To gain recovery all addicts utilize some form of step work. But there is one crucial step that needs to be taken before that work begins. It is the moment of realization that there is a problem and we need to fix it. Before this realization, we know that there is a problem but we foolishly believe that it is under control. We believe that we are not hurting anyone. Because of the temporary pleasure we feel we are blinded to the true pain we cause ourselves and others. We are still not fully awake to the damage we are causing. 

The moment we realize that we need help can come at different times. For some, it is when they are caught by their wife or children. Others may lose their jobs or get arrested. And there are those who are exposed but still believe they can continue with even more determination to hide it. There are the rare few that acknowledge their addiction and get to work without damaging their relationships. 

 It does not matter how we got to this point in our lives, what matters is that we accept and embrace this step. It is the beginning and it is painful but it allows us to strive to be free. This is where we start taking the hammer to ourselves and start demolishing the parts inside that need remodeling. It is hard work to remodel especially ourselves but in the end, we become an honorable person. It all starts with waking up.

Who of us has not tried to overcome our addiction and yet always fell? We would decide enough is enough and grit our teeth, clench our fist, and out of sheer determination not act out again. How long did we last? For some, it may have been a few hours. Others, days weeks or maybe even months. And yet we always returned to acting out. Feelings of failure filled our hearts and minds. Yet we always attempted again and again. Our desire to break free was true so why could we not accomplish what we desired. Why could our minds not control our bodies?

Our brain alone is not superior to make meaningful change. For a significant change in ourselves, we need to include the heart and not just a determination or will power.  Determination must be part of our recovery, but it cannot be the reason. Determination alone lacks the continual motivations. True desires sink into our soul and we feel it in our heart. The heart may have been a part of our desire to change but it was not necessarily significant. To change ourselves we need to change our heart and then we can change our minds and ourselves. How do we begin to change our hearts? For me, it was I needed to give up things I thought I needed. Things like music, privacy on phone and computer. Others might be the gym, sports, or even work. Our desire to change needs to be more important to us than anything else and we must be willing to give up things to allow that change to happen.

A change of heart and determination need to work together to create change within ourselves. It is possible to have long periods of sobriety with just one of these, but it is when you use both together as a complete tool that transformation begins. In the end, we want to succeed in our mission. We want to show ourselves and others that we are not who we once were. We want to shed the feelings of shame that come from failure after failure. This is possible. We can be free if we change our true desire in our hearts to determine what is most important.

Current circumstances have left us isolated from others. Isolated from the support we need. Loneliness grips us all at times. For some, it is a daily companion. Others seem to be around people daily and still don’t get what their heart truly needs. Whether we know it or believe it, we need some form of emotional connection often. We all yearn for some way to connect with someone. We are looking for something to fill us. The great part of recovery is we need to connect almost daily with someone to get out of our minds. Connecting with other like-minded people continues to allow us to give support as well as receive it.

Consistent connection with others in like-minded endeavors support us in the ways we need. This is our community. We can have multiple communities at different times in our lives. A community for addiction recovery, one for weight loss, another for achieving financial freedom, and one for religion. We may not share all the same beliefs of those in our groups but we share enough to help each other draw strength and affirmation from. We can draw support from them when we are feeling weak and provide the same support when we are feeling strong. Our hearts yearn for connection and when we make the effort to find and connect with these groups, then our hearts start to be filled. It will assist us to overcome depressions and loneliness. It will help us find happiness.

How many times a day to we look at our phones, the internet, Facebook, or Instagram. We are constantly looking for something that will inspire us or connect with us. The thing about technology is it provides a great way for us to connect to the people and the world. Yet for many it causes them to be depressed and feeling worse than when they first go online.  We look and lust after people and things. We compare ourselves to others. We look at our little screen and see everything perfect for others but not ourselves. Yet if we took that little screen and blow it up on the big screen in front of us, what would we find? Will we see how dirty the countertops are? Would we see the massive amounts of debt that people have to keep this perfect charade? What we may see is that many of these people are just like us, lonely and looking for someone to talk to and express their frustrations and concerns.

I created this website a few years ago, but I could not find the time to work on it. Now with the current state of the world, I am drawn back to my website to provide sanity for myself and help for others. As an addict, during times of stress, old patterns of medicating start to creep back into our minds. No matter the length of sobriety we still have thoughts that press us to make us feel better. It is the lie that we have followed for years of addiction. That by giving into something we can control, it will help us feel better about what we cannot control. This is valid and it does work, provided we choose things that benefit us versus things that degrade us.

