Avoidance through suffering

I have really given a lot of thought to this idea that I get something out of suffering. For one, if I am a victim and have suffered, there's less chance that I'll be held accountable for my actions. (Character defect number 1 is dishonesty, number 2 - avoiding responsibility for myself and my actions.) Also, if I am suffering, people feel sorry for me and give me attention, which in my twisted mind means they love me.

There is no serenity in living in that manipulative, maladjusted mindset. I have been blessed, beyond my wildest dreams. Yet, I am without a doubt stuck in my own suffering mindset.

I was listening to an OA speaker tape this morning and a woman was sharing about how she believed in a Higher Power who could and would do great things for other people, and maybe even a few good things for her. However, when it came to the big stuff, the removal of her compulsions, she simply didn't believe she was worth her Higher's Power's time and love. She had lost her virginity as a young teenager and felt it was unforgivable. Her shame and guilt blocked her from her Higher Power. It really resonated with me. I see my Higher Power doing amazing things in my life, but there is still that weak, scolded child, who grew up to do countless unspeakable acts of adultery and didn't even feel guilty while doing them, who thinks she's really not worthy of the grace of recovery. Opening myself to true acceptance of God's grace means letting go of that victimhood, that suffering. I admit that I honestly am not sure where to start. It's yet another layer of the onion.

Remember R?

Yesterday I went to an all day retreat sponsored by Sexual Compulsives Anonymous (SCA) and for the duration of what was a very excellent keynote address, a man whose back (not his front) looked exactly like R sat in front of me. The image from my angle was an exact duplication of the man I spent a year in a torrid affair with, whose memory reminds me of just how painful and scary this disease can be. The man who sat in front of me yesterday even wore a shirt that was identical to my favorite shirt that R. had. Occasionally he would raise his arms up and they didn't look like R.'s. I could not stop looking at the man. I tried to assess what I was feeling. Even now I am not sure, though I know it was neither longing nor rage. I honestly had very few thoughts. I just sat there and looked. At times, I thought of what it felt like to touch R., but not in a sexual way. I contemplated asking the man if he would sit in front of me for a while after the retreat so I could have a cathartic conversation with R. I could not, however, think of anything I would want to say. I wondered if this was my Higher Power's way of saying, "The storm has passed." I resist that notion, though I'm not sure why. Perhaps it is because of one of the core addictions the speaker said all addicts possess.

The four core addictions behind the perception problems of all addicts, according to our speaker Lilliane D. are:

1. Security (the feeling that nothing is enough, we are not enough, we can't get enough of anything)
2. Power and control
3. Sensation (the need to always be "high" on something, to be stimulated in some way)
4. Suffering (the state of being victimized, abandoned, hurt, used or otherwise in pain)

It is number four I was thinking of when I said perhaps it is one of these that prevents me from believing that the storm has passed. Perhaps I was trying to get high on the euphoria of looking at that man who had the physical characteristics of my former lover. I didn't get high. I didn't get low. I just sat there looking. I can see I'm still trying to sort out my feelings about it all. For now, I accept it just is.

What I Want

Some people have a Bucket List. I decided today to make a list of things I want.

I want to:

Comfortably tie my shoes while standing up
Not be the exception
Laugh like there is nothing to fear
Cry because I know what I am feeling
Be paid for my true talents and passions
Accept people as they are, and me as I am
Feel confident and at ease in social situations
Hike in the mountains
Kayak
Visit South America
Enjoy shopping in clothing stores
Remarry my husband on our 20 year anniversary
Fall in love with reading all over again
Be drug free
Write a book
Be a vessel of love, hope and peace.

About this time

About this time every month I go crazy. I get obssessive, I get irritable, sometimes I get seriously inclined to act out. It's called PMS. The fact that I've rejoined OA and am not medicating with food at the moment is making PMS all the more gingerly wonderful. I hung up on my husband today. I'm isolating. I don't want to go to my meeting, I want to tell people to fuck off. Other than that ... I'm doing pretty good.

Seriously, I'm grateful to have an OA sponsor, to be abstinent from compulsive overeating, and to see God's hand at work in my life.

How about some recovery talk you say? OK ... I'm doing what I don't want to do. I'm not trying to be perfect. I'm showing up. I am working on striking a balance in life today -- and not doing so well, but not beating myself up over it.

I'm also grateful to be sleeping better. In fact, I think I'll sleep right now.

Another one of us joins the blogosphere

I write this blog for the reason I express right on my banner -- it's my own brand of therapy. Rae's Confessions is the place I have come to tell the truths I've been too scared to share elsewhere, or the things that I simply cannot sort out. For a woman who has a difficult time finding safe places, it's amazing that out here in the middle of nowhere, amongst strangers, I find my peace.

