Course Correction

I took the "Days Sober" widget off my blog. I'm sick of it, and it's become an impediment to writing. In church-ese we say "We count people because people count," and it's the same thing here: While the focus should be on *quality* ("progress not perfection"?), you eventually have to measure some kind of *quantity*. In church-land, that's the size of your congregation compared to last year. In recovery it's how long you've been sober.

One day.

A year and a half ago, after everything crashed and burned, I found a counselor who specializes in treating sex addiction. It's been a quite a ride - illuminating and excruciating and encouraging. I feel like I've made progress for the first time in a decade, which isn't true, because that invalidates all the work I did before, which was also exhausting, but not very encouraging. After truly addressing my sex addiction in a structured program with a trained therapist, I made it to fourteen months. In my world, that's relatively awesome.

After a year of working part time, I became over-employed last September. Who complains about having too many opportunities to work? I guess I shifted from a life of recovery (with work on the side) to a life of work (with recovery on the side) and I just can't do that. I relapsed in November, and again last week. This looks depressingly like my old cycle.

That's okay. I have hope. Maybe for the first time in a while. When I would relapse before, people would always say Get a sponsor and work the steps. Get a sponsor and work the steps. Get a sponsor and work the steps. Get a sponsor and blahblahblahBLAHBLAHBLAH

There, I said it. I just lost every single one of my faithful AA readers. (Funny fact: I don't have any more faithful readers!) I know that's blasphemy, and I have the deepest respect for AA. Really - I'm not just saying that. I once read that AA was the most important invention of the 20th century, and I often bring this up to people. For how long have alcoholics faced jails, institutions and death, with no hope at all? Forever, that's how long. 1935 was the first time in history that alcoholics had hope. Ever.

But I kept doing those things and doing those things and I learned incredible things about addiction and recovery, and I still believe that if I'd kept at it I could have found some sobriety in AA - but what an incredible difference to be working with a counselor who truly understands the agony and darkness of my world as a sex addict, and even more so as a sexual anorexic.

But as I was saying earlier I have hope. I'm not going back to the same thing I've done for years, but back to something that really began to change my life in September of 2011. I guess it sounds like I'm proselytizing, but the material put together by Patrick Carnes is the thing I need to get back to. If you happen to be a sex addict who's not sure where to start, www.sexhelp.com is the best place.

Tonight I had another talk with my son James about his success in staying away from internet porn. Not because of some program I installed on his computer - though these can be helpful - or because he's afraid of punishment - though he should be afraid of consequences - but because he's spent the last year learning with me about addiction and healthy sexuality, about managing feelings and urges, about self-care and asking for help, and accountability and "checking in" with other guys. I'm glad that the things I'm learning aren't just for me.

Scared of the Dark

There's that swirling cognitive dissonance that happens in the mind of an addict. It's a kind of cascade where one disturbing thought triggers another, and you think you see patterns. Maybe those thoughts are real, meaningful and meant to be explored; maybe they're bullshit - the kind of epiphanies you think you're having when really you're just... high. Or insane. Like when John Nash sees secret codes embedded in magazines in A Beautiful Mind. That movie feels eerily like home.

I love Dexter, the TV show, with its serial-killer-as-addict metaphor, so I've been reading Dexter, the novel, to see where it all started. (Surprisingly, the book's far more disturbing than what Showtime allows on my TV screen.) In an uncharacteristically spontaneous killing, Dexter executes a serial killer who's abducted, sexually abused, and murdered four "light-haired" junior high girls. Children. And I start thinking that if I were a serial killer mine would be dark-haired, because my fetish is for Latinas.

What the hell?

I read Tim Allen's first book years ago (awesome title: Don't Stand Too Close to a Naked Man) and all I remember are his recollections of prison. He posits that men are essentially monsters - that without women around, men descend into a level of barbarism that none of us is comfortable acknowledging.

Junior high girls have been swimming in my pool and running through my house for days. I remember when American Beauty came out and I wondered if that would be me: a "sedated" father in a miserable marriage who ends up lusting after his daughter's friend. I sure had the stifled-rage-husband thing licked. But I figured I wouldn't notice Ashley's friends until she was in high school.

I was wrong. I'm sorry if that bothers you. I'm not a pedophile, but I've known a few and they need grace just like the rest of us. (And also they need to stay away from kids and schools, forever. That's just common sense.) But regardless of our society's rules, once a kid hits puberty, he/she is sexually viable. Not emotionally ready, or mature enough, but all the equipment's there, and it's hard to miss it when it's bouncing around your living room in a bikini.

When I was using and acting out, I read porn novels because they were easier to hide than picture porn. I stumbled into stories about incest, abduction, BDSM and "non-consensual sex." Anything to get more of a thrill than last time. That's how addiction works.

My addict (Dexter's "Dark Passenger") sees no lines between the man and the monster. What terrifies me more is that he sees no lines between fantasy and reality. Am I a monster? If I took it all away - women (like Tim Allen's prison), social mores, law enforcement, faith, recovery - what would I be? What acts am I capable of?

I'm working on a character reference letter for someone I worked with this past year. This person had sex with a high-schooler that I know. How does one end up in that place?

How does one not end up in that place? It just doesn't seem all that far away. Sadistic sexuality, suppressed monsters, vulnerable teens, forbidden affairs... all swirling together in that dark place where my addict lives. And I peer into that darkness and I think I'm seeing me.

But I'm the one here in the light, and I've been here for almost a year. It's okay to be scared of the dark.

Update

It's been a life-changing few months. I often want to post about the trees, but I don't think they'll make sense without the forest – so here it goes...

