Getting Current: October 18, 2011

Dear Jesus,

I need your help.  I feel dead inside, trapped in a haze of anger and resentment.  Please help me turn to you.  You are the only one who can restore me to sanity.  You are the only one who can redeem me and clear the blackness from my soul.  As you said to the Father, I say to you now: "into your hands I commend my spirit."

Amen

Hello again.  I thought I would take a break from my Men, Women, and Sex series to write an update on how things are going with me personally.  I have to tell you, it's been tough.  Last week, I lost eleven days of sobriety.  Those eleven days were very nice.  I was praying the Rosary a couple times a day, not because I felt I had to, but because I wanted to.  I was very peaceful inside and doing my best to walk with Jesus and count on Him for my strength.  It all came crashing down when I had an opportunity to look at porn and I couldn't stop.  The life of an addict...

I have been "seeing" a therapist over the phone and I have had some very good sessions.  These sessions have been painful but fruitful.  They have involved going back into my childhood and trying to remember specific incidences that may have caused shame or embarassment.  It is amazing what has been uncovered.  You see, my parents weren't the greatest at being there to explain things, and when they did, it was awkward and left me feeling quite exposed and embarassed.  They never abused me or anything like that, they just weren't able to gain my confidence and have a meaningful conversation.

These childhood events can imprint themselves onto a child, and these imprints shape the way he may view things, handle situations, or even what turns him on sexually.  As an example, and it is embarassing to admit this, but here is one of those memories that I explored with my therapist.  When I was less than ten years old I was at a swimming party with a bunch of friends.  There were children my age there and we were all swimming and having fun.  I was in the pool and I went over to the side.  It was at that point that I saw a little girl peeing in the grass.  I was shocked and excited, as I had never seen anything like that.  My therapist pointed out that I was unable to go to my father and tell him about it.  He never was able, couldn't have been able to point out that, yeah, that's how girls pee.  Boys pee from their penis and girls from a part in their vagina.  That's how God made us, and it's good!

Going back to imprinting, that made an impression on me.  I internalized it, and that imprint has manifested in my later acting out.  See how it works?  It was amazing to me to find out how this works.  When my parents tried to talk to me about sex, it was always awkward and made me withdraw and try to avoid future conversations with them.  I remember my dad telling me as a teenager, "You know what you're not supposed to see and touch."  Ummm.....thanks, I think.  Too late for that when he told me.  I had already seen and touched a lot.  As a boy he had never told me about why I might get an erection and that it's ok.  God made us that way.  Yes it feels good, and our sexuality helps us be strong, do sports, reach out to other people.  It's ok to see a pretty girl and be moved or aroused by her beauty.  I never heard those things as a child.

I also figured out why I withdraw into myself so much when I am stressed out or in a bad mood.  I learned that behavior when I was young.  I learned it because I was awkward talking to my parents about sex, and I withdrew from them in order to avoid feeling ashamed and embarassed.  In a lot of ways, I was left to figure things out for myself.  Sex became something wrong and shameful in my eyes, but still exciting.  I grew very sneaky and aloof as a teenager and went behind my parents' backs in order to do what I wanted to do.

Since I lost my sobriety of eleven days, things have been tough.  I feel terrible about how I have acted  at home.  I have been very moody and haven't been very helpful around the house.  My poor wife, who hasn't been feeling well with her pregnancy, has had to bear the brunt of it.  I have gotten mired down in the running narrative in my head, "You're just an addict, you're a piece of !#$%, you are a failure, you can't take care of your family."  Those are the things we addicts tell ourselves on a daily basis.   My therapist sometimes pretends to be the voices and I have to argue back with them and tell them to leave.  It is helpful and an interesting approach. 

What I really want to do is get to confession and try to keep going.  I find it hard to get back on track with sobriety until I am able to go to confession.  I get totally cleaned off and feel like I am back in touch with Jesus.  Before confession, I feel like I have a big, dark cloud hanging over me. 

So that's where I am right now.  Over the past couple days, I have felt pretty dark and hopeless.  I have felt like a total failure, wallowing in self pity and selfishness.  I am going to stand back up, brush off the dust and try to keep going.  If Jesus can fall a few times carrying His cross and get back up, I can sure get up and keep carrying my cross.  Please pray for me.  I need it.

