While on vacation, I went for a walk through a nature preserve. To my surprise, I saw a patch of wild raspberries. I couldn’t resist picking a handful. They were delicious. I walked in that nature preserve nearly every day for a week. I kept finding more delicious raspberries. I was fortunate to be there when the raspberries were in season.

As we were out and about vacationing, I realized that I seemed to always be looking for something. It is as if my brain is set on “seek-and-find.” This worked great in the raspberry patch, but later, as I drove through a new city, I noticed my constant automatic scanning. Everyone else was looking for the right street to take, but I was scanning the billboards and storefronts for a lust hit. I found one. In the grocery store more scanning and more lust hits. Everywhere I went, even at church, more scanning, more lust hits.

I always thought that I was being discreet. My self-deception almost had me convinced that I was “accidentally” in the “wrong place” at the “right time”… or was it the right place at the right time for a lust hit?

As I returned home and shared this experience with others in the program, they related with the constant, ever-present “seek-and-find” when it comes to lust. I noticed that I was always looking for something when driving, watching TV, or in a group of people. I can even find images in the plaster texturing on the ceiling above my bed.

A long time ago I heard, “Where your attention goes, you go!” I am grateful that today my attention is focused on recovery. I am also quite aware of the challenge of keeping my attention on recovery. I know that lust is cunning, baffling, and powerful. It is so powerful that every day I struggle with keeping my attention on recovery. The moment I begin to drop my guard, get distracted, or even feel that I am safe, something usually happens that reminds me of just how vulnerable I am.

Yesterday my guard was down. I thought about making a call but didn’t. I began to seek, and I found a lust hit in a “regular” television show. I was scanning the channels and saw a show with a rating that caught my attention. At first I passed that channel only to return to it and find what I was looking for. Thirty seconds later seek-and-find worked. Lust! Do I make a call? I have never been sorry for making a call, but I did not make a call. I have been sorry for not making a call.

I turned off the TV and went outside to do some yard work. Focusing on something different was good, but it was a distraction-based focus; not a recovery focus. Had I been focused on recovery I would have made a call, prayed, surrendered, or read from Sexaholics Anonymous. I know how to focus on recovery. I have done that many times before. But that day I didn’t focus on recovery.

Later that night I heard about a website that was a trigger. I didn’t surrender. The impact of the previous lust hit combined with the lust of the new trigger fueled the obsession. I began to wonder if my computer filter would block it. Down the slippery slope I traveled as I disconnected from my family and tested the effectiveness of my filter. Fortunately for me, at a previous time when I was focused on recovery, I set up a series of restrictions on my computer. The site I was seeking was blocked. It didn’t matter. I was in seek-and-find mode, and that was a lust hit for me. I kept seeking only with minimal success at finding, but I was there.

Sometimes I forget that lust is toxic. Fortunately this time I shifted my focus to recovery. I had to remind myself that going down this road will only cause pain. Relapse kills! I had to remind myself that I wanted peace and the Real Connection. I started to focus on recovery. I do want peace. I do want recovery. I do want a real connection. I surrendered. I surrendered in prayer, but I didn’t surrender by making a call. My pride jumped in again. “It was just a little slip” was my justification. I know that each slip, big or small, will lead to another slip, big or small, that will eventually lead to relapse.

It is a good thing that I am going to a meeting tonight, because tonight I will surrender to the group. I need support. I need reality. I need the Real Connection I find at the meeting to remind me of what I want and what I don’t want. There are times when I can’t trust myself or my thoughts. In the past it has been so easy for me to convince myself that lust was what I wanted, needed, and had to have. The reality of the cost, the pain, and the wreckage was consumed like a bundle of thin dry twigs tossed into a roaring fire of lust. The insanity of addiction!

It is a new day and I am once again focused on recovery. My life works so much better when I am focused on recovery. I have hope. I love recovery. I love the discovery that is a part of recovery. I love the healing that is occurring in my life and all of my relationships. Today I am seeking recovery. Today I am finding recovery. Recovery is a gift from a power greater than myself.