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Al Sevo
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Mood: "drying out:" feeling soberer and a bit more hopeful!
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![[*]](./images/engage/default_icon.gif) posted on 19-3-10 at 04:19 PM |
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Well, felt myself doing that tricky pre-self-torture thought routine before doing a google search. Caught myself and came here instead of reading too
many links I might be tempted to click on. Now, I'm getting off my ass and heading to the last part of a meeting.
Long weekend and longer week ahead. But trusting in the powers greater than me and with faith that I am getting better and someday I will look back
upon all this and go, "Huh. It hardly feels like I ever was that person who went through that."
Peace to everyone in the struggle.
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Al Sevo
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| posted on 1-4-10 at 10:01 PM |
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Still here, but barely. Keep getting up, extending the hand. I guess I'm at the point of accepting my powerlessness over this p*** issue.
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Al Sevo
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| posted on 4-4-10 at 01:43 PM |
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What are my values and what are my fears? What are the excuses and false escapes I use to keep from dealing with my fears? When and how do these
excuses and false escapes lead me to undermine my values? How do I react when I have undermined my own values?
Values
I value independence. I value the ability to take care of myself financially, emotionally, physically and spiritually.
I value the ability to help other people as well as myself.
I value honesty and directness.
I value self-control.
I value creativity and positive action to solve problems, create opportunities and generate happiness.
I value happiness and feelings of self-worth.
I value the ability to correct my mistakes and make progress in life.
I value loyalty.
I value forgiveness and the willingness to help others.
I value friendship and love.
I value my family and closest friends.
I value God and His/Her emissaries in the world.
I value privacy.
I value the freedom to choose. (Honesty allows this freedom. We are denied the right to really choose when we are not honest with ourselves and
others.)
I value respect and good manners.
Fears
I fear being in debt financially.
I fear being rejected by others.
I fear being unable to do the job (whatever it is) that people need me to do.
I fear being depressed.
I fear being incapable of taking care of myself and/or loved ones.
I fear being slandered or misrepresented.
I fear the pain of working hard and failing.
I fear the the increased responsibility and expectations that may come with success because I fear failing and letting myself and especially others
down.
I fear being unduly pressured.
I fear being emotionally or physically hurt.
I fear being unworthy.
I fear people finding out that I am or perceiving me as unworthy of their time, respect, love or help.
I fear hurting and being hurt. And I fear that the hurt may never end.
I fear death.
I fear never having a long-lasting love relationship with a woman who accepts me for who I am, that I can be completely honest with.
Okay...that's what I can think of for those two categories right now. Here are the things I do to escape dealing with my fears and how these excuses
and escapes undermine my values.
I retreat into internet surfing to escape from "feeling unduly pressured" by work and responsibilities. I also mb and binge on p*** to escape this.
I give myself the excuse that I will have time to catch up. However, this "causes" me to feel increased, unnecessary pressure. It also eats up time
I do not have. It takes away time from meeting my responsibilities and being able to take care of myself (emotionally) and threatens to interfere
with my ability to take care of myself financially (by potentially threatening my job security). I tell myself I need to do these things to relieve
stress. Again, this is dishonest. This dishonesty keeps me from seeing the situation as it is, which, in turn, undermines my ability to choose
freely. How can I choose freely if I am keeping myself from really understanding the choices and consequences before me?
After I've done these things, I feel withdrawal and depression because I've unbalanced my neurochemistry. I also feel guilt, which further creates
depression, for undermining my values. I undermine my value in loyalty because I am undermining my loyalty in myself.
Well, this is a start of something. I don't know if this helps or not, but I feel I need to start really taking an inventory of these things...
I don't think I know how to "give up" my addictions or urges to a Higher Power if I haven't been honest about facing the fears that drive them. I
definitely don't know that I can accept my powerlessness over an addiction (or even if I can determine whether that concept is of any benefit to me at
all) if I haven't honestly faced my fears and my emotions around whatever it is that triggers me.
I have not been sober in a couple of days, but I've felt "sick and tired" about that before. Somehow, I need to do something different. I don't feel
that, at this moment, I can distinguish "powerlessness" (the First Step in the S rooms) from just feeling like a guilty, peace of shit. And that's
not helpful for me right now. I need to try to look at this stuff another way for myself. I think I can "hide" and "lie" behind the concept of
powerlessness as easily as I've hidden and lied behind other things to keep the beast of addiction alive.
I know part of what I need is consistency. I also need to figure out how not to simply repress or "avoid" feeling the fears that I have, because they
come back anyway and I deal with them in the same old destructive ways. I need to face them and then learn how to walk past them into living my
values.
