently to correspond with several people from a life before the one in which I've found myself for the past seven years. They know someone I once was -- a confident, testy, fun, hard-working, competent and talented leader and fellow employee. They know the person I long to be again, and would be so surprised to know this depressed, fearful, struggling individual that sometimes loses sight of hope.<br /><br />By the time I came here to write my confessions in May 2004, the person they knew was long gone. I had no idea where she had gone or how she got lost, but OMG was she gone. <br /><br />It occurs to me almost fleetingly here that perhaps the fact that I am pursuing a lost dream rather than a brighter future messes with my ability, at times, to be satisfied with the present and encouraged by the journey.I idolize that upwardly mobile young professional that I once was, and see myself today as a mere shadow of what I once was. I literally fucked myself into a feeling of worthlessness and self-pity that I grow so tired of, so restless with, and at times so attached to, I don't now how to move on.<br /><br />I was talking yesterday afternoon with a recovery friend about this issue, about the fact that I felt a whole lot better before my recovery began than I have felt during its process. Don't get me wrong, I am very grateful that I am in recovery, that I am trusting the process, that I am experiencing a "balancing out" of life. Without the tools of recovery to guide me as I have worked with (and at times against) my Higher Power and support system to put my life back together again, I have no doubt I would not be alive. No doubt. I feel grateful that I am alive even with the recovery process and support to lift me up.<br /><br />Through a whole series of metaphors, my friend helped me connect to the fact that I am not recovering from a series of bad choices and behaviors -- I am recovering from a system of values and beliefs that have been my means of coping with deep-seated underlying realities that were too painful to bear at some earlier time in my life. <br /><br />My friend asked me "If you were to vow to never let anything pass your lips again that would prevent you from achieving and maintaining your healthy weight, would that be hard or easy to achieve?" Silly me took a while to think about that question. As usual, I was trying to find the "right" answer. But, of course, it would be as hard as hell. I love food. I love sweets. I love sharing food with friends and sharing the pleasures of new restaurants and new tastes. Throw in all the factors associated with my attachment to myself as a fat person, and you've got a complete revamping of my entire life. There is no way that is going to be easy. No way. And my skewed relationship with food and fatness barely even scratches the surface of the massive jumble of misguided, disproportional, and damaged thoughts, feelings and forces that I have absorbed and incorporated into my life over the years. There is so much more.<br /><br />So, for today, I give myself, my recovery process and my God the time that is required, the patience that is needed to go through these fundamental changes.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://www.bloglines.com/sub/http://raesconfessions.blogspot.com">
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</a></div>Raehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13352920897908430774noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7123027.post-88239605948059353322010-10-25T18:36:00.003-04:002010-10-25T18:40:52.791-04:00AllTreatment.com InterviewIn my last post I posted the answers to some interview questions that had been posed to me. The interview was conducted by Brandon Yu, managing editor of AllTreatment.com. <br /><br />Brandon has posted the interview on the AllTreatment site today. Check it out <a href="http://www.alltreatment.com/addiction-stories/rae's-story">here</a>.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://www.bloglines.com/sub/http://raesconfessions.blogspot.com">
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</a></div>Raehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13352920897908430774noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7123027.post-80793245642709491162010-10-22T12:12:00.005-04:002010-10-27T02:33:37.549-04:00Answering questions<span style="font-style:italic;">I was recently asked a series of questions by a recovery resource portal site. I thought my answers summarized my story quite well and decided I'd share them here. The interviewer's questions are in bold. Once the interview is published, I'll post a link.</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Tell us a bit about yourself.</span> Ironically, a lot of online conversations with potential acting out partners started with this very same question. I am a 43 year old woman living in the Midwest, married, college educated, out of work communications professional. I grew up in a higher-low class family and was sexually abused by my stepfather for 10 years of my life, beginning at age 3.<br />I am willing to answer specific questions, but that's "a bit" about me.<br /> <br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Do you feel like you have an addictive personality?</span> I don't feel like I have an addictive personality, I know I do. Mosby's Medical Dictionary defines an addictive personality as: a personality marked by traits of compulsive and habitual use of a substance or practice in an attempt to cope with psychic pain engendered by conflict and anxiety.<br /> <br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">When did your addiction start?</span> Which one? I am a compulsive overeater, codependent, sex addict. I believe that I began eating for comfort (though I didn't recognize it then) when I was a small child. I have always had a fascination with food, as long as I can remember. My codependency began sometime in childhood as well, though I did not identify it until my 20s. I just thought I was trying to take care of others. I did not recognize it as an obsession that helped me feel safe. As for my sexual addiction, which I assume you are most interested in, I remember masturbating to numb myself as early as 10. As soon as I was introduced to the Internet at age 26, I began to use it to connect with others sexually -- usually for cybersex, phone sex and eventually face to face meetings. The behavior was limited to online contact after I met and married my husband -- until about six years into our marriage. That is when casual chatting with friends and family led me to begin to use online chat programs to connect with married men first to flirt, then to connect offline for physical encounters. What started as one affair quickly went out of control until I could no longer stop searching out men for offline and online sexual encounters.<br />The basic text of Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous says, "At some time in our lives our behavior began to take on the compulsive hallmarks of addiction. The once rare liaisons became monthly, then weekly. They happened when inconvenient, or when they interfered with work or family obligations. The occasional pleasurable daydream grew into a constant obsession that destroyed our ability to concentrate on more ordinary and more important things. One by one such things as satisfaction in our work, friends and social activities dropped away as we found more and more of our time and our thoughts absorbed by (addictive obsessions)." This is what happened to me.<br /> <br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Was there a quick escalation or did you "dabble?"</span> See the answer above.<br /> <br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">What was living with your addiction like? </span>It was like being on a runaway train moving so fast that the thrill and the fear were indistinguishable. I loved the high that came with the pursuit of a man and I had all sorts of tricks for getting him hooked, but once he was hooked and we reached the point of meeting, my high was already waning and I needed more. I once used a hotel three times in a single night and still felt empty, wishing there was someone else to call to help me get high again. At the same time, I wanted to stop more than anything in the world. I knew I was living a life that was incongruous with the person I really was. Before long the addiction became who I was and my real self, though still there, seemed impossible to reach. I promised myself time and time again that I would stop, that I wouldn't go online, that I wouldn't see a particular person again, that I would stop making plans to act out. Inevitably, I'd find myself driving to meet someone on the side of the road, in their office, at a hotel, in a park or anywhere we could be sexual.