I was given the following quote by a friend of mine in recovery who has over 25 years sober. Although some may disagree with him about his strategies for recovery and sponsorship, it’s hard to argue with success and surrender of that magnitude. He’s found ways to make staying sober possible for himself and for hundreds of others, maybe even thousands!
This quote focuses on surrender. It focuses on real recovery.
It may not be for everyone.
Some may disagree.
Others may think it doesn’t apply to them.
But I feel it’s at the core of progressive victory over lust, surrender, and long-term recovery from sexual addiction.
The Quote that Sums Up Surrender & Progressive Victory Over Lust
I need to teach you something about addiction that will make staying sober possible. What we know about addiction is that when it comes to “cravings” to act out, they can only be created by ourselves, by partaking of lust mentally first.
We cannot cause ourselves to “crave” acting out without eventually giving in. That’s what powerless means. We cannot entertain those thoughts or memories to any degree without causing a strong desire to act out that is impossible to resist. We cannot do it carefully or safely…we cannot participate at all.
If we choose to do so, we trigger ourselves and our cravings, and cause our own relapse.
Yes, situations arise, thoughts pop up, but the second we choose to consider them rather than letting them pass, we have gone too far.
If we cannot accept this truth, we are doomed to continue to live in a cycle of short-term abstinence and relapse, over and over again.
It should go without saying that this knowledge is not enough to maintain abstinence. It will certainly take the power of God to abstain, but we cannot ignore our own responsibility to avoid trouble. This is the honesty of step one…we are unable to “handle it” to any degree and always will be.
So what does this mean?
Are we in charge of our own recovery?
Is addiction all about just not looking at pornography or is there more to it than that?
What is progressive victory over lust and how do we actually practice that?
These quotes from the White Book stood out today:
Knowledge was not power–even right knowledge! What I needed was not more knowledge about my psychology or God, but power to stop what I was powerless over and obey the little light I already had. I had stopped thousands of times; almost every time was the “last time.” Staying stopped was the problem, and I made countless vain attempts at that…(p. 18)
The real freedom began when I could be free of my past. I became as a child, teachable, having to reject my way of doing and thinking for a new way of life based on surrender of my will to God…This process, of course, is still going on…Believe me, none of this came easily! I just discovered that I had to do it to survive! I had to die to myself in order to live. (p. 23)
The obsession and compulsion of sexual lust are gone; I’ve been set free. Not cured. I’m still a sexaholic; my programming still makes me want to turn my head at anything that looks interesting and take a “drink.” Part of me still thinks it will die if I don’t. But one day at a time, one encounter at a time, one glance at a time, one thought or memory at a time, I don’t have to act on those impulses. I don’t have to drink it in. (p. 24)
I look forward to your interpretation of these concepts.
How can these quotes be implemented in day-to-day life? Or can they realistically?
This is exactly what I had to come to accept with my own true initiation of recovery almost a year ago – that I couldn’t even entertain lust or triggers of any kind and be OK. I hated that fact. I fought it at first, and I even went so far as to persist in putting the crazy it created onto my wife and therapist for a week or two. I had to give up those things that were my foundational sources of lust, most notably social media (Facebook and Twitter especially). It wasn’t porn that I lusted after first, it was attention and connection. If I felt like I could appear to be special in someone else’s eyes in some way, and then received verbal/digital confirmation of such “special-ness” then I was hooked. Porn and other similar vices were fast-followers because I couldn’t get enough false validation from others, and so I would indulge in anything else that I thought felt better than the emptiness of my own suffering self-worth. While I am not remotely free from triggers, as I have commented before about the normal experiences of human biology, I am doing everything I can to surrender the exact moment of trigger – starting with mindfulness and not attaching to the experience/thoughts/feelings, and working up through the additional surrender to higher power and others.
AMEN JR! This makes so much sense to me as well. My boundaries/bottom lines/weapons of war start with Social Media. How many “likes” did I get? How many RT’s on Twitter? Who’s my “friend?” These are all ways I used to strive to, like you said, get “attention and connection.” And when a few likes or thumbs up weren’t enough, I’d start looking for other false connections and there I was, back in my addiction over and over again. In fact, I’ve been contemplating writing a post with a title like “Social Media: The Doorway to Porn Addiction” or something like that.
For me, social media has no value anymore. It’s either comparative, a fuel for self-pity, a way to brag about a lie I’m living and believing, a lust pool, or all of the above (just writing that stuff out makes me cringe to think how much time I’ve wasted there in the past).
What made most sense to me about the quote was that I can’t even “do it carefully or safely…we cannot participate at all.”
Thanks for your comment. I identify and want to be aware of how I feel in the moment. I think, if I’m honest, I want to be careful with this discussion series as well for fear that I could fall back into the same vices of attention and “specialness.” The difference I feel is that my connections with my fellows in recovery is real, where my “connections” with people on social media never really were.
Thanks for your real friendship in recovery!
Thank you JR and Nate for your comments. There is wisdom in your words.
I’ve been sober for 125 days, which makes me just a babe in this recovery business.
For the last two months I’ve started feeling clean, like I just came out of a nice long very refreshing shower after rolling around in the mud for a very long time. I really like this feeling and don’t want to relapse and feel the down side of not keeping my goals. I also realize that once I start I can’t stop. Once is never enough.
I have also noticed a marked improvement in my empathy for the people around me. Hmmm were did that come from?
I have come to the conclusion the the price for acting out is way too high. I will not pay the price any longer!
