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