>>>New Therapist

When I woke my parents up and told them I was using in their home, I think the seriousness of my addictions really sank in. We talked the next day about what to do next. First came the difficult acknowledgement that I am, first and foremost, a sex addict. Chemicals are just icing on my porn cake. At this point, they happen to be willing and financially able to help, so we looked into inpatient sex addiction clinics. When we saw how much they cost, paying for a therapist who is specifically trained in sex addiction didn't look so bad, so that's where we started. After some research, I really clicked with a guy in Carlsbad, which is about an hour from my home. We jumped right into Patrick Carnes material, and I knew I was in the right place. So far it's been excruciatingly painful at times, and probably more helpful than anything else I've done.

>>>Marital Separation

I stayed with my parents until the middle of September and went home a couple of weeks before I wrapped things up at the church. The time away from my wife was amazingly helpful. Being there of my own initiative (instead of being “kicked out”) allowed me to grow instead of sulk. I don't think I ever realized how codependent I am with my wife. Even with the lost job and being separated from my family, I felt positive most of the time. Somewhere along the line, I had learned that I wasn't allowed to be happy unless Linsey was happy, which frankly isn't very often. This has been a huge change.

>>>Job Loss

What a complicated, confusing mess. Sometimes in life you have to look a list of truths and let them sit, side by side, even if they seem to conflict with each other. Here are a few of them:

-My (former) pastor (and boss) had encouraged me to ask for more help if I needed it. When I did, he fired me.

-My using had not really affected my job (in any tangible way) but at a church, it seriously affected my integrity.

-Many church members (who knew the whole story, without edits) were crazy mad that I was fired and were ready to fight the decision.

-Whether or not the pastor made the right decision is not what matters. That I lost my job to my addiction is what matters. Let me say it again, in the interest of thoroughly hitting bottom: I lost my job to my addiction.

-My wife told church members not to fight the pastor – that it was time for us to move on and that I needed to feel a consequence. She was right.

-I have been increasingly unhappy with the pastor's leadership decisions in the last few years. He's made some seriously destructive mistakes, become more and more dictatorial, and is showing significant signs of memory loss. He is unwilling to retire. That's not sour grapes, it's just what is.

-I've been in conversation with a few potential employers, but was too afraid of change to leave my position. If I'd been healthier, I would have left years ago. Instead I chose to do it the stupid way.

-Leaving my position in that church has been one of the best things that's ever happened to me and my family.

-Getting fired from my position in that church has been one of the most painful and difficult things that's ever happened to me and my family.

>>>Rehab

Two weeks at Kaiser's Chemical Dependency Rehabilitation Program. Very helpful – lots of good tools and connections. Good use of time in my first two weeks of being unemployed. As the name implies, it's a chemical dependency program, not a sex addiction clinic. But it's all good.

>>>Grief and Divorce Recovery

My aunt happens to run an amazing Grief and Divorce Recovery group. You don't have to be going through a divorce to attend, just grieving something. She told me I would be grieving the loss of my church, and that I should attend. Honestly, I think I've been grieving the healthy church I used to work at for the last three or four years. What I have never dealt with, however, is the gut-wrenching pain in my marriage. I carry debilitating anger and resentment for the first twelve years of our marriage, during which Linsey repeatedly explained to me that we didn't need outside help because there were no problems to work on. I've committed to doing whatever uncomfortable “grief work” this workshop tells me to do – drawing pictures, writing “unsent” letters, and other such things.

And letting go of old marriage-hurts is the right thing to do at this point. Because it's not about Linsey right now, or my marriage, or my career, or anything else. It's about me, a recovering sex addict. And I have hope right now. It feels nice.

Staying Afloat

Kind of felt like throwing in the towel for the last few days. First off, let's get it out of the way - I used last week. Wife and kids were out of town for the day, and I had a "bright idea." Same old stuff - porn and DXM. An hour into the fog, I shut it down. Reemembered this isn't me anymore, I'm sick of feeling like a loser, and for the first time in years, I have dreams. Things that I care about and hope for. I should have blogged about the good stuff before the bad stuff happened, but oh well.

I'm encouraged that I made it more than four months - that's the longest in a while - but feel ashamed and stupid enough that my mind goes to dark places. I've been in dialogue with my psychiatrist and therapist for the past few months about how persistent my thoughts of suicide are. Having to face a relapse fires these up into a frenzy. I won't do it though, because I have kids. It's just discouraging to have it nagging at my brain all the time.

The other option that presents itself is to go out. For good. To just stop trying, get high all the time, live in the porn-bubble, and hide it well enough to fool someone into taking me in. Of course that wouldn't work, duh - but that doesn't stop my addict from bringing it up over and over. Bastard.

So when I land back on earth and realize that I need to keep trying, keep growing, asking for help, listening to others' wisdom, working a program, just basically doing what I'm supposed to do, I've felt kind of blah. It's interesting - usually after a relapse, I feel inspired and freed, ready to get back on the wagon and make something of my life.

This time is different, I think because I called and asked for help instead of getting caught. It's like my addict is sulking in the corner, resenting me because he could have slipped in a few more highs before the crash. I cheated him of that. Even worse, I gave him a taste of paradise instead of asking for help before I used. Now he remembers what it's like - still has the sound of ecstasy echoing in his ears.

I remember an addiction specialist telling me that for many chemical addicts a sexual addiction is hiding as the primary addiction. I'm understanding more and more that I'm that person. I don't start a relapse by craving the chemical high. I start it by slowly moving from perusing fashion sites to stockpiling porn images, and when that's not enough I augment the rush with chemicals.