There are so few people in the S rooms that have any real freedom from this addiction problem. In a room of 20, there's maybe 2 or 3 guys that have
been sober a year or more. Maybe two or three who've been sober more than six months, and the rest are not much further along than me. It seems to
me, the ratio should be quite different, but maybe most of the ones that get a real handle on this thing, just stop coming to the rooms, I don't know.
Anyway, it doesn't instill confidence.
It's useful to an extent to talk to a couple guys who have more time than me on the phone and hear where they're at, but then at a certain point it's
not so comforting when they start complaining about the same stuff I do because I don't have as much distance from my addiction problem as they do.
Does that make sense?
Something different needs to be done and it can only be done if I take the steps. Trouble is, I don't know if those "steps" are necessarily the same
as the "12 Steps."
I just don't know right now. All I know is something needs to change.
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Al Sevo
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Mood: "drying out:" feeling soberer and a bit more hopeful!
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| posted on 12-4-10 at 10:20 PM |
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8 Days free today. I'm going with the mantra: "The addiction is the symptom. Fear of reality is the problem." Trying my best to recognize the
function behind the voice that pops into my head wanting me to look at p*** or act out. I'm facing that voice, not hiding from it, acknowledging
where it's coming from and why...and doing my best to choose to do what the eff I have to do anyway--regardless of how scared I feel.
This is a good step for me. And reading the 101st psalm every night like nobody's business, to add to the already routine battery of recovery
podcasts and the p*** addiction recovery hypnosis mp3.
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Al Sevo
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Mood: "drying out:" feeling soberer and a bit more hopeful!
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| posted on 12-4-10 at 10:23 PM |
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One more thing. I am making a commitment at bedtime every night that I will stay sober for 24 hours, so that when I sit for prayer I can do so with a
feeling of integrity, because my spiritual life and my integrity are two things I value. So far so good with this. I am not guilting myself and I am
not trying to "give this up" to my higher power. I'm making myself accountable to myself THROUGH my higher power. If that makes sense.
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Al Sevo
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| posted on 12-4-10 at 10:31 PM |
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One more thing. I am making a commitment at bedtime every night that I will stay sober for 24 hours, so that when I sit for prayer I can do so with a
feeling of integrity, because my spiritual life and my integrity are two things I value. So far so good with this. I am not guilting myself and I am
not trying to "give this up" to my higher power. I'm making myself accountable to myself THROUGH my higher power. If that makes sense.
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Al Sevo
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Mood: "drying out:" feeling soberer and a bit more hopeful!
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| posted on 13-4-10 at 08:47 PM |
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An hour away from my 9th day back. Going to bed after I post this, so 9 is as good as here. I've come to the conclusion that, despite all the folks
around me when I go to the S recovery meetings who use this word constantly, the idea of calling this problem of mine a "disease" does nothing that is
useful whatsoever for me. It may work for others, but it just does not work for me. It brings on despair and hopelessness. I'd much prefer to deal
with the lying voice that pops into my head that "suggests" that I act out or that I do something "harmless" that will lead me down that path. I know
this voice and acknowledge it and realize what it is trying to do--it wants to protect me by making me forget reality--my responsibilities,
obligations, problems and current place in this world. It wants me to hide. This is something I can interact with, face, talk to, reason at, and
learn to outmaneuver and outsmart, with the help of God and my support network. A "disease," on the other hand--that sounds hopeless, terminal. You
cannot reason with cancer or "outsmart" the plague. It sounds like death--so if I feel/think/see this thing as a disease, it's a no-win situation:
why shouldn't I act out then?
Forget about it. The disease concept is completely unhelpful to me.
I'll just call it what it is when it presents itself: that lying voice. A voice belongs to someone or something I can relate to. I can engage with,
face, and deal with a "voice," but not a "disease."
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Al Sevo
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| posted on 14-4-10 at 04:07 PM |
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9 Days in. Keep going. God, give me strength to choose reality and continue to have the courage to accept it, deal with it and keep moving.
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Al Sevo
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| posted on 20-4-10 at 09:11 PM |
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I replaced the p*** with procrastination, which still has been a case of hiding from reality, trying to escape from anxieties and issues about what
others expect of me, what I expect of myself, etc. This procrastination led things to pile up, I put myself in a big whole and then...off to the shit
races. Back to the p***. I have to face fear and anxiety and follow it--do what it is that life expects of me ANYWAY, despite how I *feel* about it.
This is where I am.
2 days, 5 hours back and going to bed.
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MrBadger
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| posted on 21-4-10 at 07:46 AM |
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Good for you. You're getting past the immediate addiction and starting to look at the deeper roots. That is scary. But it is also the path to
recovery.
