What a blessing

I had the wonderful privilege and honor to work with God today to keep myself sober. My husband went out of town today and I spent a little time earlier in the week worrying how difficult it was going to be to keep myself from getting it that old circle of stinkin' thinkin' that leads to acting out. Today is the birthday of one of my most recent acting out partners and we had previously planned to "celebrate" today together. I was worried that I would at least want to contact him for an "innocent" Happy Birthday message.

But instead I turned things over to God and guess what? Just as promised, he handled them.

Upon picking up my things to take with me while driving hubby to the airport, I picked up a list of sex addiction recovery meetings in the area. I normally don't make the meetings an hour or so away in downtown -- as they are most often in the evening, and parking is a major issue. But since I was taking hubby halfway to downtown, I thought I might try to catch a noon meeting today. (Meetings are often called insurance policies by those of us in recovery.) It worked out that I was finished dropping hubby off at 9 a.m. and I was thinking, "It will only be another half hour into the city, this seems like it is not going to work out. I don't want to sit around waiting til noon." But ... God had other plans. I decided that I did have time and interest to take an internal route home rather than the crowded interstates and that just happened to lead me past the road that I needed to be on for the meeting. So ... what the heck, I turned east and started driving. A friend called and that helped to pass the time as I drove from stop light to stop light some 40 plus blocks east. Then there was the big McDonald's where I could sit and have my breakfast and write a fourth step inventory that I needed to work on, before getting back in the car at 11:30 and driving up the road a few more blocks, finding a perfect parking place and going to a meeting that really, really warmed my heart.

As was the case the last time I went to this meeting, it was me and one other woman in the room with a group of about seven guys. But today the woman gave her first step lead. She told her story and there was so much in it, I could feel so much pain and so much familiarity with her words ... as did the men apparently, who shared their experience, strength and hope after her lead. It was such a true blessing to be there among these people who understand so completely the pain and emptiness of the disease of sexual addiction/compulsion. There is so much shame in this disease. Most of the time I feel like something that lives off the rot in the bottom of the sewer. But somehow among others who have felt the same pain, had the same obsessions, I feel like I belong and it is a blessing.

At one point the woman shared that she hit rock bottom when she found herself in a sexual relationship with her sister's husband. "That was a high that would last a week," she said ... not proudly, but with tears, true heartfelt pain. Everyone in the room nodded ... we all knew what she meant. Every step along the way of this disease, the need for something just a little "stronger" ... a little more taboo, a little more extreme has shown me the greed of the never-ending hunger of sex addiction. Eventually that high began to wear off for her, her world started to fall apart, she began to feel used (as we all do), and she made it to a meeting that eventually lead to her sobriety.

God bless that woman for sharing her story today, for telling it to a group of nodding heads and for giving me the opportunity to hear it.

This was such a stark contrast to something that happened yesterday. I had my first session with my new doctor-recommended therapist who's on the insurance plan and who I only have to pay a $20 co-pay to see each week. As I told her of my sexual addiction and the way it manifested itself in my life, she said, "So, when you want to get this high, you can always find someone?" I nodded yes to her naive question, and she said "Wow, you must be good." My heart sank; she was obviously clueless, maybe more so than the five other therapists I have seen in the past. It always seems like I end up teaching them more about sex addiction than they help me in getting past my issues. But I'll go again before I give up completely. God has lead me to her for a reason, even if it is only for me to learn that I can make decisions for myself.

Well for tonight I'm off to a book club meeting with one of my friends I met in OA and share the Al-Anon experience with. She shared with me last night that she is beginning to have concerns about her sexual behavior as well and I told her I am here to listen if she wants to talk. Thank you God for putting the people in my life who I need there and for taking the reigns today. One day at a time.

Again and again

I was looking back at some earlier posts and discovered this Farewell to a Potential Lover. It's not unlike letters I've written again and again over the past few years. It's not much different than the letters I wrote this week.
I have absolutely no idea to whom this letter was written. I don't recall any of the cirumstances of our discussions. I don't even know if I cut him off because I lost interest and gave him a line of crap to get rid of him or if I was really in one of those phases of trying to "break free." But I do remember that I simply was obsessed with writing this letter. I couldn't go on until it was written. And so here it is three years later, a reminder that the more things change, the more they stay the same.
When they say addiction is "cunning, baffling and powerful," they sure aren't kidding.

I dreamt of my father

Yesterday morning I woke up dreaming of my biological father. It is the first time I remember dreaming of him in my life.

I don't remember all of the dream but if I'm not mistaken, I was busy doing things with my family, laughing and enjoying myself. I have the idea though that it was older family members, not my siblings, that I was dreaming of, not that it matters. What I do remember is that I was talking to my biological father on the phone, I had apparently sent a message to him -- either directly or maybe through the grapevine that is my family.

In the dream, he called me and said, "I hear that you need some tender, loving care, that you are feeling down." He said he had been out working on the place and just came in to call me, he was a bit short of breath. I remember that I was visualizing him standing in his barn (he has a barn, but I've never seen it), he wasn't wearing a shirt, and he was standing behind some sort of a wooden gate or barrier talking on one of those old black phones.

While I remember that his words were comforting and that I felt close to and touched by him as he spoke, I don't remember anything about what he said. This is ironic considering that this is a person who I've felt so ill at ease about for so long, and uncomfortable even when his name comes up. The only conversation we've ever had, which occurred just two months ago at my brother's funeral was not uncomfortable, but it also didn't make me "yearn" for a relationship with this person whose sperm caused me to come to be.

One sort of "weird" thing that was not an overwhelming part of the dream but that was present was a overhanging sexual feeling. No, no ... not that I felt sexually attracted to him, but maybe that "awareness" I get when I am around men and there is an air of sexuality. It's hard to explain, since I am even confused about what role it had in this dreamt conversation. I know that with most men, all men really, I am always "on guard" for that hint of sexual intrigue or intent. That might have been it.

This leads me to write about a question my husband asked me a couple of days ago, which is Why did I call my stepfather on Thanksgiving?

I called because I felt like it was the right thing to do. My husband said he thought I did it because I'm still trying to please my dad (I call him my dad because he raised me). The truth is I've called him a couple of times over this time since my brother died because I am trying to save myself. I feel like my resentments are keeping me tied to him and I have to "act normal" RED FLAG in order for my overall state of mind not to be so messed up. I get so confused even writing about this.

I think I have to look at what I feel -- not what others think I feel or should feel. The program tells me that I need to rid myself of resentments (and honestly, I do think I have to do that, but I don't do that by "acting normal"). My husband says my need to please him keeps me coming back to hurting myself again.

What I feel is a lifelong need for a father's love, and a longing for the closeness of a family. (As an aside, I think that has been why I have wanted to get a pet so much lately.) I suppose I also believe that if he (my stepfather) is a monster, the one I paint him to be, then I with all my sexual obsessions, am a monster too.

I have never preyed on young people, thank God. That what separates us. Otherwise, he had his parallel lives too. I just happened to be one of the victims of his "dark side" and the result is today I live in misery, depression and an inability to get on with my life."

In a way, I suppose that my call on Thanksgiving was an attempt to get on with my life or at least act normal. Normal people call their parents on Thanksgiving, right? Good girls call their parents on the holidays, right? (Flawed thinking there.)

Maybe both me and my husband are right -- I was trying to feel a sense of normalcy and family and I was trying to make sure my stepfather didn't feel bad on Thanksgiving.

As I've been writing, I was thinking of how I had not told my older sister I was traveling on Thanksgiving because she worries SO much, she would have ruined her own holiday wondering if we reached S.C. safely. I was thinking of how complicated it gets, trying to make everyone happy and OK, trying to keep the lies straight to make sure everyone is at peace. I've been doing it all my life. And the sad thing is ... I am the one who is never at peace. But I was taught by my mother that I was to sacrifice all peace for myself for other people's happiness.

Lies, another look

I remember when I was in college I had friends who would tell their professors that they didn't finish an assignment because their grandmother had died or was in the hospital or some other big story like that. I would never tell those lies because I was always afraid that whatever I lied about might come true.

Also while I was in college, a few of my friends and I were sitting around, it was quiet and I decided to be "funny." I started acting as if something terrible was happening to me, like I was having a seizure. Who would have ever dreamed that 11 years later, I'd find myself on a stretcher being taken to the hospital after having a seizure at work?

That seizure reaffirmed my belief that playing around with the truth can affect your karma.

Over the past couple of days though I've had a different way of looking at it. I was listening to Joe and Charlie talk about the AA Big Book on my Thanksgiving trip and one of the many things they said that struck me was that alcoholics will let people see them falling down drunk, hugging the porcelain throne and puking their guts out, but when they get into recovery they are often afraid to let other people see them pray. This related to my current situation, as I was thinking of what it was I was going to tell these men with whom I needed to sever ties. Somehow I always seem to feel the need to be comletely honest with the men I act out with, despite all the lies I've told my husband and every other person around me.

So, keeping in mind that there's a chance that telling a lie can make the thing we lie about happen ... I told these men in my letters today that my husband had expressed his concern about the state of our relationship and his heartfelt interest in making things right with us again. I said that he acknowledged the pain he had caused and that he had sensed our distance. My husband and I never had such a conversation, but I'm hoping that maybe one day this is one of those lies that will come back to me. And in the meantime, I'm going to live today as if that conversation really did happen, that we are both equal partners in working on this relationship of ours and that as old wounds are healing, new feelings are developing.