We are asked during this time to isolate from others. Many of us as addicts know the problem with isolation. When we are left to ourselves we tend to think only of ourselves and not how to connect with others. Connection is vital to addicts to break free from their self-created shells. It gives us something to look forward to. It is what our true heart has always yearned for.

My desire during this time, is to maintain my sanity, my sobriety, and provide support for others. I have been sober from pornography and masturbation for 5 years but my journey started 13 years ago. I am both happy and sad that it took me so long to get to this place in my life. I am happy that through this journey I find the material and the right help for me to be in a place where I have a clear mind and peace.

Spencer

Recently, as part of a webinar series, I was ask to make a dream board.  A dream board is just a visual representation of things I want to accomplish. It could be as simple or extensive as someone wants it to be. I threw a few pictures up on a word document and I was there. I used to have a white board with life goals on them like become organized, have more quality family time, and travel. Until I created a visual display of these things then they were just words. Now they are guiding objects to work towards.

So how does this help us in recovery. When we start down the path of recovery it could be for someone else. I started to make my wife happy but in the end it did not stick because I was not doing it for myself. She was my primary focus on my board and nothing else. It is important to have others for an inspiration. They become one of the things on our dream board but they are not the primary reason for recovery. They help us work toward our sobriety. A dream board would be words and images to inspire us to go the distance.

We need to know our destination and daily reminders of what we are working toward. If we don’t have those things then we are just working to work. We also need daily reminders what we are working toward. I’m sure you can simplify all of this and just say it is goal setting. However I have set so many goals in my life and did nothing about them so for me the word GOALs is link the word DIET. I’m not going to do it. Yet the dream board helps me see what I am working for.

Spencer

I spoke with a guy the other day who seemed to be a person who had it all together. He was an open guy and would tell you how it is. It appeared that he was not able to be real with someone. He was open with people and very friendly. Yet he could not share much with others. Like most men, he seemed to be a poser. He put on a show. I happen to mention to him that he had a fake facade for others. He was adamant about telling people how it is. While being true with others is good there was not honest in his demeanor.

How can someone be true but not honest? I always thought they are the same. On the surface, they seem the same but as we dig deeper we find the difference. In many ways, we are searching for truth. Truth about others, the world, and even ourselves. Truth has no mission. It is black and white, one way or the other. It does not care about others. While honesty is personal to individuals. We are honest with others because we are sharing a piece of or ourselves. We are sharing truth with feelings and a desire to be seen as one who puts others above themselves.

Truth is unwavering but it is factual and logical. In other sense it is cold. Honesty takes truth and warms it up. It helps one to connect with someone else. It is a way to bare our hearts to others and show who we are inside and who we want to be. When we are honest, we express truth with love. If we love others we can express truth in a way the shows them one cares.

I used to like trail riding with my Yamaha 350 XT that I have sitting on the side of the house. My father in law gave it to me because he was tired of working on it. I was able to get it running great and we did quite a bit of riding with it. Ridding seasons have come and gone and it has gotten harder to start. Now it just sits on the side of the house and I look at it every once and a while and put off working on it. It still runs, but I never maintained it as I should and now I have to do harder work to get it up to par again.

Life in sobriety is the same way. I worked on recovery material, making phone calls, and going to meetings. These are the everyday things we need to do to keep our sobriety in check. So what happens once you stop doing the maintenance required? For me, it was like this. “Hello internet! I want to look up work out routines that I can do to get in shape. Oh, this lady knows what she is doing, look how fit she is, She looks good in those yoga pants as she is squatting with those weights.” Before you know it is back looking at porn again. I had relapse after relapse like this. I would then say to myself, “I need to stop. No need to tell anyone. You made a mistake that’s all this is.” Then I was into hiding everything. The importance of our dailies is to prevent us from getting back into the relapse. Relapse is not a possibility, it is a guarantee if we stop working. It does not matter if you are on day one or 10 years down the road.

Like my old bike, it needs to be maintained in order to prevent the longer hours of repairing it to run right again. Because I have not maintained it, I don’t want to go riding anymore. The same is if we don’t do our dailies; we won’t want to connect with our wives or anyone else. The difference between my bike and relapse is, it will take days and months to put ourselves back in a good sobriety, not hours.

Dailies and Maintenance are required to live a life of sobriety and there are times when they get old. That is when we need to think out of the box and to change things. Our goal is a lifetime of sobriety and joy, not sobriety and miserable.