I'm always grateful when something I write touches someone else, and was especially thankful to have recently gotten a note from fellow sex addict John F. saying he had been inspired to start blogging after spending time reading what I have shared here.

I'm even more grateful, having seen in just his first few posts the experience, strength and hope John has to share with those of us in recovery from sexual addiction.

So, without further adieu, I invite my readers to take a peak at John's blog "My Outer Circle." I promise you will not be disappointed. I should note that I was having difficulty with opening the blog using Internet Explorer -- but it worked well with Firefox, and showed up fine in my Google Reader.

Godspeed, John! Welcome to our world.

One pound and some notes

I have began to slowly try to care for my body with more exercise and one day at a time am trying to make better choices around food. I'm no where near perfect with either effort, but I'm doing my best to simply notice my feelings and accept my efforts.

Today was weigh in day at the gym. If I go by the "official" weigh in, I lost two-tenths of one pound. If I go by the locker room weigh in, I lost 1.4 lbs. So, essentially, we'll even it out and say that in one week, I lost one pound.

Sure, I should celebrate ... I lost 1 pound! Whoopee!

Yet my feelings and self-loathing messages are hard at work with really demeaning reminders of how many weeks it's going to take me to lose just back to where I was six months ago, and lashing me for every "bad" food choice I made last week, and for the wimpiness of my exercise routine -- even though, for the first time in months I went to the gym four days last week.

The laws of nature go like this -- you get out what you put in. I needed some warm up and build up time for my exercise, and food is still a great soother and satisfier for me. If these things change gradually, they will change for good. Of course, that screaming little child in me wants all this excess fat and flesh gone today and if it is not gone, she's decided we'll hate ourselves.

I'm doing my best not to soothe the uncomfortable feelings with food. I did take a nap, which is another sometimes unhealthy soother, but tonight I'll go to a meeting and be aware of my feelings and offer some love to the screaming, disappointed little girl.

--

I'm reading Melody Beattie's new book, called "The New Codependency" and finding some rare gems there. It can stir some feelings that are hard to deal with, but it also has some great exercises for moving through those feelings and on to healing.

--

I received an e-mail last week from a fellow sex addict who had discovered my blog and took the time to read through it from beginning to end. I was touched that someone would spend the time to read my words and I took some time myself to go back and read some of my earlier writings. It was a welcome reminder that while I still struggle, I have come a long, long way. My God, I was crazy before I got into recovery and even a few times since. I am grateful.

--

Step 1 says I am powerless and that my life is unmanageable. Thankfully there is a spiritual solution. Today, I sought it. I stood looking out my back door and asked God to please give me the willingness to feel my feelings and to surrender my life to his will.

--

I am resisting the urge to want to run away from my therapist, who wants me to do things differently than I am willing to do them. I am going to show up to this week's appointment and leave it in God's hands.

--

I continue to feel like the life I am living and the one I am sharing with my husband is quite a mess. It seems so different than what I expected life to be. Again, I'm just going to keep trying and asking for the sincerity I need to travel on this path.

Accepting me, accepting life

Just for today, I've given up hating myself. I am giving up, in this moment, what others think of me, or what I worry they might think of me, and I am accepting myself as a perfectly flawed human being, experiencing life as it is presented.

This decision didn't come to me from reading a book or going to a meeting or attending a workshop. It came from within me.

Within me is a capable, intelligent, loving person, who has been masked in a world of self-hatred, sadness and pain. That person, upon not accepting her imperfections as well as her perfections, her lack of control along with her exceptional skills and talents, delved deep into a sea of self-help books, programs, workshops, searching desparately for that perfect self again, hating herself more for not doing things perfectly in the "new" life.

But I feel myself, my whole self, at last emerging, accepting, and after feeling absolutely hopeless that life could ever be worth living, more than hopeful that I still have what it takes to live and breathe and love and embrace the ebb and flow of life.

I am not bursting from the earth, emerging with grand proclamations, shouting from the rooftops or putting on a fireworks show. I am quietly accepting life as it is, accepting me as I am, listening to the voice inside me, and to the voices that lift me up.

I was given a life, and just for today, I choose to live it, the best I can. Problems, fears and doubts will arise, I am sure. So, will inspiration, love, and support. I welcome them all as a part of my life.

"Honesty is the only way out"

These are the words my therapist said to me this morning, and they sit on my heart like a steel beam.

Tears rose in the absence of words to describe the gravity of what I felt as she said them. Inside I thought, "He is all I have and I'm all he's got. We are everything to each other. What a mess."

The "he" I was referring to was my husband, whose work is his "exit" from our intimacy and commitment to one another. My exit is sex and love with men who are married. In this way, we co-exist, quite painfully, but somewhat comfortably. Harville Hendrix, developer of IMAGO therapy, says until we both close up our exits, our relationship will always be damaged and never intimate.