Where Do I Go From Here?

Dear Jesus, right now I feel empty, lonely, and hopeless.  I don't know if I actually can beat this affliction.  I cry to you, O my God, I am at the end of my nonexistent strength.  I don't know what you want, I don't know what to do.  I feel the demon rising inside of me, taunting and tempting me.  I can't fight it, I can't beat it, I can't do a thing against it.  Help me, O Lord, to give myself to you, completely and utterly.  My faith is so weak.  Please have patience with this sinner.  Win the battles I am not equipped to even enter.

Amen

Yeah, I know I said that I was going to write a post about the science of addiction and all that, but I need to talk about some other things that are on my heart at this time.  Right now, I am absolutely helpless.  I am not returning to school, which weighs heavily on my heart, I left my job, and I STILL want to look at porn.  I can feel it inside of me, like a darkness, trying to get out.  It has been my comfort, my drug, my celebration, my self-medication.  I am not going to say that I have been completely sober since the incident where my wife left for a night with the children.  

I know how it looks.  I can see some people saying, "Dude, your wife is about to leave if you keep this up, why are you even thinking about it?"  You're right.  There is a certain level of insanity to an addiction.  You end up acting against all sense, judgement, and prudence in order to get the "fix" you are looking for.  I feel empty, like God isn't listening.  I don't know what I'm supposed to do.  I find it hard to pray to Him right now.  I still believe in Him, I just sometimes have a hard time approaching Him.  

This dark part of me really does want me to go to my wife and tell her that I really can't do it, that she needs to leave.  It tells me that it would be easier, and I wouldn't have to face all these inner demons that are tearing me up inside.  I feel completely broken, a pressure cooker about to explode.  I am helpless, Lord, be my strength!

I do attend weekly meetings of a twelve step group for sex addicts, and I have a sponsor that I talk to regularly.  There is also a psychotherapist who offered to give me counseling for free over the phone.  Is it really worth it?  Is there hope?  Can I get past this and live a life where I am free, passionate, a good husband and father, and close to God?  I don't know.  I guess this is where true Faith comes in to play.  What I must do now is COMPLETELY give everything over to God, again and again, and let Him mold me in His image, and show me the way to support my family.  

As an addict, I am not in control of anything.  I have been a slave to pornography for most of my life.  It has nearly destroyed my marriage, and skewed the way I look at everything.  I am tired of this.  I want to be done with it, but I am too weak to even put up a fight.  God, be my strength!  Come into my life and give me a reprieve of my addiction.  I cannot do this anymore.  My inner insanity will destroy everything I have and lead me to a life of despair and destruction.  

These are the things that we addicts experience.  We are completely controlled by our obsessions and powerless over them.  The addiction progresses more and more into depravity and leads us into committing grave acts.  Please don't think that I am excusing this behavior.  It is evil.  But when an addiction progresses to a certain point, the addict can become a serious danger to society, despite whatever he or she may do to stop the addiction.  We are responsible for our actions, but the addict who commits a heinous act is not even in control of himself anymore.  Luckily, my addiction never ventured into the realm of seeking the "real thing."  I never went to prostitutes or sexually molested anybody.  Thank God.  But there are those who do, and their victims suffer greatly due to the actions of somebody who is completely powerless.

That is where I am right now.  I call out to God for strength.  I cannot do anything for myself because I am helpless.  I am a small child reaching out to his Father for a piggyback ride.  Lord, I am yours...

How I Became Addicted to Porn Pt 4

Dear Jesus, I beg your forgiveness for the many sins that I have committed against you, against my family, and against myself.  I rely only on your mercy and forgiveness.  Please show me the path of righteousness that I may follow you always.  Without you, I am weak and unable to do anything.  I give you my life, my will, my body and soul.  Cleanse me of the darkness that has pervaded my soul.  Shine your light in the dark caverns of my heart that I may be redeemed.  Be with me in my hours of weakness.  I beg you, Jesus. 

Amen

Ok, I promise this is going to be the last post in this series.  It will probably be the hardest for me to write, as it will bring up things that have happend very recently.  Anyways, so here I was, out of the Marine Corps.  I managed to get a job working for a start-up non-profit organization.  I was the only employee and was tasked with getting things going.  I was glad to have the work, although it didn't pay very well.  I wasn't acting out as much, as we had a good filter on our home internet, and I didn't have many opportunities.  However, I still was able to manipulate my way into it occasionally. 

