Discovering what addiction is all about.

It’s been one year since my last post. Wow a lot of changes have gone on in my life. This year has been a tough one a lot of hard things have gone on but with that a lot of growth and change. Both very hard for addicts. We hate change because with change comes the unknown and that freaks the living crud out of us. I like the same old same, but that gets unhealthy and stagnant. In addiction we become stuck in the same old patterns for me it was a big relapse pushing away all those who wanted to support and stand by me. Get lost I don’t need you anymore and the more they pushed me to do healthy things the more I told them I was starting to hate them. With no addiction in my life I love and adore these people. In addiction these people were stopping me from getting my next high. I felt pushed in a corner, trapped and panicked. I would tell them I needed this next high to survive, I would lie, manipulate and do everything I could to get what I wanted. I figured out how to get around accountability reports so that I could still do my addiction. I had tough accountability but I choose what I was doing carefully and always made sure I had a back door escape hatch.

Addiction no matter what it is robs you and everyone around you. It’s like a tornado repeatedly ripping through the lives of people we love. It changes who we are and whom God wanted us to be. Addicts are some of the most kind, loving tender-hear ted  people. We are not mean and cold-hear ted.  I heard today it’s because we feel deeply which scares us so we turn to drugs, alcohol or sexual addiction to numb out our feelings which are so intense and become unbearable. We are stuck in this cycle of wanting to stop but we can’t. How many times, more than I ever could imagine did I fall and then say I would never ever do it again and ever time I would fail and ask how on earth did this happen again. Addiction makes you feel hopeless and unworthy and for me full of shame.

Recently I went back to coaching which has been a God send to me to see why I do what I do and learn how not to make the same mistakes over and over again. My coach understands me so much as this is the same addiction that she had. I think sexual addiction is the hardest addiction to overcome because on the surface it looks like nothing is wrong and for me it was easy to hide, but it destroys you to the core of your soul.

The biggest thing that stands out for me in this addiction is this ” Sexual addiction isn’t about sex at all. It’s an intimacy disorder—– a desperate search for love, touch, affirmation, affection and Approval. ” Taken from NO Stones – By Marnie C. Ferree p. 21 ” Obviously sexual addiction is false intimacy and a false solution for legitimate needs, but it’s driven by pain and loneliness not physical gratification.”
That’s me down to a tee. That’s how I feel and so nice to see how sexual addiction is defined. I would never ever admit I was a sexual addict because that’s bad and who the heck would want to be around me.

One of the things I’ve learned about my addiction is how important TRIGGERS are to me to be aware of when they come because they come with a vengeance so unless I’m aware and prepared I will fail every time. In AA they talk about HALT which is Hungry, Angry, Lonely and Tired. The last 2 are huge for me and sickness. As well as Rejection, Abandonment and emotional triggers such as Shame, guilt and unworthiness. Not only triggers but the most important thing for me in coaching has been THE CYCLE OF ADDICTION –

1. PREOCCUPATION – For me this is huge for me to catch myself as this is starting to happen, as soon as my mood changes and or I feel a trigger or I want to feel better now and I start thinking about how that’s going to happen I start to fantasize. At this stage the brain chemicals start to fire up and then the neurochemicals hit the cycle of addiction has begun.
2. RITUAL – What kinds of things do you start to do in your ritual for me getting a high thinking about looking up books of erotica, thinking about those stories and masturbation. Once engaged in that ritual my coach says ” It’s like a heroin addict with a needle in their hand, are they going to stop it now?”  
3. ACTING OUT – For me it’s reading erotica books or watching porn videos or movies. This is why I could never understand why I got to this stage.
4. DESPAIR – Feeling awful broken promises to yourself others and God. The shame and unworthiness for me is what kept me in this cycle and drove me deeper into my addiction. One of the hardest things for me and still is to admit to my accountability Partners that I messed up again. Yes it’s hard but it’s the best and most freeing thing to do because this addiction is grounded in secrecy. One thing I have learned though is if they understand addiction at all they will encourage you. God forgives us as well when we turn to Him and repent and ask for forgiveness. Taken from No stones pg. 81- 84

Last night while doing my homework for my coach one of the questions was How does my trauma fuel my acting out.?This is how I responded: In my past or now when my addiction comes into play I use numbing out techniques or using something excessively to escape. That’s why I use face book so much to escape. Then shame and unworthiness creeps in and then I don’t care whom I hurt to get my next high because I want that pain to go away and I want to feel better. As stated before huge issues for me are Rejection, abandonment, shame and unworthiness. All these things will cause me to act out unless I stay on top of how I’m feeling. We all know how those feelings feel. I understand sexual addiction now is not about sex but about a desperate search for love and connection and affirmation. It’s not about rejection, abandonment shame or unworthiness. I love what I’m learning about this disease.