My therapist says until I fully disclose to my husband the truths of my acting out, I will continue to use sex and love as a way of survival -- a way to avoid feelings that I now compartmentalize, feelings like guilt.

I had told her again, with tearful regret, that the reason I don't want to tell him that I have been beyond unfaithful in our marriage, is simply I don't want to ruin his life. I don't want to crush him with the truth. The truth seems so dangerous, so painful to me. It seems easier to carry it on my own, rather than think of shattering the spirit of yet another innocent victim of a horrible disease.

Still, she says, "Honesty is the only way out."

I am not hurting enough yet to be honest, she said. I can act out and say that it felt good and let the addiction wash away the painful truths of my deception.

She asks me how guilty I would feel if my husband had walked into the room the last time I acted out. I couldn't even bring the image into my mind. When I think about the reality of actually experiencing all the guilt that I have not felt while engaging in sexual and love relationships with other men, I honestly think I could not endure it. She says that enduring the guilt will set me free.

"So, what," I ask her, "I self-inflict the pain of the guilt by disclosure in order to heal myself, while I ruin his life?"

"Yes," was her response, adding that the truth comes out one way or another, whether we reveal it or not.

I argued with her ... people are and have been having affairs for centuries and taking the truth to their graves.

Yes, but to what cost? Living in painful marriages without the freedom of true intimacy, she responded.

I told her I heard what she was saying and even believed it to be true, but I know that I am not willing to be honest with my husband about how many horrible deeds of transgression I have done in our marriage without his knowledge. I simply am not willing to hurt him that way.

Pray for the willingness, she said.

I'm afraid I'm going to have to pray for the willingness to pray for the willingness.

It is not for selfish reasons that I don't want to disclose, I told her. But she challenged me. You don't want to feel the guilt.

When I think of that guilt and what it would be like to feel it, she's right. I don't want to feel it, and I feel certain it would destroy me.

As I drove to her office, I had a moment of consciousness, a brief second when I connected to that part of me that still feels alive. As I was turning the corner from one street to the next, I realized that at some point in my life, I learned to drive. It wasn't inherent knowledge. Someone taught me. And I practiced, and I learned to feel comfortable driving, even in major cities.

She encouraged me to remember I can take the wheel with this addiction also.

"Honesty is the only way out."

The way is dark

In this world I walk alone
With no place to call my home
But there's one who holds my hand
The rugged road through barren lands
The way is dark, the road is steep
But He's become my eyes to see
The strength to climb, my griefs to bear
The Savior lives inside me there

In Your love I find release
A haven from my unbelief
Take my life and let me be
A living prayer, my God to Thee

In these trials of life I find
Another voice inside my mind
He comforts me and bids me live
Inside the love the Father gives

In Your love I find release
A haven from my unbelief
Take my life and let me be
A living prayer, my God to Thee

Take my life and let me be
A living prayer, my God to Thee

Random Thoughts

* At a recent meeting, someone broke down Step 1 into two parts: First, I am powerless over my addiction and second, my life is unmanageable. My life is unmanageable whether I am acting out or not. The rest of the 12 Steps are an invitation to regain some manageability in life.

* Step 2 says, "Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity." Lately, I find I am faltering in the belief that anything can restore me to sanity. I feel as if I am my own worst enemy and have doubt that anything can save me.

* The dreary weather has started and so has my depression.

* The longer I live the more I recognize that life is just one big cycle of attempts to manage our emotions. I just wonder what makes emotions so destructive and hard to handle? I read a book recently about a group of women who healed from various trauma by knitting. By sitting quietly together and telling their stories, and by sitting alone and mentally counting "Knit 1, Pearl 3, Knit 1, Pearl 3" they learned to sit with their emotions and to survive them. In 12 Step Rooms, by using standard formats, prayers, slogans and by sitting around and telling our stories, we learn to survive the emotions that feel as if they will kill us. Some people go to church, some people exercise, some people paint, some people meditate or sit next to the water ... but it's all a way of keeping the emotions in proper perspective. We let go of the all or nothing thinking.

* I haven't let go of all or nothing thinking. I don't want to feel anything, yet I long to feel everything.

* I am willing to believe there is a bigger purpose and that my life is a part of it.

Pain as the Pathway to Peace

As I continue on my journey to healing and recovery, I recognize more clearly than ever that it is the core underlying issues of self-esteem, insecurity and much more that is actually being addressed as I learn to care for myself, refrain from using old, ineffective coping mechanisms and keep my side of the street clean while giving others room to grow. This does not mean that I never want to act out. In fact, the desire to seek comfort (what food, sex and love are for me) can be far greater when I'm doing work on resolving the trauma of my childhood, which I have been doing lately.