I made it through three and a half

Thank God, I sent three letters cutting off ties with men who have fed my sexual addiction. I didn't have to tell them anything, but I felt that cutting them off automatically, rather than enduring phone calls and such for weeks to come would be easier. I also was able to write a fourth letter with someone who has fed both my sex and love addiction -- I told him I would be out of touch for awhile. It's all I could do today. But it's enough.

Thank you, Lord, for the strength and the courage to do this much.

One day at a time, by God's grace, I have been physically sober since Nov. 14.

I start with a new therapist in the morning. I also managed to apply for three jobs today and write to R. to ask him to begin paying me back (as he promised he would) the money I used to help him buy a car before I moved here.

Back to here

My husband and I arrived back home from our trip to South Carolina around noon today. We arrived back to the gloomy flatness of the Midwest, after having spent time driving through the beautiful Smoky Mountains through Kentucky, Tennessee and North Carolina. It was 29 degrees and snowing here, after we had enjoyed 75 degree weather in S.C. It was a bit depressing.

On the long drive, I spent some time listening to Joe and Charlie talk about the AA Big Book and developed some renewed committment to getting life back on track. I have about five men in my life that I need to cut complete ties with. I have prayed the prayers of surrender and pray that I have the strength to do it one day at a time. I can feel when I am "away" from the temptation, it's easy to want to give it up. When I return to the temptations -- the computer, the time alone, however, the thoughts of "Well, I can just keep them as friends," come to mind. But so far today, every time a thought like that has come to mind, I've said a prayer and said, "God let me surrender these thoughts to you." Believe it or not, that prayer was answered.

My husband goes out of town again this week, just for one day, but it happens to be the birthday of one of those men who I need to cut ties with, who also happens to have the day off. In the past, when I've decided to cut ties, I've been able to do it. However, I often go back and reconnect them. But I'm going to continue to pray.

As of now, 6 p.m., I still haven't contacted any of these guys. I don't have the desire to. Seems like prayer is working pretty well.

Happy Thanksgiving

I'm about to embark on a long journey for the holidays and just wanted to wish a very Happy Thanksgiving to all of you who make such a wonderful difference in my life.

I want to take time to express my gratitude today for my parents (all of them) for giving me life ... this life, my life, and all its intricasies and flowing patterns.

Likewise, I want to thank God for being ever present in my life, even during the times that I set him aside. He has been there from the beginning, guiding the way, and will be there to the end ... understanding far more than I ever can, or ever need to.

May God bless you all with a spirit of gratitude this holiday season.

Back from the doctor

I went to the doctor this afternoon to discuss the feelings of severe depression I've been facing lately. It's been so hard for me to focus or even function at times.

It was amazing to me the shame I felt going there, having the nurse say "So, you're here to see the doctor about depression?" I just felt all coiled up inside.

But my doctor is a really good guy, someone who it is easy to work with and talk with. He was very encouraging and thankfully is willing to pursue a little more aggressive regime of meds than previous doctors who were afraid of potential drug interactions with some other meds I take. He also gave me the name of a therapist and asked me to make sure I walk every day. I walked out of there feeling just a little glimmer of hope and a willingness to try again. I haven't felt much like trying lately.

As he asked me the questions required to make a diagnosis, I began to cry. I haven't cried in a long, long time ... not that kind of cry at least. I used to cry a lot ... all the time ... at everything. And tears do still fall down my cheeks now and then, from words that sting or things that make me sad. But crying to feel the pain inside ... it hasn't happened in a long time. I think I felt most relieved that I could still feel something, that I wasn't completely dead inside.

Lies

Withdrawal in the disease of sex and love addiction can be very paralyzing, almost as paralyzing as the disease itself.

I've sat here, laid here all morning needing to do so much work ... vacillating between a call to act out and a stronger desire to work toward recovery.

My husband came home unexpectedly ... and saw me here. He knew everything I had to get accomplished. I lied and told him that I had already taken a shower, been out to look for (but not find) the turkey for Thanksgiving and been to the gym. I haven't stepped foot outside the house. Why is it soooo hard to tell the truth?

I want to write him a note and tell him I lied ... but I don't know if it's wise. So, I'll pray about it and think about it and maybe talk to him about it tonight. I want so badly for him to think I'm OK ... why?? I'm not OK. That I'm perfect. I'm not perfect ... for goodness' sake that's the last thing I am.

The woman who was going to come to the SLAA meeting tonight e-mailed to say she is sick and won't be coming to the meeting tonight. My first reaction is ... that's good, I can isolate.

I am going to the doctor now to talk to him about depression. I wonder if I will lie to him too. God help me.

Smugness

As I spent a few quiet moments with God this morning, I read from one of my books of daily inspiration and recovery. In this morning’s reading, the topic was smugness and self-righteousness and their effects on recovery. The woman said she used to pass the blame for her inappropriate responses to others and her behavior off, saying “I learned these things growing up with alcoholics.” She ended by saying that while she might have learned the wrong things from her parents, the behavior was now hers, and it was her responsibility to “unlearn” the things she had been taught by working her program of recovery. “My parents cannot do the recovering for me,” she wrote. “No more blaming. It’s time to get on with my life.”

How many people have I blamed for my behaviors? How many ways has this kept me stuck in my recovery? My family members focus their lives on food, so why shouldn’t I? My stepfather yelled and berated me, so I cringe every time I hear a harsh tone from my husband, blaming both of them for my insecurities. My stepfather sexually abused me and taught me that I wasn’t worth anything but sex, so that’s why I seek my “worth” in sexual liaisons. My husband is not meeting my needs … so I am justified in searching out men who can fill in the gaps. Every man I’ve ever known has abandoned me in one way or another … God knows how I use that one. The list of “blaming” could go on an on. But “when the roll is called up yonder,” I’ll be the one accountable.

Like I wrote yesterday, I can have a thought, without letting it overwhelm and take me in its grips, and direct my life. My thinker’s broken. But it is my responsibility to get it back on track. Like I heard recently in a meeting, “No one is coming” to fix it for me. And because I have no idea how to begin to fix all the mess that I’ve made of my life, the 12 Steps of recovery walk me through, and assure me right off the bat that I’m not alone, that God is with me.

Even in writing those words “the mess that I’ve made of my life,” I feel resistant … I want to whine, “I didn’t do it, someone else did.” No, it was me who ate myself to this weight, who lied about exercising, who didn’t exercise, who went on the Internet in search of men, who met them and had sex with them and repeated it over and over and over again. Further than that, it was me who quit the job I loved, it was me who was too “drunk” in my disease to help my husband make better decisions about our future, again, the list could go on.

I can wallow in self-pity and blame the reasons I act out in my food, sex, love, people pleasing, meddling addictions on anything I want, but if I don’t take responsibility for doing something about it, the fault is all mine. What I can do today is reach down in my core and pray, “God, I am powerless over the disease of addiction, but I have been given the tools to take back my life, to stop giving it away to others. Please help me today to begin to take responsibility for my life and my recovery and to dwell with you, so that I know I am not alone.”

A picture of disease

Anyone who is lucky enough to have no idea what sex and love addiction looks like, but for some sick reason wants to know ... go see the movie, "Love in the Time of Cholera." The book is actually better ... but the disease just ooozes out of this motion picture. It's the story of a man who at a very young age falls madly in love with a woman whose father has other plans for his daughter and she marries someone else. And while the man never gives up his undying love sickness for this woman, he goes about keeping a diary of all the women he sleeps with while he waits for her husband to die. At last count, the number was up to something like 621.

At one point in the movie, the man's uncle sums up sex and love addiction very well, when he says that the man's father on his deathbed said his only regret was that he could not die for love. But, the uncle says, "That didn't stop him from fucking every one in sight."

A fresh start

I am thankful that after writing here yesterday and sharing in an online meeting about my latest round of obsessions, I woke up this morning with the realization that ... It is OK if I get anxious and triggered over certain thoughts, obsessed about how to handle things. It is part of being an addict. I don't have to give in to them. I wasted a lot of time over the past few days worrying about whether I should respond to a posting from my former sponsor on an online group and also getting all wrapped up in my other recovery friends' need to be honest -- thinking it was all about me. In a serene moment, I could have very truthfully said ... "Thank you for being honest. I understand and relate to your feelings." But I was too enmeshed and frankly "too drunk" to do the right thing. So I handled it differently and learned the lesson ... for now at least.

I'm a little like Pavlov's dog I suppose. I don't ever learn things the easy way. I think if I read back just a few posts I'll find that I "discovered" a month or so ago that I can have feelings and urges, but I don't have to act on them. Hmmm.. that's didn't last long did it?

Oh well, I'm living life on planet Earth today ... going to exercise with my husband and seeing a movie (Love in the Time of Cholera) in the afternoon. This morning we spent time making plans for traveling on Thanksgiving.

Another reminder ...

This is my place, my safe haven, and I need to share.

First of all, to be completely honest ... I was not physically sober this last week, and truly I haven't been sober for a while. It's hard to admit ... this people-pleasing person inside me has even become codependent with the people who read this blog. I want to lie to everyone and show them my pretty recovering face, when underneath is a world of disease and growing despair. It's not dishonest to say that I continue to live parallel lives ... that recovering woman exists, she's just not the only one who lives in my body and mind.