I love the biblical story of the manna. The Israelites received just enough to sate their appetites, no more, no less. If they tried to save for later, it spoiled. There was no guarantee for tomorrow's food besides faith.
So like I said earlier, I have found myself ready to let this blog go. Ready to either abandon it or delete it. Recovery in real life is a mix of rewards and challenges, and I wasn't sure the ratio here was worth it - more challenges than rewards.

But some manna fell for me recently, in the form of a couple of comments. Patricia Singleton, from Spiritual Journey of a Lightworker, wrote, "Things can get better when and if you both want them too. [My husband's] patience and our combined love for each other has gotten us through the worst of times." How comforting to hear the wisdom of someone who has walked the difficult path of healing from the wounds of incest, and who continues to grow in her marriage. Sometimes I just need to know it's possible - that my efforts to stay sober and her efforts to heal are worth the pain.

And Invisigal wrote, "Your posts have been a great help not only to me but to several SA men that I know. One of those men came to the realization of his addiction after reading your blog when I sent him the link." And that pretty much says it all right there. That makes it all worth it.

One Stupid Night

I lost my way.

I used last night. I don't know why. I'm still coming down so I'm not thinking very clearly.

During the darkest hours of the night, I thought about how my brain works. I knew that if I waited for morning, I would try to hide my mistake, and would find myself caught up in the machinery of addiction. I would think that I could stop it all through prayer and willpower and work, sidestepping disclosure. I've been there with embarrassing frequency, in that cycle of swearing off, planning, acting out, then starting over again and again.

So I woke up Linsey at 4:00 and told her what I'd done. I don't want to get caught in a week or a month, wandering the house while the world is sleeping. I need to stop now, I said. I'll reset my sobriety date (I had seven months) and get back to living. And I knew that whatever shame I felt today or tomorrow wouldn't be worse than the nightmare of living in my addictions.

My addictions. I've been a little vague because, frankly, I'm kind of embarrassed. But what the hell, here ya go: I'm addicted to DXM and internet porn. DXM is dextromethorphan, or cough syrup. Yes, over-the-counter cough syrup in “recreational” quantities. The reason I feel stupid is that being addicted to Robitussin is very high-schoolish, and a real sex addict is supposed to be visiting massage parlors, right? I'm such a fucking teenager when it comes to my vices. I throw in abusive doses of a couple other prescriptions as well, and I find nirvana. My rehab psychiatrist once said, “we become chemists.”

I am the luckiest man in the world. I have beautiful, intriguing children. I get to sing and make music for a living. My wife is generous and kind and diligent in her own recovery, and we are finding the way together. I have been reading through your past comments and I am humbled to be here with you. I ask that you forgive my selfishness. I'm getting back to work.

Image credit: nervousgravity @ deviantart.com

Forbidden Grief

I think I loved her.

There, I said it.

I want to put some kind of warning at the top of posts about Elena (the emotional affair) so that Linsey (the wife) won't have to read them. But why bother? Linsey knows everything anyway. I call her Sherlock Holmes because she's so freakin' hyper-vigilant. Over the years she's become a better and better detective, while I've become a better and better liar. The codependent vs. addict arms race.

Back to Elena. It's hard enough for me to express the officially sanctioned emotions, like gratitude or joy or excitement. So I guess I should go easy on myself for avoiding the grief I feel over ending a relationship with someone else's wife. But feel it I must, as I've been told many times by my therapist brigade.

Elena was a sexual abuse survivor, just like my wife. She was hard on the outside, desperate and scared on the inside. Like all the girls I've been drawn to, she was maddeningly hot and cold. One day she'd flirt, enticing me past my boundaries with warmth and danger, the next day she'd pretend she didn't know me. Women like this get under my skin, and I become obsessed with getting through their defenses. I've lived for this buzz since middle school. I've come to view it as my earliest addiction.

I can honestly say the prize I'm after is their trust. I want permission to tease and talk intimately with the most intriguing girl in the room, while other guys chase after the skirts. Yeah, I'm that guy. The one you can't complain about because he's been a friend to your wife, and you know he's not necessarily trying to get into her pants, but you keep tabs on him all the same. Except Elena's husband didn't know, or care, because he was too busy flirting with the girls at his work.

What made Elena different than all the rest? I'd been drawing bull's eyes on women for years, in classes, in choirs, at work. Basically, she was the first one who truly reciprocated. The rest had flirted back, then moved on. They knew that if you let a guy flirt for too long, he begins to feel entitled, possessive. Elena didn't mind. I was always trying to figure out exactly what was going on, what each of us was getting out of the relationship. My answer was: She likes that I pay attention to her. I like that she lets me.

You must understand where I was at that point. I had long given up on my marriage, and more significantly, me. I'd read the books I was supposed to read and tried the stuff I was supposed to do, and none of it fucking mattered. Each time Linsey tensed up when I touched her, every urgent phone call she remembered just as we headed to the bedroom, each little rejection left me feeling more and more repulsive. I must have been a pretty sick person to take all of her shit and conclude it was entirely my fault. Today, when I get paranoid about what she talks about in her support groups, Linsey likes to say “it's not all about you, Eli.” Oh how I wish somebody had told me that back then.

So it was a big deal when the Starbucks girl flirted with me, while I was buying hot chocolate for my son's preschool teacher, who happened to be Elena. (Who didn't like coffee, hence the hot chocolate.) And each day when I dropped off my son, the Starbucks was payment for Elena's affection and attention. And I ate it up. She was tiny (Linsey says “elfish”), Latina, a little psycho, and had poor boundaries – all the things that turn me on. We texted and talked on the phone, instant messaged, MySpaced. Then we each carefully covered our tracks, erasing our call logs and internet histories, so our spouses wouldn't find out.