The kicker came when one of the board members offered one of his own offices for me to use.  I had my own computer.  Can you see where this is going?  Yup.  I looked at porn there too.  I even kind of got caught one time when the board member came into my office and saw something on the computer.  He never mentioned it, but I knew that he knew.  I liked the job, and thought it was going to be my life's work, when I was fired all of a sudden without any warning.  It wasn't for looking at porn either.  I won't get into a whole lot of details for legal reasons, but suffice it to say that I was pretty poed.  All of a sudden, I was jobless and broke and really resentful.  That's a good recipe for more porn.

Luckily, I was able to get into the local college for music.  Here it was!  I was saved!  I admit, it was a challenge to go to school with a bunch of recent high school grads.  I was almost thirty!  Plus, the girls were pretty good looking as well.  My wife was wary of it, but I started classes and did pretty well.  I quickly found that I could check out a laptop from the library and find a corner and look at porn.  During the summer after my first year of college, I started to get bored with just porn.  I started looking at Craig's List, I signed up for a couple of adult hookup sites. 

I never actually was able to make something work, but I was actively looking to have an affair at this point.  That's not good.  Things progressed with my porn addiction to the point where, after the first semester of my second year, my wife threatened to leave me.  I was so devastated that I spilled my guts to a girl that I knew at school, who I also told that I wanted to be "friends with benefits."  I soon realized my error and apologized, but I was a little scared that it had actually happened.  I started a twelve step program for sex addiction, and actually saw some results. 

I had a blissful two and a half months of recovery until I got lazy with my prayer life.  It is God that sustains any sobriety, and when you let Him go, so does your sobriety.  I started looking at porn again, and quickly got up to the point where I had left off.  I was looking at it in the library for hours and still checking out ways to have an affair.  I was still unable to make any progress with it, fortunately for my marriage. 

After my sophomore year, I worked that summer and still continued to look at porn when I had the chance.  Things came to a boil when my wife found all the sites that I had joined, all the messages I had sent to Craig's List people, and realized how much I was still looking at porn and not trying to recover.  This was a few weeks ago from this posting, by the way.  She took the kids and left the house while I was at work.  She went to a friends' house and left me a note.  It said pretty much that if I didn't do anything, she wasn't going to come back.  It was up to me.

Here is where I had to make some tough life choices.  I can't tell you the conflict that I experienced.  There was a part of me that WANTED her to just go so I could do whatever I wanted.  That was my addict part, the insane part of me that couldn't stop the addiction.  The part of me that loves my family missed them being away for just one night.  I said a Rosary that night and vowed to go make things right with her.

I got to the friends' house where she was staying.  I was a little awkward and didn't know how to start.  She had some demands.  She didn't want me to go back to school.  I reeled at this suggestion.  This was my passion, my attempt at a real career.  She wanted me to leave?  I also had to attend as many twelve step meetings that I could find, talk to a therapist, and pretty much do everything that I could.  It took me a little while, but I agreed to withdraw from school.  I even quite my job.

I got the feeling that I was supposed to give EVERYTHING up to God.  My life, my finances, my marriage, my kids, everything.  I disenrolled from school, quit my job, and said, "Thy Will be done."  I can't tell you how hard that is.  I am still not well.  I have much work to do.  We just back from the beach.  It was great.  I loved taking my kids to where I went as a kid and giving them some of those same memories.  On another note, I had a hard time dealing with all the visual imagry that was available. 

So that's it.  We're up to present now.  I can't tell you how it's going to end, because the story is still unfolding.  I am still a sex addict and completely powerless over it.  I cannot do a thing to stop it except to completely surrender to God.  Please pray for me and my marriage.  I don't want to lose my family.  I really don't.  My wife can't handle it anymore and will leave me if I can't stop.  I tell you that I can't.  Only God can do anything for me at this point.  St Paul said, "In my weakness I am strong."  If that's the case, I should be able to take on Samson pretty soon, 'cause I am REALLY weak. 

My next post will be a little different in that I will be attempting to explain some of the science behind addiction, and how it affects the brain.  You're right, I'm not a scientist by any means, but I'm going to tell you what some of the guys who actually know what they're talking about have to say.  God bless you and keep you. 