I had a good reminder this morning, and I'm reminded tonight as I "come clean" that I am not the center of the universe ... everyone has their own life, their own history, their problems and their solutions didn't just begin the day they met me. I'm not responsible for their reactions to me, and trying to manipulate and control their opinions and actions is not only horrifyingly arrogant, it is a waste of time and another form of escape. As I said in a post a week or so ago, I have used dishonesty to manipulate and control what people think of me for so long that it seems second nature. Honesty is the only thing that is going to get me well. And I have to allow other people to be honest with me, without "assuming" that all their problems were caused by me. I made this mistake in a conversation with a friend lately and I deeply regret it.

Unrelated to the men I acted out with this past week, my mind has been heavy the past few days with regard to relationships I developed with two different males in recovery -- one my former sponsor who I engaged in intrigue with and the other a friend I met one night in an online meeting. Both have been very instrumental parts of my recovery, but I've had to face the very painful truth that in my disease, I used them both to feel that "high" of being loved.

Different than the sexual and romantic liasions I had with "earthlings, " the relationships I developed with men in recovery were focused on supporting healthy behavior and recovering from the effects of painful childhoods. These relationships seemed "safe" and the "right thing to do." However, the more I grow in my recovery, work through my Fourth Step, and get truly honest with myself, the more I realize how little of my own shit I even recognize ... the more I am reminded that I'm an addict ... period. There is no escape.

I received an award

It was nice to scroll through one of my favorite recovery blogs, A Room of Mama's Own, and find out that I had received an award, just for being me.

Thanks, MPJ, for all your kindness and for everything you do to teach us all how to keep moving forward. I love it that you have helped connect so many people all to one another!

If you haven't visited A Room of Mama's Own, I encourage you to go there and spend some quality time.

An informative link

After years of struggling with the disease of sexual addiction and sexual compulsiveness, it seems I should know everything. After all, I've read the books, seen the counselors (most of whom were ill informed) and gone to the meetings.

But I found this link from the CNN Health Library (sourced by the Mayo Clinic) to be a very concise explanation of what the disease is, its possible treatments and causes.

I'm tired

It's often said in recovery that we keep acting out until we get sick and tired of being sick and tired.

Today I'm tired. I'm tired of thinking about sex. I'm tired of sex ruling my life. I'm tired of seeing every free moment of my time as an opportunity to pursue something sexual.

I don't even go to the place in my mind anymore where I blame the horny men who beg not for me, but for whatever sexual favor I've given them in the past. They are just sex addicts too. They beg because their minds won't set them free. They beg because I've been a source. Now and then I've begged them too.

It's all so ugly.

I looked at a series of photos at The Junky's Wife yesterday that made me sad. The images are of the progressive disease of a heroin addict. I thought how the images of sex addicts might look the same. Sadness and despair, and a worn out need to just get a tingle from their "drug." The images of our disease would be of broken wedding pictures, ratty hotel rooms, children left alone or worse set aside while mommy or daddy acted out, injured children, streetwalkers, public parks, genitals raw and sore from hours of masturbation, tired, worn out bodies.

God help us all.

Answered prayers

I went to an An Al-Anon meeting tonight. I might have needed an SLAA meeting more ... but I went to a meeting nonetheless. At first I was just sitting there thinking this is so much bullshit, people talking about being mad because their mothers had destroyed something left behind by a grandmother and boyfriends losing gifts they had been given, daughters in law telling husbands what to do.

I recognized my resentments and I prayed a prayer ... "God let me hear what I need to hear." And within a few minutes a young lady who has been coming to these meetings for more than three months, who smiled a lot, but never said a word, said ... "I want to say something." We all cheered. We were happy to hear her speak and share how the program had helped her.

I do believe even the simplest of prayers are answered. And I do pray even though I feel like I live in the constant crutches of my disease.

I was reading the steps on the wall tonight ... and I realized that the first three are there in my life ... even though I don't really know how to do Step 3 ... but it is Step 4 that has been holding me up for a long, long time. I'm glad I'm working on it.

Do unto others ...

From Hazelden's Promise for a New Day:
Is there any stab as deep as wondering where and how much you failed those you loved--Florida Scott Maxwell


Treating our loved ones as we hope to be treated is our assurance against failing them. And if we listen to our inner voice, we'll never falter in our actions toward others. There is always a right behavior, a thoughtful response, and a respectful posture.

Let us be mindful that we're sharing our experiences with others who need the talents we have to offer. It's not by coincidence but by design that we're given opportunities to treat those close at hand in some manner. We'd do well to let the choice be loving.

How we treat another invites like treatment. Actions from our heart will soften our own struggles. Also, spiteful, critical treatment of others will hamper our steps. We teach others how to treat us by our gestures and words.

The inner voice can be heard if I choose to listen. It will never guide me wrongly.

--


This reading speaks to me in so many ways. In my disease I have hurt so many people in so many different ways -- but all in ways that would devastate me if I had endured them directly. In working my 4th step, one of my resentments against my abusive stepfather was that he "expected to get away with all his despicable behavior." Recognizing this resentment, I uncovered one of my own character defects. As a selfish addict, I have acted in any manner I deemed enjoyable, pursued every whim, and never expected be held accountable for it. Maybe this too is the reason I continue to protect him by keeping silent within my family about the reasons I no longer associate with him -- if the truth of his transgessions are revealed, so mine may be too. I am ever surprised as I work this 4th step at the revelation of the many ways I have used "controlling the truth" to "empower" myself over the years. Even my chosen profession has been influenced by this need to control and manipulate information.

I read a great qualification from a fellow blogger and a member of COSA (co-sex addicts anonymous) yesterday. In it the writer talks about how she spent a year focused on great achievements her role as a member of Junior League, "all the while ignoring my own family." It reminded me of the consideration I have given my acting out partners (once I told them "yes" I could never think of telling them "no," I drove miles and miles to meet them, I worked around their schedules, spent money on them, lost myself in their presence), while I played my husband for a fool, ignoring the basic, not to mention moral, requirements of being a spouse, a friend and a partner in a wide variety of ways. (And these are just the ways I have hurt him. It doesn't take into consideration all the friends and co-workers I have ignored and cheated of my time, presence and talent.)

Over the years, I have resented my husband for choosing work over time with me, yet, as the reading says, we were both inviting a "non-presence" from one another. In recovery, I can let go of those resentments and invite him to be present for me, to have someone to be present with, and I can respect myself and invite him to do the same. Recovery -- working the steps -- allows me to see these truths, to be completely honest with myself, and with you -- and to recognize that life can be different. And as I change, the hopeless, futureless life I have been living can also begin to take shape, filled with truths I don't have to keep secret. And although it goes against everything an addict "wants," I can be accountable to myself, my family and my Higher Power.

It's an R

OK ... I know it's silly, but I liked this "R" I found as I was searching through clip art today.

I don't have many images on my site, so I thought since I'm committed to posting more regularly, I might as well add something fun.

I am proud of myself for two things today ... let me rephrase that, I am thankful to God for two things today:

1. I asked for prayers even though I didn't want them after my husband told me last night that he'd be gone out of town all next week. My addict wants to play and celebrate. But I'm thankful to be feeling my authentic self deep inside that says this is an opportunity to show yourself that you can live without giving into that damn addiction every time it starts dancing.

2. That I could be honest with a male friend and say ... "I would never hurt you, but my disease wouldn't mind a bit."

Hope all is well in your world today. I'll be going out to visit the blogosphere and see what everyone is up to, as I finish up some real life work here on this end.

Movies

Since a couple of you said you like the movies as well ... I wanted to share that I saw "Dan in Real Life" last night and it was a really funny and uplifting story. If you get a chance, it's something I have no doubt you'll like.

One big step

In doing my fourth step work surrounding resentments against my stepfather (my abuser) I was able to admit to myself that being abused and told that "if you tell" made me feel powerful, as if I weilded a whole lot of power in my family. One of the reasons I've held on to the secret (subconciously, if not conciously) within my family is because it gives me power over my abuser. At any given time I can bring him to his knees like the helpless little child I was when he violated me. And while I rarely "feel" my anger at him, I can sense it in this truth. The selfishness and manipulation I find in myself in this context is ugly to look at, but I'm thankful to see them. Serenity cannot be found until I uncover these character defects, accept them for what that were and are and pray for their removal, as the steps teach me. It is my resentment and anger that keeps me tied to these defects, and my fourth step is helping me to uncover these things and to get real with myself.

It took me a long time to get the courage to do the fourth step. From the beginning it seemed so scary and even still today it seems gigantic. I've only truly just began. But I've always known it holds the key for me. I just had to let go of my self will, pray for the courage even when I didnt' want it, and wait one day at a time until I was ready to begin to open the doors where all the sick secrets lie. I had a whole lot of acting out to do, a few more resentments to build, and a lot of fear to work through before I could get started. But because I kept coming back, knowing that inside me is a survivor powered by the grace of my Higher Power, I knew I would get there.

The exact nature of our wrongs

I spent about two hours this morning writing on my Fourth Step, examining resentments, their causes, their effects and my part. When contemplating the questions about my part ... How am I selfish? How am I dishonest? ... the answer seems to be a resounding ... in every way.

On the surface, people see me as a very giving person. I really do try to do a whole lot of people pleasing and I do enjoy doing things for others. But at my core, when it comes to my disease ... I'm as selfish as they come. I want .. I go after ... to hell with the rest. Likewise, most people who know me would say I'm a straight shooter. Boy, do I have them fooled. By telling them what I think about their situation, or even taking my own public inventory, it looks like I'm a pretty honest person. But I learned a long time ago that in order to protect myself, I needed to hide the truth and replace it with a smile and a lie. Dishonesty seems almost automatic in me at times.