Eventually it all came crashing down, but I'll have to tell that story another day. I'm exhausted emotionally, because despite my resolve, Elena still pulls strings in my heart. Don't tell me the difference between “love” (the mature commitment) and “love” (the high school feeling) because you know as well as I do that every human being yearns for both. Elena and I both grew during those years, and for what it's worth, she was a beautiful person. We laughed endlessly and she was kind to me when I was heartbroken.

I remember crying to Elena on the phone over a mess I'd made by relapsing. I understand it cost her nothing to comfort me, to tell me I was going to make it. I understand she didn't have to live with me. I understand our feelings for each other were illicit, addictive, destructive, selfish, reckless, and short-sighted. But they were real, and I miss them. I miss her, her voice and her eyes. Most of all I miss her friendship.

Staying on the Path

Day 87

I knew they kept the hard liquors in the back of the cupboard, and no one was looking, so I checked. Rum and some kind of liqueur. No thanks. Whiskey would have been tempting, maybe vodka. Never was interested in beer or wine either. By the time I suck down enough to do the job I'm ready to puke. So why the hell did I find myself drinking a beer? Half of one to be exact. Not enough to feel a damn thing except gut wrenching shame, regret, guilt. Waves of nausea came over me as I imagined telling Linsey I'd slipped again. Then the nightmare ended and that's how I started my day.

Ninety days is looming on the horizon and it shouldn't be so ominous but it is. I still maintain that I'm not afraid of the number, that there must be some three-month psychological cycle that comes around, working its way into the cracks in my program. Maybe even a syzygy of mental and physical and emotional rhythms, sympathetically amplifying each other. Knocking me on my newly sober ass every three months with a tsunami of doubt and resentment and agitated recklessness.

Here's the symptoms: Obviously, the nightmare. And the way that young women have burned holes in my retinas for the last few days. The way they've activated that hot dizzy place in my brain that bleeds over and obscures my other senses, like feedback in a sound system. Also, the exhaustion that turns bed into an irresistible magnet every hour I'm awake. And the nagging drive to escape rather than to live.

Here's the causes: I haven't called my sponsor in too many days. I haven't blogged in too many days. My reading and step-work have been patchy. I've become comfortable in sobriety rather than actively and intentionally pursuing it. Mostly, I've allowed myself to get too busy and distracted by life to focus on my sobriety. With it, I can be of use to God and others. I can be a part of the limitless and varied beauty all around me that beckons with mystery and possibility. Without it, nothing matters; all is darkness and loss.

Here's the cure:First of all, listen. To those who know. I am not alone, and the many voices in my circle of sobriety recently came to a consensus: In this disease of body, mind, and spirit, it's my spirit which has dragged me down too many times. I've committed to meetings, to reading and step-work, to phone calls. But to really transform and strengthen my spirit, the two pieces I must emphasize are helping others and daily conscious contact with my creator. Service and prayer.

Second, I must remember that neglecting my sobriety is never okay, and it's always deadly. I have a daily reprieve from insanity and death that doesn't care if I'm a church music director and it's the week before Easter. If my efforts take me away from the work of my sobriety (the routines and phone calls and quiet time) then they are a waste. Because once I'm in my addiction, my art and spirit are muted.

Tomorrow I will post practice mp3's online, score a few more songs for the band and choir, call the piano tuner and a million other people. I'll make detailed notes for the tech crew about lighting, audio, power point and video cues. I'll rearrange the amps, music stands, and microphones on the platform and label each channel on the mixer. I need to adjust a bunch of the stage lights. I need to actually practice the songs.

But first I will do my recovery stuff: call, read, write, pray. Practice the principles throughout the day, and make time to go to my Friday night meeting. Then, even if I do wake up from a nightmare, I can take a deep breath and remember that today is a gift, because today I'm sober.

[Photo by cleverdame107 under C.C.License]

Do Not Disturb

Day 78

Nothing sends me spiraling off into crazy-land faster than the phrases “do not disturb” and “all night long.” I wrote about “all night long” here. Now for the classic hotel door knob hanger.

Early on there was the sickeningly-sweet anticipation, the arousal, the mystique. As a teen, watching couples check in at the front desk made my heart thump in my chest - someday that would be me. Someday I would drag my luggage down a mauve hallway and into a room smelling faintly of bleach, hang out the Do Not Disturb sign, then triple-lock the door. My lover and I wouldn't be listening nervously for my parents' bedroom door. There wouldn't be a keep-your-underwear-on rule. We'd get lost in a cozy nest of pillows and sheets and blankets, and kiss for hours. Later, in the darkness, warmth and exploration would melt into embrace and ecstasy. I knew that it would be about us, not me, and that I'd need to to balance my desires with attention to hers. It never occurred to me that she wouldn't have desires.

Yesterday we slept an hour past noon. This way we could avoid Sexday, sometimes called “Monday.” The church office takes Mondays off (since every Sunday is like college finals.) On Sexday Linsey's home with me and both kids are in school. We slept because I was all pissy about a little verbal brawl the night before. It's an old argument for us. I have a much easier time breaking for a recharge. When I'm spent, I know I'm not good for much until I take care of my needs. For food, sleep, intimacy, distraction. Then when I get back to work, I'm a focused and efficient dynamo. She can't hang the Do Not Disturb sign until the dishwasher's fixed and we refinance the house. Nothing new for us here. If she ran the world, we'd die on the inside, but we'd look damn sharp while we did it. If I ran things, love would be king, but we'd die of starvation when we ran out of cheez-its.

Don't assume I'm not OK with post-crisis love. In recovery, I'm chipping away at the fantasy, and building something beautiful and tender with the pieces I pick up. We used to understand each other's tastes, in music and movies. Now we understand each other. We're giving to each other the most vulnerable and child-like places in our hearts, like those little macaroni-covered gifts your kids make for you in kindergarten. And it's amazing on that front.