The idea that we are never cured, but set free, is what resonates with me. I can live each day free from lust, but that doesn’t come from becoming more powerful over time. It comes from being willing to give up that power. Let go and Let God. After all, I am powerless over it. Length of sobriety won’t ever change that. My spirituality won’t ever change that. I am, and forever will be, completely powerless over it. Taking it one day at a time, thoroughly working the steps, and connecting with others is my only cure. That’s my medicine. It’s my new way of living, and it’s the only way that I am daily and constantly set free from Lust. Thanks for the thoughts guys. I love being A PART OF this.
In regards specifically to the question “Is addiction all about just not looking at pornography or is there more to it than that?” Speaking strictly of my own experiences, porn is like the flowers of a large and deeply rooted dandelion. (since we all have these little demons in our lawns right now) While it is the part of plant that stands out the most, is the most dramatic, and certainly does the most damage as it spreads it’s pollen, the rest of the plant lives on even when i cut the flowers off. The stems, leaves and roots of the plant are much nastier and difficult to destroy than the flower, just like lusting for me is much harder to keep a grip on than porn. Also, like dandelions often are, the “lust”part of the plant is very resilient to whatever I try to throw at it to kill it, and ridding my lawn of these weeds permanently will go for the rest of my life. There may be some seasons when I eradicate the problem, but the pollen is everywhere, and if I don’t weed the evil and feed the spiritual, those seeds will find root, or grow back when I think I killed them off. All I can say though, is that for the most part being a good and faithful gardener has been incredibly rewarding for me, and has allowed me to see the love and hand of the Almighty in my life. Thanks again for your help everyone!
Great analogy Cameron. The porn and masturbation is only a small part of the addiction from what I’ve learned. The bigger issues relate to the negative emotions I bury and the lustful thoughts and browses (whether online or offline).
For me, being willing to practice the chin-up approach has been a key to recovery. If I ever catch myself wanting to look at women from the chin down, I have to ask myself immediately, “What emotions or feelings am I not recognizing right now?”
Because, for me, lust is much more of a trigger if I’m buying emotions of sadness, anxiety, pain, fear, isolation, etc. If I recognize those feelings for what they are and ask God and others for help, lust can still be there, but the pull isn’t nearly as strong to want to browse around.
If I don’t surrender though, lust is a magnet that can quickly pull me back to where I’ve been in the past.
I’m grateful, today, to feel like I understand this concept and want to practice it. I know that if I don’t, it’s only a matter of time before I slip/relapse and lose everything that’s most important to me. And, to me, checking out a woman is not at all worth that loss.
As always, thanks for your comments!
Thanks Cameron for your comparison to dandelions. I’ve come to notice that surrendering my feelings and any lust really has to become a reflex. Just like when we hear a buzzing by our ear we quickly swat our hand by the ear and move away, we too have to pray and back away from the trigger. Getting sobriety has never been more rough than it is right now. It seems I have one hand on the addiction while the other is clinging to God for help. The only time I feel the hand holding the addiction free up is when I surrender or do other things to work the steps and my realationship with Him. Going to a lot of meetings has also helped me as it keeps me focused on recovery. Listening to guys in the group is the perspective I need and listening to others on the outside does not help. For the first time I am feeling like I am being understood. Someone shared this quote with me: “Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out” -R. Collier.
Good to hear from you Josh. It is hard to break out of the chains, but it’s possible.
For me, one of the most important things has been to make a list of “weapons of war” or bottom lines. I share them with my wife, with my sponsor and with whoever else as a form of accountability.
I know that if I start crossing those bottom lines it’s only a matter of time before everything else goes to the crapper.
Another thing that’s been helpful to me is working the steps consistently with the help of a sponsor. I had to break out of the old normal, where I’d say I “should” be doing all these things but was honestly either doing them as a check-list item or not doing them at all.
“It works when I work it!”
Have a great day in recovery and call when you need to.
All of your comments made me realize just how important a support group really is. The root of addiction is not knowing or being able to have a real, sincere, deep, healthy connection or relationship with the ones an addict loves, and so turns to lust, porn, masturbation, and sex to find that false sense of connection. Friends that I have made in my support groups have been real, true friends, and reaching out is a way for me to make a real connection with someone, rather than turning to a false, counterfeit connection through lust. That’s why I need to learn to turn to my sponsor, support group, and to God to help me. Otherwise, I am powerless.
Hey Doug, this is one of my favorite “musts” from the Big Book of AA:
And here’s one more:
I appreciate your honesty and awareness.
Hope you’re doing well Doug.
For much too long, I went through a cycle of acting out, a period of sobriety, slowly sliding back into complacency, and inevitably acting out again. I was worried I would go through this cycle the rest of my life. It felt like the length of abstinence depended on the severity of my acting out–the more severe the acting out the more firm my resolution to change. I would make a resolution after acting out that this time would be different, this time was the last. Then, I would slowly slide back in to what I recognize now as my patterns of negative and lustful thoughts. Eventually, I would wake up one day feeling extremely vulnerable. I would tell myself throughout the day, “Don’t look at pornography. Don’t look at pornography.” I always knew those would be the days I acted out. I am now better at recognizing the negative and lustful thoughts and emotions that drive me to act out. In the moments I experience the thoughts and emotions, I try to do as I have been taught in the past few months–surrender the thoughts and emotions to God, reach out to someone in recovery, and write about why I’m feeling and thinking the way I am. It has made all the difference. Now when there is even a hint of returning down the path to acting out, I surrender my will to God and He gets me back on track.
Of course, I should mention that I still have a LONG way to go and am nowhere near perfection.