This weekend I was preparing for a few trauma healing exercises and my body began to ache with physical pain, stiffness and discomfort just reading about the various stages of healing we go through when recovering from childhood sexual abuse. The pain, which has been carried in my body since childhood, deserves a chance to be felt and experienced, and released. No one wants to hurt unmercifully. Still I know that if I can endure the pain while it is here -- being experienced in its fullness -- rather than eating it away or losing it in the numbness of sexual/romantic intrigue and pursuit, I will be releasing it and making room in my body for comfort and growth. I pray for the strength to feel the pain and to face the future with a new perspective.

I thought this reading was perfect for me today. I share it in hopes that it helps someone else.

Tuesday, September 8, 2009
From the book The Language of Letting Go

Stopping Our Pain

Some of my feelings have been stored so long they have freezer burn.
—Beyond Codependency

There are many sources of pain in our life. Those of us recovering from adult children and codependency issues frequently have a cesspool of unresolved pain from the past. We have feelings, sometimes from early childhood to the present, that either hurt too much to feel or that we had no support and permission to deal with.

There are other inevitable sources of pain in our life too. There is the sadness and grief that comes when we experience change, even good change, as we let go of one part of our life, and begin our journey into the new.

There is pain in recovery, as we begin allowing ourselves to feel while dropping our protective shield of denial.

There is the pain that leads and guides us into better choices for our future.

We have many choices about how to stop this pain. We may have experimented with different options. Compulsive and addictive behaviors stop pain - temporarily. We may have used alcohol, other drugs, relationships, or sex to stop our pain.

We may talk compulsively or compulsively focus on other people and their needs as a way to avoid or stop our pain.

We may use religion to avoid our feelings.

We may resort to denial of how we are feeling to stop our pain.

We may stay so busy that we don't have time to feel. We may use money, exercise, or food to stop our pain.

We have many choices. To survive, we may have used some of these options, only to find that these were Band Aids - temporary pain relievers that did not solve the problem. They did not really stop our pain; they postponed it.

In recovery, there is a better choice about how we may stop pain. We can face it and feel it. When we are ready, with our Higher Power's help, we can summon the courage to feel the pain, let it go, and let the pain move forward - into a new decision, a better life.

We can stop the behaviors we are doing that cause pain, if that's appropriate. We can make a decision to remove ourselves from situations that cause repeated, similar pain. We can learn the lesson our pain is trying to teach us.

If we are being pelted by pain, there is a lesson. Trust that idea. Something is being worked out in us. The answer will not come from addictive or other compulsive behaviors; we will receive the answer when we feel our feelings.

It takes courage to be willing to stand still and feel what we must feel. Sometimes, we have what seems like endless layers of pain inside us. Pain hurts. Grief hurts. Sadness hurts. It does not feel good. But neither does denying what is already there; neither does living a lifetime with old and new pockets of pain packed, stored, and stacked within.

It will only hurt for a while, no longer than necessary, to heal us. We can trust that if we must feel pain, it is part of healing, and it is good. We can become willing to surrender to and accept the inevitable painful feelings that are a good part of recovery.

Go with the flow, even when the flow takes us through uncomfortable feelings. Release, freedom, healing, and good feelings are on the other side.

Today, I am open and willing to feel what I need to feel. I am willing to stop my compulsive behaviors. I am willing to let go of my denial. I am willing to feel what I need to feel to be healed, healthy, and whole.

Upon seeing what others see

Today a friend of mine sent some photos taken of me and her together this summer. I was appalled at how fat I have become. I do not have full length mirrors in my house and even when I'm looking in them at the gym or at a restaurant -- I'm standing up, have my shirt carefully pulled down to hide the width and breadth of my stomach and simply am not able or willing to focus on the "whole" picture. These images captured with the lens of a camera on warm summer days, however, don't hide a thing. I can see the swollen face, the stomach bulging out on all sides, the rolls of fat that form my short legs. I am thoroughly disgusted and ashamed and repulsed. I am cringing at the thought of the person other people see me to be, their comments whispered in their minds or aloud.

I began carrying this weight to protect myself. It increased as I held in the emotions and feelings. I used my girth for the strength to carry the responsibility of my mother, my sister, and for my badness. I have eaten and avoided taking care of myself as a form of self-hatred and self-abuse. Compulsive eating and living life as an obese woman is a slow form of suicide. All of these things are things that therapists, former fatties and books have told me. I haven't connected a single bit of it to my soul. I believe it ... but I don't feel it. Why? Because if the feelings come -- I stuff them inside with cookies, cakes, candy, hamburgers, ice cream, anything my body craves. I consume mounds of rich, sweet, fatty foods -- almost always in solitude, and almost never walked, ran or swam off. It has all just gathered on the bones and around the organs and muscles of my body, enveloping me, hiding me, protecting me, strengthening me. Those last three things are a lie that my inner child believes.

