How I Slip

While I may not know exactly why I slip time and time again—as I did again last night —I have a pretty good sense about how it happens. Yesterday, I was working at a bookstore where I work from time to time to fill in the gaps. It’s a pretty mellow job and it allows me time to browse through books and magazines. I picked up a foreign issue of a photo magazine that I know always has female nudes in it. While not pornographic, the pictures can still be quite triggering. This activity is in my middle circle. I almost always spend some time in the middle circle before I visit the inner circle. (For more information about the Circles, see the 4.1.06 entry)

Often at times like those I feel that I am immune. Why I think that I can look at nudes with impunity—at this incipient stage of recovery—I don’t know. At other times, like yesterday, I know that I’m not immune but I don’t care. I’m feeling a bit down and I want a “hit.” Often it is the extremes of emotion which drive me towards my addiction. I feel really good or I feel like crap. When I feel really good, acting out seems like a kind of celebration. But when I’m feeling good AND I’m not sitting at the computer already, I don’t think about going there to act out. I can usually find something else to do if I’m not engaged with something already. But when I’m feeling crappy, I often feel compelled to escape the feeling with my favorite drug—Porn. It is an extremely effective mood shifter. My troubles vaporize as I disappear into porn oblivion. There is an incredible sense of focus which blocks out everything else. There is a timelessness that I slip into.

As I am writing this, I am getting a bit triggered. That is the double-edged sword of writing this way. Perhaps I should write longhand in a journal and then transcribe it. I’ll have to give that some thought. The thing about Porn, and the reason I keep coming back again and again, is that it works more effectively to lift my mood than anything else. Not only does it lift my mood but it brings me intense pleasure. The search for the new material is like the treasure hunt to the child. There is pleasure in the anticipation and pleasure in the hunt. The interesting thing is that despite the amount of the porn on the Internet, sometime I can’t find the really satisfying new stuff.

That’s when I think that I need to get more creative in my searching OR pay good money which I am loathe to do. So, surfing for porn becomes a kind of game to find the “good stuff” for free. Somehow that makes it more satisfying and I sometimes feel like I’ve “beat the system.” But the cost is usually in time spent. Rarely do I spend less than a few hours looking at porn and there have been many times when I’ve gone 4, 5 or even 6 hours at a stretch. There are SO MANY better ways to spend my time but I never get into regret while I am acting out. In fact, I also drop my judgments about it. It is pure indulgence.

Besides the emotional factors, it is my core beliefs that drive me to act out. The number one belief is that somehow I am not enough. This may be situational: I’m feeling awkward in this group of people, or it may be a personal belief: I’m not funny. In some way I don’t measure up to the imaginary ideal that I’ve created. This dissatisfaction, which is usually about myself, creates disharmony and anxiety. In some way I don’t accept myself or the situation. I have the belief that if I could be unconditionally accepting of myself or the situation that I could break out of this pattern. The problem is that I think there are sub-conscious or un-conscious beliefs at work that I have yet to uncover.