...but feel that my recovery has stalled a little. Yes, I've done my first step but guess I've slowed down a bit not having a sponser for a short while. So now I'm working on my second step and would like to get it done shortly. I have committed to spending atleast 15 minutes a day working on the handout I was given. I also need to get my Personal Craziness Index up and running again. And I need to get back into my 90 Day Focus workbook. These tools are the meat of my recovery. I also need to find the strength to go 90 days without masterbation. No excuses. I don't have to put it in my inner circle but I need to do the 90 days so that I can better experience my emotions and my reactions to those emotions. I need to have sex be disengaged as a release valve for my emotions. A positive side effect of this behavior should be me doing more journalling, which should only be good.
In just updating how I'm doing, I feel pretty good. I will set January 3rd as day one of my masterbation countdown. Yea! Only 86 or 87 more days! Okay, all I can worry about is keeping it today. Had a good session with Martha at our family meeting/counseling group. I feel positive about it because it is giving us some tools to work with but more importantly it is giving us things to talk about. It is giving us an opportunity to bond more and put more intimacy into our relationship. It's not a perfect relationship, not by any stretch, but it is on a good path right now. On the way to last night's meeting, we briefly talked about me doing a formal disclosure to Martha, with both of our therapists present. This would include a little more detail than initially disclosed to Martha as well as coming clean on anything that I haven't come clean on yet. The issue of coming completely clean scares the crap out of me. I've got to say it's been going on longer than I originally told her and I've got to disclose a financial cost to her. I hate to talk about money and I know that me telling her I was acting for 2 or 3 more years is going to hurt her. Yet I know in my heart that this is what I am wanting to happen. I want to have everything out on the table and move forward from there. Will our marriage be able to last through this disclosure? I don't know. The addict in me really doesn't care if it does. When I think about it without my addict, I'm still not sure. I've spent so much of my life not caring or sharing with others, that it hurts very much to do that. So not having someone around would be easier on the one hand. The other hand is that the freedom from a relationship would leave open a huge void in my life that would need to be filled. Hopefully I could find something positive to fill it with.
I spent about a half-hour yesterday morning talking to Kirk, from my Thursday night family group. He was really hurting and just needed to express himself. He felt very close to the edge of a cliff and that he just wanted to jump off and back into the abyss of his addiction. I got him to go to a meeting and then we headed off for a quick burger and talk a little more. He's married and has two kids and dearly loves them all. He's been to an inpatient center and got some peace and serenity there. But after being released and coming back home, real life and it's stressors have entered his life again. He's put his recovery books away in a box and put the box in a closet. He's not attending any 12 step meetings. Definitely feeling powerless over his addiction and problems and yet he still wants to tackle it all by himself. It's absolutely crazy how us addicts believe that we can handle everything by ourselves. Just fucking crazy. I'm not sure where bottom is going to be for him, but I felt that he was in a better place after talking to me and going to a meeting. He looked pretty good at Thursday nights meeting and made a point of making sure he hugged me after the meeting. I felt very good by my actions yesterday. I'm sure I didn't say all the right things. Hell, I know I didn't. But I know I gave a caring shoulder for him to put his burdens on for awhile, to lighten his load. I felt very empowered by my actions after talking to him yesterday morning. It was as though I could actually help someone. I haven't felt that in quite awhile.
So today I've put together a list of things to accomplish. Hopefully I'll get most of them done. If I don't, it won't be the end of the world. But for today I feel great.
No comments:
Post a Comment