I am coming up on 90 days now from acting out in my porn addiction. I have made it longer before, and I hope to make it longer this time also. Perhaps never again. That is my hope, taking it a day at a time. I had one fall after getting to what I thought was my 7th step of giving it all up. And so I think that I am on my 8th step now.
Trying to do the 8th step has been a time of reflection of how my addiction might have affected myself and others. Porn is a fairly easy habit to hide. My wife suspected things but never really knew for sure until she found my journals. And just like it is easy to hide the behavior from others, it is also easy to hide the long term effects from me, it seems, as well as how it might have affectd others. One thing that I needed to overcome this beast was professional counseling. But when I look over my journals, I realize that I rejected professional counseling about 20 years ago because it was too expensive and I wanted to champion the cause that recovery should be for anyone even if they could not afford a therapist. So some misguided frugality and misguided altruism allowed me to wallow in my addiction for another 20 years or so.
Some write in the program that they are thankful for what they have learned through their addiction. But I would like to extend a saying that I have heard and say that "It's never to late to stop an addiction, but it's also never too early". What I learned from going through this - my need for God, greater humility, greater discipline, greater empathy and thoughtfulness - could have been learned without my addiction. And, in truth, probably much better. I am thankful that I have, by God's grace, finally learned these things to some degree. And apparently it took my addiction to learn them. But I look forward now to learning those things in a more and more refined way - as a "sober" (i.e., no porn) follower of my God - what I wished that I had learned more than 20 years ago. But I will always agree that - it is never too late, and I will be thankful for this day that my God has given me.
Tags: Reflective