But when it comes to sex, we're still driving a used car that makes lots of disconcerting rattles and might need a tow at any moment. And I don't understand this burning need to know I'm not alone in this. I don't understand why my deepest sighs of relief happen while reading about people with similar problems. Check this one out. First, get this picture in your head: Childhood scars make her reject me sexually, I codependently conclude I'm repulsive and try harder to be attractive and loving, the increased affection intensifies her discomfort and defenses, I crash harder and find stupider ways to get numb; we do this dance for a decade or so. Now read this post at Discovering Recovering. Cool, right?

I just don't know what's “normal” for pre-sex cues. I've accepted that she won't want me like I want her; she's not a guy. I have a responsibility to woo and romance her, to make her feel appreciated and adored. She needs to feel safe and I need to earn her trust by being a trustworthy person. She speaks a “love language” that gets turned-on when she smells Pine-Sol. OK, so I'll clean the kitchen and take out the trash.

But I'm like a chick. I need to talk first, to caress and be caressed. I need her to really love me, and at least kinda want me. Otherwise, I'm not up for the job. Affection=Erection. I keep reading in marriage books that it's a myth that men are always ready to go. When she's verbally dismissive of me, emotionally distant, and flinches when I touch her, the night's pretty much over for me. Then if she asks me when I'm gonna be done “sulking” I start thinking about how fast I'd have to go to punch my van through the guard rails on the 91 East to 57 North overpass. Then I'm really not in the mood. Whatever. We talk a lot in therapy about diffusing our building-up-to-sex booby traps.

I'm angry, I know, and I'm exaggerating and being one-sided and unfair. And yes, I'm sulking. I just wanna hang that sign on my doorknob.

My River Isis

[Photo by ippei+janine under a Creative Commons License]

Better never to have met you in my dream than to wake and reach for hands that are not there.
-Otomo No Yakamochi

Day 75

Somewhere in the shadows of my emotional landscape, obscured by dense and long-forgotten trees and grasses, there's a hidden stream. Deep and clear and dark, it runs with forbidden and frighteningly powerful emotions. Tenderness and sorrow spill over its banks. I can place my hand here in the moist earth and feel the cool slip between my fingers, and I can bare it. I've written songs here, sang the songs of others. It's the deeper waters that are swift and dangerous. There are pieces of my life down there, visible in the flashes of sunlight that occasionally stab through the ferns and vine-draped branches. I'm afraid of these pieces and I fiercely protect them. If the undercurrent sweeps them away, some remembered part of me will wither and die. This glade is pungent with the aroma of poetry. Prose is impotent here, as the rational has no power.

This river of memories is where I must go to sort through the lost women in my life. Those I've left behind. One of the things I did when I used (chemicals) and acted out (pornography) was allow myself to bathe in these waters. With my inhibitions artificially lowered, I could breathe life into those buried memories, and re-animate them. The tangled cascade of sensations that make up first love (or forbidden love) would come flooding back. This is no longer an option for me. It wasn't real and it wasn't healing, and it blinded me to life. Authentic experiences are a washed-out gray when you're using. You can't see the earth after staring at the sun.

So as I do my fearless moral inventory, I'm slowly plumbing my River Isis to discover its true nature. I'm trying to fish out the memories, dry them off, honor them, set them aside, and move on. I ran across one today. It was a brief online exchange with Elena. Much of the River Isis belongs to her, and I may never purge it of the scattered pieces of her presence. But I'm trying. Because to linger over the illusion of imagined and immoral love is an artificial experience. It contains none of the risk and effort and sacrifice of real love, and it can never embrace me back with grace and acceptance. This is what I share with the real, flesh-and-blood woman who sleeps in my bed.

I must leave the river for today, walk away and back into my life. If I stay I will drown. But I'll come back because I must. I've avoided this place for too long, and its power over me is incongruent with serenity. I often find myself lost here unexpectedly, and knowing the way out is essential. Most recently, I was whisked here when reading Cat's post on first love. I saw this place from my wife's point of view in a post by Willow. These words (and others) have helped me to pull back the branches and take away the mystique that fills the darkness. Maybe this landscape can be tamed after all.

Intimate Anatomy

Day 74

I found an unfamiliar lump couple of days ago. Somewhere that I don't really want to mention. But being that this is an anonymous blog, what the hey, I'll go ahead and use it as a launching point. Proceed at your own risk. You've been warned.

First of all, the lump. I finally broke down and googled “lump in p*n*s” and found this article about Peyronie's disease. It's not required reading. Basically, it turns out to be a relatively common, not terribly awful, embarrassing nuisance. While testicular cancer is a significant problem, cancer in this area is pretty rare. Gonna get it checked out anyway. Definitely will need a male physician. Feels kinda like I should leave the money on the nightstand.

I do this freak-out thing with medical stuff. First time was at Linsey's lamaze classes. Each time words like “colostrum”, “episiotomy”, or “mucous plug” were used, I had a little mini panic-attack. The attacks began to get closer together, and when they were about 5 minutes apart and lasted for 45 seconds each, I think my water broke or something because I started sweating profusely and hyperventilating. Focused breathing techniques and self-calming talk didn't seem to help much. I had to get up and leave the room. (Still sorry bout that, Linsey.)

This is pretty much what happened in my googling the other night. There more I read about it, the more I started nervously kneading the blankets. Just typing about it, I'm having to stop every few words and do my own little compulsive nervous habit-thingy: kneading the fabric of my jeans between my fingers. Despite my excellent poker face, my fingers are my “tell.”

