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.

Your Sexual Sobriety Plan: The Process of Revision

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 times they are a-changin’.

With each new form of technology (digital technology in particular), the sexual and romantic landscape changes. As recovering sex and porn addicts, we must do the same, revising our sexual sobriety plans as needed to reflect new temptations and potential problems. That said, we should never change our sobriety plan without significant discussion and input from our therapist, our 12-step sponsor, and other members of our recovery support network. If we change our sobriety plan without this input, we are usually doing so as a way to justify addictive behavior, not as a way to stay sober.

Task for Today
Examine your sexual sobriety plan to see if any changes are needed. If you think changes are needed, talk to your therapist, your sponsor, and others before implementing those changes.

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.

Until we face our shadows, they will haunt us.

The goal of Step 4 is for us to take a hard, unrelenting look at our problems and our role in creating those problems. After working Step 4, we realize that we are not victims; instead, we are active participants in the mess our lives have become. And believe it or not, this realization is empowering. In fact, many of us point to Step 4 as the turning point in our recovery. Before working Step 4, we were battling external factors—other people, events, and organizations that ‘drove us to addiction.’ By the time we’re done with Step 4, we know that the real enemy lives within. We understand that we, not others, are the cause of our misery. Our addiction belongs to us and no one else.

Task for Today
Stop blaming others for your problematic sexual behaviors.

The Gratitude List

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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.

If the only prayer you say is “thank you,” that is enough.

As sex and porn addicts, we may have used our sexual fantasies and behaviors to numb out for so long that we forgot how to experience emotions in a healthy way—particularly uncomfortable emotions like anxiety, depression, fear, shame, and the like. As a result, sometimes, especially early in the recovery process, we can feel overwhelmed by those emotions, losing sight of what is going well in our lives and our recovery. A great way to combat this ‘stinking thinking’ is to create a gratitude list. Most of us find that a ten-item gratitude list counteracts almost any trigger toward addiction.

Task for Today
Write out a ten-item gratitude list. Carry it with you and refer to it often. Add to it as the day progresses.

Our Resistance to Asking for Help

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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.

An obstinate sense of independence is most people’s greatest challenge.

As recovering sex and porn addicts, we nearly always need outside assistance if we hope to change our problematic behaviors and live healthier, happier, more fulfilling lives. If we could stop what we’re doing on our own, we would. Most of us have tried that many times, failing repeatedly. We’re fine for a few days, but then we’re right back at it, as lost as ever. For us, shame and remorse are not enough to prevent relapse. Willpower alone doesn’t cut it. For lasting recovery, we need the impartial insight and accountability that only sex and porn addiction treatment and 12-step meetings with other recovering sex and porn addicts can provide.

Task for Today
Reflect on how much easier sexual recovery is when you’re not trying to do it all by yourself.

Overcoming Denial

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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.

Denying the truth doesn’t change the facts.

As recovering sex and porn addicts, we must develop an honest understanding of our addiction—what it is, how it negatively affects us and others, why we engage in it, etc. And this knowledge is best attained through concrete, unfiltered discussion and review of past sexual behaviors, past relationships, and past hurts to ourselves and others. Once this information is uncovered, it’s harder to pretend that compulsive sexual fantasy and behavior are not a problem. This is doubly true when this information is ‘witnessed’ by a therapist, a 12-step sponsor or group, an accountability partner, and other supportive people who are also in the process of healing from sex or porn addiction. To recover from our addiction, we must talk about our addiction.

Task for Today
Share three facts about your addiction with at least one person who actively supports your recovery.