another addict trying to change

SS,

Welcome!

You ask a bunch of questions and make a bunch of comments.  May I reply in a somewhat stream-of-conseciousness manner to some of them?

You ask about the possible love interest and the addiction.  Mostly what I can comment on there from my experience and from that of my friends is what not to do:

- Don't assume that you'll get over your addictive behavior because you meet the girlfriend, develop a sexual relationship, get married, have kids, whatever.  I did all those things and stayed addicted, as did every married addict I know.  There are all kinds of reasons to delude oneself into believing that true love is a cure for addiction.  We've all believed it.  It just isn't true.  Go to an SAA meeting and confess to having once thought that, and a whole room full of people will smile knowingly, nod, and chuckle.  Trust me on this.  It's really important.

- Don't operate under the delusion that you'll solve this addiction problem on your own in a few weeks or months and will never have to confess it to your SO.  Many of us have thought that, too, and it's also crazy.  I grew up with an addictive approach to the world, and spent many years as an active addict.  Learning a new way of life isn't going to be the work of a day or a month or a year.  My addiction and the whole supporting structure of fear and isolation and shame form the central moral and emotional and spiritual struggle of my life.  In many ways, that struggle defines who I am.  For me to hide that from a partner is to close off the possibility of intimacy, of deeply knowing one another, from the very start.  It is to smother the development of closeness and trust before it can take its first breath.  It is to doom a serious relationship before it is born.

It's also what I did.  Don't go there.

On a more practical level, hiding an addiction from a potential spouse is also an act of profound disrespect, depriving her of her fundamental rights as a human being.  Addiction, after all, is defined as a chronic, relapsing disease.  It's something that some/many/all of us will be dealing with for our entire lives.  Many addicts find successful lives in long-term recovery, but many more do not.  Anyone developing a serious relationship with an addict has an absolute right to know what they're getting into and to decide for themselves if they are prepared to accept that life-long burden.  You wouldn't marry someone without mentioning that you had MS or a diseased heart, right?  For the same reasons, it's critical that we respect our partners as human beings and be clear to them about our addictions.

None of that is to say that I think a sex addict in long-term recovery needs to say to every person he meets, "Would you like to have lunch sometime?  I'm a sex addict."  It is to say that before the relationship gets serious, we need to be honest.

Finally, you say that you know what you need to do.  Do you?  Can you spell that out?

See, here's my take on that: Porn/Sex addiction is a real addiction.  I know lots of people with multiple addictions - sex and alcohol, sex and drugs, whatever.  I don't know anyone who has found it easier to recover from sex addiction than from alcoholism.  I think I know one person who had more trouble with cocaine than with sex.

If that's so, and if we want to find recovery from sex addiction, then we better take it just as seriously as if we were drug addicts.  If a friend who was addicted to alcohol or to crack came to me and said, "I know what I need to do... it's just so hard to do it. I've been planning to tell my pastor about this, but the shame is too huge to handle," I'd probably suggest rather bluntly that while talking to his pastor about his addiction was an important part of his walk with Christ, it was still only the first of many more steps.  I know I spent 15 years as an active addict after confessing my behavior to my priest and beginning to try to work with him on doing better.

The people I've known who found real long-term recovery from addictions have made recovery the centerpiece of their lives.  They've done things like going to 12-step meetings, getting sponsors, working the Steps, working seriously and honestly with professional counselors, getting honest with the people around them, calling other addicts, learning about addiction and recovery, praying, meditating, journaling, stuff like that.  Jump-starting recovery by spending some time in rehab programs can also be useful, though that's not something I've done myself.

Is that what you have in mind when you say you know what you need to do?  Because I think that's what we do need to do, just as I think it's what addicts with other drugs of choice need to do.  That's a scary package at first, but if each day I take the next step, pretty soon I can be doing all of it.

Finally, I'd like to reflect briefly on your mention in your last sentence of the huge shame.  Shame is a huge part of the addictive cycle.  We act out to medicate and run from our feelings; that acting out brings us shame; so we act out again to hide from facing the shame; and there we are, stuck.  Part of recovery is therefore learning to let go of the shame so that we can see ourselves both honestly and gently.  It's not an accident that the sobriety tokens that SAA gives out say, "From shame to grace."  Part of giving up the shame happens as we do what at first seems impossible - showing ourselves to others as we really are, and discovering that even those who know us can love us.  Making that discovery is one part of why working with other addicts, with a counselor, with a pastor, etc. is so important.  Allowing honesty and intimacy to thrive is why it's also critical eventually to become honest with the central people in our lives - spouses, friends, parents, siblings, children, whoever our core companions are.

OK, that's enough for now.  By taking a somewhat hard line on addiction and recovery, I hope I don't scare you off.  There is enormous hope.  People find freedom from all sorts of addictions.  Our problem isn't just that we have a bad habit.  It's that in our shame, we have isolated ourselves from others, from God, and from ourselves.  Recovery isn't just staying the same people but becoming sober.  It's fixing all those broken relationships so that we no longer need to flee into our addictive behavior.  It's becoming new people of joy and peace and serenity.  It's stopping hiding.  It's seriously wonderful.  Ordinary people like you and me can walk that path, and millions have.  We can't do it alone, though, and we can't do it unless we're really all in.

May you find the courage and the skill to find the new life you seek.

Tim M.

TM2, thanks for your bluntness. I need it. It looks like a very long and hard way, and I'm so scared that I'm going to fall and fall again along the way. May God give me strength to carry on...

I want to find a local SAA. What do you think about these two?:
www.scatoronto.org/Home_Page.html
www.saatoronto.org/index.shtml

Endzone... thanks for the story and your support!!

SS

I fell again... deeper this time, and once again I want to stop this. I hate this. It's very embarrassing and I feel that I'm toying around God's grace and mercy. I know He's mad and sad to me right now...

SS

Struggling Sinner. Thanks for confessing your latest. You have the desire to stop which is a start.