I remember in her book, "Make the Connection," Oprah Winfrey talks about hitting rock bottom when she was accepting an Emmy nomination and was embarrassed to go on stage. She recently talked about another bottom, where she began again to feel embarrassed to live in her own skin, despite her magnanimous success. I watched the preliminaries of the show "Dance Your Ass Off" earlier this week. Men and women shared how they wanted for the person who lived behind the fat to be revealed. The Battle of the Bulge it's called -- this war humans fight to reclaim the person who lives behind the blubber.

TT commented on a previous post, "I just can't help but wonder, Rae, whether you first need to find your rage toward those who damaged you, and go through it, THEN find forgiveness, then move on. It seems to me you have skipped a critical step, never having experienced that rage."

I can't help but wonder if all that rage is wrapped around my midsection, under my chin, and across my ass. I feel as though waging war against the fat is waging war against myself ... and maybe I'm right. I feel weak to wage a war.

God, grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the Courage and Strength to change the things I can, and the Wisdom to know the difference. I surely cannot do this on my own. God, help me. I've failed so many times, I am afraid to even say I'll try again. I feel the resistance even as I fall at your feet in total surrender -- searching for a way to hold on to my way of living, hoping by some miracle that I will not have to go through the pain of taking off all this armour I've put on.

Help me to be humble, help me to be strong, help me to let this matter when darkness breaks into dawn.

Reconciling the feelings within

I just read JBR's blog entry about the deep emotional pain she is experiencing. Like me, she lived through the pain of childhood sexual abuse. I really identified with her statement, "I just feel no one understands the ferocity of my emotional pain." Adding to this truth for me, I am not even sure I understand the ferocity of my pain. I'm not always sure if I am experiencing my feelings or if they are swallowed up in a chocolate brownie or in codependent conversations with others. If someone were to ask me to sort out my feelings into tiny piles, I'm not sure I could even find them all, much less identify them.

Right now, at this very minute and for what has felt like several months, I have felt very disconnected from myself. In psychological terms this is known as disassociation. The problem is -- I'm not sure how to reassociate.

Recently I was talking with someone else who is in recovery from sexual addiction and he was sharing about the decisions he and his current girlfriend are making about their physical intimacy based on the Christian values to which they both subscribe. Again, I feel so disassociated from any sense of moral values.

I know that I have feelings. A personal incident over the weekend left me feeling extreme nauseau-inducing anxiety. I stood in the middle of an office and cried like a child. I have felt fear, shame, guilt, anger, regret, love and gratitude in the past few days. So, I know there are feelings that exist within me and I even experience them at times. But most of the time I feel a sense of numbness and wonder where the feelings that are making me feel uncomfortable are hiding. Is God protecting me from them?

Lately I have these long, lingering feelings and cravings to be held and comforted. I can lay in bed at night and simply ache for someone's body to spoon up against mine, to feel the skin of another person against mine. I'm not talking sex here -- I'm talking physical comfort. Are those cravings suppressing the real feelings that I'm having? I don't know. They feel as real as anything else and I have no idea if they are healthy or not.

They physical feelings seem to be seeking to calm the emotions that I don't even know how to express. I loved Practical Addict's post from this weekend about emotional sobriety. It seems to capture a bit of what I am trying to say here ... that I may be outwardly avoiding the actions of acting out, but inside I feel like a jumbled mess. I also found myself in the final paragraph of Enigma's post today as she described the need to find herself in the midst of all this recovering. It sometimes feels as if I've lost all sense of myself, my hopes, my dreams, my values somewhere between living in my addiction and trying to recover from it. I stopped seeing my therapist for seven weeks because I wanted some time to think for myself. In that seven weeks all I accomplished was another dance back into the malady and melody of my addiction.

I read this post at Being Made New and could really connect to his feelings of being a part of rather than a part from the people around him. Yet, those feelings seldom come across my path. I always feel as if I'm sitting somewhere just outside the circle.

I'm praying for reconciliation tonight. I know it won't come tonight. But I have faith that it will come. One day at a time.

Who knows?

After that last trumpeteering post about the spiritual experience in the 12 Steps and turning my will and my life over to the care of God as I understand God ... I need to say that this is still hard.

It's difficult to let go of the stash after a relapse into sexual addiction. Yes, in some ways relapse into love addiction is even worse. Neither is a cup of tea.

Like a heroin addict who longs for that first push of the needle, women like me crave that first kiss, we remember the contours of our lover's bodies, and we yearn for the physical touch that is meant to be shared between two people who have committed themselves to one another and share far more than the cost of a hotel room and a few laughs about their physical escapades.