<br /> <br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">How was your personal life affected? </span>I was living one lie after another. I was constantly rushing to through my "real" life to either get back to acting out or to make up for time lost acting out. I would speed down the highway, I would rush through dinner. I was constantly trying to keep all the lies straight. I could hardly sleep. Eventually I reached a level of depression that caused me to want to end my life. I never actually attempted suicide, but I had ideations and longed for death to find me. I could not live with the disease of sex and love addiction and I felt completely empty without it.<br /> <br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">How was your professional life affected?</span> I had been a very competent professional, excelling above my peers and taking great pride in my work. Eventually work just became an interference and it wasn't long before I didn't have the concentration to complete any task without becoming irritated and careless. Though I never could understand how, I always seemed to keep one foot in front of the other. I missed a lot of deadlines and frequently missed appointments or canceled them. After some time, the work I had once done became impossible. My low concentration and depression made in-depth projects impossible to complete -- first on time and then at all.<br /> <br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">What was rock bottom like? What happened? </span>I would like to think that rock bottom for me was when in the midst of a relapse into my love addiction I became pregnant with another man's child. The man was a raging alcoholic and at one point I had to put black curtains on all my windows out of fear of what he would do to me and that he would out me to my husband. I ended up spending thousands of dollars on him out of codependency and fear. I would love to think that was my rock bottom ... but the scary thing is ... I'm not sure if I have hit rock bottom. I came into recovery within a few months of my first acting out episode. I knew something was terribly wrong and I needed to change. I continued to act out even in recovery, but I continued to attend SLAA meetings and try to apply the principles of the program to my life. Unfortunately, trying to work the Steps while you are still "high" doesn't work so well -- so I had periods of sobriety, sometimes long ones, but they always resulted in an eventual slip or relapse. I have had a tremendous time maintaining sobriety in this program -- and some would say that it is because I have a tremendous difficulty surrendering control.<br /> <br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">When did realize you needed to be rid of your problem?</span> As soon as things started to get out of control about six years into my marriage. I never ever thought I'd have one affair, much less be unable to stop having affairs.<br /> <br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">What recovery process did you find? </span>I entered therapy and even though I saw a lot of therapists who knew NOTHING about sex addiction, I did learn a lot about myself. Luckily my first therapist suggested I might be a sex addict and though I poo-pooed her idea, I made a decision to go to my first Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous meeting. As soon as I heard the stories of the others there, I knew I was in the right place. And, though, as I said, it has been diffcult to maintain sobriety -- I believe the program is the only thing that has kept me sane. I continue to be active in the program and was thankful to eventually find a certified sex addiction therapist who was able to help me in ways no other professional had been able to up to that point.<br /> <br />Have you ever tried to quit before, how, how long did you last, what was it like, did you start again? I believe I've answered this question -- if not please let me know. I've tried a million times to quit and failed. I just have to keep getting back up and trying again. Most recently I have been using a mantra that is working. I remind myself that I cannot try to not act out. I'm either acting out or I'm not. I say that to myself again and again. It helps keep me sober, as does calling upon the God of my understanding to help me accept the things I cannot change and give the courage to change the things I can.<br /> <br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">How are you coping with recovery today?</span> They say that recovery is like peeling away the layers of an onion and that is how it has been for me. While at one point, the focus of my recovery was simply to stop acting out -- today I realize that the disease of sex and love addiction is far more deep rooted than just anonymous liasons. I have had to look at the fact that relationships of all kinds are difficult for me. I avoid intimacy at all costs, but constantly want to get as close as possible to people in my life -- only to push them away. I have had to look at my very identity and worth -- since I inherently believed that I was less than everyone else around me and the only thing that gave me value to men was my sexuality.<br /> <br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">What advice do you have for people currently suffering from addiction?</span> Begin to seek out resources for help. If you are in an area where are are meetings, go to meetings, find a sponsor, find a therapist, and most of all KEEP COMING BACK. If you are not in a location where there are meetings -- there are dozens of online resources, phone meetings, online meetings and more.<br /> <br />You don't have to be perfect, just keep coming to meetings and working on healing. You did not get to where you are overnight and you won't heal overnight. Don't give up and don't expect perfection. This is not like giving up alcohol or cocaine. Sex is a natural process, which in those of us who are addicts, has become a drug.<br /> <br />For female sex addicts -- sex addiction programs (there are several including SLAA, Sexaholics Anonymous, Sex Addicts Anonymous, Sexual Compulsives Anonymous and likely some I'm not aware of) are dominated by males. I spent most of my time in recovery sitting in a room of men. It has made it difficult if not impossible at times to find a sponsor and female support. My advice to women who live in an area where there are no women in the meetings -- keep going, sharing, and taking your seat at the table. You deserve to recover just like the men who are sitting there and you deserve to do it without being objectified. Learning to take this stand is a part of learning to take care of yourself. I also encourage women to use online and phone meetings to connect with other women in the program.<br /> <br />And last but not least, I will say that there is a solution, it is a spiritual solution. It is not easy, but it works, not all at once, but one day at a time. Just keep coming back and you will see I am telling you the truth.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://www.bloglines.com/sub/http://raesconfessions.blogspot.com">
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</a></div>Raehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13352920897908430774noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7123027.post-20466207876225588072010-02-23T06:46:00.001-05:002010-02-23T06:48:25.567-05:00A program of action<em>"Faith without works was dead, he said. And how appallingly true for<br />the alcoholic! For if an alcoholic failed to perfect and enlarge his<br />spiritual life through work and self-sacrifice for others, he could<br />not survive the certain trials and low spots ahead. If he did not<br />work, he would surely drink again, and if he drank, he would surely<br />die. Then faith would be dead indeed. With us it is just like that."