Acting Out Sexually?
Since I'm in confession mode now, I guess I really need to share this.
Yesterday I came extremely close to acting out sexually. Some might say I did. There was a time I would have. Whatever, everyone's definition of acting out & sobriety is different anyway.
Our computer recently got a bad virus going around and we had to completely restore everything we could.
I was looking for something on my floppy discs that was no longer on my hard drive. In so doing I came across some documents that somehow got rescued (I had not saved them, never do).
They were pics of nude women I had copied from websites into my word program.
Of course, I just had to check each one to make sure it wasn't the work I was looking for, which it could have been but I didn't think so (especially after I opened the first one).
Well, from there, it was way too damned easy to go ahead and look at them more, then click on their links to look for more and "better" pics.
Next thing I know I've got websites popping up all over the place, mostly uninvited, some the kind you can't get rid of.
So I told myself, "Look you're gonna have to shut down to get rid of these damn things anyway, so just do it now." And I did. Then, as I often have before, I restarted and cleaned everything off.
Yeah I did some ogling & some thinking. But I didn't get into a fantasy, and I didn't masturbate. Highly unusual for me. So for me, at this point, that was not acting out. For me, it was a major victory.
At the same time, according to my feelings & my personal standards & beliefs, what I did was wrong, wrong for me.
It was disappointing (if not surprising) so soon after a major breakthrough. As my T said during that time on Monday, I now really can leave that crap behind and get on with really living. I fully intended to & still do. But that's not living!
Also I know how once I let things go a little in this area, like an alcoholic I have to drink more & more until I'm drunk & make an ass of myself. Its never just one drink, just a few pics, not for me anyway. And thats ok I don't want it.
Actually what happened was quite a metaphor for this. I looked at one pic. Then more. Then I clicked a link. Then more. Then sites started popping up I didn't click & didn't want. Until finally I had to shut the whole thing down.
One drink with this doc (drug of choice) and I've got all kinds of crap I didn't want or ask for: guilt, shame, self-hatred, feeling stupid, depression, despair, aching body, aching heart.
It's like trying to quench my thirst with salt water. Even tho its water, and water itself is good & necessary, it just makes me thirstier, and the more I drink the more I want. People have been known to die of thirst with their bellies full of water--salt water!
I know just from a few times going 30 to 60 days sexually sober that the withdrawal can be horrible, as with any other drug. And it is a drug: brain chemicals, and adrenaline.
I also know that the more I take even little & ocassional steps over my boundaries, the more I drink, the worse the withdrawal gets, the greater the thirst of temptation gets, until I act out.
But not yesterday!
And ironically, it was probably the fact that so much unwanted junk kept popping up I got disgusted and wiped the whole thing out. When the computer came back on, I had no desire to look at pics again.
Not that I haven't since. That's what's so insidious about this damned addiction! That's why I've got to stay clean, and practice healthy intimacy & lovemaking with my wife. Period.
But that's for me. And that's my confession.
Wuame
Yesterday I came extremely close to acting out sexually. Some might say I did. There was a time I would have. Whatever, everyone's definition of acting out & sobriety is different anyway.
Our computer recently got a bad virus going around and we had to completely restore everything we could.
I was looking for something on my floppy discs that was no longer on my hard drive. In so doing I came across some documents that somehow got rescued (I had not saved them, never do).
They were pics of nude women I had copied from websites into my word program.
Of course, I just had to check each one to make sure it wasn't the work I was looking for, which it could have been but I didn't think so (especially after I opened the first one).
Well, from there, it was way too damned easy to go ahead and look at them more, then click on their links to look for more and "better" pics.
Next thing I know I've got websites popping up all over the place, mostly uninvited, some the kind you can't get rid of.
So I told myself, "Look you're gonna have to shut down to get rid of these damn things anyway, so just do it now." And I did. Then, as I often have before, I restarted and cleaned everything off.
Yeah I did some ogling & some thinking. But I didn't get into a fantasy, and I didn't masturbate. Highly unusual for me. So for me, at this point, that was not acting out. For me, it was a major victory.
At the same time, according to my feelings & my personal standards & beliefs, what I did was wrong, wrong for me.
It was disappointing (if not surprising) so soon after a major breakthrough. As my T said during that time on Monday, I now really can leave that crap behind and get on with really living. I fully intended to & still do. But that's not living!
Also I know how once I let things go a little in this area, like an alcoholic I have to drink more & more until I'm drunk & make an ass of myself. Its never just one drink, just a few pics, not for me anyway. And thats ok I don't want it.
Actually what happened was quite a metaphor for this. I looked at one pic. Then more. Then I clicked a link. Then more. Then sites started popping up I didn't click & didn't want. Until finally I had to shut the whole thing down.
One drink with this doc (drug of choice) and I've got all kinds of crap I didn't want or ask for: guilt, shame, self-hatred, feeling stupid, depression, despair, aching body, aching heart.
It's like trying to quench my thirst with salt water. Even tho its water, and water itself is good & necessary, it just makes me thirstier, and the more I drink the more I want. People have been known to die of thirst with their bellies full of water--salt water!
I know just from a few times going 30 to 60 days sexually sober that the withdrawal can be horrible, as with any other drug. And it is a drug: brain chemicals, and adrenaline.
I also know that the more I take even little & ocassional steps over my boundaries, the more I drink, the worse the withdrawal gets, the greater the thirst of temptation gets, until I act out.
But not yesterday!
And ironically, it was probably the fact that so much unwanted junk kept popping up I got disgusted and wiped the whole thing out. When the computer came back on, I had no desire to look at pics again.
Not that I haven't since. That's what's so insidious about this damned addiction! That's why I've got to stay clean, and practice healthy intimacy & lovemaking with my wife. Period.
But that's for me. And that's my confession.
Wuame