You may be wondering what all this is doing in a recovery blog. Here's what: It just brings up the intensely uncomfortable fact that so very much of my sanity and insanity revolves around that particular part of my anatomy. It's been comforting in SAA to hear other guys talk about the adversarial relationship they have with it. I spent years alone on the couch at night, gulping vodka and handfuls of Benadryls, desperately trying to drown my rage at it.

About that time I happened to read a book about W. C. Minor, a Civil War vet who contributed to the first Oxford English Dictionary from a "criminal lunatic asylum." He also performed an autopeotomy. (Figure it out.) I was insanely jealous. I learned that monks sometimes use powdered licorice to dampen their sex drive. I ordered a phytoestrogen supplement from a health food store. It was for post-menopausal women, but I had read somewhere it might lower my sex drive. I fantasized about stealing my dad's gun and shooting off the offending parts. This movie played over and over in my head. It still does, like an echo.

You see, Linsey and I were best friends. Still are. I told her last weekend how nice it is to have somebody around who “gets it.” Gets my jokes, my likes, my pet peeves. She's intelligent and witty and quirky. We cry together at movies and passionately discuss books. We laugh together at the idiots on TV. But that damned sex thing kept fucking it all up, making me needy and vulnerable, and her cold and defended. We had not yet unearthed her sexual abuse. I just figured a man's sex drive was some cruel joke made up by God. I thought that everything would be manageable if I could just make it go away. My addict, spiteful and bitter, is still sulking in the corner, hoping that a cancer will come and rot away this anatomical liability. Then I could say to Linsey, You did this to me. You made it die. Are you happy now?

Enter sobriety. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. Hating my junk for being horny is like hating my throat for being thirsty. Where I used to feel hopelessly alone, there is now a circle of men, ready to talk at any moment. Many of them are addicted to pornography and chemicals and married to sexual abuse survivors.

Let me say that again.

I used to think that no one, anywhere, would ever understand my own little private hell. I now have several friends I see on a regular basis who are turning over their crap to a Higher Power, cleaning up their own mess, and learning how to love and cherish the women they've married. And I get to be one of them.

We'll get through the sex thing, Linsey. Together. It's just not the Everest I made it out to be.

I performed at Starbucks this week. I sang Ben Folds' “The Luckiest.” I don't know how to say it any better than this:

I love you more than I have
ever found a way to say
to you

That pretty much sums it up.

Found Porn

Day 48

I heard rustling in the stall next to me. I wondered if he was masturbating. On my way out, as I was washing my hands, I saw the Playboy on the floor. There was no one else in the restroom.

When I was a kid I found a Penthouse magazine on the street. Doesn’t every growing boy find discarded porn at some point? I don’t remember how old I was, or where I was, and I don’t remember if I took it home. I just remember the images. Some corny layout about ninjas. There was an “ancient sacred triangle” with two girls and a guy. It included all three forms of oral sex that heterosexual men are interested in. That first Penthouse experience was sort of like killing an ant with a grenade launcher, or cutting a toothpick with a chainsaw. I mean, at that point I was still aroused by Reader’s Digest. Really, I remember sneaking issues of Reader's Digest into the bathroom with me to look at…what? It must have been the ads.

Later, when I met Linsey, I fell in love with her Elle magazines. I couldn’t get enough of those high-gloss fashion layouts with models in gauzy pastels that showed everything but bush. Nipples were fair game, but it wasn’t “porn.” And it was such a delicious notch up from my grandma’s Sears catalogs. Eventually, it was the Sports Illustrated Swim Suit issue, and then in college I bought a few Playboy pictorials.

And then came the internet. I followed a similar path, from softcore to hardcore, but it was much shorter. By the time I acknowledged that I was a sex addict, I was in an endless cycle of downloading images, erasing them all in a moment of strength, then later restoring them with file-recovery software. My sponsor called it “dumpster-diving”, a reference to the same pattern in an offline world. How many thousands of images have I looked at? How many are still in my head?

Tonight I was wearing a long untucked shirt, which covered my jeans pockets. I knew that the magazine had already made it past the theft-prevention devices on the way into the restroom, so I could get it out of the store without any problem. All the excuses were there: I've felt shitty for the past few days and Linsey and I have been fighting about sex.

I dried my hands. I walked out and left it on the floor. For me, that’s a big deal.

Resentments

Back to day 13. This is a long one, folks.

Last night I was drowning in resentment. The timing was strange, or fortunate, I’m not sure which, since last night was the three-year anniversary of the Celebrate Recovery group I attend. Everything was great – the music, the food, and I couldn’t stop the tears as I listened to one person after another share their stories. If you’ve ever wanted to know what the whole 12-step thing is about, this would have been a good introduction. You won’t find it in a book or a video, or in one person’s experience, but in a room full of people who are all over the map. There’s 24-years-sober-guy, the girl who just lost her kids after a DUI, the guy who went back to the bottle after 25 years when his wife died of cancer. And what we all share is humility. We’ve come to the end of ourselves and asked for help in our brokenness. It’s beautiful.

And thank God everyone doesn’t have it all figured out. I can handle the success stories because they’re bookended by guys I know, guys I’ve cried with, who are still fighting through it. They hurt every day, and rely on God, friends and groups to survive. Every night they remember the Big Book’s advice to search for “selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear,” [p84] and immediately ask God to remove them. (How did “fear” get into this list? That’s a question for another post.)

One day at a time, one word at a time. Resentment. It haunts me and poisons me, it permeates my speech, my thoughts, my sleep. How many times have I sung about bringing my stuff to the “foot of the cross?” How many times have I done it?

Linsey, these are my resentments towards you today. Can I pour them out without prefacing each with my own apologies, my own failures? If I write them here, can I begin to heal? At next year’s celebration, will I be able to put my arms around you when others share about their healed marriages?