I know that the current loneliness that comes from my husband's extraordinary work committments is contributing to the difficulty of getting through the withdrawal. I am working to occupy my time with and energy with other things, healthy people, and examining my own life through a renewed 4th Step inventory. It helps most of the time. But some of the time ... not so much.

As I'm writing here I'm thinking of the many wonderful and wounded women whose blogs I read. Their husbands or ex-husbands are sex addicts. I often think of them and wonder if they know what a large role they have played in my recovery. How many times has it been their words that come to mind when I think of acting out? I wonder too how painful it must be for them to read my words and not want to slap the living shit out of me. After all, it could have been their man I was craving tonight.

But as the Big Book says ... "probably no human power could or would have relieved" my desire to get that sexual high. If it could ... I would have been "saved" by now from these relentless urges and compulsions.

I've given some thought as I dissect my cravings and hand them over to God to the question of why it is I seek and desire other women's husbands.

I guess the easy answer is because I'm an addict and I seek people who are emotionally unavailable, but for today that's a cop-out. I want to own this truth, and I want to have a bigger answer than that. I want to know how I got from the lie of trying to find something to "supplement" a marriage that "left me feeling empty in some ways" to desiring the attention of men who not only had wives, but also lovers. How did I become obsessed with being the one they told all their secrets to?

A part of the equation I know is that my sick self needs some external force to reaffirm that I have value. For me, being the kind of woman that anyone -- male or female -- can share their deepest secrets with, has meant that I am valued. But my addictive mind has turned even this basic gift of friendship into a tool of my disease.

What am I recreating? I'm regaining that child's sense of power that comes from being the person who keeps information that could tear apart families. Not only could I use it against someone, I can use it to protect myself too. Secrets keep us safe, keep families together, and keep people out of trouble -- that's what I learned as a child. As an adult, I've learned that they are poison. Yet, my addict self wants them, desires them and does not know how to live without them.

One day at a time, I'm learning to live in the light of truth. It's not easy. But it's worth it.

A spiritual solution

As I continue to try to recover from this last relapse, I have been working on reviewing Steps 1-7 for my sponsor. As I consider the power of the Twelve Steps as a means of recovery from my sex and love addiction, as well as my compulsive overeating and codependency, and overall addictive personality something is becoming more and more clear to me.

What I have learned in therapy can help me understand my behaviors and thinking patterns better. Drugs can help with chemical imbalances that have occurred from the rush of my own natural hormones in the extremeness of my acting out. But the only place I find hope of truly overcoming the damage that has been done to me and for having a life that is worth living is in working the Steps that were first established by Alcoholics Anonymous.

It is true that those of us who were victimized sexually as children have been biologically and psychologically damaged by our abuse. But the SLAA program (which is based on the tenants of AA) gives me hope that there is a solution if I work for it. The solution is one that can not be experienced in my body or in my mind -- it is a spiritual experience. My spirit transcends my body and mind. Doctors and therapists can treat my body and my mind, but it takes a power greater than myself, and greater than any human power to give me hope that I will be free of the obsessions of my mind and the allergy of my own natural pleasure hormones.

I was listening to some of the AA Big Book lessons of Joe and Charlie yesterday (you can find the free downloads at www.silkworth.net) and they were talking about how alcoholics are very proud of their Steps, but that it is important to remember where they came from. The First Step "We admitted we were powerless over (our addiction), that our lives had become unmanageable," came from Dr. William Silkworth, a neurologist, whose opinions on alcoholism can be found in The Doctor's Opinion of the AA Big Book. The Second and Third Steps came from Dr. Carl Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist and brilliant thinker, who said that a "spiritual experience" was the only effective cure he had seen for the disease of alcoholism. The remainder of the Steps are based on some basic tenants set forth by an organization called the Oxford Group.

My point in repeating this is to emphasize that two medical doctors, both of whom worked with issues of brain function and performance, were a part of establishing the root program that has helped millions and millions of people find a better way of life.

Please understand -- I believe there is absolutely NO replacement for talk therapy for a person who has been abused as a child. But I also believe that the only hope of truly living a life that feels worth living to me is to become a whole person connected in body, mind and spirit. For me, that requires a spiritual experience that I believe I can find in working the Steps.

All this may sound empty coming from a woman who just had her umpteenth relapse after being in program for six years. However, please note that despite my relapses, I always have had the willingness to keep coming back, because I have seen the progress that I have made, and I have seen the progress of my disease. And I find that it is when I stop actively working on the Steps and practicing their principles in all areas of my life, those are the times the disease wins a foot race and gets the better of me. But in the journey of recovery, the progress I feel within myself is always moving forward and stays ahead of the disease and I don't give up, I keep coming back, because I want to experience the Promises and the Blessings. They are the things I cannot get in a therapist's chair or a psychiatrist's office. I can only get them in the rooms and fellowship of people recovering through the 12 Steps.

