Sobriety Day 23

Before recovery, whenever I tried to stop acting out, my life went insane. I started doing stuff that was so strange that I thought I was literally losing my mind. I’ve since learned that what I was doing is not all that uncommon. I simply couldn’t cope with living without acting out.

Then I learned about sex addiction, and eventually found SA. I still couldn’t cope without acting out. I got worse, and was worried that I was making a mistake going to meetings and trying to believe I was an addict. The really crummy thing was that I couldn’t unknow what I had learned. I wanted to be reinserted back into the life I had before.

For a few months, I have really struggled to be less resistant and more teachable. I started doing dumb stuff just because someone told me I should. Mostly, I just kept coming back. I don’t know why.

Now, I’m not acting out and I’m coping. In fact, I’m doing way better than coping. I am not tempted to drive my car into a tree or down a bunch of pills. I’m clearer. I think better, and I’m not chewing my fingers off due to lack of sex (this is amazing to me). Life is better now. This is a gift—one that I really didn’t want. Oh sure, I wanted to stop being strange sexually, but I never wanted to stop all the sex I was doing. But now that I have been graced with sobriety, it feels way better than acting out.

It astonishes me how much I care about how others in this program are doing. Watching others attain progressive victory over lust gives me hope. If they can do it, I have a chance too. Likewise, watching others leave the fellowship is scary. I could do that too.

Sobriety Day 50

Today, if I do the things I need to do to remain able to accept God’s help, I will be sober. I’ve been trying to achieve sobriety for over a year and a half now, the last six months in SA. That has been hellish, but it’s also been instructive. I know in the core of my being that I can’t keep myself sober. In fact, I can’t even remember to do the stuff I need to do so that God will keep me sober.

I have to thank the God of my understanding for keeping me sober yesterday and ask Him to do it again today. I have to actually say these words out loud or write them down; thinking them in my own head doesn’t work. I have to read something from some recovery book, and I have to try to connect with some other sexaholic.

What frightens me is that I know that forgetting to do these necessary things changes how I am in the world: I become unable to accept the gift of sobriety from my Higher Power. If I skip a day, I’m unbalanced. If I skip two days, I’m in big trouble. By the third skipped day, I’m acting out again. Yet my tendency is to forget. In many ways, this fellowship is like a memory aid. It helps me to remember to do the stuff that keeps me alive.