</em><br /><br />~<strong>Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th Edition, Bill's Story, pg. 14</strong><br /><br />There are a couple of sayings in SLAA that support the message that Bill W. was conveying in this passage. One is "My best thinking got me here." Another is "My sick brain can't fix my sick brain." I have to DO certain things, new things, things that don't feel comfortable all the time in order to change my perception, and as a result change my thinking and ultimately my behavior. <br /><br />I used to think I just had to stop acting out. But isn't that a Step 1 issue? I'm powerless over my addiction and if I COULD just stop acting out, then what's the point of all the rest of this? Why do I need faith if I can just stop my behavior? My addictive mind is a spiritually and emotionally barren land. My acting out behaviors erode my spirit and cause me to feel hopeless, depressed and worthless. Sure, I may be able to make myself feel good for a little while, but deep down, I can't live with myself. Living in a world that is so out of control, so consumed with thoughts of another person, another sex act, another rendezvous -- it simply causes me to feel and act insane. And how can I possibly hope to fix that insanity?<br /><br />After trying to "think" my way through Steps 2 and 3, I finally started "<strong>doing</strong>" what the program asked me to do -- go to meetings, make phone calls, do service as a way of life and sobriety, read the literature, write, do an inventory, identify my primary defects of character and ask that they be removed, make amends, practice prayer and meditation, be rigorously honest with myself, refrain from acting out one day at a time. By doing those things, I came to believe in a power greater than myself, because I saw a power greater than me at work in my life. And the more I did these things, the more willing I was to turn my will and my life over to the care of God as I understood God. <br /><br />I believe because of the order of the Steps, many of us (I did it too) spend a lot of time trying to argue with ourselves and others about the whole "God thing" ... when if we just "make a decision" to <strong>WORK </strong>the program, that's enough to get us started. <br /><br />The more I help another addict, the more I reach out for help, the more I look at my own feelings, behaviors and actions and let go of what others think, say or do, the more I go to meetings and hear other addicts share their stories and share my own, the more I study the literature and search out my questions in it and with others who have studied it -- the more richly I am blessed, the more hopeful I become, the more sure I am that there is something bigger than me at work here. I am not comfortable with my old way of life anymore. It is far less intriguing to think of hurting someone else with my sickness. I am willing to say I am sorry, and let go of blaming the whole damn world for my problems. <br /><br />If I get away from my program, if I let up on <strong>PRACTICING </strong>these principles in all areas of my life, if I think I can take a day's vacation or a week's vacation from <strong>DOING </strong>what the program tells me to do, I lose ground. I am not cured. I have accepted I never will be. I simply get a daily reprieve from the deep emotional and spiritual pain that living in my disease gave me.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://www.bloglines.com/sub/http://raesconfessions.blogspot.com">
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</a></div>Raehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13352920897908430774noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7123027.post-3049504900671376762010-02-03T19:32:00.005-05:002010-02-03T19:44:16.248-05:00The 11th TraditionI was recently honored by a request from a student journalist to submit written answers to questions about my sexual addiction and recovery. Upon sharing this news with a long-time member of the "Alpha" 12-step fellowship -- AA -- I was quickly reminded of the 11th Tradition, which says: "Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, TV, film, and other public media. We need guard with special care the anonymity of all fellow S.L.A.A. members."<br /><br />With the help of this friend, I was also able to recognize that I might not be respecting the 11th Tradition as it relates to my own personal blog either. So, I went out in search of AA's stance on how the 11th Tradition relates to today's technologically connected world. <br /><br />Here's what I found: <a href="http://www.aa.org/lang/en/en_pdfs/mg-18_internet.pdf">http://www.aa.org/lang/en/en_pdfs/mg-18_internet.pdf</a><br /><strong>GENERAL SOCIAL NETWORKING WEB SITES</strong><br />MySpace, Facebook and other social networking Web sites are public in<br />nature. Though users create accounts and utilize usernames and passwords,<br />once on the site, it is a public medium where A.A. members and<br />non-A.A.s mingle.<br />As long as individuals do not identify themselves as A.A. members, there<br />is no conflict of interest. However, someone using their full name and/<br />or a likeness, such as a full-face photograph, would be contrary to the<br />spirit of the Eleventh Tradition, which states in the Long Form that, “…<br />our [last] names and pictures as A.A. members ought not be broadcast,<br />filmed or publicly printed.”<br />Experience suggests that it is in keeping with the Eleventh Tradition not<br />to disclose A.A. membership on social networking sites as well as on any<br /><strong>other Web site, blog, electronic bulletin board, etc., that is not composed<br />solely of A.A. members, is not password protected or is accessible to the public.</strong> <br /><br />That said, I will take the advice of some other bloggers who have addressed this issue and continue to talk about my recovery, about meetings, about the 12 Steps, but I will not make mention of any particular fellowship to which I belong on this blog, as I attempt to honor the 11th Tradition.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://www.bloglines.com/sub/http://raesconfessions.blogspot.com">
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</a></div>Raehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13352920897908430774noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7123027.post-32565269094019046602010-02-02T09:15:00.004-05:002010-02-02T09:43:56.458-05:00Learning humility<blockquote>"<em>Another great dividend we may expect from confiding our defects to another human being is humility...a word often misunderstood. To those who have made progress in AA, it amounts to a clear recognition of what and who we really are, followed by a sincere attempt to become what we could be. Therefore, our first practical move toward humility must consist of recognizing our deficiencies. No defect can be corrected unless we clearly see what it is. But we shall have to do more than see. The objective look at ourselves we achieved in Step Four was, after all, only a look. All of us saw, for example, that we lacked honesty and tolerance, that we were beset at times by attacks of self-pity or delusions of personal grandeur. But while this was a humiliating experience, it didn't necessarily mean that we had yet acquired much actual humility. Though now recognized, our defects were still there. Something had to be done about them. And we soon found that we could not wish or will them away by ourselves." <em><strong>(Twelve and Twelve, Step Five, pg. 58)</strong></em></em></blockquote> <br /><br />Humility was the subject of both of my daily readings today. I like the concept that humility is a "clear recognition of who we really are, followed by a sincere attempt to become what we could be."<br /><br />I have been so busy in life trying to be what I thought would make other people like and accept me, that I have had very little idea of who I truly am. Any concept of who I am was met with the idea that I surely wasn't enough -- I wasn't good enough, not polished enough, not comfortable enough, not attractive enough -- just simply not enough. <br /><br />Today I recognize that I am an imperfect part of the universe and that what I am is not all I can be, but it is enough today to love myself and share love with others. <br /><br />My character defects, as is suggested in the 12&12 reading above, don't just go away because I want them to. Despite doing my step work, I sometimes am dishonest and have the propensity to "hide" because I am concerned about what others think of me. That's not humility. Humility is accepting who I am and being willing to share that authentic self with others as a means of practicing healthy, honest behavior. Still, I am afraid of being weak and vulnerable, and the truth is that by my own willpower, I cannot give up that fear. I have to do the action of the 12 steps to help me work through those fears and then let go of the outcome. I may still cling to isolation and dishonesty 10 years from now. If that is the case, there is still more work to do and the defect is still serving me in some way. <br /><br />I am grateful today to be learning about humility and its true definition.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://www.bloglines.com/sub/http://raesconfessions.blogspot.com">