How I Became Addicted to Porn Pt 2

Ahh, high school.  That little microcosm of intensity where every situation is life or death, every friendship is forever, and every couple seems to be an actual physical extension of the other.  Let me just clarify the start of my high school glory days were a little different.  In seventh grade, I left public school to join a private, Catholic,  all boys school run by an order of Spanish priests.  I was there for about a year and a half.  My acting out slowed a little during that time due to the fact that my life was very structured, I wanted to be a priest, and there wasn't much opportunity.  I started my public high school misadventure in the beginning of the second semester of my freshman year.  I didn't  know anybody, I was shy, I hadn't been around girls, especially ones that looked like that!, for a while.  It was a little awkward.

My one link to social living was the band.   I played trumpet, so off I trudged to the band room for class and eventually made some friends.  Things were pretty tame that freshman year.  I had to come out of myself a little.  I was struggling internally over having left the private school where I was going to be a priest and all that.  Eventually my guilt over leaving that school turned into a fine hatred of the religion, especially those darn Catholics.  Enter sophomore year...

I started dating a girl in the band who was a grade ahead of me.  Let's call her Pilchred.  Why?  Because it amuses me to do so.  So I started dating Pilchred and all my hormones flew to that part of my brain where everything focuses with laser-like accuracy.  I wanted to be VERY physical all the time.  She was a bit conservative, much to my dismay, and I had to push the envelope all the time and keep trying to take it one step further.  It was pretty much all we would do when we "hung out."  We never went on a whole lot of dates, even though we were "going out."  I finally convinced her to have sex after dating for over a year.  I was sixteen when I lost my virginity to her, and it was her first time as well.  It wasn't all that romantic.  It was on the floor of the living room of my parents' house.  I didn't care, though.  It was SEX after all.

After about a year and a  half of dating, I got tired of her and dumped her for a freshman that my dad soon forbade me to date anyway.  This was in my junior year.  I roamed around free for a while.  Porn and masturbation had been a daily part of my life all throughout high school.  I soon started dating another girl.  We shall call her Brunhilda, or "Brunny" for short.  I was quickly "in love" with this one.  I was Brunny's first boyfriend, so I had to introduce her to EVERYTHING, which I was more than happy to do.  Our sexual relationship progressed somewhat slowly at first.  I had to cultivate it and make sure she was "comfortable."  This was another very intense relationship that I became obsessed with.  We eventually had sex, and there was someone else who's virginity I had taken.  We dated into my senior year.

During my senior year, Brunny decided she was going to go to Israel for a semester to study.  I was devastated.  She was going to miss my senior prom.  I remember bawling my eyes out the day she left.  It was awful.  After a while, the separation got to me, and I realized I had free reign.  I broke it off with Brunny and started messing around with a couple of other girls.  It wasn't in a "relationship", it was just the age old "friends with benefits."  I liked benefits.  Considering my obsession with sex, I had to find something somewhere.  I would lie, manipulate, and do whatever I could in order to "get some." 

Things were a little awkward when Brunny came back from Israel and I decided that I still was in love and wanted to get back together.  Besides, she was hot.  I spent the rest of the time and the summer after I graduated trying to get back in her good graces.  Eventually,  I won out and we became the couple of the year again.  I was going off to the Marine Corps in September, and with that date approaching, I got more desperate to be with her every second that I could. 

To recap high school, I was in a couple of long-term, emotionally invested relationships in which I was obsessed with sex and tried everything I could in order to get more.  I was masturbating several times a day and checking out porn every chance I could get.  Sure,  I was in band and played lacrosse, but sex was my number one focus.  I was in and out of religion.  I was even in youth group for my senior year.  I went on a couple of religious retreats run by the Franciscan University of Steubenville.  But I was still obsessed with sex and in my relationship with Brunny.  This conflicted with my budding interest in religion.

I will stop here for now.  The next and last post in this series will detail my years in the Marine Corps, my marriage, and how my addiction took its toll on everything.  The next post will get things up to my current situation. 

I offer this post to you, Lord Jesus.

I ask you to bless the girls that I have been with and ask you to help them know you.

You are the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  Please bless all who read this, especially all who are struggling with addiction to sex.