The Way it Works in the AA Big Book says that honesty is the key to success in recovery. I wrote a prayer today asking God to help me have the courage and the strength to let go of dishonesty as a means for survival. It is a tool that served me once, but I don't need it anymore. I know that this won't be the only time I'll have to pray for that courage and strength. Something that deep rooted doesn't go away so easily.

I was reminded of the ironies of human behavior last night while watching "American Gangster." Russell Crowe plays a straight-laced New Jersey cop who, in a world of corrupt colleagues, stands out as one of the good guys -- honest to a fault. But when his wife takes him to divorce court she points out that while he looks like the most honest guy on earth to those around him, he had repeatedly lied to her, cheated on her multiple times (seemed like he was a sex addict too - a common affliction for those on the police force) and chose work and friends over his son all the time. It was a good movie ... I recommend it.

A more regular poster

I was inspired by Bella's participation in a challenge to blog every day for 30 days. Sometimes I go months without posting here and don't share some of the everyday things in life. I think doing so might help me develop a greater sense of normalcy. Who knows? Worth a shot.

I spoke with my niece by phone today. Even though we are so close, and she knows more about me than most anyone, I think she sometimes wonders what in the world she is going to do with me. I told her today that I'm about to give up on this job search ... that I have the overall feeling that once I get a job, I'll just be told my Mr. Wonderful Husband here that we're moving again. And to be honest, I'd be ready to go. She did help me understand one thing that I was able to articulate to Mr Wonderful Husband ... my profession is based on building relationships, and it's hard to build relationships when you have to move around all the time. Managers look at the resume and say ... "Job Hopper" and keep on looking. From the look on his face, I think he got it for once.

So ... we're off to the movies, into my favorite healthy "escape."

In God's order

I had a meeting with my program sponsor yesterday to discuss my Step 4 (moral inventory) and our discussions caused me think of what life would have been like had I "told" (about my abuse) back then ... what if no one believed me, what if things went into chaos and my family was torn apart, even now I can't think of doing that to my mother and I can't imagine the effects it would have had on me.

I recalled with my sponsor that I did tell one of my cousins once while she was visiting at our house. And while no one ever said anything to me about it, my stepfather asked me a few days later, "You told Chrish what I was doing to you didn't you?" I lied and said I hadn't ... I was always taught to lie to stay out of trouble. I don't remember what he said exactly, but I know it was a rehash of the "you can't tell anyone, it will be bad, you'll be taken away from your family, we dont have to do this if you don't want to" speech.

I have a greater feeling than ever that life happens in the order it's supposed to for a reason. The abuse was one trauma, the deep-rooted effects and recovery from them is another. I don't think I could have began that second round any earlier than I did and lived to tell about it. Thank God for the passage of time, and love in my life that I don't have to question at all.

Robbed - The consequence

The three months I remained in my home state, before coming here to live with my husband again, I practically lived with R. I never felt at home in his place though. I felt held captive much of the time -- captive in the world of a man who was trying to change my mind. I awakened at 3 this morning remembering a time during that period when I really felt that I just wanted to be at my house alone. R. pitched a fit, declaring in the most disgusted and angry voice, coming from the depths of his insecurity, "When two people want to be together, they don't want to 'be alone.' They want to be together." I only had a twin bed in my house at the time, but somehow I acquiesced and said he could stay at my house with me. So he came and tried to lay with me in my twin bed. Feeling crowded and uncomfortable, neither of us could sleep. Eventually he went to the couch to sleep. I remember feeling so glad he left and at the same time thinking he was a hypocrite.

It's both difficult and reassuring to think back to that time in life. Difficult now to consider how I ever got myself so enmeshed with a raging, insecure man who screamed at me as he declared his love and reassuring that there was some semblance of sanity left in me ... enough to get out. I don't know how it feels to realize that I lived my overwhelming life with him, not just in those three months, but in the nine months preceding, while carrying on a whole other life ... or at least attempting to. I suppose it is the same as living with my active addiction and even recovery all these years. Yes, it's true, I do sometimes think that living in recovery is simply switching one parallel life for another. It's just that presumably with recovery I'll be able to become "whole." That is my goal because it sounds so close to "normal."

My abnormal life has robbed me of so much. I wasn't here with my husband during the time his mother passed away, because I was with R. It will take me a long time to forgive myself for that. The isolation of and obsession of my disease has kept me separated from friends and family for so long that relationships that once existed have died for lack of watering, or at best have faded away to nothing. I have replaced some friendships with recovery friends ... but that is a constant reminder of my situation. The colleagues at my jobs have suffered greatly at the expense of my disease and for the most part, lacks the scope of my "normal" friendships. Because I have been unable to remain present, apply myself, for at least four years, and it seems like much longer, I have been robbed of the benefit of a fulfilling work experience. But it's the little things -- the little conversations I could have had with my husband, the time I could have spent with a friend or family member ... especially during that brief time mentioned above, when I was in the south, and my husband was in the midwest. I think of a time when one of my dearest friends in the world was coming to the town where I lived, and he asked me to stay with him, and because R. pitched another of his fits, I declined. This was just after this friend had lost his mother and was going through a very emotional time. He not only needed me, I needed him. Another huge regret for me.

There have been therapists and others who say that I have "repressed anger" toward my stepfather for abusing me. The anger that I feel is that I ended up with this disease. I will be glad when the day comes when I reach the point to tell this disease to go fuck off, just like I did him when he came into my bedroom for the last time when I was 13. I lived the first hell of being molested for 10 years, and now I am reliving it. I pray it won't take 10 years to figure out I don't have to.

Sunday morning reflections

This morning I was trying to remember something from the time in my life just before I discovered the Internet and uncovered my sexual addiction. It was the time right after my mother died, and I made the decision to move out on my own, separate from my roommates, who happened to be my niece and her husband. I remember almost every nook and cranny of the house I moved into -- the smells, the feel, the sounds, everything. I remember different acting out partners who I brought there, the first time I invited the man who is now my husband there and I remember how good it felt just to live alone there. But interestingly, I can't remember a thing about how I got my stuff there, or even how I got some of the stuff that went in there. I simply remember that I had to work hard to fight off depression when I first moved in and it wasn't long until sexual addiction became my way to do that. I was already escaping through work, spending more than I earned and eating, but that was no longer enough.

My mind is a parallel universe, that part of me that "disappears" when things get too difficult has saved my life. As an abused child, dissassociation took me away from the emotional and physical pain that my young body was not able to endure. Long term, however, that thing that helped me, has also has made wholeness feel nearly impossible. Isolation and fear are two of my biggest character defects ... one sends me running into that "other world" and the other keeps me there, nursing me like a comforting mother in ways I can neither remember nor forget. Duality is a life that recovery can repair. Thus, even though it is sometimes very hard for me to avoid slipping into that "invisible world," I keep coming back to grow, working the steps, working through resentments, discovering character defects, forgiving myself and others. I am one of the ones whose recovery is coming slowly. But it is coming, one day at a time. I can see it and I walk toward it ... even on the days when I veer off the path. I pray for courage to do the will of my Higher Power today.

Wednesday check in

Thanks to all of you for your condolences regarding the loss of my brother and for your encouragement as I continue to work toward recovery.

Someone posted on an old post that it didn't seem like I was really in recovery and at times I think that's pretty accurate. They call it in the program, "playing around in recovery" and it seems to fit me at times. The honest truth is there is a part of me that wants to recover and another part that feels stuck in the idea that I don't know any other way to live.

A recovery friend noted the other day that it is very hard for her to handle emotions in their raw form. Having numbed them out with years of addiction to food and sex and love and codependency, the idea that I could take any of these emotions related to my brother's death, dealing with my family, meeting my father, being compassionate with my stepfather at a level in which I am really feeling the full effect of the emotions seems totally foreign to me.

I went to my SLAA (Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous) meeting on Monday and I was the only one there, so I sat there and read from Answers from the Heart (the meditation book) and I read a story from my SLAA book. The story touched me as it was about the reconciliation of abuse and love. The woman who wrote it felt the most loved when she was in an abusive relationship. She had grown up in a home filled with abuse of all kinds and filled her adult life with the same kind of relationships. It was only after she entered recovery and began to eliminate abuse from her life. "SLAA and God can save me if I put them first before my sex drive and my need for love," she wrote. This has been my problem ... when my desire to have sex comes along, when my need to feel loved feels like it is ripping my heart out, I feel that I have no choice, but to act on it and seek to fill that which I need. It's not true, what recovery gives me is a choice, but I have make it.

I was particulary touched by these words in that story (pg 260 SLAA text), "I believe there exists a parallel world of the spirit, which contains all the experiences of my childhood and the active phase of my sex and love addiction. When I stay sober and fully experience the pain and joy of the present, I claim those experiences and grow towards becoming a whole person again. As I call upon God and SLAA for help, the power of the disease lessens and the reconciliation of love and abuse can take place. It takes place within me as I learn to accept and love myself."

It is my prayer that I be given the courage to make these transitions.

Unclouded sky

"Oh they tell me of a home where no storm clouds rise. Oh, they tell me of an unclouded day."

This song is in my head tonight as I think of how I have slipped into the darkness of my disease yet again. I saw the clouds coming ... and I'm not sure I did anything to stop them. Sometimes after all these times of failing, it feels almost useless to try again. When the cloud comes, just let it rain and let the cycle go, it all will pass just as it came.