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</a></div>Raehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13352920897908430774noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7123027.post-27927599968840199742010-01-31T15:21:00.004-05:002010-02-03T19:47:58.291-05:00Feeling the gritI've been abstinent from sugar, drive through food, Diet Coke and graze eating for three months and 14 days. I'm feeling more feelings than I ever have. It is allowing me a deeper level of honesty with myself. Other than Solitaire, there is nothing really to soothe the emotions I don't know how to handle.<br /><br />I've been cranky, resentful and overall just not in the best of moods. I'm like the recovering alcoholic whose wife says, "Would you just take a drink for God's sake? You were a lot easier to live with as a drunk." How easily we forget. <br /><br />I've been fortunate that I haven't really felt much of a compulsion for sugar -- despite the fact that before I became abstinent, I was eating as many as two king sized candy bars a day, plus other kinds of desserts every chance I got. I thought it would be impossible to give it up. But one day at a time, I have simply been able to refrain from eating those things. The one binge food that has called me is Diet Coke. It's not that I drank 10 cans a day or something. But when I used to get a taste for it, I couldn't deny it -- and when I drank it, I couldn't stop drinking it, and wanted more and more to eat especially salty foods, which sparked the craving for sweets. <br /><br />Recently though after taking my husband to work I saw a boy eating some candy that I really liked to binge on. For two days I couldn't stop thinking about the taste of that food, the sound those crunchy shells made in my mouth, the sound of them pouring like buttons out of the bag. I have eaten full sized bags of this candy -- intended to last an entire family a whole week -- in one setting and mourned the fact that I was at the end. On that day last week, the old call of "opportunity" to eat myself into oblivion was there unlike it had been in three months. But I was grateful that there was a new call for an opportunity to do something else -- be with myself and my God and reach out to others for help. <br /><br />I went to an open meeting this morning and the speaker said she was addicted to excess. That is me. If I like something, I want it in excess. I can't get enough of it. There's never enough of anything -- whether it's food or sexual highs or romantic euphoria or attention or wins at the game of Solitaire. I'm always left feeling depressed and even emptier than when I started. The only thing that fills the need is a relationship with a power greater than myself, and if I'm honest, I never feel like I do that good enough, so I just have to keep trying, one day at a time, to deepen the relationship, and learn to rely on my Higher Power rather than my own willpower. And when I say up and Higher Power says down, I have to accept that with humility ... IF I am to feel whole.<br /><br />I asked my Higher Power this morning to help me focus so I could work on my Fourth Step in my recovery from compulsive overeating. I haven't done a bit of work on it yet. I also asked if there was someone I could help, to reveal them to me and give me the willingness to help. Two opportunities presented themselves over the next hour. I did what I could and I thank my Higher Power for answering that prayer. <br /><br />Sometimes living life one day at a time feels like waking up to a losing battle one more day. Other days I can look back and know that I've made more progress than I can imagine. Today I have no desire to use this computer to find some horny man who wants to meet at a coffee shop and then go to my car for a little action. I am having a little bit of obsession over a friend and know that the thoughts are obsessive in nature. Still, I'm able to reach toward recovery and know there is something more meaningful there. For that I am grateful. I don't like the way I feel today ... but I don't have to try to numb it. I know my feelings won't kill me, especially if I share them with someone else. That's enough for today.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://www.bloglines.com/sub/http://raesconfessions.blogspot.com">
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</a></div>Raehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13352920897908430774noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7123027.post-87044547216471179992010-01-23T08:58:00.002-05:002010-01-23T09:00:31.994-05:00The God of my understandingMy addiction will use any emotion I have to take over my life and send me into a world so out of control I can't breathe. If I feel sadness or confusion, my dear addict friend, is always there to offer a solution. The problem is the solutions that the addict offers are sick solutions that perhaps ONCE worked for me, but are now my worst enemy as I try to heal from a lifetime of pain. <br /><br />My Higher Power is a quiet, still voice -- it is not panicked or judgmental or mean. Anytime I hear a voice like that causes me to feel ashamed or guilty -- I know it is NOT my true Higher Power. Instead, it is my addiction, trying to stir up even more negative emotions, to turn up the heat so to speak, in order to move me closer to chaos and acting out in one of the many manifestations of my disease. (food, sex, love, codependence)<br /><br />My Higher Power is in the energy that flows between all living things. I can go outside (and often do to pray) and simply feel the gentle softness of the wind on my soft skin and know that is my Higher Power, whom I call God, because it's easier, not because it is the Christian God I grew up with. (How's that for a run-on sentence?) Now sometimes I go outside and the wind is cold and biting and not so gentle, I accept that it is a powerful force of energy that causes this and can still find amazement in the fact that there is this air moving around strongly, changing temperature drastically, without human hand and I can feel God in that. In the meow of a kitten, the tweet of a bird, just by taking note of the sheer genius of a tree -- how it takes roots and has a strong upward foundation that then goes out in thousands of directions, and when it is injured, heals itself and is constantly growing. In all these things I find manifestations of a power greater than myself. In that tree, I find hope that although my life may be currently out on a limb, it is attached to a really strong foundation. In the softness of the meow and the tweet of the bird, I recognize that not all messages are transferred between living beings in the same way they are transferred in my own narrow mind -- that the world is much bigger than I am, and that I am a small part, but that every move I make shifts the energy of the universe just a little and makes me an important part. When I smile and say hello to someone on the street, I pass positive energy from myself to another person who may have just needed that little boost. When I pet my dog, I am transferring my energy to her and helping her to feel loved. When I pray for you, I am shifting my energy into your world in hopes it will make a difference in your day. <br /><br />So, why do bad things happen? Why are people devastated in Haiti right now? Why did someone commit suicide last night? It is my belief that the universe of energy is a balancing act and that we need perspective in order to grow. Without sadness, how would we know happiness? Without cold, how would we know the comfort of warmth? Without chaos, how would we truly understand calm? Nothing is good or bad, thinking makes it so, William Shakespeare said. I tend to agree. Though admittedly, I do enjoy some things more than others. <br /><br />I also believe in the line from pg 417 of the AA Big Book that says, "There are no mistakes in God's world." Over my time of healing, I have come to learn that my addiction and my sexual abuse history and even my obesity have at times had an impact on the lives of others. They have all made me a more useful part of the universe and God's bigger plan of acheiving balance and promoting love as the pathway to peace. Let's say there was someone who really was struggling with lack of acceptance of others -- perhaps people who didn't look that great on the outside -- and they met me and found me to be a loving, gentle soul. Wasn't it useful that I was not a beauty queen? Or let's take the beautiful woman from Argentina I met at a retreat once who shared with me that she too had been sexually abused and that as a result she developed bulimia and it almost ruined her life. Didn't she have a message for me? <br /><br />The God of my understanding is everywhere, and for that I am grateful.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://www.bloglines.com/sub/http://raesconfessions.blogspot.com">
