The battle

The battle is fought at the first thought. It seems to me that together usually come to me and when I try not to think about things I think about them more. But I do seem to be able to have a say in where my attention goes, by doing things like taking about my thoughts with other sober pm+ addicts, cultivating positive thoughts about people who I had selfish thoughts about, thinking how I can be helpful to anyone in the world, the more the better. Those things keep me busy forever, and while I am busy the cocaine of desire towards people I was triggered by runs its course through my body and mind until there is relief. And the focus on the positive doesn't have to stop when I get relief I can pour it on for my increased happiness, stability and helpfulness to others. As humans we all get what I call "screw in my shoe syndrome" which I have an old post about. But I learned to work harder on my recovery when things are going bad and work harder on my recovery when things are going good
Back to the main point, a thought is just a thought the reason I say that's where the battle is fought is because of experience. I never once did anything sexual (masturbation in many forms and places, selfish sex etc) without thinking about it first, usually I thought about sex A LOT before acting on those thoughts. And there was every permutation like "think a little, two days later do what you thought about" out "think a lot then early next day do exactly what you thought about" and every other variation. But there was always thinking. So the idea is like with a drinker: you can't possibly get drunk if you never take a single drink . And just like with drinking my head will immediately jump in to say "well there's nothing wrong with one little drink, I'm a grown man for gods sake!" And the great news is it's not about it needing to be wrong it's just that it doesn't work for me. For me thinking selfishly about sex doesn't feel good and eventually leads to the stuff that is takes about on this site.