This is a work in progress and I will continue to watch how I’m feeling and catch that thought as it enters my head before it goes down the road of destruction. What are your triggers and rituals? When we are aware of these things they then cannot rule our lives. 

 

 

 

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I’m not giving up

I have done a lot of soul searching this weekend. I have shed many tears and realized that I’m on a journey a journey that will have up’s and down’s but a good friend of mine Kim she tells me often Sarah you have a choice in your life you can choice to be happy or unhappy. She’s right God gives us free will to choose. I know for sure I do not choose porn over my life. After watching a bunch of videos now that life is a life I want to put behind me. I watched some documentary last night about prescription drugs and these poor people hooked on them for years and how it’s so painful to get off them but they chose to turn their lives around. As I was watching I was thinking I’m glad I never got hooked on drugs like that. Later I looked up what porn does to a person and they described how it’s like the same high you get from cocaine. Wow! that shocked me to no end. I have an addiction to porn and it’s the same high in my brain. No wonder pornography is the secret silent addiction. So I’m destroying my brain as well as everything else that is good in my life. 

Even though my marriage never got better when I was off porn for a year I can see how this can completely destroy anything at all. My husband was away all weekend and after he pass worded my apps I had a mini freak out and searched out for more porn. Of course it’s easy to find in my home we have so many gadgets and things that I search for or seek out. Even though I have access to these things I know know this will be it for me. Its so degrading watching these videos and my mind goes to people who are held hostage to produce these videos and many look high. They have no choice. I thought about this weekend all the wonderful things God has given me in my life the reunion of two of our three children and how I need to be there for them they need a good positive women in their lives. I love those children like they are my own. God has given me a wonderful husband even though our marriage is tough. I believe I need to start praying for him everyday. God has provided me with a job which I have wanted my whole life I now have it and I need to be praising Him. I have a home and wonderful people who love me. 

No matter what is going on im my life now I can do this day by day. There is a lot of loss in my life and now my accountability partner she’s got medical stuff has stepped away from me. She is an incredible strong Christian women who challenged me and encouraged me so much in my journey. I will continue to pray for her but feel sad because that accountability is so crucial to my recovery. I have been praying God brings someone else into my life. I have been through lots of hard things and I have never given up and now laying all this at God’s feet I surrender it all to Him. He is my guide, my strength my everything. I trust Him. I’m fighting for my life and with The Lord in my life I cannot fail. Thank you Lord for leading me back to you, for reaching out your hand to me when I was in that miry pit. The biggest part of this is to forgive myself for falling and forgive myself that I”m human and I will fall sometimes up God is always there to catch me. 

     

I had a year and a half of sobriety and poof it’s gone………………………

Last week I broke my year and a half sobriety. I never thought that would ever happen I had worked so hard on keeping sober I kept a close eye on what I watched or heard or felt. I remember feeling so happy when the new year started I had a year I never have ever had one before. It was going to be the best year ever. Well my year started out not like any others it was a time of struggle for our family. My father in law was dying his dying wish was to die at home so as a family we pitched in and made it happen. I watched a guy who was so energetic slowly fade in front of my eyes. He still tried to smile but it was hard and he would get confused but I was the only person outside his children who was allowed to be with him to hold his hand, to pray with him to listen to him. In his last times when he could still talk he would sing to me in Russian. I had no idea what he was saying but it was beautiful. I loved and still love this man with my whole entire heart. This was one of the hardest things for me to do but one of the most rewarding things as well. I was there until the end not his last breath but the hours before he died. I can remember coming into his room hours after he passed away and he was so peaceful. He loved God and he always talked about him and he knew he was going to the best place ever. I had 13 incredible years with him I wish it was more but I know I will get that chance again.  His dying words to Larry where that when we celebrated his life to tell others that we needed to celebrate heaven on earth. 

I knew the day we were in the church for his memorial that there would come a day when we would be burying my husband’s brother in law. I had no idea two months later we would be saying goodbye to Graydon. He fought cancer a brain tumor for 4 years.  The death was hard but I was less involved with this one. In the months to follow I watched the grief of two ladies I love to bits my mother in law and my sister in law. Two women losing their husbands. I felt that grief but that was not my husband.

