This blog has been percolating for some time, but it's only after the frustration of not doing it overwhelms the fear of doing it that I was actually able to get started. I want to share what I'm going through and shed light on an addiction that is often overused and misunderstood, to remove stigma, and to help myself recover from what has been a difficult journey, and an addiction that just won't seem to go away. I'm experiencing a great amount of relief compared to when I joined Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous three and a half years ago, but I would like some more. I still struggle with fantasy, obsession, deprivation and fear, and it's my hope that through this blog a lot of that will start to disappear.
I've been sober from most drugs and all alcohol for the better part of 15 years now, and as soon as I went to treatment the craving for alcohol disappeared. But that hasn't been my experience with sex. When I got sober from drugs and alcohol I jumped into a sex addiction, or rather, dove more fully into an addiction that was already present. Throughout my drinking and drugging years I would frequently visit prostitutes, strip clubs, watch porn for hours on end, often high. I would jump into one relationship after another with any woman who would take me. I used dating apps like door dash, scrolling through and selecting what I wanted, or anything I could get. I obsessed about them, exposed myself through them, frequently victimizing strangers. I was pushy and aggressive with women in bed, pushing boundaries without permission or concern. And that's just the beginning. After I got "sober" I had nothing to hold me back from this addiction: no alcohol or drugs to sooth me, it was all sex, all the time.
I would cruise through town, or cruise the dating apps looking for hookups. If I found one, there would be some relief for maybe a day before the shame would kick in and I would be off looking for another. My "acting out" took on a binge-purge pattern. If I couldn't find a hookup I was off to the strip club or to a prostitute, my "bottom" occurring when I hooked with one who had a sore on her lip, and I came home and prayed to God in the shower that if he spared me from herpes I would never see another prostitute again. So I had to get clever. I was afraid of an STD so I started going to massage parlors. My fantasy around it was like a scene that occurred when I was younger, being seduced, and I would hit all the spots in town until I got the fantasy right, which almost happened, and it was then that I realized I was a sex addict.
Someone had mentioned that to me offhand once but I thought they were projecting. But I knew that this behavior, wanting to have my boundaries violated in this way, wasn't normal or healthy, and I couldn't stop. Vows to stop would lead to broken promises. I would look out for new places that popped up around town, and I always knew where to look. I would tell myself I was just going to sit in the parking lot, or just go check it out, or just go get a massage, but before I knew it I was walking through the door, and then walking out feeling worse about myself than I ever thought I could feel. And I was in a relationship at this time. When I tried to stop my porn used increased, and then my desire for a hookup and to act out the scenes I saw in real life. I was fighting the desire to seduce coworkers, fantasizing about having sex with anyone I met, or anyone I saw, fantasizing about them for hours, days after I met them: that maybe this person, this time, would be the one time that fixed me once and for all.
And that's really the impetus for this blog, because a lot of that has come back: the fantasy, the longing, thinking that if I could just have sex one more time I'd be cured. I tell myself that it's probably natural, that it's been a long time for me and that I should excuse myself. And I don't want to shame myself, and I don't want to dismiss my natural urges but I'm longing to fuck, to experience this deep connection where I feel like I disappear, to experience control and lack of it, to experience shame. And that's how I know I'm an addict, because there are other ways to experience connection but I fixate on this one. Yes it would be nice to have sex but is it really the most important thing in the world? There are other ways to experience connection which maybe aren't quite as intense but just as fulfilling. You'd be amazed at the kind of relief I can get from just making a phone call with someone in the program, because the core of this addiction, as it is for most, is the belief that I'm unloveable, and the belief is deep down in my body somewhere and it has dictated many of the my thoughts and actions for most of my life, but no more. I have other things I can do when times get tough. I'm not alone like I used to think I was. I used to suffer in silence but now I can talk to a buddy and tell them how I'm feeling, and they understand. I can share in a meeting or listen to what's going on with someone else and know that they're going through the same thing as me, and I'm not alone. I feel like I have support now, which is a miracle. I never believed that before, and I don't know how I lived.
But now I feel like I'm slipping. Maybe I'm getting over confident. I'm getting back to wanting to do things my own way and the addiction is creeping back in. I've started using cannabis to help develop intimacy with myself, which is working, but also gives me hits of dopamine I'm not used to. I don't have a sponsor. I work the steps, keep up with phone calls, and maybe I'm doing just enough to get by without "slipping." I'm not taking responsibility for how I'm feeling. I don't want to let this go. This thing that's been with me my whole life, my precious, this thing I still think will fix me. The way is learning how to rely on others, and then a higher power who loves me. I have to learn how to trust again, and I've been working the program, sometimes better than others, but now I want the reigns back. It's time to give them back over, and surrender, but I don't want to do what it takes: more meetings (why me?), more phone calls (not today!), and so this is what I get as a consequence. I want sex and connection and I want them now, and I want to do it my way, and my way brings with it a lot of pain. I read this Osho quote about tantra that went something like: "the whole world is making love to itself all the time, if you make love to the world then one day you will find that you are making love." That sounds nice. Sex is a wonderful, beautiful thing, but there are other things that are equally wondrous, and I would like to know them too. I don't have to fixate on this one thing. It will come in time. Lastly, I've been thinking of recovery as this thing that suddenly happens, this miracle that comes over you. That's how it's presented in the literature and maybe that's true, maybe that happens. I'm only on steps 6 & 7 but that hasn't been the case for me so far. Instead, maybe it's this thing that I have to tend to, everyday, until one day I forget I'm doing it. I wake up and I'm recovered, the miracle has happened and it takes place one day at a time.
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