My interview went well on Friday ... as well as it could for someone who wasted so much time focused on illness rather than success. I tried to focus on preparation ... and I did do some prepatory work, but not nearly as much as I might have. I would pray and ask God to please help me set aside my obsessions and focus on the work I needed to do, but I think the prayers never reached him. Because when I'm acting out, I can't reach my Higher Power. I know this ... But I'm still an addict.

I know I am subconciously trying to numb feelings, or rather do something to harm myself because I don't feel much of what I feel I should be feeling. Sexual highs make me "feel." This may all be psychobabble. I don't know. I don't really feel anything, so I don't know what to believe.

Try, then try again

I'm so thankful to the people who visit my blog and offer their support. They help me to realize there is hope. I always go and read their blogs and get some insight into what others are dealing with.

Sometimes when I think of myself as a recovering sex addict I wonder if I really am recovering. Some days it feels like the only way I can survive, the only way I can escape, the only way I can feel anything is to live in my addiction. I make progress in my recovery, but I never trust myself enough to believe that I really will ever be the sober person that I see so many recovering addicts become.

My brother in law, who was a raging alcoholic and smoker for years, once told me, "You can't just try to quit. You just have to quit." It seems so easy when said that way. Giving yourself no option.

As I have tried to prepare for an interview on Friday, I have needed to use the computer a lot. And when I am at the computer I feel the need to reach out to someone, to not be here alone. I know it is all my insecurities and fears that take me to that place. Yet, I can't seem to break free from my need to just connect to something that will give me that little kick. That's why I am thankful when I come and find nice comments on my blog. It reminds me that there are people out there who can give me positive reinforcement, help me feel better about myself, without me giving myself up sexually, and degrading myself in ways that most "normal" people would find unimaginable.

I spent all of last week with my family. I rarely had the chance to be on the computer. I fought off the compulsion to run away from all I was feeling, even though I didn't understand most of it. I still feel very overwhelmed with my feelings and unable to process them. I know that is why my disease is playing with me.

I think about my brother ... what a good person he was, what demons he faced. Yet he survived it all. I wonder how much he buried, what all he must have dealt with or never dealt with, that none of us ever saw. My family doesn't see the demons I battle. They just never hear from me and when they do I focus the entire conversation on them, pausing only to talk of me if I am forced and then only at the surface.

I want to spend some time here telling you about my brother. He went to work at 13 to help my mother pay the bills, because my biological father -- the man I met for the first time last week -- left behind his wife and three kids, only to come back one weekend and give her a fourth, me. My brother was too young to take on those responsibilities, but he did. He never finished high school, likely not even 10th grade. He drove a truck for most of his life and befriended every person he met and brought them home if he needed to. My sister in law told us that of the 23 years they were married, they had spent one night alone. Otherwise the house was filled with kids or family or some of the "strays" that he brought in to his house because there was no place else for them to live. I even lived with them for a while, which helped me get my feet on the ground, and gave me a sense of family when I moved away from my college friends who had been my only source of family for so long. And when my husband and I moved back to my home state in 2005, I began meeting my brother for breakfast every Thursday morning. We never talked about much of importance, but we sat down and had a meal together and enjoyed each other's company. I will always be thankful for that time. I'm thankful too for the time I got to spend with him just two weeks before he died, sitting by his side, nursing his wounds, and teasing him about the silly things he was saying as he got to point where he was "talking out of his head." And I'm thankful that he waited until I got there last Saturday to take his final breath. Rest in peace, my brother. You will always be loved.

Where do I start?

If it seemed I was overwhelmed in my last post ... here comes the gusher!

My oldest brother died last Saturday, I went to his funeral and met my biological father for the first time, and really sat with ALL my feelings surrounding the insanity and chaos that being with my family brings to me. I literally feel numb, as if I've been on a tornado and am just looking around to see what is left, not sure if I'm even alive.

I'm reaching out in my addictions some ... but not enough to worry me much at this point. My food I guess is something to be worried about ... but I don't know, I just don't think I can deal with it right now. My desire to find new partners is there and in fact I find myself spending time talking with a few people regularly ... in hopes of finding someone to give me love like R. did. I wonder how many times I have to be reminded of this pain, before I'll let it go. I did not contact R. this time when I went home to be with my family after my brother's death. I came close a couple of times, but I knew I wanted something he didn't have to offer.

I talked to a guy yesterday who helped me to really reach in and feel the hollowness inside me, the emptiness of living in this disconnected world, where I feel chaotic most all the time. The truth is I want to feel anything other than this emptiness. I feel like I need to decompress and I'm trying. I feel glued to my computer, wanting to reach out to something or someone to touch me. I have an interview at the end of the week and I'm trying to get ready for that, but having trouble focusing.

I wanted to write more here ... to go more in depth about my brother and about meeting my father and seeing my stepfather (my abuser) ... but I can't. I can't seem to get to those feelings right now. I want to ... but it feels like I just get disconnected. So, I'll go out for awhile and see if I can connect later.

A month on the road

I have been away from home for most of the month of September and it feels good to finally be home.

A few things to note about the time I was away:

I saw R. when I went back home to visit my sick brother. The first day I arrived I went to his work and waited for him to come out to his car and then we talked easily, like old friends. I didn't get out of my car. As we said goodbye he said it was good to see me and that if I wanted to go to lunch while I was in town to call him. So, of course, I did a few days later. It was difficult to go through many of the same motions I had gone through before and it not be the same -- to pick him up from work, him get in the car -- not to kiss, hold hands, not to tell him I love him, not to worry about him pressuring me to leave my husband. We had a good conversation at lunch and it was between friends, which felt nice. He told me about his life with his wife and her family now. He also complained a bit about a few things, which reminded me of my gut feeling that even if I had left my husband for him, it would never have been enough to make him happy.

Before he got out of the car, he took my hand, which was attached like glue to the steering wheel and pulled it to his lap and said, "It was really great to see you. I miss you a lot." Then he hugged me and kissed my cheek, which by that point had a tear running down it. I just said, "Me too. I'll see you soon." I honestly don't think I will see him again, but it was the only thing I could say at the moment.

I felt a strange sense of closure after I had a good cry driving away. He has his life and I have mine. I saw my therapist while I was there as well and she said she thought it was good that we could see one another and simply say "I didn't use you and you didn't use me. We needed what we had, it is over." I agreed. And I agree that seeing her brought some closure to it as well.

Today's thought for today from Hazelden was:

Life has lessons to teach. We can remember them and share them with others, or we can forget them and have to learn them again.--Jan Pishok

What we are destined to learn in this life will keep presenting itself until "contact" has been made. Each experience is a minute part of the big picture that's unfolding. We will receive the information we need, again and again if necessary. Let's give up our fear about where we are going and how we'll get there. We are in caring, capable hands. We will get to the right destination on time.

In this program we are invited to share with others what our experiences have taught us. What better way to recall, and thus relearn, what we have been taught, than to tell another about it. Every Twelve Step program is specifically designed to simplify our lives. The Steps coach us through every situation, and they never shame us for needing reminders of our lessons.

I will help others through sharing my own experiences today. In the process, I'll recapture the essence of the lessons I have learned.

And to share some things life has taught me that have finally sunk in:

Over my years in recovery, it is the Fourth Step that I have needed the most time to work through. Up until entering SLAA, I had done everything I could to avoid looking at myself, my motives and what was really inside me. Now I was suppose to take an inventory of myself and be searching and fearless in my quest. Me? Fearless? That was a tough call. But one day at a time for a very long time, my Higher Power has lead me gently through this process. And like most things in recovery, discovering myself has been like unpeeling the layers of an onion. Some new realizations were revealed yesterday that I thought I would share here.

The trouble women often face relating to and enjoying the company of other women has often been a topic on this list as it speaks directly to the way we use sex and love to escape healthy, meaningful relationships with people of both genders. I read something yesterday morning that caused me to really give some serious thought to my own issues and the way I relate to members of the same gender. I was reading from a book about healing from childhood sexual abuse, which stated that while we don't always realize it, women often feel anger at their mothers first for not protecting them from their abusers. This makes it hard later in life for them to believe that women can be trusted. It makes it also difficult to respect women in ways that might otherwise be normal.

I have only in the past two to three years even been able to acknowledge that my mother knew I was being abused. She was someone I idolized, someone I felt loved me unconditionally. I have not wanted to let go of that idea. After all, men have disappointed me, abandoned me, used me, and I have returned that by doing what I can to disappoint, abandon and use them. But through it all, I always believed that my mother was my solid rock. And to some degree I still do believe that.

A few years ago as I struggled to maintain a relationship with my stepfather (my abuser), my huband said to me, "I see you constantly trying to create something that is not there, just for the fact that you want it." In other words, because I wanted to have a normal father-daughter relationship in my life, I was struggling to pretend that certain things that were false were actually true, and vice versa. My husband said he had observed this same behavior in me as I related to my younger sister, who was an addict and with whom I was very codependent.

So, now I sit and realize that I have also desparately hung on to this "ideal" relationship I had with my mother because I needed something to hold on to. It is one of the many things that my work through the Fourth Step has helped me to realize. Slowly I am discovering a life based in real truth, not the false truths my mind has created in order to survive.

I'm glad to be home, my dear readers. I hope you all are happy in your homes as well.

