Is anyone else going stir crazy?

@cantgetmedown

Hi Jessica,

Welcome back. You are definitely not alone. And these times really do put our faith and sobriety to the test.

Although, we can't do meetings and church face to face right now, there are still many ways to draw strength.

First and foremost, I can take some time each day to develop my relationship with the Lord. As amymine712 mentioned, having a consistent time in the Word and prayer does help.

I have a good number of phone buddies that I reach out to. I'm still watching church online with my family and I'm doing my Celebrate Recovery meetings via Zoom.

Regular checking in on the forum helps me too.

I'm paging @lowcountrygal. I still see her logged in here sometimes and I see a lot in common with you two.

Masturbation has been a real tough one for me. Let me go scramble up my night plan. That was super beneficial for me when I was single.

While searching I found this that I made for myself.


Why not to masturbate

We all know that there is a lot of misinformation going around about masturbation. It's been a stumbling block for me. For most of my years, I just threw masturbation in my middle circle and left it at that. However, one day in 2005, I felt like I was truly getting a fix and a high after one episode. I made a decision to stop completely, at least for the time being. I've gotten really creative. During that
time, one of my night plan behaviors was to sleep fully clothed. However my flesh/addict simply found a way to masturbate fully clothed at night without the use of my hands. This was going to be a tough one.

It was important for me to determine why I want to stop. There are a lot of reasons floating around. Some are extrinsic motivators as described below.

Extrinsic motivators

• God abhors it.
• My wife hates it.
• It's disgusting.
• It's gross.
• It's sick.
• It's perverted.
• It's immoral.
• It's wrong.
• It's sinful.
• It will make my palms hairy.
• It will damage my penis.
• It's worship of the Devil.
• I have to be perfect.
• It will impress others.
• The SA program renounces it.
• My church renounces it.
• I will go blind.
• I'm fantasizing about someone's daughter.

Now, some of these may be noble reasons to stop masturbating. For instance, pleasing God is a noble
reason to stop. Pleasing my wife may also be a noble reason to stop. However, neither one of these
reasons are sufficient enough to get my soul to choose to stop. Some of these reasons are simply lies. I still refuse to believe that masturbation should be interpreted as worship of the devil. Even if it is, holding that view won't help me one bit.

What my soul needs are reasons that truly speak to the heart. Ones that make sense to the soul. Maybe a little selfish, but as long as my soul believes in these intrinsic motivators below, I stand a better
chance.

Intrinsic Motivators

• The fantasies in my head while masturbating depict a woman more magical than depicted in any pornography I've ever seen. That makes it, for me, counterfeit sex. Although there is no guarantee that I will ever have genuine sex or love in my life, using counterfeits is not going to get me anywhere. It is a guaranteed failure.
• I want to embrace more the idea that sex is a privilege and an option as opposed to a need.
• Sexual release via masturbation tends to nurture my female side. And I want to embrace my masculine side more.
• I want to give myself more opportunities to feel my feelings. My flesh/addict is terrified of certain feelings and will use sexual acting out to run away from them. It has severely impacted all of my relationships. When I'm feeling a sexual urge, I'm never considering the fact that I'm just numbing my feelings. I'm just looking forward to the narcotic feeling that sexual acting out brings. I'm like a junk food addict whose body craves junk food constantly, but actually, deep down inside, needs healthy nourishment. I constantly crave sexual acting out thinking that it is all I need. But actually, deep down inside, I need to allow my true feelings to come out.
• My addiction was there to help me cope with the pain I was dealing with when I was young. At times, I've created and allowed painful situations to provide the excuse and entitlement to act out. As an adult, I am no longer defenseless, and my life is not characterized by pain. For the first time in my life, I am safe. My soul needs to understand this more.
• I want to embrace a more realistic view of women and relationships.
• Masturbation has stopped working as a sleeping pill, and the release I'm getting from it is becoming more temporary.
• I want to challenge and nudge myself into doing other dopamine stimulating behaviors such as working out and, worshiping while singing and playing the guitar, instead of using masturbation to “shoot myself up with dope” and remaining passive.
• I want to challenge and nudge myself into getting support from God, family, and friends instead of sexualizing this need by using masturbation and remaining isolated.
• I want to be more content with my life and demonstrate a more complete love for myself without needing that “magic lady” to make me feel better and provide me validation.
• I'm already sexually anorexic with my wife, allowing masturbation in my life will just make it that much more difficult to work on that area of my life.
• My masturbation and porn use often go hand in hand. Hence, when I do porn, I will masturbate. When I masturbate, I end up viewing porn. Each one triggers the other.
• I want to concentrate more on what I do have; to appreciate, develop, and exercise the many gifts that God has given me, as opposed to feeling sorry and pitiful for what I don't have, things that masturbation tends to remind me of. I do not want to become a “dry drunk”. I want to focus on positive acceptance and enjoyment of the life that God gave me in any situation.

teetop,

Hi Virgil,

I'm saddened to hear of your situation. But it's nice to hear from you again.