Come my friends, 'tis not too late to seek a newer world.
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Al Sevo
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| posted on 28-4-10 at 06:14 PM |
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Not to say I'm not going through a hell of a withdrawal, because I am. 
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MrBadger
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| posted on 29-4-10 at 08:18 PM |
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Not fun I know. But it does get better, even if there is no cure. The "hell" part doesn't last forever.
Come my friends, 'tis not too late to seek a newer world.
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Al Sevo
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| posted on 3-5-10 at 08:51 PM |
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I'm still battling procrastination. It's fear of reality and escapism. It's putting myself in a hole and then dreaming about a miracle to save
myself from the consequences of my own inaction: a further detrimental fantasy. I just wish I could kill this thing, this fearful, self-destructive
urge.
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Al Sevo
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| posted on 18-7-10 at 10:13 PM |
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I have relapsed so many times since I last updated this journal, it's not even funny. Maybe it should be--someday, perhaps, it will be. Right now, I
just don't know what I'm doing.
A few weeks back, I thought I'd try to hit rock bottom, as if I could get to some point so bad that I'd have no choice but to stop once and for all
and turn things around and leave this repeated brain damage through p**n and obsessive sexual lust for good.
Of course, this is a lie. I'm trying to write a story about what has to happen in order for me to turn things around--and in that way, I'm just
living in fantasy--escape--again, rather than living life. I can't control when I'm going to turn this around. My therapist says that all we can do
is make ourselves available and ready to accept the gift of sobriety. Right now, it seems that I'm just not willing. Something in me just doesn't
want to do this for real.
I'm unhinged.
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MrBadger
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| posted on 19-7-10 at 08:16 PM |
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Me too. All we can do is keep coming back. Do you have a recovery group in addition to the therapist?
Come my friends, 'tis not too late to seek a newer world.
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Al Sevo
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| posted on 23-7-10 at 12:33 PM |
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I've hopped around from S group to S group, looking for the best fit, partially, but also because I'm inconsistent with things. The other part of it,
though, is that the language of "disease" with regards to this issue, which is all over the place at these meetings, does nothing positive for me.
Counting days--also doesn't do much that 's positive for me, either. My last stop is to check out a rational recovery group and see how that works
out for my motivation and everything else. Ultimately, I just have to pick my group and stay with it because none of them are going to be
perfect--and why should they be?
I've caused myself brain damage, that I can accept...and I keep reinforcing and deepening the damage every time I act out. However, I know that this
damage can be reversed with time and new thinking and my neuro-pathways can be redirected, my brain chemistry balanced out, and then my heart and
spirit can be healed. It's self-inflicted injury--but disease? Forget it: that concept gives me nothing to look forward to or motivate me.
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Al Sevo
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| posted on 24-7-10 at 01:56 PM |
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Fighting the urge to waste time, to procrastinate. Just being on the computer can be productive or an excuse to waste time,to procrastinate--to hide
from what I need to get done. That's even without bringing "acting out" on my addictive programming into it. Procrastination is just another form of
the same escapism, though it doesn't quite give the same "fix" and it's harder to not be aware of the avoidance going on when I'm "merely"
procrastinating as opposed to acting out--is that progress?
That's it for today. Let's see if I can get this cover letter finished and posted before nightfall.
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Al Sevo
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| posted on 26-7-10 at 10:14 AM |
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Busy and stressful weekend with family, sister's baby in emergency room. Funny how being focused on others gives no time to hide in the addiction.
I leave today and am wondering how I will fare once I get back home.
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Al Sevo
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| posted on 27-7-10 at 02:05 PM |
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Back in the city. Once back, I began to have certain thoughts again, but recognized them as being just that old b.s. of habit again, begging me to
pick the wound in my brain. Remembering what my sister is going through with her baby--why create suffering that is unnecessary when there's plenty
of suffering going on already?
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Al Sevo
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| posted on 28-7-10 at 05:48 AM |
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Despite the intrusion of some thoughts, which I did not do my best to let go of or to counter, but rather indulged in, I'm still sober. It's not
entirely my doing, of course. I remembered HALTS and recognized that, at 1am, I should be sleeping, but stayed awake anyway, watching some TIVO'd
show, rationalizing that I was stressed and that I just wanted to see the show as soon as possible so I could delete it. Once the show was over, I
turned on the live TV and, to be honest, my intention was to go through the channel guide in search of something softcore on cable to trigger myself.
Two things gave the distance to thwart that plan--one: another show was already being TIVO'd so I would have had to really consider whether I wanted
to stop recording that program in order to change the channel, should I have found some triggering thing to watch. The second: there simply wasn't
anything triggering on! Thus, I ended up going to my room, praying for my baby niece, still in the neonatal wing of the hospital, and going to
sleep.