Back from PA

I'm back from a weekend trip to PA where hubby and I visited some old friends and enjoyed a nice getaway. I have gone back there numerous times since we moved away ... and this is the first time I felt relatively untriggered by the lure of old haunts. It's true that many of the places we went or talked about conjured up images of my past addictive behaviors, but they didn't linger in my mind. They simply passed through.

It could be that I am finally moving on from all that started there or it could be that I've started other "memories" elsewhere. I don't know. But I was glad the sting was not as sharp and that we were able to have a good weekend together with friends.

Tonight is the first SLAA meeting of the group that I am helping to get started. I keep telling myself that I have been physically sober for awhile now and that everything will go OK. But I know honestly that I am not emotionally sober, and it is in desparation for full sobriety -- I want my life back -- that I start this meeting. I am reminded of the saying in program ... "We don't work the steps to get sober. We get sober so we can work the steps." God, help me.

Reflections

Today, despite writing about letting go of the negative, the truth is I'm feeling down. I'm not sure what it is all about, but it is there. I committed to eating three meals a day today and no snacks and connected with two OA friends. I'm seeing a therapist now, once every two weeks. I posted to my online group this morning. So, I am doing some good things.
They are offset by the fact that I have an ongoing "thing" with a traveling man who is my area once a month or so. He's someone I don't want to let go. Nor do i want to let go of a couple of other people who are in my addictive circle. Still, I have let go of everyone else that I had "built up" in this last addictive rage, and am feeling empty, feeling the need to not be empty.
I read back over a post from a year ago and saw how desparate I was at this time. I was seeing R., had just lost his baby, was thinking of leaving my husband. Geeze, I wonder sometimes whose life this is anyway. People who know me in the "real" world would never, could never imagine this was my life. Just a few months prior to that I wrote about how my addict had awakened. It was just two days before I first spoke to R. It looks like I would have seen the railroad coming, but even today ... I still keep marching on, knowing the railroad is coming.

Letting go of the negative

God, help me let go of my need to stay immersed in negativity. I can change the energy in my environment and myself from negative to positive. I will affirm the good until it sinks in and feels real. I will also strive to find one quality that I like about someone else who's important to me, and I will take the risk of telling him or her that.
From The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie ©1990, Hazelden Foundation.

Today's reading from The Language of Letting Go is pertinent in my life because as an addict I tend to focus on the negatives in my life. I tend to find everything I did wrong, then focus on it and shame myself over it, procrastinate and put off my life and my recovery longer.

I have to confess honestly that sometimes I feel my recovery is taking too long, even think sometimes of just giving up the process of recovery. Then I'll think it's my fault it's going so slow, I'm the one who is screwing everything up, who keeps hanging on to the lure of the addiction. Why can't I just step out of the way and let HP take over? It must surely be easier than I am making it. That is all negative thinking that my addictive self, my diseased self uses to keep me locked in my disease.

Whether it is the wrong way I am working my recovery or the wrong way I am living my life ... if I am using the word "wrong" then I am not accepting myself, and I am not accepting that my HP has a plan for me, whether I understand it or not.

As the AA Big Book says, "Acceptance is the answer to all my problems today." And what better way to accept life on life's terms, on my HP's terms, than to find the things in it for which I can be thankful and can admire. That simple shift in attitude can make all the difference.

That said, I'll transform a couple of negative into a few positives this morning:

Negative:

My addiction leaves me feeling trapped, locked in its clutches and I feel powerless to move ahead with anything else in my life. It is stifling, like being locked in a cellar.

Positives:

I am powerless which clears the way for a power far greater than I to have a role in my life and help me to experience life at a level which I could never have dreamed.

I have seen life at a depth that few people can comprehend; it gives me perspective that helps me to handle situations with a greater understanding. In other words, some things that cause others to freak out, don't even faze me. I can see them in perspective and realize they are passing issues.

My addiction is a manifestion of the pain I felt as a sexually abused child and recovering from this addiction is helping me to recover from the painful feelings I never allowed myself to feel.

Negative:

My recovery is taking too long. I feel sometimes as if I am never going to get it right, that I might as well just give up, that I am one of those "unfortunates" that they talk about who is constitutionally incapable of being honest with myself. Either that, or I'm just too lazy and self-centered to do the work it takes to achieve success in this program.

Postives:

I can share these feelings with others and know they have been there too and that they made it through and have seen the miracles of the program happen over and over again.

I can pray and feel that my HP is there if I just reach out and make "concious contact."

Nobody is asking for perfection but me, and I do achieve success in this program in little steps that I can be very grateful for one little day at at time. For example, already today, I made a list of things I am grateful for about my husband and our relationship and I took the risk of sharing it with him, then let go of the expectation. That is one little grain of success for today. If it's all I get, I still have done something positive, which is a step in the right direction.

One day at a time, one moment at a time, I recover. And I'm certainly grateful that something inside me drives me to keep coming back.

Carry on

Carry on ... that's the best we can do, I wrote on the blog of one of my longtime blogging buddies, Summer.

Hubby and I returned late last night from a long driving trip to the eastern part of the country. We saw old friends there and realized that we live a pretty good life compared to those who constantly feel they have to keep up with someone else in order to have any worth. We also talked about getting a dog. I'm excited about that.

Today I read a post on A Room of Mama's Own this afternoon that made me cry the kind of tears you cry when you see something that feels so familiar but you never thought anyone else could ever understand.

The lines between sex/love addiction and friendship blur for me so easily, leaving me feeling empty and confused. I eat chocolate cake and buy ice cream and say it's going to be the last time and then horde money for later adventures. I'll try to go to an OA meeting tonight. My first SLAA meeting is next week and I'm feeling inadequate to run it, but I'll do it anyway in hopes that someone more sober will show up to lead the next week's meeting.

I feel out of sorts, I don't know if it is lonely or tired that haunts me. Maybe both.

Passage into a new skin

Thought for today from A Woman's Spirit

We are not unlike a particularly hardy crustacean. ... With each passage from one stage of human growth to the next, we, too, must shed a protective structure.
--Gail Sheehy

Our passage into a new stage of development was initiated by our desire to stop using (sex and love). The values we lived by while using (sex and love) no longer fit us. We need to shed our old skin and grow a new one that reflects our current worldview.

We are now, and always will be, in the stage of becoming, of trying to fulfill our changing dreams and aspirations. What we can accomplish at one stage of life is different from what we can handle at another. And yet an overall design is being shaped by all our endeavors. The more willing we are to shed yet another skin, the more centered, stable, and spirit filled we'll become.

Do my actions fit my values? As I outgrow my values, I will release them. I will relish my growth today and celebrate my new skin.
----

Sobriety for most of my recovery from sex and love addiction and food addiction as well has been rather allusive for me, as many of you who have been around a while can attest. I know well that it is primarily because surrender, my ability to give up my own will has been the most difficult task of my life. I learned very early in life that trust of any sort was dangerous and could lead to extreme pain. Failure to trust that there is a power greater than myself who can, if I will get the hell OUT of the way, restore me to sanity ... only keeps me in a cycle of self-defeat, just the place my addict wants me to be.

No matter where I am in my recovery I always feel the growth, as well as the deterioration. Sometimes the deterioration -- the progress of the disease as it changes from one form to the next -- feels like it has all the power to win the race in my parallel lives. Above sea level, where I work my recovery, live my day to day life, and am seeing a lot of successes and reasons for hope these days ... I thrive. I have recently made the moves to start and SLAA meeting in my area and I feel so proud about that, so thankful to my Higher Power for the courage and for paving the way. I'm in the process of making positive changes in my career, and I feel so excited about that. But underneath it all, the person I feel I can't trust the most is me. I have felt so vulnerable lately, not trusting the good feelings and just waiting to f*ck them up. I always do. Because I never surrender ... and shed the old skin, as the thought for today above says.

I must maintain a very disciplined life in order to stay above sea level. I must pray, write, exercise, read, have a to do list and a gratitude list, a daily food list, go to meetings, make phone calls and stay very present. As an addict, I am very undisciplined and reject discipline on the principle that I "need" the freedom of my own actions.

It is so hard for me to simply realize that I am sick, that addiction is a disease, a state of constant "dis ease," where I crave the opportunity to feel "normal" yet constantly am aware that I am not. Addiction, for me, is a state of "not enough."

I pray today, just for today, that I am enough and even when I don't feel like I am enough ... that I will open myself to the truth that there is a power greater than myself who is enough.

A good day

I'm glad to report that today was a good day. I met with a woman about a potential meeting spot for a new SLAA group in the area and it looks promising. I am thankful for the willingness to be open to God's leadership in my life. I pray for the continued willingness to be honest.

One of the things that is hardest about living life as an addict -- whether it is as a sex, people or food addict -- is the inability to be consistent. A good day never feels like it will last and enthusiasm feels like it will eventually allude me. But still, I have been consistent in my effort to "stick with" recovery, even when I thought it wasn't doing me a damn bit of good.

As a result, I am seeing the benefits of recovery in my life -- even if they are sometimes only glimpses. Still they give me hope for a brighter tomorrow.

I also wanted to report that it was a great weekend with my husband. We just enjoyed one another's company and did a few things together that made us both smile. That felt really good.

I have a class tomorrow that should help me get a head start on the freelance work I want to do. I am really looking forward to being in a classroom again and learning. In some ways, every day is a new class, a new learning experience. But sometimes it is nice to be in a learning environment. I am taking three classes (some of them, like the one tomorrow is just a one day class) this fall and I'm looking forward to all of them.

