A good question

I am spending some time asking myself this question. Why do I want to recover from sex and love addiction? Sometimes I feel like I don't. Some days I hate my sobriety. Some days I think it is worthless. My previous sponsor once told me that sexual abuse victims have it the hardest, that most of them can never truly recover from addiction because of their trauma. That was very defeating to me. I have used it to fight against helping myself. And on those days I think recovery is worthless, it is because I think I am never going to be able to succeed, so why try.

Why try? Because I spend half my days in tears and agitation now. I am sad, lonely, empty. I want my life back. I want to not just pretend to be full of life. I want to be in touch with my life and know that it's in there. I want to feel. As long as I'm an addict I have trouble feeling anything.

Sometimes one of my friends tells me I think too much, but it's simply out of desperation -- wishing that I could just feel something. Maybe I'm even addicted to the pain and loneliness, because at least it is something.

I wasn't always like this and it's hard to accept that my entire life has been a lie, and certainly hard to think that the rest of my life will be like this. But I am thankful to be realizing that at 36. And I will keep plugging along, asking questions, and being thankful. There's a big wall to knock down between me and myself. The only tool I have is God, his patience and understanding, and his gifts -- which include the program and the people I have met through it.

In case you didn't notice ... the wall went up somewhere between the two paragraphs above. The feelings come and even though I say I want to feel, I shut them off. I can't stand not being in control of them -- and until I accept them, let them come, feel them -- I'll always be here.