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Sex/Porn Addiction Recovery: Living in the Green Circle

Scott Brassart

Jack is a 31-year-old divorced high school guidance counselor. In his active porn addiction, he felt terrible about himself, feeling as if he was the worst person on Earth—counseling kids about living a good life during the day while compulsively using porn at night. After a stint of inpatient rehab, Jack achieved six months of sexual sobriety. In addition to working 8 to 4 every weekday, he kept a journal, meditated, and attended 12-step meetings at least three times per week. He also met with both his outpatient therapist and his 12-step sponsor once per week. Despite this hard work and success, he found himself depressed and unenthused about both sexual sobriety and life. He told his therapist and his sponsor that he still wanted to stay sexually sober and he knew that his life was much better without all the sexual acting out, but he wasn’t enjoying 12-step meetings, he was short-tempered at work, and he thought seriously about “going back online” at least ten times per day.

Jack’s story is far from unusual. In fact, many (if not most) recovering sex and porn addicts experience a similar sensation at some point in their recovery. Usually this is because their only real goal early in the process is staying sober. And while this is an admirable objective, it doesn’t exactly provide them with direction and meaning. Because of this, when the shiny new adventure of recovery inevitably loses its luster, shame creeps back in, and they have nowhere to turn for motivation.

In Jack’s case, beyond the work of his job and the work of recovery, he was aimless. In therapy, he was asked, “What do you want from life beyond sobriety?” And he was startled to find that he had no idea. His therapist then assigned the task of moving from shame to grace, which meant Jack needed to figure out his short and long-term goals beyond sobriety. His therapist asked him to create a list of these goals, letting Jack know they would discuss them during his next session.

A week later, Jack presented the following list:

  • I want to be “present” in the world rather than numbed out.
  • I want to complete the 12 steps by the end of this year.
  • I want to become a respected member of my 12-step fellowship.
  • I want to be good at my job.
  • I want to feel better about myself.

Jack was pretty pleased with this list when he shared it with his therapist. His therapist, however, was less than impressed, saying, “Yes, that’s all very admirable, but what else do you want?” Jack was actually a bit confused by the question, so his therapist said, “Do you want to start dating and maybe get married again? Do you want to go on an exciting vacation? Do you want to take up a hobby? Do you want to join a softball team? Do you want to be more involved in the community?” Jack admitted that he wanted all those things. “So why are they not on the list?” his therapist asked. “All I see right now is work, work, and more work. What about having fun and spending time with other people?”

Jack’s therapist made an excellent point: If addicts are not going to have some fun and enjoy life in sobriety, then what’s the point of being sober?

There is more to healing from sex and porn addiction than simply stopping problem behaviors. Recovering addicts must replace those behaviors with something worthwhile. Sure, in the beginning it may be fine for recovering addicts to fill their suddenly available free time with nothing but therapy and 12-step meetings, but eventually that gets dull and boring.

To avoid this type of downward drift, addicts must self-nurture in a variety of ways, remembering to care for themselves in ways that cultivate not only their sobriety but their sense of fun and their enjoyment of life. In other words, they need to live in their green circle. Interestingly, this process can feel so foreign to some addicts that it ends up being the hardest part of the recovery and healing process.

Unsurprisingly, as Jack began to incorporate some new activities into his recovery, his depression lifted. He started small, going to fellowship after 12-step meetings. This was fairly easy for him because many of the others who went for coffee felt just as much social discomfort as he did. In time, he found out that two of the men enjoyed baseball, and they made plans to attend a few games together. Before long, Jack realized that he’d made friends with several people in his 12-step group and several others in a men’s group at his church.

With his new goals, Jack learned that life in recovery can be incredibly enjoyable. Yes, he still misses the dramatic dopamine rush provided by his addiction. But he has learned to appreciate the “slow dopamine drip” of healthy pleasures—socializing with friends, providing real support to people he cares about, developing hobbies, etc. Rather than compulsively seeking an addictive life filled with gigantic ups and downs, Jack is now able to enjoy the relative peace and serenity that sobriety provides.

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If you or someone you care about is struggling with sex or porn addiction, help is available. For porn addicts, Seeking Integrity offers a low-cost online workgroup series. Click HERE for information. We offer a similar workgroup series for sex addicts. Click HERE for information.