I resent the way you drift off to sleep after you’ve hurt me or we’ve argued. Since I am not a survivor of abuse, I do not know how to turn off my feelings of betrayal, anger, sadness, arousal, and most often loneliness. These feelings intensify and fill the darkness like the sound of your snoring. And then I am struck by that odd sense of indignity when someone doesn’t confront you or even avoid you, but rather simply ignores you. I hear: You’re not even worth the time it would take to argue.

I resent the way you responded when I gave you the flyer for a “sexual abuse survivor group.” That night seems like so long ago, when we attended our first Celebrate Recovery. I was broken and hurting, and nervous sick to walk into a church full of addicts, and yet was feeling some hope for our marriage. We had finally put the basic pieces together: I’m an addict and you’re a survivor, and we were going to do this together! Last night, Gerri shared about her first night at CR. She had come to see exactly what it was her fiance (my cousin Jack) did on Friday nights. She decided on that first night that she would be a part of this, every Friday, with Jack at her side. I waited four years for you to come with me. I hear: I’ll get better when I feel like it, but don’t you dare screw up again.

I resent what you said Thursday night after we made love. You had asked me earlier why I had been burying myself in hobbies, why I’d been unavailable. Because you’re dangerous, I said. Opening up my daily life to you costs me, and sometimes I can’t pay. I’m emotionally broke. Trust me, you said. Then, like normal people, we ate and talked, watched TV and went to bed. It wasn’t perfect or awful, just good. (“She didn't make me miserable, or anxious, or ill at ease. You know, it sounds boring, but it wasn't. It wasn't spectacular either. It was just good. But really good.” –Rob, High Fidelty) And when we finished, I let down my guard and felt joy. Those fucking orgasm hormones, they make me love you so deeply, and life turns OK – everything turns OK. And when I told you how I felt, you rolled away and said you wished it didn’t mean so much to me. You wished you didn’t have that much power over my feelings, that much responsibility.

You know, when I got married, the James Dobsons of the world had me convinced that if I just WAITED until I got married, we’d both feel that good. I gave up on that pretty fast. Then I read some other Christian book on marriage, and it said that it’s OK when the woman just finds joy in giving. She doesn’t need or even want "her turn" every time. So I learned, I accepted, that you won’t enjoy sex like I will, and we agreed to find meaning and legitimacy in the nights when I needed you like oxygen, and you let me breathe. But Thursday night, even that was too much. I heard: I can’t tolerate you feeling that happy.

I resent that your recovery is so different from mine. At CR last night, I heard all these women get up and share that they were in recovery for COSA (Codependents of Sex Addicts?), which more often than not means that they are abuse survivors. (I'll never forget when a counselor at Kaiser rehab said, "and we all know that the codependents are worse than us 'cause they do their shit sober.") Some took chips “for various lengths of recovery” which is an interesting variation on the AA phrase “for various lengths of sobriety.” What does it mean when a COSA person takes a 90-day chip? That she didn’t clam up and make her husband feel like a rapist for the last three months? And that’s what pisses me off. I have an addiction – “cunning, baffling, powerful.” [p58] I’ve spent years of my life getting up before sunrise to go to morning meetings of AA, SAA, NA, CR, rehab. I try, read and read and read, fight, surrender, write. There’s this line of people stretching back into the past that I’ve sat down with, one by one, and told that I’m helpless and sick, that I use drugs, look at pornography, steal things. I beg and beg, weeping on my knees in front of God, for release from the constant, maddening drive towards the substances that will put out the fires in my mind and body. They haunt me every single day. And I can do this without fail, for days and weeks and months, then blow it all in a moment of weakness when a handful of pills seems like a more responsible release than suicide, and I have to fucking start all the way back at zero. And tell everybody who loves me that I’m a failure. Again.

And maybe this is more of what was going on last night than I know. Because a couple of weeks ago, I compulsively swallowed a handful of medicine that I knew contained my “drug-of-choice”, and I told Heidi in our counseling session, like I promised I would. And that was it. It’s out. I didn’t hide it like so many times before, the times when I rationalized that I hadn’t gone to the store to buy (or steal) the real stuff, I hadn’t laundered money for some porn site, I hadn’t called that girl from the emotional affair. The last time I relapsed, I did the real thing (except contact that girl) and I laid in bed next to you multiple nights, high for hours, looking at porn on my phone. Yeah I know, it hurts to say it out loud. This time, if it even was a relapse, I took some pills that made me sleepy.

Since I began recovery two markers have gradually moved up a scale which charts my progress. At the bottom of this scale is my addict, at the top is the perfect creation God intended. One marker represents my behavior. It has moved up! I am getting better, I am accepting the strength of my higher power. But higher up the scale is a marker for my standards, my definition of sobriety. It continues to be a few steps beyond my behavior. I had months and months of sobriety in those earlier years that didn’t contain a week of sobriety by the standards I hold today. Through much work and agonizing, I’ve gradually expanded my “inner circle” of behaviors that I choose to abstain from. I’ve come to see that many things that seemed harmless, or maybe just wasteful, have repeatedly led me back to “pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization.” [p30] (In other areas, I’ve relaxed, and grown to accept imperfections and weaknesses.) Today, I choose honesty, disclosure, vulnerability. As an addict, I cannot wait until the world falls apart to declare a new sobriety date. I took a step, a small step, back into substance abuse, and even though I didn’t give into other addictive behaviors, I must start over. I’ll write it in my Big Book, below the other crossed out dates, like my first sponsor told me. September 15, 2008.

