Recovery from sex addiction rarely happens overnight. It takes patience - a quality often in short supply for us. Imagining that we have to find the courage to face abstinence from sexual behaviors for indefinite amounts of time can feel overwhelming. Often at the end of acting out sexually, we said to ourselves, "I will never do that again." It is not that we were not sincere. It is just that it rarely turned out that way. We always seemed to go back for more. In recovery, we avoid making grand pronouncements about quitting forever. Instead, we just do it for TODAY. No matter how tempted we are, we do not act out today. We find this approach to be more workable. By looking only at the day in front of us, with the help of others and our HIGHER POWER, the challenge of recovery becomes more manageable. In particularly challenging moments, committing to our sobriety for just an hour at a time is what we may need to do in order not to give in to your impulses. It is sometimes said that the person who has the longest abstinence is the one who woke up earliest that day. STAY SOBER FOR 24 HOURS GUYS! THEN START THE NEXT 24 HOURS TOMORROW MORNING!!
I like this approach (and this post). There is nothing we can do about tomorrow. We can only deal with the challenges that present themselves today. Sure, we can plan for tomorrow - we can save money, we can make sure we have enough food in our kitchen and so on, but we can only do those things today. In 24 hours, "today" will be another date, at which time we can once again stay clean "today". If we do that enough times, we can build up a streak.
In the words of Bonnie Raitt -"We can't change the past but we can leave it behind." In the words of Joe Strummer - "The future is unwritten".