Would I have gone ahead and acted out had there been something on cable to give me the excuse? Probably. So it's not really to my credit that I'm
still sober except for one thing: I did choose to pray and go to sleep. I could have stayed up. I could have tried to act out in another way, but
not having an easy and immediate excuse to do so last night, I had the distance I needed to choose to get the rest I needed.
Of course, for now, having no cable would be a big help. However, that's not up to me right now--I'm not going to tell my roommate, who has the
subscription, to cancel it on account of something I'd rather not talk about (nor is it their problem). It will be better when I move out (hopefully
soon) to my own place, as I then won't even have a TV. That was one of the factors that helped me to enjoy the six months of sobriety I did back in
2008.
It's too early to think about that amount of time at this point and, as I've discovered, counting days is mostly counter-productive to me and
triggering in its own way. Any day count is used as an excuse to plan out and rationalize a slip, either because I tell myself that I deserve a
reward for having gone X number of days p***' free or because I tell myself that it's ONLY been X days, so what does it matter if I have to restart my
day count? After all, it's ONLY been X number of days.
For now, all I'm doing is looking back at the last slip date and thinking, wouldn't it be nice to see this be "a long time ago"? But I'm not counting
days. For me, counting days is bullshit.
So, here goes another day, and another looking back at that last date--as a distance marker. But I'm not counting the number of days it's been.
Distance, not days.
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Al Sevo
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Mood: "drying out:" feeling soberer and a bit more hopeful!
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| posted on 28-7-10 at 08:12 AM |
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I need to call this agent from a management office. I am procrastinating. Why? Because I haven't told my roommate yet that I am looking to move. Why
else? Because this agent has to come and interview me at my apartment to get a sense of whether or not I am the type of upright person they want as a
tenant--and my roommate is not likely to leave the damn house! So...is it more important to me to avoid the discomfort of this guy possibly coming to
interview me while my roommate is here or to stay stuck living in a place that isn't healthy for me? Is it more important for me to avoid telling my
roommate I'm going to be moving out--or to feel happy living in a building and neighborhood with a friendly and genuine community, in a TV-less
apartment in a less triggering neighborhood?
Which is it? Which is more important? I can't run from this--I can't retreat into more damn fantasy and procrastination--I need to call this guy NOW
and deal with this NOW. Like Tyler Durden says in Fight Club--don't deal with this like dead people do!" This is my life--this is my anxiety about
displeasing my roommate and about being scrutinized by this guy--and my roommate being around while this guy comes by--and what am I going to do about
it? Is it really that damn bad?
No. No. No--a thousand times no! It is NOT.
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Al Sevo
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| posted on 28-7-10 at 12:20 PM |
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Okay...the agent from the building management office is twenty minutes late. Not a problem. I will handle this situation. At least I made the
appointment, which is positive, and I got myself in order.
This will be what it will be.
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Al Sevo
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| posted on 31-7-10 at 11:42 AM |
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The good things: I'm moving, I got a couple program friends to take over the password for my K9 web filter so I have no clue what it is and can't
circumvent it.
The bad things: anxiety over finding someone to take over my soon-to-be old room, gave me the excuse the addict needed to act out and I wasted a lot
of time and forwent lots of necessary rest and or packing and now am under the gun.
What to do: all that I can and hope that's enough.
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Al Sevo
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| posted on 15-8-10 at 08:45 PM |
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Back. Had a smaller slip a few days after I moved (because, although I'd moved my stuff, I was still sleeping at the old place because my mattresses
were there and I had to wait to get another person to help me transport them).
Since then, though...I've been act-out free. That's aided by the fact that my computer died the day I finally left the old apartment for good. I've
been going through a rough patch of withdrawal and going to lots of meetings.
I still don't completely buy step 1 of the 12 steps. The unmanageability part, yes--I agree with that. The powerlessness part: no--because it feels
like that gets conflated with choicelessness. I always have a choice, no matter how powerless I may feel or how out of control I may be.
However, being with other people with the same issue--the community, for me that's the biggest plus of SAA or SA or SLAA or SCA: community. And
hearing the shares.
I'm no longer sharing day counts or "lusting over day counts"--because that's only ever been an excuse to act out, another thing to obsess over.
Either it's not enough days, therefore what's it hurt to act out since the addict says I can easily build back up to that number of days. Or,
counting days is an excuse to act out because "I've been so good and deserve the reward" or because the anxiety of comparing the day count thus far
with some other day count I had in the past (like the 6 months I did on my own before ever entering the rooms); that, in the end, just makes me put
pressure on myself to "make it" to that marker, looking at "how many days before" I make it to marker X or marker Y. That pressure and anxiety is
most conveniently and easily relieved by going back to self-destructive acts.
