I'm typing this post less than an hour after having sex with a stranger. Not for the first time either; not even for the first time this month. This isn't who I am. Except it is. I would, for as long as I can remember, have "defined" myself as hypersexual with constant thoughts about sex and a habitual masturbation problem. Problem is. I never acted on those desires. Well. Not with strangers at least and not with random hookups. I'm sitting in my bedroom and thinking how unsafe I've been the past months. Thinking about all of my actions that would have appalled me a year ago. What have I turned into. Yes, I know this is probably post nut clarity and tomorrow morning half, if not all, of the quilt would have dissipated. But, I don't want it to go away. I need a reminder for myself that this is not the person that I want to be. How do I keep myself accountable. To myself?
Hello Shaune, One of the things I think all addicts suffer from is a lack of a healthy sense of self-care, which is why it's difficult to stay accountable to ourselves. At some point in our life, we decided to treat ourselves as enemies instead of friends; critics instead of caregivers. With that said, one method I have been using after a relapse has been to write none judgmental notes to myself, so then these moments of clarity aren't wasted. One of the requirements for the note though is that I talk to myself as if I'm talking to a loved one, whether family or friend. Then I try to keep those notes somewhere where I can easily access them, so I can reference them during difficult moments or urges. It's not fool proof, but it has been helping somewhat.
I know exactly what you’re feeling. I had this clarify every time I visited massage parlors and had sex with a worker. It’s horrible. I always felt ashamed walking out, knowing that this is NOT who I was. Especially as a married man who loves his wife and kids. Fight the good fight and start battling the dragon! Don’t let it consume you. One way I have found to be accountable is to start a daily journal in the journal forum, for myself and others to read. It’s been very effective to lay down my thoughts to a place that I can reflect on and go back to. Have you ever tired that?
What a great realization. I have found it really helpful for years to look at desire as the root of my acting out with PM+, from a non-judgmental place as was shared above. it’s like how all alcoholic beverages have ethyl alcohol in them: desire tends to accumulate for me, and if I have no way to let go of it, I will end up eventually acting on it. I found that the triggers and fantasies and minor things that build up into a major thing are hard to see as the cause of problematic sexual behaviors. Ppart of why it’s hard to see the link between lots of little “desire hits“ throughout many days and actual behaviors is my shame. Shame is an extremely strong feeling and prohibits rational thinking that’s why non-judgmental ism is so helpful. A big part of how I keep myself accountable to myself is I call other sex addicts and tell them about the many kinds of desire hits I experienced or noticed passing through my brain. This helps me practice principles like honesty, non-judgmentalism of self and accountability.. shame equates with a feeling of wanting to hide. So this practice is bravery in the face of my fear that I am a bad person. It also works towards radical acceptance. Over the years of continuing to focus on my addictive sexual behaviors, the desire that led to them and the shame underneath that I’ve started to believe that these thoughts are not so much a problem as unnecessary and risky to indulge. Basically, my brain is broken with regard to sex and I don’t ever want to trust it about this issue. It’s OK for my brain to be broken if a solution can reliably be applied every day.
This is my favorite line of your post. It shows the balance between acknowledging responsibility, but also recognizing your deeper desire for freedom. The reality is that addiction will always take us further than we intend to go. What you shared is very similar to my own experience. I've had dozens upon dozens of times where I had sex with random, virtually anonymous women. I distinctly remember being in the middle of a sexual encounter with a woman at a party, and she grabbed my face and said "what is your NAME?" In the moment, it seemed so hot and scandalous, but now I look back with some shame--I was having sex with a woman who's name I didn't even know. Many times, I wound up having sex with women I wasn't even attracted to, simply because they were there and they were willing. On more than one occasion I left encounters feeling thoroughly disgusted with myself for going through with it. It's important to remind yourself that addiction is fundamentally about brain chemistry, not about moral failure. It's easy to slip into self-hating comments like, "I'm disgusting / I'm such a pervert / I can't even control my own urges, so what kind of man am I / etc etc." You're dealing with a brain chemistry that's been hijacked by chronic euphoric experiences, and you just need to stay clean long enough for your brain to come back to a state of balance. You can get to a place in your brain where "post-nut clarity" is the type of clarity you feel all the time ... where you can trust yourself to make good decisions because you're not hopped up on the excitement of sexual intrigue and arousal.