Life goes on after death and I struggled with the death of both these men. I just finished having a huge cry in the middle of writing this. I know we are suppose to grieve but my heart hurts like it hurt when these men died. I don’t want to go to my mother in laws home it reminds me everything of my father in law. She has been slowly giving away things so when she moves it will be less for her to move. Then I take a step back how does she feel she was married to her husband for almost 60 years and everyday things would remind her of her husband. How does she feel every night when she goes to bed alone or sits at the table eating her dinner or breakfast. I cannot imagine feeling that. I have been going to the grave site and hanging out it’s beautiful up there and peaceful. It’s a cemetery nobody is alive they are all dead. I look at the graves and imagine who these people were. I see loved ones come with flowers and lots of people come and go. 

Four months after the deaths are over I start to grieve my marriage. I love my husband to death but we have had a loveless marriage for about two and a half years. It has been very hard for me a huge part of our marriage is gone. Our intimacy and the sexual part. I miss our close connection with intimacy it’s gone and it’s lonely being in a marriage without it. I feel as though my husband is my roommate. I moved out of our bedroom because I cannot cope with the rejection and the awkwardness that is occurring.  It’s not any better down the hall but it wasn’t getting in the room either. We have been doing counseling but he’s been working so many hours all the time and now I never see him at home either. I hate this, this is not a marriage I’m so lost of what to do. I just read my last post I had written about drowning so I guess this relapse was coming it’s like the storm coming but no matter what you do it comes extra hard. 

The good news I heard about relapse is it gets shorter and shorter so for that I am eternally grateful. I have been working on forgiving myself for it and working on day by day strengthening myself so I can continue to stay sober. Now I am taking away all the new ways to get porn on those pesky apps. Covenant eyes has a protection so I can no longer do what I was doing. It’s amazing how many ways porn can still be in your life even with accountability on your computers and devices.  

I also have decided to do another coaching session with the gal who runs dirty girl ministries and do the book No Stones. I am reaching out to others, I’m sharing my story, I’m getting rid of the apps blocking them and continuing to blog.   I also decided that when I feel tempted to knit and or start writing my book again. I stopped writing when the deaths came. Now that’s a story that needs some ears. Next week I start a new Beth Moore study so it’s getting back on track one day at a time. 

Thanks for listening      

I feel I’m slowly drowning……………….

I don’t care about stupid pictures nice ones to cheer one up that I always put on my blog , encouraging ones I’m just not encouraged. I had the weekend from hell no other way to describe it. I no longer feel peace about anything not even in my own skin my skin is crawling and I feel sick to my stomach.  Let me back track here for a moment so I wrote a previous blog on my other blog about being in a loveless marriage and how I have been feeling and how lonely I feel and wishing my husband would pay attention to me or want to spend time with me and not treat me like a stranger so I ask him about why I feel my marriage is going down the drain and he replys saying that the last five years have been the same> Gosh this is news to me considering we did marriage counseling and I have worked hard on changing me for the better losing weight and spiritually and I stopped porn and erotica. I have worked hard on communication and he tells me nothing has changed in five years.

My husband he keeps telling me about an economy relapse and that I seem to ignore him lots on it and he wishes I would just watch his videos and why won’t I and his dream is to move to NC and find a home and plant our food and have a creek.  I don’t want to leave my family and I finally have a very good job I have worked so hard to get and I guess he’s getting his inheritance soon so he’s wanting to leave. I already left with him before and it almost cost me a breakdown and I see nothing has changed in that department and I’m just going to pick up and move again. He told me if he stays in this city he will die. So I decide what do I have to lose to watch the videos so I have been watching them and my counselor tells me I don’t have to do anything yet. No I don’t but it’s slowly coming upon me. We have discussed them my husband gets excited and yesterday I asked him ok how many of these movies do I have to watch and then what if I still decided knowing the truth do I still not want to move.

Throughout this whole thing and this weekend I feel like I’m slowly drowning that if I continue to stand on what I believe in that I will lose my husband anyways. He already told me this morning that our friend Tim who lives in NC to look for a place with a creek and to start buying equipment we need to run our own farm. I guess I should be the dutiful wife and plant seeds and water my garden. How do we live with no income? I have asked him that he would be able to work but I can’t. I did a stupid thing this weekend because I feel so numb and crappy and wanted to feel something again I read erotica and everything I think of these movies and moving it makes me want to read more and more to the point where I don’t care anymore. I feel so backed in a corner with no choice and no way out either way I will lose my husband because either I don’t want to move or he will move away.