Honesty's role in the Steps

During my prayer and meditation this morning I realized that when I finally reached the point that I was willing to get honest about my recent slip, I had become willing to work the Steps again. Being honest that I had broken my bottom lines, rather than continuing hide the truth meant that I was admitting my powerlessness (Step 1), that I recognize my only hope to avoid full blown relapse into very dangerous behavior was to turn back to the program and its work (Step 2), and that I had made a decision to surrender my will and life over to a power greater than me and greater than my addiction (Step 3).

It felt fantastic for me to associate honesty with these three steps and I immediately felt prepared to do an inventory of my resentments and fears, and to better define the defects of my character that continue to lead me down that road.

I feel more humbled and more willing that I have felt yet, but my faith in myself is shaken. In saying this truth, I am invited to put my faith in God, and remember that I am not at the center of my recovery -- my Higher Power is. It is only those of us who have a spiritual awakening who do recover. And even then ... one day at a time.

Spinach & Eggplant Parmesan

It hasn't been that long ago that one of the women I sponsor said to me, "Rae, I'm going to remember how bad I feel right now so that I won't go back and make these mistakes again." I cautioned her that past pain, no matter how acute, no matter how scary, had never stopped me from acting out.

I guess this latest trip down acting out lane is proof positive that I wasn't lying to her. And today as I jitter around, frustrated, irritable and discontent -- unable to settle down to save my life (unless it is to sleep because I'm so damn tired) -- I am asking myself, "Did you think you were just going to feel like roses and sunshine when the withdrawal set in?"

I don't want to act out. There is no pull toward that. I've been focusing on recovery as best I can -- reaching out to others, listening to speaker tapes and I'm planning to go to an open AA meeting tonight. But there's not a single cell in my body that feels willing to vacuum the floor, clean the bathroom or wash the dishes. I tried going to see a movie, but drove off once I got to the theater, knowing there was no way I could sit in one spot for two hours, no matter how interesting the show was. I wanted to go to a coffee shop and read for a while. I have a new book I'm really excited to read. But my racing mind would have none of that, nor would it allow me to sit still long enough to truly (or maybe I should say 'perfectly' work on my steps).

The symptoms of withdrawal -- the racing thoughts and the acute feelings of depression -- remind me of the symptoms of bipolar disorder. It is nauseating and unsettling.

One of the speaker tapes I was listening to today encouraged addicts to write down a comprehensive list of the pros and cons of actively living in addiction. I've heard before and this speaker reiterated -- when we continue to act out, we are getting SOMETHING out of it. Off the top of my head, I know that I'm relieving a sense of loneliness, getting some positive affirmation (both of which are quickly deflated), reinforcing the lie that I cannot live without this behavior and the lie that I am fundamentally a bad person, so that I can continue to avoid responsibility for myself. I even get some sympathy from others. The cons are, of course, that I become detached from everything and everyone around me and feel more isolated and alone than when I started. I don't feel connected to my Higher Power, or to my husband or to my friends and loved ones. Instead, my connections are to the people I am acting out with. Then when I withdraw from them ... I'm left with nothing but emptiness.

One step at a time, one moment at a time ... I just have to remember this phase will pass, that it is a natural physical and emotional reaction to what my body and mind have been through. Withdrawal and abstinence are required to be able to move forward with my recovery from here.

By the way, in case you are wondering, this post got its title as a result of my effort today to stay in the moment. As I sat down to write, I was eating my dinner -- some delicious spinach/eggplant parmesan from Whole Foods -- on a paper plate, with a side of Gatorade. Cheers!

Thinking Aloud at 4 a.m.

I rarely sleep through the night and I often awake with thoughts I think it is important to write down. Occassionally they will be things I want to say to others - perhaps in an e-mail, and sometimes they are things I need to say to no one in particular.

What I need to say this morning may need to be said to someone specific in the future, but for now, I'll just put my thoughts down to words here.

Last night I shared with my sponsor and with my face to face group about my slip. I cried in the meeting and I felt like an idiot, but was thankful for the support I got. My sponsor was also supportive and offered some good suggestions. But it is a statement by my certified sex addiction therapist way back in July 2008 that keeps coming to my mind.

When I told her that my husband knew of my sexual addiction, but not the specifics of my acting out, she said, "Until there is full disclosure, you have a sense that you can get away with something. There is no accountability." As I look at other people try to control the information their spouses get about their acting out and how closely they protect that information, I see myself in them. I also see how their sharing has opened the doors for more intimate and loving partnerships with their spouses. These people have found they don't have to face their demons alone. Not only do they have the support of their group, and sponsors, they also have the support of their spouses.