So. I don't "do" day counts out loud and am not making any big deal of the number of days I have anymore. I just notice when one 24 hour period has
finished by setting my cellphone alarm for that hour that marks the new day--the new "now" day. Sometimes I look back at the date of the last time I
acted out, but am avoiding counting days like the plague.
I'm also reading a book that suggests looking for and writing down your command phrases--the illogical statements that drive one into trouble. It's
not a book about S or P addiction, per se, but it's been useful.
I have about 4 pages of command phrases I've written down--and a lot of emotion has come up from writing them down and reading them. The book
suggests when you can look at the command phrases and analyze them without emotional attachment, then you'll be able to see them for the distortions
of logic that they are and then be able to uncover the truth or reality that these previously unconscious commands were keeping you from realizing.
Once you've done that, it suggest you can more easily act in accord with reality.
I'm giving it a shot--and if it works I'll stick with it en lieu of the First Step as I understand it, which just doesn't seem to give room for choice
and, therefore, isn't working for me right now.
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Al Sevo
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Mood: "drying out:" feeling soberer and a bit more hopeful!
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| posted on 22-8-10 at 07:08 PM |
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I have a problem with lethargy. I find a voice in me that just says "I don't feel like it." Trouble is, this voice says "I don't feel like it" about
alot of things, including things that it would be very beneficial for me to do, regardless of whether I feel like doing it or not (e.g. preparing for
work, writing letters to friends, getting outside, cooking meals, grocery shopping, etc.). Depression?--the voice is certainly connected to that. I
think it's operating on the command phrase: "I won't do anything I don't feel like doing." or "No one will make me do anything I don't feel like
doing." I'm sure this comes from feeling like I was easily nagged or badgered into doing certain things I didn't want to as a kid and feeling that,
by having "given in," I was weak and somehow missing out on all the fun I could have been having. The trouble is, that this command doesn't lead me
in the direction of doing anything "fun" at all. It just leaves me feeling grumpy, lethargic and sad. I don't think the voice repeating this command
is "the addict" that a lot of folks in the rooms talk about; but, heeding this voice and its command phrase leaves me open to acting out because I
tend to try to "escape" from the way this command and this voice make me feel, which is powerless--and helpless. It's ironic that a voice that is
trying to assert its volition has the result of making me feel like I lack any.
I've identified this command phrase: "No one will make me do anything I don't feel like doing." What about this command is false or distorted
emotional thinking? Sometimes people may have in mind for me to do something because they know it will be beneficial to me. If I refuse to do it, I
won't be able to get the benefit and grow. This command also tends towards making me, out of defiance, not do anything--even things I want to do,
after all, I am a someone and, sometimes, I may want to do something that is positive but it requires a certain amount of discomfort. Is the
discomfort of getting out of bed to go to work any greater than the discomfort of staying in bed, feeling guilty about my laziness and then having to
do extra work later in order to catch up? Is it less comfortable than the discomfort of having twice as much work to do the next day or giving a bad
impression to my boss and possibly putting my job at risk? Clearly not. I may not feel like going out and being social and connecting with other
people, but is the discomfort of doing so worse than the pain of feeling isolated? of cutting myself off from the opportunity to make new friends and
allies? of the feeling that I am wasting my life and not really enjoying it? Is it more uncomfortable than the guilt and shame of acting out? It
isn't.
What is the truth this command phrase is obscuring?
The truth is that I have obligations and responsibilities in the world, just like everyone else and I will tend to be happier or at least have fewer
problems when I fulfill them. Furthermore, the truth is some of these obligations and responsibilities, even if they come from other people, will
make me feel better and I may, in time, actually want to do as I start to see the benefits of carrying them out. There are other responsibilities
that, though other people may remind me of them, really are obligations and responsibilities to myself, eminating from myself. These obligations are
about self-care: if I don't move my body, cook, get out and see people--I tend to starve, not just physically, but emotionally and spiritually. The
way I am built, I will tend to be happier, healthier and more full of energy the more I fulfill these obligations.
How can I act on this truth?
I can act on this truth by doing something in defiance of the command phrase "I won't do anything I don't feel like doing" or "No one will make me do
anything I don't feel like doing."
When, that voice pops up,I will focus on the positive benefits of doing that thing and remind that voice that once I am actually doing it, I will
probably WANT to do it because I'll FEEL the benefits. Then I will go ahead and cook that meal, call that friend, prepare that extra bit for work.
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