How I Became Addicted to Porn Pt 1

Lord Jesus Christ, I offer you this post to your glory.

Humble me and help me offer myself completely to you.

I ask you to bless those who read this that they may come to know you better.

I ask this through the intercession of Mary, your Mother.

Amen.

Before I can start truly journaling my current recovery, I have to get you up to speed with how I got myself in this whole mess in the first place.  I mean, I've been working on this for over twenty years.  (Wow, it's scary to write that and realize what it means!)  I was always a curious young lad and had to experience things for myself.  It wasn't enough to be told not to do something.  I had to go and figure out exactly why. When I was in sixth grade, I had a friend who was quite a good artist.  One day, he brought in some pictures he had copied out of his dad's Playboy.  Let me tell you, they were quite good.  I was absolutely enthralled.  Wow, naked women!  I even got to keep a couple of 'em.  I remember the strange feeling I got when I looked at them.  My whole body tingled and I felt excited both by what I was looking at, and the secrecy needed to look at them.  If I got caught, I'd be dead meat.  

I then went on a quest to find more pictures of naked women.  Keep in mind, this was the early nineties, so Internet porn wasn't there yet.  I went into the library and book stores and looked in the photography section, or the sex section.  It was quite a thrill to be in a public place looking for pictures of naked women.  At this point, I hadn't quite discovered masturbation yet, but my body was definitely reacting to it.  I also had another friend who happened to have cable TV.  Again, this was before satellites and DirecTV and all that.  He had a cable box.  It was possible however, to watch cable on other TVs in the house without a cable box being attached to it.  When you did this, the subscription channels weren't completely blocked out, so things like Spice, Adam & Eve, and the Playboy Channel came in fuzzily.  I would spend hours at his house trying to get a glimpse of something.

This took place during middle school and all that sexual awakening and stuff.  I was quite intense about it.  When I got in "the zone", I would go at it for hours on end if I had the opportunity.  My friend with the scrambled channels would get quite frustrated with me, because that's all I wanted to do.  When I actually discovered masturbation and the intense release that came with it, it became something that happened several times a day.  I know, sounds like a "normal" pre-teenage boy, doesn't it?  Perhaps.  During this time, I was also going to church regularly.  I started to feel the conflict between what the Church teaches about sex, masturbation, and pornography, and what I was actually doing, but I was unable to stop.  I was enthralled with the tease, the forbidden, the excitement.

We got a computer and AOL, and that was a HUGE thing.  I loved chatting.  Unfortunately, I ran the phone bill up so high with that dial-up modem, that we had to get rid of it.  I remember we disconnected right when I saw advertisements saying, "Coming soon, the World Wide Web!"  Seems like another century, doesn't it?  I kept on with the materials I had already.  Eventually my elementary school became an Internet host site, so there was a local number.  Oh, it's on now....

I was the only one in the family that actually knew how to work the darn computer.  My parents were clueless.  I was excited to be able to go to different web pages and see what was on them.  I also quickly discovered how to find LOTS of pictures of naked women.  I could also find more hardcore stuff.  At the time, I thought I was in heaven.  I created a folder within many other folders on the computer in which I could store pictures, and the collection quickly grew.  I figured out how to create another window and place it over my porn window if someone came downstairs.  Once I got on the Internet, things started to go way more quickly.  I was getting OBSESSED with sex.  I wanted to try it, I wanted to see naked girls live, I wanted to do everything I saw in the pictures.

In today's day and age, this sounds like a "normal" boy who is started puberty.  The hormones start to rage, masturbation kicks in, and curiosity about sex grows intensely.  I know this is what the majority of pre-teen boys do, but is it really normal and healthy?  Is it in God's plan for boys to do this?  From my experience, I say.....NO!  I'll get into this issue in a later post.  I just want to tell my story as it happened.  There's plenty of time to get into all these things.  In the next post, I will talk about my high school years and how sexually active I was by the end of them.  Thanks for reading!

Author's Note:  I realize that some of this may seem somewhat graphic to you.  My intent is not to describe graphic sexual situations to you, but rather be honest.  Porn addiction is ugly stuff, and sometimes I'll have to use ugly terms to describe it.  I will try my best not to be blatant or offensive, but sometimes you just have to call a spade a spade.