Claire's Ass

Day 2
Just beyond my computer screen is Claire’s ass. And even though I’m crazy about curves, there’s something fascinating about an ultra-petite Asian, especially when she’s walking around in ultra-petite white pants. Claire is one of the only two non-family, non-therapist people that Linsey tells about me. All of me, including the bastard part that makes her cry. And I’m totally OK with this, because Linsey needs it. Claire is probably our closest non-Christian friend. She’s a little younger than us, a little wilder, and she reads books like The Secret. She complains about stores in the mall that don’t carry enough size zero dresses. The first time you see her, you might be surprised that her valley-girl English contains no hint of a Chinese accent, but then you’ll hear her slip and say something like “ball-gums” instead of “gumballs.” Idioms can be difficult I guess. If you ever meet her, ask her if she’d like a ball-gum – she’ll smirk and tell you to shut up.

Claire’s smile is tempered by something in her eyes, something more painful. Not a Viktor Frankl knowledge of the brutish and the cruel, more like a child who just found out that people are unkind. She is getting married to her long-term boyfriend after years of waiting for him to propose. Along the way there’s been screamy fights and tears and temporary break-ups. Linsey listens and consoles, things get better, and then it’s Linsey’s turn to cry to Claire about my latest shenanigans. Then I straighten up and it’s Claire’s turn again. We men can be pretty damned insensitive at times, selfish and short-sighted. For example, we might sit down at our computer to write a wise and sensitive paragraph about recovery and all the unconditional love we’ve taken for granted, and instead end up fantasizing about what kind of underwear our petite Asian house guest is wearing. And we do this all the time. By default, I mean. Then you add the whole sex-addict thing and, wow.

Roller Coasters

Day 1
OK. Sobered up. Kind of turned on and energized by this idea, of writing my life. Also kind of forcing myself not to edit the intoxicated ramblings of my first post, because that wouldn’t really be fair.

We’re on vacation: Vegas part 2. Part 1 was the G-rated version with the kids. Well, as G as you can get in Vegas anyway. Now it’s just the two of us, doing more R-rated things. I’m trying to remember why I thought it would be a good idea to bring a sex & drug addict into this environment. Or my kids, for that matter. Back to part 1:

There was really only one time that we officially split up during the week. I took Ashley to ride the New York-New York roller coaster and James went with Linsey to the pool. I try mightily to teach my daughter how to handle disappointment, something I never really learned to do. So each time her excitement bubbled up during the week, I reminded her that it wasn't a sure thing. As we neared the end of the week, I watched her bounce and fidget when she asked "So daddy, if it isn't too expensive, and I'm tall enough, and mommy will take the J-man somewhere else, and it's still open, and we have enough time, and if I've been good, we'll ride the roller coaster tomorrow?!!!!?!?" And my heart broke, because excitement tempered by this much caution doesn't really leave much room for joy, does it? At nine years old she's already learned not to let her hopes get up too high.

So we shared the delicious roller coaster anticipation of ratcheting up, then flying down, loopty-looing and roaring around the curves. It was, of course, over too quickly. The moments following were just a girl and her dad, no bratty brother in sight. And I wasted it looking for porn. I darted around the casino floor, nine-year-old in tow, looking for a shop where I could secretly purchase an overpriced magazine while I sent her to the bathroom or otherwise distracted her. After answering so many "daddy where are we going" questions with "just looking around" lies, I led her back up to the arcade which conveniently preceded the roller coaster's entrance. I told her she could only play two games, and after she pod-raced against Sebulba, we paced around the room for fifteen minutes deciding where to spend that second quarter.

And as I watched her carefully weigh the merits of the rip-off carnival games against the rip-off video games, I tried to get a handle on the familiar heart-breaking feeling welling up inside me. It didn't make sense – I had given her a boundary and provided an age-appropriate morsel of freedom, and she was merely consuming it. But like my mother before me, everything inside me wanted to protect her from my own cruel limits when her last quarter disappeared. Into that son-of-a-bitch prize-grabbing arm machine: It suckers every kid into fishing for an illegally produced Spongebob ripoff doll.

Here's the thing: She's young enough to get excited about an arcade, but old enough to remember how quickly that little cup of tokens ends up empty. And I'm crying inside because I just don't know how to tell her that the reason I'm not pumping quarters into these devices is that they're really not any fun! Once you get past the lights and sound effects, and the daze-inducing gestalt of a room packed with such machines, they just don't deliver. The promise is a lie. You just walk away an hour or two later, from the arcade or the mall or the casino, with your pockets empty, coated in a dirty film of consumerism and waste. Silly rabbit, you can't buy happiness! Instead, happiness sneaks up when you pause to hold your lover on a windy day between your eye appointment and a trip to the DMV. As far as the vast sea of happiness for sale out there, flashing and spinning and screaming for your attention, the truth is painful and simple. Sure it's cool and elegant that M. Scott Peck opened The Road Less Traveled with the phrase "Life is difficult." But festering in the day-to-day noise of rudeness and rushing is the unavoidable and far less gentle: "Life sucks." And anyone who tells you different is trying to sell you something.

Later, as Linsey listened to my memories of that day, her words were like a soothing balm on my psychic wound. Ashley will not remember that the machine stole her money or that I was a little distracted. To her, that noisy room wasn't a depressing symbol of life's disappointments or a reminder that getting excited just makes getting hurt feel worse. She'll remember a day with her dad, and a roller coaster ride that she was tall enough to ride. She probably won't remember that we talked about her sexual abuse and self-esteem on the walk back. And I'll remember that for one afternoon, my little girl was in love with me, not her boyfriend or her husband, but her broken, guilty, make-it-up-as-you-go father, who was discovering at that very moment where true happiness is found.