Thanks to all of you who read and offer your supportive comments. I really appreciate them and they give me a little more reason to "keep going."

Like friends do

I spoke to R. yesterday. His voice sounded familiar ... but the feelings (neither love nor hurt) didn't churn inside my stomach until they turned to hurt or anger. We just talked and then hung up, like friends do.

I went to a writer's group for the first time last night and absolutely loved it. It was great to be among other creative types and also to hear some really good work. Mostly it was great to have others hear my writing and say ... "Wow" and sincerely mean it. It was a good boost for me.

I'm doing some recovery writing work around my stepfather and that seems to be going well. When I know it is time for me to sit down with it, I feel a little scattered and try to distract myself with other things ... but at the moment, it's at least not sex with strangers. To be completely honest, I do have someone I am talking to daily, developing a friendship with that will likely be sexual during the times that he is in town, which is about once a month.

Whenever I am in these types of relationships I know I separate myself from my husband, not to mention the higher power that guides me in all my life's choices.

Today

Sometimes I think it would be better if I wrote here every day ... but some days I'm too wrapped up in my disease, other days I'm doing my best to run from it. In an old post -- from July 2004 -- I write about my parallel lives, and say that someday I hope me and Rae meet. So, sometimes I don't write here because I am totally out of tune with which life I am leading: the successful business woman (who, by the way, has recently decided to launch her freelance career), or the sex, love and food addict with depression who sometimes can't get out of the house, or only gets out to have sex with a stranger or two.

It's funny, along the way, I have had a lot of people who read this blog or in the recovery rooms and even my therapists warn me about the dangers of meeting strangers from the Internet. At one level, I always know they are right, at another, I think people would find it interesting to meet all the people I have meet online and in person. I've been lucky that I've never (yet, due to the grace and protection of God) met a real whack job, though I have met a few people who have wanted to do disgusting or humiliating things to me, or vice versa -- wanted me to do those things to them. I have been "fortunate" to have met some very interesting people. A lot of men who are lonely in their marriages, those who are simply wildly horny and as obsessed with sex as I am, and some genuinely nice people who don't know what they are looking for. I've had some amazing conversations, made some good friends, and even been inspired by some of these people I've met. They range from highly successful executives and business owners to blue collar, financially strapped husbands, who just need a little relief from the day to day stresses of life. Some of them, I feel, take bigger risks than me, and I often tell them so. Read my post from earlier this month, where I wrote a letter to one of my "suitors" who had sent me erotic pictures of himself using his real name. He responded with indignation and threatened to use "all his resources" to protect himself. From what? Me? I am not the threat.

A number of you have read my blog for some time ... some of you probably feel sorry for me, others may think I'm a self-righteous whore. You may wonder if I ever think of the wives and the families that are being impacted by my continuing to live in my disease. The answer is yes. It feeds my need to hate myself. I used to think of them a lot more. Now I often only think of the men, and how I use them ... and often toss them away, leaving them feeling rejected and worthless and used. Again, it feeds my need to hate myself. (By the way ... I welcome all comments and questions. Sometimes i can't see my own stuff as well as I can see the stuff of others.)

In the dynamic of my parallel lives, there is a part of me that actually likes many things about myself. This diseased self, I am afraid I will always hate who I am. It reminds me that my mother used to tell me, "Love and hate can't dwell in the same heart." I was talking today to a man I met yesterday. This was our second meeting, and after our first, he told me he felt guilty. Today again he feels guilty ... feels that he has let down himself, God, his family. Like me ... he has the civil war inside his head.

Respite

I've felt a little bit of relief the past couple of days from my need to find sexual partners far and wide and have a lot of anonymous sex. I still am corresponding with some potential partners and even had coffee today with someone who could have been a potential partner, but it was far more enjoyable just to talk to him. Sometimes creating this "connection" to the sexual partners is a horrendously tiring effort. Instead getting validation by having a mentally stimulating conversation, without sexual expectations is truly fulfilling.

I shared with the gentleman I met this afternoon ... There are three things that really muck up our happiness in life: 1. Ego, 2. Guilt and 3. Expectation. It certainly is so in my life ... and it seemed to resonate with him.

A letter to help someone else

Dear D,

I have given a lot of thought to the letter I am about to write. I write it out of understanding, not judgment.

You put yourself at a major risk this week when you sent me those erotic photos and video under your real name. (Name removed), Louisiana, to quote you is a "small town." And sometimes the United States is even a small town. As it so happens, you sit on a committee (according to a 1 minute Google search of your name) with a long-time friend of mine.

Had another person, a poser or even worse, someone insane -- been on the receiving end of those photos, or for that matter someone who was actually in (your town), this could have been disastrous for you. I'm pretty certain you probably have a wife, otherwise you would be online at night. Even if you don't ... I know you have a good job, and a good reputation, and if you were telling me the truth, a daughter.

I also know what overwhelming, obsessive sexual desire is like ... feeling like no matter what needs to be done in the "real world," no matter what is at risk, you have to get that "high." It feels like you can't live without it. I can see this in you, because you know all the tricks ... You have perfected it all. You know how to find the woman who can address all facets of your fantasy life. You're good at it and you can't live without it.

I also know what it's like to want to be loved and cared for and also to be hurt and used and demoralized. I know all of this, because it is my life too. I am addicted to sex in the same way that men and women are addicted to cocaine, gambling, whiskey and all other vices. I will do any thing for it, that little taste of heavenly high, but it is ruining my life, my marriage, my sanity. Despite all my efforts of trying to heal from years of childhood sexual abuse, I will always find my way to men like you ... who need to control and own and manipulate, because of their own pain ... and make me feel like small helpless child. Or to men like you who need to be used ... so that I can make myself feel like my abuser. It's what made that slap the other day feel so fucking good. I wanted to use you and hurt you and scream "How could you possibly be like every other fucking man on the earth who tells me he loves me just so he can hurt me?" Over and over and over ... I find men like you, so that I can continue to hurt myself.

I don't expect you to tell me your story ... I just wanted to tell you mine, so you would know I understand, and also to send up a cry for you to please get help before, like so many other men I have seen, you get yourself into a holy horrible mess. I am not one to share with you the successes of such help, because I'm clearly in relapse ... but, getting involved in therapy and more importantly a support group for sex addicts saved my ass four years ago. In all this moving, I have let a lot of things go ... and boredom and loneliness are two of my major triggers for the addiction -- thus you found me, throwing out hooks (online). This group www.slaafws.org meets in (your town) and is a place where you can find help and other people like you. For a list of meetings in the area ... send an e-mail to (address removed). It's a completely anonymous fellowship. There are others like it: http://www.sca-recovery.org/ which has online meetings. There is http://www.saa-recovery.org which meets tonight in (your town) at 7:30 p.m. at St. Mary's.

Again, none of this is an attempt to judge you or control you or even tell you what to do. I'm just telling you my story and sharing with you the information I have.

You seem like a very kind and caring man. I am the same. But I am filled with demons that won't leave alone.

Ain't No Love in Here

I recently heard a woman speak at an OA meeting ... she was fantastic in her story telling. Something she said about her refrigerator keeps sticking with me though. She said she has a note on her refrigerator that says, "Ain't No Love in Here."

For people, like me, who struggle with compulsive overeating, they find comfort and love and understanding in food. Food is a place they can retreat and be pleased ... not to mention, shamed and degraded.

I read this in an e-zine this morning, "Compulsive overeating is accompanied with much guilt and shame. People with this condition often feel that they are not good enough and are ashamed that they could not control their eating habits. This only makes it worse because their negative feelings only lead them to more compulsive overeating. Food is how compulsive overeaters deal with their craving for acceptance and appreciation. Some use their overweight appearance to keep people away because they subconsciously feel undeserving of love, while others use it as punishment whenever they feel bad about themselves. One does not become successful in overcoming this condition unless they gather up the courage to face the real emotions they are afraid to feel and unless they can honestly admit the issues that cause them to be stuck in this destructive behavior. All this of course, would be a difficult accomplishment without professional help and the support of friends and loved ones."

For me, my compulsive overeating and sexual addiction are closely intertwined ... for it was in being sexual violated beginning at age 3, that I turned to food for comfort and protection.

As I was trying to pull myself away from the computer this morning ... where I sometimes sit for hours, chatting, e-mailing, searching for that "hit" or that person to meet ... I thought of the woman's note on her refrigerator ... Ain't No Love In Here.

If I were to post a personals ad that said ... "There is a hunger of the body, a thirst of the mind, but it is the craving of my soul that cannot be satisfied," I wonder if any human power could ever satisify that? I think not.

Update

Well, it's 11:15 p.m. and I leave in a few minutes to pick up dear hubby from the airport. So far today, by the grace of God, I am abstinent in OA, sober in SLAA and rested enough to make the 30 minute drive over to the airport. I contacted five churches today about using their facilities for a weekly SLAA meeting, and am awaiting responses. I went to an OA meeting at a residential treatment center for girls with eating disorders. I called the woman I wrote about earlier who might be a potential sponsor. She said she already had too many sponsees, but I could call her anytime. I was thankful. I called someone else who could be a potential sponsor, but she was not home, and I left a message saying, "You don't have to call me back." And I looked up the names and numbers (for the third or fourth time)of some therapists that are in my insurance plan and called and left a message for one of them. I went to a restaurant for dinner, with the intention of eating some binge foods, and found myself full after eating a healthy, nutritious dinner.

