Outer Circle Behavoir

I've been in SAA recovery since 2013 and have had pretty decent abstinence from P. Not perfect, but good stretches.

Most recently, I have gotten a lot of traction with time because of a simple switch in my perspective. Thought I'd share, in hopes it might be helpful.

At least in SAA, we talk about inner circle behavior, which is the stuff that if we do it, we lose our time. Then there's middle circle, which are things which might open the door to walking into our inner circle, but doing it doesn't automatically mean re-setting our time.

Outer Circle is all the stuff that allows for a full, healthy life. Often times, we come into a program like SAA and realize we don't have much of these things because we spent most of our time in the gravitational pull of our inner circle.

When I was first in my program to get off P, I focused on P. I focused on doing everything I could to stay off it. My mind was always pacing around my inner circle. And all that focus on it, I believe, led me to fall back into it often. My life was sort of consumed by my obsession with my abstinence.

Where things began to change is when my focus became my outer circle.

I think of it like this. When we stop using whatever it is we stop doing, if we don't fill it with other things, we are just left with an empty hole. And eventually, we probably will just go crawling back to that hole because it's what we know, are comfortable with, etc.

So when I started to have success, it was because I began to think, oh, this hour I need to make sure I exercise or make some fellowship calls, or post on NoFap.com, or read, or take a walk, or listen to music, etc. My program is not a day-at-a-time. It's an hour at a time. Because I might wake up feeling great, and have a great day, but then later in the evening watch Football or something and see a cheerleader and then snap, I am off the rails without giving myself a second to get my mind right. Impulse.

Now, I spend my life not obsessing about fantasy or digging into compulsion. If I can keep busy, with things that are anything but inner circle stuff, I have a decent chance every hour. It's when I am sitting on my butt, wondering what to do next that makes me think of "idle hands". Or sitting and PLANNING on things to do as opposed to doing things. That sitting part...that's trouble.

I try and keep a hefty and ever growing list of things which constitute my outer circle.

And I don't have a middle circle. Someone like me has to be squeaky clean. Everything is a gateway to my inner circle. If I am in the middle, I am going the wrong direction.

Hope this helps.