Spencer

My boys and myself celebrated the 4th of July at the races. It was a wonderful show. Displays of the colors before the show, American race cars racing down the track, and even jet cars. We were even treated to a wonderful fire work show. Did I mention Jet Cars? All great things to remind us of our freedoms in this country. There was one part of it that stood out to me more than anything. A wounded soldier was honored that had served in many conflicts. As I stared at him and thought of countless others who have fought for us, I was touched. My father being one of those individuals who served to keep us free. I honor and respect them.

Unfortunately these servants cannot fight every battle out there for us. No matter how much I wished for someone else to take my addiction from me, there is no way that could happen. Just like there has never been a magic pill I could take to remove lustful desires. There had been many times I have been on my knees praying for God to take away my addiction. Why could this not happen? I remember the first 12 step meeting I attended. 12 Steps, 12 weeks, No Problem!

Fast forward 10 years later, How stupid was I? This journey has never been easy.  I have had to fight these battles for myself to reach sobriety and my recovery. This battle had to be fought myself. I have many others who, cheered for me, supported me, and guided me. However it was when I decided to fight, to break lifelong habits and to recover did I start to see freedom.

During this 4th of July I honor those who have severed to provide my temporal and religious freedoms. I also honor myself for choosing to break generational habits and to do the work. I honor those who have been my support and guide. I especially honor those who provide the support and guidance for others. I honor everyone who had decided to do the work need to remove their shackles and be better men and women. These are the ones who will inspire others to give up addiction.

Spencer

Everything is ok! Still above ground! I am alive! I am just fine! I have said and heard these phrase by everyone. Prior to my own self-improvement this is truly how I admitted I felt. I am fine! The more I say it I realize that it means nothing. What does that tells us first off about a person. Fine is not a feeling. Fine is not a state of being. It is a word to describe high quality or at the same time it can be used to describe little. Like fine hair or fine string. For us today it has become a fancy word to say I don’t want to talk about myself or my problems.

Being a father with a 5 and 2 year old, I have noticed the range of feelings and emotions they have. I come home from work and I ask, how their day is. I will get either, it was good, I’m sad right now, or even I will walk in on a full blown tantrum. In most cases my kids are reactive based on their emotions. As they grow older then they will start to learn how to manage their emotions and use their intellect to react to their emotions. I have noticed that my children are never just fine.

Feelings and emotions is what makes us human. We are not robots. We are never going to be like one of my favorite science fiction characters like mister Spock. Granted Spock did have emotions and feelings he just suppressed them because they believed they were better than that. But we are humans. God gave us feelings. Why do you think when a baby is born they cry. They are feeling that emotion of being pulled into the world. How scary that is until they are cuddle up to their mother when they fell security again and are able to relax. Emotions are a part of us. Emotions can drive us, hinder us, or God forbid keep us stationary.

Spencer

The day my wife asked me if I was looking at pornography, I knew what I needed to do. I had researched overcoming my pornography habit and I wished I could have started earlier. Years before I had even met my wife I was trying to overcome it alone. Needless to say I got nowhere. The most I was able to accomplish was to abstain for a couple of days. These short term failures helped me create a fear that I would never be free from this. It continued to solidify my shame but it was also building more and more justification. If I could not beat this this I might as well accept it.

I was still a good guy. I attended church and interacted with others. I was working doing things that I enjoyed. I had started dating my wife. Still internally I still had a locked chest of fears. What if she found out then she would not love me. I deceived my wife all the way to the altar of marriage. I allowed fear to keep me from being honest.

I am grateful for the day and the courage my wife had to ask me if I was looking at pornography. It gave me strength to push passed the fear that I had been feeling for years. I knew what the path was that I needed to take. Prior to our marriage I had learned of a group I could attend to help deal with my problem. I was always too afraid to admit my problem so I let fear prevent me from going. Though it was scary going to my first 12 Step meeting, I attended despite my fear. Yet as I was there I found others that were struggling just like me. I saw hope for the future. 12 steps! No problem! I will have this done in 12 weeks and all of this will be put behind me permanently.

How naive I really was. While it helped me maintain abstinence for a while it was no time that I was back into my addiction. I began to limit my recovery by saying I am not going to do this or that. Still 10 years later I have learned that unless you pour your heart into recovery then you will not get better. We need to do everything that is necessary. That includes so much more than just a 12 step program. That is just one of the many tools we need to use every day.

Recovery is possible. Life can be much richer than it currently is. I know my wife better and she knows me. I have nothing else to fear with her. She knows the worst things about me and she still loves me. I am blessed to have her.

Spencer