I certainly have the support of my husband. He supports my recovery, and he knows that I am a sex and love addict, but he has no idea the extent and content of my triggers and behavior. And I wonder how I could tell him -- "Hey honey, while you were away, working 12-15 hours a day, I felt lonely, vulnerable and afraid and had sex with a few other guys to numb the feelings. And, while I'm at it, I might as well tell you that I've been numbing every uncomfortable feeling I've had the same way for about six years."

Have I even tried to change, he might ask. To which I could respond that Yes, I had. In fact, I had made some great progress. At least I hadn't used the same hotel key more than once in at least five years. Oh yes, and did I mention that what was once a rabid sex addiction seems to be more of a search for the allusion of love these days? And isn't it true sweetheart, that our own relationship has changed, I might ask.

The AA Big Book says we must be willing to go to any lengths to get sober. We must take off the masks. So the question becomes how willing am I to destroy someone else's life in order to save my own? How long can I stay sober when the voice in the back of my head says ... "What he doesn't know isn't hurting him." When will the "next time" be the time that all this luck -- no STDs, no pregnancy, no fatal attacks or obsessive stalkers -- runs out?

Sobering thoughts at 4 a.m.

Appreciating another's honesty

Eli Hornby over at Eli's Addict told a very powerful truth to his wife early Monday morning. Then he told it to his readers. His honesty is helping to keep him sober. I want to commend him for doing the next right thing.

I've not been nearly as honest with my husband, my sponsor or my readers. I've slipped a few times over the past few months, given in to those lower urges, lived to regret it, walked away, went back again, walked away. Through it all, I haven't told anyone, until a month or so ago when I said I had to walk away from a friendship that had become addictive. The truth is that relationship had become sexual.

The cycle of dishonesty and secrets is ugly. It's painful. It truly is painful to act out now. I know there's a better way, a clearer path, but I have to stay on it long enough to find my way. I know that honesty is the friend of my recovery, and the enemy of the addict.

Thank you, Eli, for helping me find the courage to tell the truth. Thank you, God, for planting that courage inside.

I heard recently:

Step 1 tells me there's a power that wants to destroy me.
Step 2 tells me there's a power that wants to save me.
Step 3 tells me I get to choose which power wins.

I've been allowing self-will to seek the power that wants to destroy me. God, I've made the biggest mess of my life, please grant me the willingness to turn it over to you. Just for today, I'll settle for the courage to hit "Publish."

Not so funny

*warning - potential triggers for sex addicts*

The other day I picked up Chelsea Handler's autobiography, "My Horizontal Life, A Collection of One Night Stands." As I skimmed through a few of the colorful stories, I thought of how much money she was making writing about the men she had bedded over the years. This queen of late night talk -- who has written about her love for vodka as well as sex -- is not wallowing in self pity or despair. She's just laughing and causing others to laugh with her.

As I flipped through her book, I thought of the funny facts I could share with others about my own set of one-time encounters, and even what others might write about their escapades with me. Sex addicts do gain a lot of insight about the underbrush of people's lives. We share fantasies, and discover kinks. Sometimes we tell one another secrets that we've never told to others. A lot of times we lie -- for stupid reasons and legitimate ones. There is no bar to our age, race, size, socioeconomic, religious, political or marital status.

In my active addiction I've learned that certain professions attract a higher percentage of sex addicts, and that certain body types yield smaller penises. I've learned that true addicts rarely think of their spouses while engaged in addictive behaviors, but as soon as the passionate shudders end, there is a sense of loss, and a desire to move on.

Today as I was driving I saw a quote from Edward Abbey and it made me think of R. He was obsessed with Abbey and his writing, and was a political pacifist of his own sort. I've slept with others who were activists, others who were trusted public servants with buildings named after them. I've had sex with men who've been to prison and men who have put them there, with dominants and submissives, with immigrants and natives, impotents and long lasters. They each have their own story -- some they've shared with me, others I've found out on my own.

So, is there a book in my escapades?

Not a funny one I'm afraid.

Mine are stories that weren't meant to be told. They are dirty secrets that silently bond two people together. Chelsea can drink and fuck all night, and laugh about it in the morning. I won't try to judge whether she laughs to keep from crying. I won't even judge whether I should laugh more and cry less. All I will say is that my liasons have been mid-day steal aways with other women's husbands, who were stealing a few moments or hours with someone else's wife. I have used them like Chelsea uses vodka. And they have used me like cocaine. In addition to their stories ... they have been fathers, brothers, sons, and even human, but that rarely mattered. In fact, many times our names didn't even matter.

An act held so sacred within the covenants of a marriage, is nothing more than a drink of whiskey to a sex addict.

There's nothing funny about that. Nothing at all.