I'm thankful to my friend for writing me, to God for allowing me to take an honest look at what I am doing. I know that this is just one day, tomorrow will have its own set of struggles. That's why we do this, one day ... and for me, one minute at a time.

A humble reply

I wrote the following in response to a recovery friend's question, "How are you doing?" It is a humbling truth about me, a woman who seems unwilling to work her program of recovery:


To be honest, I don't know how I am doing. I feel stuck in the warp of food and sexual addiction ... God "told" me -- not nuts, just the message I got while I was walking -- go to gym every day. If you don't do anything else, go to the gym every day. I stopped going. My doctor told me eat a little bit of protien and the rest fruits and vegetables, with only a few carbs every day. I didn't listen. My inner core tells me to pray and meditate every day, instead I waste my time looking for either new sex partners or new love partners. My OA friends say, you have to get a sponsor. I call people in OA, but never the people who I want to be my sponsor. I am paralyzed when I think of calling them. You've told me, others have told me -- get a counselor, but day after day I don't make the call. I need an SLAA program in my area, and at one time had the willingness to start it. But every day passes by ... I don't make the contacts to the church that I need to. I am still going to OA meetings, but have stopped my Al-Anon meetings almost all together. Instead I isolate and act out. I know, I have seen, God has shown me, honesty and acceptance are my two keys. I still lie, I still judge, I still expect outcomes, I still eat and have sex with strangers to make up for the "lack" of my expectations being met.


Why, you ask. Why, I ask. I don't know my friend, other than it seems that I don't want to get well. That's a lie and we both know it. It's all a bondage of self, a disease ridden self destined to kill herself one way or the other. The third step prayer says ... "God please release me from the bondage of self." Some days, the shame of all that has been and all that is keeps me from even praying, "God give me the willingness." Yesterday, when I wanted to go get a whole package of snack cakes and eat them, or go home and post an ad and find a dinner and bed partner for the evening (My husband is out of town.) I struggled with the voice inside that said, "make a call, go to a meeting." But I shrieked out ... "God give me the willingness." And I made two calls til I found someone who was going to a meeting and said "See you there." On the way home, I still wanted to stop and get those snack cakes, but I just kept driving and had the willingness to pray, "God, just get me home. There's nothing there that can hurt me too much." When I talk about the shame to even pray ... it's my codependence there ... I'm even codependent with God. I feel like such a disappointment. It's one thing when you do all these things and you don't know better. It's another when you know and you just keep going ... you don't take the action. But, guess what? The first step says ... "We are powerless." My friend, I am powerless. But I am not hopeless.


There is a woman who spoke at two different OA meetings last week ... and I feel that she could be the answer to my ongoing silent and spoken prayer to God for a sponsor who can help me. I had the willingness to ask if I could call her this week, to which she said, "Please do.", the willingness to write down her number and I am terrified to call her -- I can even at times feel the call of my disease saying "But I don't want to get better." But I am going to call. Let me rephrase that ... I am continually praying for the willingness to call her, without any expectation of the outcome, other than praying ... "If this is the one, let her say yes." The answer will come one way or another. There is something in "How It Works" in the AA Big Book that says ... "No human power could have saved us." And the further down the spiral I go, the more I realize how true it is. A sponsor can help me, but no one, and especially not me, can save me. That's the humble, honest truth.


Thank you, my friend, for asking. Thank you God for giving me the humble and sobering answer I needed to write.

All I can do ...

... is cry. I'm in a pain I don't understand. It's getting worse, now I can't even feel the pain. I can feel sadness. I can feel hopelessness at times ... just waiting until the disaster gets big enough to make me stop, makes me get off my ass and do what I need to do to get a job, to get the house in order, literally and figuratively.

I really am treating myself badly lately, hating myself, unable and worse, unwilling, to step out of the cycle. Standing on the outside ... looking in.

Taking stock

I've had a rough couple of weeks that have just passed. I had been doing very well with my food and for a long, long time with my sex and love addiction issues. But relapse came on like a thunderstorm in both program ... the sex, notably after the food.

Today I went to the gym and walked for 50 minutes. I watched "Spanglish" on TV as I walked and it made me think of a conversation I had last night with one of the latest men my addiction is courting, in which we agreed (or I deferred to his sanity)that what we were pursuing was merely a friendship. God knows if that's what I was pursuing or not, but it certainly deflated any ideas that this man was going to become the next "love of my life." After my walk, I went to the bathroom crying ... I seem to be doing that a lot lately ... I can't stop crying. I cry at every emotion that comes up. Anyway, as I'm in the stall in the bathroom I just say to whatever force is listening ... "I don't think things will ever be OK." The message back was a "Do you trust me?" message and a reassurance that things will not always be this way. I was also reminded to keep going to the gym, quit lying about going to the gym, and actually go there and exercise every day, no matter what. Exercise is good for my mental condition and it also gets me out of the house.

Just for a point of record, I need to note here that over the past week I met a different man every day (M-F)and had sex with three of them. When I am away from the situation, it is hard to say how I feel about it ... Obviously, I'm walking around crying at the drop of a hat, so this behavior is emotionally damaging. Likewise, I can't focus on anything and the need for "more" is always there. Yesterday I was with my husband and also for the most part today ... so the food didn't seem to call me much. At some points the sex and love addiction did. I'm just trying to make it through this latest storm and am thankful that I see at least one window every day where I find the willingness to say a prayer.

I went to a meeting yesterday and the day before I called people on my outreach list ... but still I am in the mode of life where I am watching myself from the outside in. My behavior seems like my own, but there seems to be this sane person who just sits back and lets all the insanity happen, numbed to the effects. I guess this is all about PTSD, I honestly don't know. I wonder sometimes if I need to go to a psychiatrist for testing ... but then I'm not even making the appointments with the counselor.

One day at a time ... I am just going on. I am thankful for the small successes, the many miracles and the willingness to just keep going.

Feeling blessed

I am truly thankful today for the grace of God in my life, that there are people who truly and unequivocally love me, they think I am a wonderful person, they see in me what I cannot always see in myself.

I am thankful today to have had calls and messages and e-mails from family and friends old and new, all expressing one single message -- I am loved.

I am thankful today that someone cared enough about me to pass along my resume to an important person at an important company and that tomorrow I will go for an interview there.

I am thankful to see the absolutely beautiful success of my niece, who I mourned over the fact that she got married right out of high school and never went to college. Today she told me of the new business office she is setting up and we talked about marketing plans. I am so proud of her and thankful for her presence in my life and thankful for the example of a 17-year marriage that has had its ups and downs but keeps going strong.

I feel so totally blessed to be a part of the 12-step fellowship, and specifically to feel a part of the family of my OA home group. I need that sense of family in my life ... and am thankful to God for giving it to me.

I am thankful for the words inside a card today from my husband that said, "Thank you for coming to (this place) with me and for going through all the trouble." That was a precious acknowledgement.

I am thankful that 39 years ago today a baby was born to a single mother struggling already to feed three kids, and that that baby grew into a little girl, a young woman, and the woman who writes to you today with tears in her eyes filled with humility and a true sense of gratitude for ALL that she has become.

Happy birthday to me. I didn't open a single wrapped package, but oh what a wealth of gifts I have received.

It only starts with one bite

I just ate two packages of M&Ms to "get them out of the house" since I bought them the other day when I bought the chocolate cake.

One day last week, I had the choice to buy an apple fritter or not. I did ... and every day since then, I have eaten compulsively.

I had the choice ... I struggled with the choice ... I made the choice. I remember hearing God's voice say inside me ... and if you buy this, how are you going to say no tomorrow?

Lessons learned the hardest ...

My life as a food addict and a liar

I just sat in my car outside and abandoned building in a strip mall and ate a double serving size of chocolate cake from the local grocery store, so that I could throw out the evidence of the cake's existence (the package and the fork used to eat it with) in the trash can in front of me. I drove home, unloaded the rest of the groceries -- which included many healthy items that went into the fridge -- and three packs of peanut butter M&Ms that went into a secret hiding place in the guest room. I then loaded all the recycling into the paper bag I brought from grocery store (which still contained the receipt from the store) and took it to the garbage. There! All evidence gone. And when I came back in ... I moved my tennis shoes from the location where they were this morning when my husband left to a different spot, so the he will believe the lie that I actually went to the gym this morning to work out.

Thus is my life as a food addict and a liar. We won't even go into the ongoing online conversations I am having with men about sex or why it is I need to lie to my husband rather than tell him the truth.

I had been doing so well in recovery -- in all aspects. Then suddenly I stopped praying first thing every morning, stopped doing daily meditations, cut back on meetings, began to isolate, and here I am -- eating chocolate cake (which is just one in a long line of binge foods I have eaten over the past few days) and putting more effort into hiding my behavior rather than change it. I find it hard now to ask for the willingness to begin my program again. I want to continue to get attention from strangers who can tell me sight unseen that I am the sexiest woman they've ever known. I want them the want me to the point of frustration ... only for me to decide to go back into recovery from sexual addiction.

The food plays into all of this ... because it is my comfort from loneliness ... and often in these online endeavours I am rejected -- often because the person who was so keen on me before seeing my picture, suddenly becomes extremely disinterested, sometimes to the point of not wanting to talk after seeing my picture. So with each encounter I am putting my self-esteem, which is already in the toilet, on the line. And when it is raped (well, they say you can't rape the willing right?) one more time, I am lonely and hurt and turn to the food.

It's a cycle that goes on and on. One that only recovery can stop ... and recovery comes one day, one decision at a time.