I hate erotica it so screws with your head and your brain and your emotions good thing I just remembered how it makes me feel. I may feel rejection from my husband but erotica makes one feels 80x more rejected. I hate feeling like my skin crawls I hate feeling like I’m going to explode from lack of satisfaction and how it hijacks your brain into thinking you can do all sorts of heinous things. Thanks God for that reminder. Even if my marriage falls apart I do not ever want to be left with erotica.I’m not turning to over eating as well another thing that makes me more depressed and more discouraged. It’s funny how the two go hand in hand.

 

1 year of sobriety

As of December 31st I have one year of sobriety of pornography addiction. Its been a year of trial and success’ for once I never ever thought I would be free of this addiction so why was this year different then the following years. I don’t know how many times I wished and prayed and prayed and the same thing happened I would keep porn out but it always came back in.

December 31, 2012 was my last binge on porn and erotica. I got down on my knees and with my whole heart surrendered to the Lord I no longer could do this on my own I needed him 100% on this, not half way not part way 100%. I had an opportunity to do 10 weeks of coaching with the gal who runs Whole Women’s Ministries/ Dirty Girls Ministries Crystal Renaud.  I was so scared because I had never done this before but I knew if I wanted any sort of freedom this year I needed to do things out of my comfort zone. I believe this 10 weeks changed my life and it made me believe anything was possible through Christ.  For 10 weeks we worked on Crystal’s book Dirty Girls Come Clean working through each chapter and writing a journal everyday about how I was feeling what tempted me and slowly but surely I saw a pattern in my life that made me slip each time. If I didn’t spend time with God more then 3 days I always slipped on the third day. I saw feelings and why I felt them and how to overcome them and learn to do healthier things. I saw scripture and how it related to my life. It’s like my eyes were opened up. Crystal challenged me on things nobody ever challenged me on and slowly the walls and chains were been broken. She was always understanding and compassionate and out of anyone in my life she got it.

As well as coaching I dug deep into counseling to arm myself with ways to cope that are healthy not to just turn to porn or erotica. For me that was not an option anymore. I worked on my marriage and discovered the guy I had married I truly did love him but when porn is in your life there is no love only hatred of self and others. 

I have the best accountability two wonderful partners who challenge me each day in different ways.  I started to reach out to others and be in bible studies and write blogs and towards the end of my year I knew that my past needed a voice so I have been writing a book. A good friend of mine she suggested I write this book for myself so I am and for the first time in my life my past cannot ever hurt me again and the words I write have power. The silence has been broken again no longer to keep me in bondage and I have never ever felt like this before. God is changing me and now I have that freedom and I want to share it with others, encourage others and just be who God wants me to be. 

I pray for each of you that God will bring you a freedom from your addiction and that you will feel like I do. It doesn’t mean that I still not so careful what I do in my life because we all know temptations can come at us in different ways.  Being porn free just makes us stronger.    

I am struggling right now

I am struggling right now with a lot of feelings. There is a lot of stuff going on in my life and this is the first time I have dealt with so much with no addiction in my life. It’s hard I so far have made the right decisions but with any addiction I have not caved into pornography or erotica. Masturbation well that one is a lot harder and I believe that if my husband was more connected with me in intimacy then I wouldn’t have to  go there.  It’s funny my counselor has told me I’m doing so well that I don’t have to see her as much. I don’t feel like I’m doing that well right now I feel lost and alone and very sad and I have all these emotions and I hate sitting in them I want them to go away but they don’t. I now know turning to porn or erotica is not the answer, that actually drives me further from God’s truth and further away from my husband. So I semester myself in Christ. I’m doing the study David right now a Beth Moore Study A heart like His, it’s such an incredible study.

My father in law is dying of lung cancer and a brain tumor and even though we know it’s his time to go home I am not ready for him to leave. I cannot imagine my life with him in it. He is such a powerful example of what it is like to have Christ in your life. We go see him tomorrow but he’s failing fast and I feel powerless and it’s hard to see him so sick I just want his pain to be gone I want him back like he was. When we went to the lake this summer I felt sad there because all the things my father in law used to do like cleaning up sticks on the beach and things he had worked on lay unfinished and the sticks were all over the beach he no longer can do the things he loves. He lays in bed and some days for days on end with no energy to go anywhere. He’s so thin and there’s nothing to him he no longer smiles he just wants to go home. He is ready. So how do we as his loved ones prepare our selves for that. To make matters worse my 3 stepchildren have not visited him in a while and their lives are so busy they cannot come and say goodbye.   Maybe that’s a good thing it would be hard to recognize him now.  They can remember all the good times they had with him. Their life with their grandparents was shortened, mine was as well and now I regret not being able to have a chance to know my grandparents better. 