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</a></div>Raehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13352920897908430774noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7123027.post-20147757365927438612010-01-04T04:19:00.002-05:002010-01-04T04:32:31.815-05:00Acknowledging the voices in my headI have written before of the unsual appearance of a "voice" in my head that simply said "I love you, Rae." I never knew who the voice belonged to and it never came at a time when it made sense. For example, it wasn't that it appeared when I was feeling low or sad or even good. It just appeared out of the blue at indescript times. <br /><br />Well, I have to say that I liked that voice better than the ones I've been "hearing" lately ... ones like the one that whispered into the night as I awoke just a few minutes ago, "In the black and white world where I'm either dead or alive, I choose death." <br /><br />This is not the first time such a voice has appeared ... it's been more frequent lately. One recognizable one is "Please just let me die," and also "I don't want to live." <br /><br />Before you go calling the cops or suicide watch line -- I don't connect to these voices any more than I did the voice that said "I love you." They just appear in my psyche and I have no idea where they come from. <br /><br />Yes, it is true that I suffer from depression and those words certainly are comfortable in its darkness. Though I feel none of the emptiness that one might expect when these words dance through my head. Again, there is no emotional attachment to the thoughts, they just appear as "messages to self." <br /><br />It's bizarre stuff that I will discuss with my therapist, not that my therapist had any answer when I said I got those "I love you" whispers.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://www.bloglines.com/sub/http://raesconfessions.blogspot.com">
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</a></div>Raehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13352920897908430774noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7123027.post-67764611302692276412009-12-31T13:15:00.002-05:002009-12-31T13:20:18.857-05:00As 2009 closesWhen I came into recovery, I was completely empty, filled only with tears, hopelessness and stories that turn my stomach. I was so happy to have found other people who could help me understand what was happening to me. I still hated myself, but I knew I wasn't alone. That was in 2004. <br /><br />Since then, one day at a time, recovery and relapse have taken me in many directions -- most of it is outlined in this blog. I've given lots of advice, most of which I didn't follow myself. I've had answers to other people's problems when I couldn't take care of my own. I've been emotionally, physically and spiritually sober and I've been completely high on the triggers of my addiction. I've done service in recovery and I've been unwilling to do a damn thing, including show up.<br /><br />In recovery, I've thought I had to do things perfectly, or give up entirely. I've thought I was one of the "unfortunate" ones they talk about in "How It Works" who cannot recover because they lack the capacity to be honest. I thought I had to act on every desire to act out, and when I finally got it that I was powerless over the disease but not my own actions -- I thought that if I were truly recovering the desire to act out wouldn't come at all. All that was wrong. <br /><br />What is true is that I am a sex and love addict of the real variety. I cannot break my bottom lines or it sets in motion a release of chemicals into my body that trigger an obsession of the mind that neither allows me to think or act in a sober or sane manner. I am not able to adhere to my bottom lines alone. I need the tools of the program, which includes the help of others. I need my sponsors and I need the literature we are given to learn how to work the program -- for me specifically I need the AA Big Book and the 12 and 12. I need to address the disease of addiction in all its manifestations in my life -- I can't be sober in one program and drunk in another and expect for sanity to be restored. And I have to live life on life's terms -- not as I would have it, but as my Higher Power would have it. Acceptance truly is the answer to all my problems today.<br /><br />The SLAA Promises say they will be manifested in us -- "sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly." I've taken the slow route, but as 2009 closes -- five years and two months after I found recovery, I feel better about myself, my life and my future than I ever have. I have hope and proof that my Higher Power can and has used me to help others and has sent others to help me. I believe in love as a "thoughtful, committed decision." I no longer accept sex as a substitute for love and in my relationships I know that love is unconditional and involves nurturing, care and support that is not sexually based or manipulative. I do not feel deprived of anything. I "know a new freedom" and that is the freedom from endless, never ending desire for something "more." Most of all, I have humility, and I can tell you unequivocally that my life today, my hope today, is mine because I follow <strong>12 simple divinely inspired rules</strong> which instruct me to turn my will and life over to a power greater than myself, to examine myself and ask for relief from my defects, to seek to the right the things I have wronged, to seek my Higher Power and to share my program with another suffering addict. I don't have to cry about yesterday, or worry about tomorrow. Those things are in the hands of my Higher Power. I just have to follow these 12 Steps today.<br /><br />As 2009 closes, I give thanks to my Higher Power for my entire life, my sickness and my health, my despair and my elation, my friends and my enemies, and most of all the grace that allows me to be sober today, to be a part of a recovery community that loves me and to laugh instead of cry. <br /><br />With loving and humble gratitude, I wish you all a very happy New Year.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://www.bloglines.com/sub/http://raesconfessions.blogspot.com">
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</a></div>Raehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13352920897908430774noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7123027.post-84539350510496531122009-12-02T03:04:00.002-05:002009-12-02T03:09:29.698-05:00For the first timeLast week, while traveling for the holidays, I returned to the place where the disease of sex and love addiction first began to rule my life. By the time I found my first SLAA meeting in October 2004, acting out was an obsession that had me so spellbound I wanted to die. Going back to that geographical location where every exit along an 80-mile stretch of highway held some memory of acting out, has always been acutely painful and extremely shameful. <br /><br />However, I am grateful to say that I was able to return to that beautiful valley last week, and and for the first time feel none of those old painful attachments. I was able to call up an old friend who I knew from the meetings and ask him to go to a meeting with me, rather than spend weeks planning a tryst with an old lover and ruin my whole trip with a relapse. I was able to drive right past a particular no-tell hotel that was my 'home office' for acting out, and for the first time, never even notice it or recount the shameful memories. I was able to spend the night alone in a hotel not far away without obsessing over who or how I could act out. <br /><br />These things may seem minor, but when I tell you they are monumental, I am not exaggerating. For the very first time, since I moved (aka ran kicking and screaming) from that area, I returned and felt peace and serenity and gratitude that it was where my healing began. I felt the miracle of recovery and I felt that the Promises really can and do come true. I felt the presence of my Higher Power with me and around me. I was safe, not just from others, but from my own self-hatred.