Rabu, 26 Desember 2012

SEXUAL | Taking Stock | Hot

SEXUAL | Taking Stock | Hot

Taking Stock

Posted: 26 Dec 2012 08:44 AM PST

Christmas time, end of the year, New Years...

Its that time of the year to take stock of where I have been and where I'm going.

I have been thinking a lot lately about my involvement with Sexaholics Anonymous (SA). SA saved my life.  There is no doubt about that. Eventually, my addiction would have taken me to an abyss from which there was no going back. My gratitude for the founders and the men and the women in the program will never be complete.

I am far from the first to observe this: we are sexual beings. The force that drives us, and drives us together, the life force, is nothing less than a necessary component of the universe which resides in each of us. It is what propels us on as a species to continue through time to some ultimate destiny.

Some of us, however, like myself, are a little too obsessed with sex. Sex was always at the fore of my thinking, never far from my thoughts, fantasy always lurking a brief moment from consciousness. I was apparently wired a little differently. Imagine being a 13 year old boy in the body of a 40 year old. I recall walking around Jr. High School with an uncontrollable erection always afraid someone would notice....who knew that would become a metaphor for my life?

When I came into SA about six years ago, my addiction was in full bloom. I was regularly having unprotected sex with prostitutes, I would spend at least hours every day and late into the night looking at porn and trying to find someone on line to have sex with, I was engaging in BDSM whenever I could find a willing partner, I was having sex with men and women and couples. I had only a sneaking suspicion that something was a little out of whack.

I was living a life of rage. My social life was practically non existent. It had been years since I had been romantically involved with anyone. I was in therapy, but far from honest about the full extent of my extra curricular activities.

Needless to say, when I came into recovery through SA, I was a broken man.

Standing outside the church that first night after my first meeting, one of the men tried to convince me that he had not masturbated in 3 months. I looked at him with disbelief (and it is still a running joke between us). I thought he was pulling my leg. He told me to remember that the thoughts are just in my head, I was not obligated to act on them, and that I did in fact have a choice.

That kept me sober 30 days. Then, I had a huge binge. It took weeks to work that first hang over out of my system. But, I kept coming back. The process of a week, or two weeks or a month of sobriety and a relapse happened again and again and again. I noticed that I felt queasy or fogged or fatiqued if I looked at porn and masturbated after a period of sobriety. I went for a long period when I claimed my sobriety was longer than it really was. I have done this multiple times. It was part of the "look good" or part of the continued shame that I could not control my sexuality.

I have lied about my acting out multiple times in SA. I have taken chips I did not deserve. I have led meetings when I was not sober. I have done service work which required a minimum length of sexual sobriety.

Sexual sobriety has been really hard for me. It has been hard for me to get one year of sobriety. It has not happened yet for me. I sometimes feel like I am at a stand off with my addict.

The funny thing is this: sobriety feels good. I feel like my obsession with sex is a type of bondage...it is like the song in one's head that NEVER goes away. It's like tinitius....the ringing in the ears that does not stop. Its like a voice that never shuts up. At some point, it stops being titalating. It stops being erotic. It stops being fun. When I am sober, I am free of these things, and thankfully so. Actually, sobriety feels great. It is just a feeling, for me, that something is finally right within me.

I have noticed in SA that the men who keep long term sobriety are either married, medicated or mature. This is a hard program for young single men. Its also a hard program for the married men too. I don't think any one stays sober forever...at least I have not observed this yet.

This leads me to think that maybe the best that I can hope for is a "governor" on my addiction, similar to a governor on a car which controls speed. I am never going to be cured, but I can get relief. And, when I have relief, I can find more relief from the addiction. Perhaps its OK that I do not achieve the bigger milestones, but its not OK to not take action to keep sobriety or to continue to lie about it in meetings as I have done in the past.

Perhaps the important part of this is the fight. Sobriety is worth fighting for, and it is the continued on going fight that keeps me coming back...that and the knowledge that ultimately sobriety is better and my worst day sober will always be better than my best day drunk.

God bless.
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