Becoming Vulnerable

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All daily inspirations can be found in the book Sex and Porn Addiction Healing and Recovery. Used here with permission of the author. Click the book cover image to purchase the book on Amazon.

You are worthy of love and intimate connection.

Becoming vulnerable means trusting both ourselves and others. It is the only way to live honestly, with integrity and authenticity. When we become vulnerable—in friendships and in intimate relationships—we open ourselves up to the possibility of being wounded, trusting that we are worthy of love and that the other person won’t decide to hurt us. This is a very scary thing to do, but the ultimate rewards are joy and true connection. It’s worth the risk.

Task for Today
Be vulnerable and trust that you’ll be loved in return—eventually, if not right away.

Working Step 4

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All daily inspirations can be found in the book Sex and Porn Addiction Healing and Recovery. Used here with permission of the author. Click the book cover image to purchase the book on Amazon.

The greatest of faults is to be conscious of none.

As it is with all of the 12 steps, there is no set way to work the fourth step. If we look around, we will find all sorts of methodologies suggested in online forums, articles, and recovery centric books. And any of these methods will likely work for us, as long as they’re constructed with the same basic goal—for us to see the ways in which we were an active participant in our addiction and its consequences. No matter how we choose to work Step 4, we need to look at our part in the addiction and its consequences.

Task for Today
Take full responsibility for your addiction and the problems it has caused.

Stop Saying “I Can’t”

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All daily inspirations can be found in the book Sex and Porn Addiction Healing and Recovery. Used here with permission of the author. Click the book cover image to purchase the book on Amazon.

Challenges test our courage and our ability to change.

In both our lives and our recovery, it is counterproductive to look at something daunting and say, “No way, I’ll never pull that off.” Instead of saying “I can’t,” we need to acquire and master the tools we need to succeed, one tool at a time. And then we must give it a shot, whatever our challenge happens to be. As we master each new tool, we learn what it feels like to use it and succeed with it, and then we’re ready and excited about learning and using and succeeding with the next tool. Success breeds success. And that is an incredible feeling. But we can only experience that feeling when we toss our preconceived notions about what we can and can’t do into the garbage.

Task for Today
Listen for the words “I can’t” and change them to “I can.”

At-Risk vs. Addicted

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All daily inspirations can be found in the book Sex and Porn Addiction Healing and Recovery. Used here with permission of the author. Click the book cover image to purchase the book on Amazon.

Non-addicts can (and usually do) limit or stop their behaviors when they start to experience adverse consequences. Addicts? Not so much.

At-risk users of sexual fantasy and activity are men and women who go through periods of intense engagement with non-intimate sexuality, perhaps using it as a distraction from emotional discomfort and other life issues. Sometimes at-risk users look a lot like addicted users, hiding the nature and extent of their sexual behaviors, temporarily ignoring potential and even actual consequences, and escalating the nature and extent of their use. What differentiates at-risk users from addicted users is at-risk users can stop the activity on their own while addicted users cannot. At-risk users retain control and choice over their engagement with non-intimate sexual fantasy and activity. Addicted users do not.

Task for Today
Think of three times when you lost control and choice over your sexual behavior.

Love Addiction is Just as Irrational as Sex Addiction

All daily inspirations can be found in the book Sex and Porn Addiction Healing and Recovery. Used here with permission of the author. Click the book cover image to purchase the book on Amazon.

Courage is resistance to fear, not the absence of fear.

Love addicts spend the bulk of their time either searching for the perfect love interest or wriggling out of their current relationship so they can focus on a new one. They constantly check their profiles on Match.com, eHarmony, Ashley Madison (even though they’re not married), JDate (even though they’re not Jewish), etc. Almost every decision they make—what to wear, where to eat, where to socialize, where to exercise, what job to have—is colored by their desire to meet and hook their perfect partner, the one person who can make them feel complete and whole and perpetually excited about their relationship. But that is not really what they’re seeking. Like sex and porn addicts, substance addicts, and all other addicts, love addicts use their behavior as a distraction—to escape from stress, depression, anxiety, and other forms of emotional and psychological discomfort.

Task for Today
When you feel the compulsive urge to pursue romance, think about the feelings you’re trying to avoid. And then talk about those feelings with your therapist, your sponsor, or a friend in recovery.

The Disease of Addiction

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All daily inspirations can be found in the book Sex and Porn Addiction Healing and Recovery. Used here with permission of the author. Click the book cover image to purchase the book on Amazon.

We don’t recover from addiction by quitting. We recover by creating a new life where it is easier to not engage in the addiction.

Once upon a time, addiction was thought by most to be a moral failing, a lack of self will, or a deep psychological flaw (a personality disorder), rather than a chronic emotional illness. This moralistic belief system was prevalent until the mid-20th century when our understanding and view of addiction began to slowly but steadily shift. One reason for this shift was recognition that addicts are nearly always survivors of severe or chronic trauma. And the more we know about addiction, the more sense this makes. For one thing, it is clear that addictions are not about feeling good, they’re about feeling less. We turn to addictive substances and behaviors not because we want to have a good time, but to self-medicate and self-regulate our emotions. Our primary goal is to escape from life and to not feel stress, anxiety, depression, fear, and other forms of discomfort. That is the disease we must overcome.

Task for Today
Pay attention to your feelings, especially to feelings that trigger a desire for escape.