<br /><br />Before I went into the valley where I had lived, I visited for the first time since I had left the office building about 45 miles away where much of my online intrigue happened. As I walked through the doors of that building, I immediately began to feel all the feelings that I had numbed with my acting out -- the sadness, the dark depression and despair. It was not that I experienced the feelings again, but rather that I felt their heaviness. I walked into the restroom where I had "hid out" and cried and felt such utter despair, and could feel, as if for the first time, that I had lived a very, very painful experience in this building. When I left my job there in 2005, I was so numb I didn't feel a thing. But as I walked out last week, after having shared with a friend who still works there who is experiencing serious depression, just how difficult my days were there, I left it all behind. For the first time, I felt that all that sadness was a part of my past, and I could leave it where it was. I did not have to bring it with me. What an amazing blessing.<br /><br />To add to the blessing, I remained abstinent in my OA program throughout my trip and the holiday gatherings. As I left that building where I had worked, I touched the vending machine that had served as a stand-in friend in times of need back when I worked there and simply said, "Thank you, God, that I don't need this today."<br /><br />It is not enough for me to say that recovery through the 12 Steps has saved my life. It has made living possible for me.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://www.bloglines.com/sub/http://raesconfessions.blogspot.com">
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</a></div>Raehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13352920897908430774noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7123027.post-59283507873528653222009-11-12T23:19:00.002-05:002009-11-12T23:24:52.184-05:00Putting Humpty Dumpty Back Together Again<span style="font-style:italic;">I have been reading a book at the suggestion of my therapist on the link between sexual abuse and eating disorders. This is the first in a series of posts related to that reading.<span style="font-weight:bold;"></span></span><br /><br />As I have been abstinent from compulsive overeating for three weeks and five days, I have began to feel many, many feelings that have been masked behind the consumption of sugary foods for literally all of my life. I am realizing that I have not even been feeling the trauma of my sexual acting out, much less all the feelings associated with 10 years of childhood incest. During the short time that I have let go of sugar I have experienced flashbacks, body memories and sexualized dreams all related back to the childhood abuse.<br /><br />While on one hand, the feelings are incredibly hard to take, I am almost celebrating their complete presence in my life. It is only by going through fear and pain, not avoiding or denying it, that I can truly recover. And I can only get through this and all phases by gentle living, one day at a time, in the hands of a power greater than me. That power has protected me through all the phases of my life, blessed me with coping mechanisms that saved me as a child and have almost ruined me as an adult and helped me grow to this point today where I CAN celebrate these feelings and endure them so that I can become whole. Fall these things I am immensely grateful.<br /><br />In his book, "Sexual Abuse and Eating Disorders," Mark Schwartz, PhD, writes on pg. 94, "Trauma-generated disassociation means the person is unintegrated. He or she may feel like an imposter. The person everyone knows is not consistent with the impulsive urges, behaviors or self-knowledge. Such people may forget years of their lives and function moment to moment without the benefit of previous models or experience. They experience constriction [slowing or stopping of the natural course or development] and isolation from others and an "empty hole" in their stomachs that is unfillable. ... Often they will continue as adults to disassociate or space out automatically and without control as a way of defending against shame or old memories."<br /><br />I recognized very early in my recovery how much I compartmentalized my life and how no one really knew all of me. It wasn't until a little further in recovery that I realized that in fact there were parts of me that even I didn't know. Sometimes today when I talk to my sister or niece, who grew up with me, and they recall certain things about the "way I was" I simply don't remember being that way at all. It feels very disconcerting, and I sometime wonder -- especially with my sister if SHE's the one who doesn't remember properly or is making up stuff.<br /><br />In this quote, Schwartz talks about the abuse survivor feeling like an imposter. "The person everyone knows is not consistent with the impulsive urges, behaviors or self-knowledge." I very often wonder who in the world people are talking about when they say things to me like, "Rae, you are always so calm and you just seem to be able to handle stress so well." What??? Are you talking to me? Even the woman who shows up here and writes about recovery and my connection to it, very, very often feels like a fraud, because I know lurking beneath is this darkness that I can neither describe nor escape. There is also the hollow feelings that long to be filled with acceptance.<br /><br />So, how does this relate to my sex and love addiction? For me it relates because of the issues of disassociation and compartmentalization. Many times when I have acted out, it's been as if my real self were on the ceiling watching everything unfold. I was keenly aware that what was happening was not congruent with what my "real self" wanted. Yet, I was equally engaged in the act of "drunken" sexual activity. This is a symptom of what is called Atypical Dissociative Disorder or Dissociative Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (DDNOS) -- which falls somewhere in the spectrum between PTSD and Dissociative Identity Disorder, otherwise known as multiple personalities.<br /><br />In childhood, dissociation allowed me to depersonalize what was happening to me while I was being molested. As Schwartz describes, I could believe the abuse "did not happen to me, it happened to my body." As I have carried the coping mechanism of dissociation into adulthood, where it was no longer needed, it has allowed me to believe concurrently that I was in recovery, despite the fact I was acting out. It has allowed me to feel deep compassion and love for my husband, and sleep with a stranger an hour later without feeling any of the associated guilt.<br /><br />So, where does 12-Step recovery come in? Everywhere. I am powerless over my past and the scars that it has left. I need a power greater than me to guide me through to the next right thing and grant me the courage to do it.<br /><br />In Schwartz's writing he quotes a woman as saying, "While all this (abuse) happened, I was stone. I was dead. I was gone, yes gone far beyond imagination. I only hoped to come out and come out alive." This, by the way, is exactly the feelings that have been recreated in my acting out patterns. She goes on ... "But my question is, Am I alive? Am I living? I feel like I am not. But the truth is I live on other people. I live depending on other people to see me to the end. Where then does that leave me?"<br /><br />And that's where recovery really comes to a head for me. If I do as Step 2 suggests, I believe that a power greater than me can restore me to sanity. And for me that means that I can be restored to wholeness, to an integrated, complete human being who no longer has to depend on my own unsteady willpower and hopeless attachments to other people to feel alive. When I turn my will and my life, my thoughts and my actions over to a power greater than myself, I use each of the 12 Steps to put the Humpty Dumpty of a life I've lived thus far, back together again. I meet myself and I become one in body, mind and spirit.<br /><br />I am so grateful for the gift of recovery and that there has been enough of my core self left to keep me coming back and seeking the wholeness of life that I earnestly desire.<br /><br />If you have read this far, thank you for listening. Not just today, but all these days as I have stumbled to find my way.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">For anyone interested and willing to wade through the academic nature of most of the writing in Schwartz's book, the book can be found on books.google.com.</span><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://www.bloglines.com/sub/http://raesconfessions.blogspot.com">