I didn’t get a job I really wanted but I felt under qualified for it and would I really be able to meet the needs of that child. Now I can spend more time with my mother in law my husband is right so why don’t I. I’m scared because it’s so hard to see my father in law sick but I’m being selfish I realized that my mother in law needs me now and when her husband dies but she needs me now. So next week I’m going to hang out and do whatever I can to help or just keep her company. 

I have multiple personalities for those of you who don’t know what that is it’s called DID now Dissociative Identity Disorder which these personalities are created to help somebody survive severe abuse and trauma. I would not have survived my life without this. I have decided that one of my personalities needs help so she is going to the counselor I go see and is starting to talk about her traumas.   This is a really good thing but hard for me because the memories she has I have no memory of them at all and they are horrific. It’s good she feel safe to talk about them but it creates stress in my body. It’s hard to explain. I don’t talk about part of me because it’s hard and it’s hard for others to understand but today I needed to talk about it.

I need prayer and would appreciate it. Thanks for listening to my words.

Why we get targeted when we have abuse in our background?

I am a women who suffered a lot of abuse as a child sexual, physical and emotional.  I have one of those backgrounds where you could write a best seller on my life but seeing as I had to live through it once I’m not interested in  writing about it in a book.  I will write in my blog though and I will share my life with others on this journey of recovery.   This past week I have had to have a lovely trip down memory lane it brought up a lot of old past stuff and people treating me badly and targeting me. 

There is a women at my job I substitute teach at a daycare and she subs as well. So we have been working together a lot. I have always been nice and friendly with her like I am with others I work with. In mid August she came up to me outside and gave me a nice compliment on me losing weight I said thank you. I have been at Weight Watchers and losing weight.  Then she comes out with that she needed to get a camera so she could take photos of my small little bottom. What!!!! I was taken back and thought I must have imagined it then again she said she needed to get a camera to take a photo of my small bottom. I told her this was so inappropriate and she needed to stop and she just laughed at me and I was still trying to process what had happened. I was uncomfortable and left it at that.

Since then she has approached me 3 other times always a compliment about my weight and then a comment about my bottom it’s so cute, and skinny and so little.  Now the warning signs are huge for me and each time I have told her it makes me uncomfortable she needs to stop and obviously does not listen to what I say.  This pattern reminds me of a predator who comes after children. They always say nice things get you to trust them and then out they come with abuse or whatever else.  This women has no idea about my background and she is a lot older than I am and I have seen this behavior before.  I was sexually harassed in high school a lot more than comments but kids trying to pull down my pants in gym class or other sexual things. I was scared and stopped going to school until my counselor at school he was a Christian guy made me tell him what was happening.  They brought the ring leader guy in and told him if he ever laid a hand on me again or made comments or any of his friends did he would be charged with sexual harassment.  It ended there thank goodness.

I’m torn what to do in this situation because for now I have kept my mouth shut because this gal and I are applying for the same job and this would complicate the situation so much. I now have decided to wait until it happens again because I do not want to do it in front of the children like she does. It’s not appropriate. Then I am firmly going to set some boundaries and tell her that she is no longer allowed to make any comments about my weight or my body and that it makes me feel very uncomfortable and she needs to stop.  If she continues after that I will go to my supervisor  and tell her.

So back to why we get targeted when we have abuse in our backgrounds. I believe it is a Spiritual issue and I have prayed against it but the other times as well nobody knew about my background so it has to be a unspoken thing. How do predators know which children are needy or have things going on in their backgrounds. Do we look different ?  , do we act different?  It has to be something. It so bothers me so much and think of all those innocent children who cannot stick up for themselves or who are scared.  I wonder has this women done this before and she just got away with it, and does my silence let her get away with it again. That is what bothers me the most and that she works with innocent little children. The place where I work has zero tolerance for this behavior and to be honest I don’t want to have to work with her again. I hate I have to wait again for another situation but there is nowhere else I can set out these boundaries we work different shifts.  I don’t want to cause trouble I just want this to stop and it’s not just that it’s the way she talks to me in a very demeaning way.  

For now I have given it God and may the best women win for the job. God knows my heart and I would love to get this job. For now I wait and I still have to work with this gal. Has any of you had this experience or have any thoughts on this topic.