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</a></div>Raehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13352920897908430774noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7123027.post-23196410267215238312009-11-11T13:31:00.004-05:002009-11-11T13:51:47.206-05:00Dreams and visions<span style="font-weight:bold;">WARNING - Possible triggers for sex addicts and incest survivors in this post.</span><br /><br />Over the three and a half weeks since I have given up sugar as part of my abstinence from compulsive overeating, I have become aware of many things that I have been numbing for years. I am beginning to feel feelings that I never really knew first hand. Among those feelings are disappointment, loneliness, hollowness, and fear. <br /><br />I have also been experiencing some very troubling flashbacks to the trauma of my childhood sexual abuse. The first came in the form of a "daydream" in which I felt I was being forced to do something I didn't want to do. The second, which was by far the most scary, came Friday, while on the brink of orgasm I began to scream "Don't make me do this, Please, don't make me do this." I could not quiet the screams for some time and sobbed uncontrollably in shame and fear. I was absolutely confused as to what had happened and just felt completely hollowed out once it was over. <br /><br />The most recent incident happened this morning as I slept. Like all people, I'm sure I dream, but I almost never remember a dream. The fact that I did remember this dream is a sign of its significance according to my therapist. She asked me to write down as much as I remember of the dream. <br /><br />In the dream, my mom and stepfather are younger and it began with my stepfather being angry because he could not concentrate on the book he was reading and my mother trying to get him to come to bed because he had to work the next morning. He yelled at her and she and I went off to bed. He continued reading the book and eventually left to mail it somewhere once he was finished reading the last chapter. While he was reading and after he left, my mother and I lay in bed together and we began fondling one another. She initiated the touch, but both of us were involved. She was also using brown and yellow markers to draw circles on my stomach, circles that I eventually realized were supposed to be images of my nipples. She was painstaking in this process and it seemed we both were having fun. Then she handed me the phone and told me to dial #PROMISES. I remember being confused about the phone number, but on the other end was a man who began talking to me in a sexy voice and engaging in phone sex with me. I was thinking that my mother wanted to hear, but I became so aroused and wrapped up in my own arousal that I didn't pay much attention to her. Then my stepfather came home and came to crawl into bed with us and he started to climb on top of me. I remember being torn, because I was so aroused that I wanted the touch, but also I knew that he should not be doing what he was doing to me. I can't remember if it was me or my mom who said to him, "Your wife is on the other side." I woke up with him crawling off of me and toward my mother, and with me feeling disappointed and relieved at the same time. <br /><br />Just writing these words makes me want to vomit. I'm holding all sorts of pain in the center of my back. Still, I do not want this exorcism of all this stuff to stop. I want it out of me. I fear I may lose my mind as it emerges, but I know I will lose my mind if it stays buried.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://www.bloglines.com/sub/http://raesconfessions.blogspot.com">
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</a></div>Raehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13352920897908430774noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7123027.post-46019117898360487392009-11-07T12:14:00.002-05:002009-11-07T12:24:35.010-05:00Living in the lightYesterday I faced a very scary and confusing flashback to my childhood abuse. For the first time I felt what it felt like to be crying out, begging my stepfather to stop<br />using my body for his pleasure. I never muttered a word as a child, I just did my best to endure what was happening. But yesterday, as I neared the brink of orgasm, I was able to cry out in fear, and sob through the confusion. Yes, it was scary. Yes, I felt hollow and confused afterward. But I didn't have to f*ck some stranger and I didn't have to eat a bag of Oreos to make the pain go away. In fact, I was grateful to be able to feel the feelings. For so much of my life I have numbed anything that didn't feel comfortable. I thought life was supposed to be different than it is. Today I am grateful to accept it AS it is, and allow my Higher Power to help me heal my wounds and recover from my obsessions and compulsions. I'm living in the light because I choose to accept life on life's terms.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://www.bloglines.com/sub/http://raesconfessions.blogspot.com">
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</a></div>Raehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13352920897908430774noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7123027.post-80819266663709867612009-10-27T19:54:00.001-05:002009-10-27T20:03:15.519-05:00Avoidance through sufferingI have really given a lot of thought to this idea that I get something out of suffering. For one, if I am a victim and have suffered, there's less chance that I'll be held accountable for my actions. (Character defect number 1 is dishonesty, number 2 - avoiding responsibility for myself and my actions.) Also, if I am suffering, people feel sorry for me and give me attention, which in my twisted mind means they love me. <br /><br />There is no serenity in living in that manipulative, maladjusted mindset. I have been blessed, beyond my wildest dreams. Yet, I am without a doubt stuck in my own suffering mindset. <br /><br />I was listening to an OA speaker tape this morning and a woman was sharing about how she believed in a Higher Power who could and would do great things for other people, and maybe even a few good things for her. However, when it came to the big stuff, the removal of her compulsions, she simply didn't believe she was worth her Higher's Power's time and love. She had lost her virginity as a young teenager and felt it was unforgivable. Her shame and guilt blocked her from her Higher Power. It really resonated with me. I see my Higher Power doing amazing things in my life, but there is still that weak, scolded child, who grew up to do countless unspeakable acts of adultery and didn't even feel guilty while doing them, who thinks she's really not worthy of the grace of recovery. Opening myself to true acceptance of God's grace means letting go of that victimhood, that suffering. I admit that I honestly am not sure where to start. It's yet another layer of the onion.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://www.bloglines.com/sub/http://raesconfessions.blogspot.com">
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</a></div>Raehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13352920897908430774noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7123027.post-86502762736072719182009-10-25T17:32:00.001-05:002009-10-25T17:38:15.276-05:00Remember R?Yesterday I went to an all day retreat sponsored by Sexual Compulsives Anonymous (SCA) and for the duration of what was a very excellent keynote address, a man whose back (not his front) looked exactly like R sat in front of me. The image from my angle was an exact duplication of the man I spent a year in a torrid affair with, whose memory reminds me of just how painful and scary this disease can be. The man who sat in front of me yesterday even wore a shirt that was identical to my favorite shirt that R. had. Occasionally he would raise his arms up and they didn't look like R.'s. I could not stop looking at the man. I tried to assess what I was feeling. Even now I am not sure, though I know it was neither longing nor rage. I honestly had very few thoughts. I just sat there and looked. At times, I thought of what it felt like to touch R., but not in a sexual way. I contemplated asking the man if he would sit in front of me for a while after the retreat so I could have a cathartic conversation with R. I could not, however, think of anything I would want to say. I wondered if this was my Higher Power's way of saying, "The storm has passed." I resist that notion, though I'm not sure why. Perhaps it is because of one of the core addictions the speaker said all addicts possess. <br /><br />The four core addictions behind the perception problems of all addicts, according to our speaker Lilliane D. are:<br /> <br />1. Security (the feeling that nothing is enough, we are not enough, we can't get enough of anything)<br />2. Power and control<br />3. Sensation (the need to always be "high" on something, to be stimulated in some way)<br />4. Suffering (the state of being victimized, abandoned, hurt, used or otherwise in pain)<br /><br />It is number four I was thinking of when I said perhaps it is one of these that prevents me from believing that the storm has passed. Perhaps I was trying to get high on the euphoria of looking at that man who had the physical characteristics of my former lover. I didn't get high. I didn't get low. I just sat there looking. I can see I'm still trying to sort out my feelings about it all. For now, I accept it just is.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://www.bloglines.com/sub/http://raesconfessions.blogspot.com">
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</a></div>Raehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13352920897908430774noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7123027.post-45797542039217204462009-10-23T17:37:00.004-04:002009-10-23T17:45:03.115-04:00What I WantSome people have a Bucket List. I decided today to make a list of things I want. <br /><br />I want to:<br /><br /><em><blockquote>Comfortably tie my shoes while standing up<br />Not be the exception<br />Laugh like there is nothing to fear<br />Cry because I know what I am feeling<br />Be paid for my true talents and passions <br />Accept people as they are, and me as I am<br />Feel confident and at ease in social situations<br />Hike in the mountains<br />Kayak <br />Visit South America<br />Enjoy shopping in clothing stores<br />Remarry my husband on our 20 year anniversary<br />Fall in love with reading all over again<br />Be drug free<br />Write a book <br />Be a vessel of love, hope and peace.</blockquote></em><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://www.bloglines.com/sub/http://raesconfessions.blogspot.com">
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</a></div>Raehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13352920897908430774noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7123027.post-67945702231836708032009-10-22T17:57:00.002-04:002009-10-22T18:03:38.703-04:00About this timeAbout this time every month I go crazy. I get obssessive, I get irritable, sometimes I get seriously inclined to act out. It's called PMS. The fact that I've rejoined OA and am not medicating with food at the moment is making PMS all the more gingerly wonderful. I hung up on my husband today. I'm isolating. I don't want to go to my meeting, I want to tell people to fuck off. Other than that ... I'm doing pretty good. <br /><br />Seriously, I'm grateful to have an OA sponsor, to be abstinent from compulsive overeating, and to see God's hand at work in my life. <br /><br />How about some recovery talk you say? OK ... I'm doing what I don't want to do. I'm not trying to be perfect. I'm showing up. I am working on striking a balance in life today -- and not doing so well, but not beating myself up over it. <br /><br />I'm also grateful to be sleeping better. In fact, I think I'll sleep right now.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://www.bloglines.com/sub/http://raesconfessions.blogspot.com">
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</a></div>Raehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13352920897908430774noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7123027.post-76917787620398502462009-10-16T18:15:00.002-04:002009-10-16T18:25:09.212-04:00Another one of us joins the blogosphereI write this blog for the reason I express right on my banner -- it's my own brand of therapy. Rae's Confessions is the place I have come to tell the truths I've been too scared to share elsewhere, or the things that I simply cannot sort out. For a woman who has a difficult time finding safe places, it's amazing that out here in the middle of nowhere, amongst strangers, I find my peace. <br /><br />I'm always grateful when something I write touches someone else, and was especially thankful to have recently gotten a note from fellow sex addict John F. saying he had been inspired to start blogging after spending time reading what I have shared here. <br /><br />I'm even more grateful, having seen in just his first few posts the experience, strength and hope John has to share with those of us in recovery from sexual addiction.<br /><br />So, without further adieu, I invite my readers to take a peak at John's blog "<a href="http://myoutercircle.blog.com/">My Outer Circle</a>." I promise you will not be disappointed. I should note that I was having difficulty with opening the blog using Internet Explorer -- but it worked well with Firefox, and showed up fine in my Google Reader.<br /><br />Godspeed, John! Welcome to our world.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://www.bloglines.com/sub/http://raesconfessions.blogspot.com">
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</a></div>Raehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13352920897908430774noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7123027.post-55517339991745004302009-10-12T18:53:00.005-04:002009-10-12T19:13:38.480-04:00One pound and some notesI have began to slowly try to care for my body with more exercise and one day at a time am trying to make better choices around food. I'm no where near perfect with either effort, but I'm doing my best to simply notice my feelings and accept my efforts. <br /><br />Today was weigh in day at the gym. If I go by the "official" weigh in, I lost two-tenths of one pound. If I go by the locker room weigh in, I lost 1.4 lbs. So, essentially, we'll even it out and say that in one week, I lost one pound. <br /><br />Sure, I should celebrate ... I lost 1 pound! Whoopee! <br /><br />Yet my feelings and self-loathing messages are hard at work with really demeaning reminders of how many weeks it's going to take me to lose just back to where I was six months ago, and lashing me for every "bad" food choice I made last week, and for the wimpiness of my exercise routine -- even though, for the first time in months I went to the gym four days last week. <br /><br />The laws of nature go like this -- you get out what you put in. I needed some warm up and build up time for my exercise, and food is still a great soother and satisfier for me. If these things change gradually, they will change for good. Of course, that screaming little child in me wants all this excess fat and flesh gone today and if it is not gone, she's decided we'll hate ourselves. <br /><br />I'm doing my best not to soothe the uncomfortable feelings with food. I did take a nap, which is another sometimes unhealthy soother, but tonight I'll go to a meeting and be aware of my feelings and offer some love to the screaming, disappointed little girl. <br /><br />--<br /><br />I'm reading Melody Beattie's new book, called "The New Codependency" and finding some rare gems there. It can stir some feelings that are hard to deal with, but it also has some great exercises for moving through those feelings and on to healing. <br /><br />--<br /><br />I received an e-mail last week from a fellow sex addict who had discovered my blog and took the time to read through it from beginning to end. I was touched that someone would spend the time to read my words and I took some time myself to go back and read some of my earlier writings. It was a welcome reminder that while I still struggle, I have come a long, long way. My God, I was crazy before I got into recovery and even a few times since. I am grateful.<br /><br />--<br /><br />Step 1 says I am powerless and that my life is unmanageable. Thankfully there is a spiritual solution. Today, I sought it. I stood looking out my back door and asked God to please give me the willingness to feel my feelings and to surrender my life to his will. <br /><br />--<br /><br />I am resisting the urge to want to run away from my therapist, who wants me to do things differently than I am willing to do them. I am going to show up to this week's appointment and leave it in God's hands. <br /><br />--<br /><br />I continue to feel like the life I am living and the one I am sharing with my husband is quite a mess. It seems so different than what I expected life to be. Again, I'm just going to keep trying and asking for the sincerity I need to travel on this path.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://www.bloglines.com/sub/http://raesconfessions.blogspot.com">
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