Fourteen Steps Challenge

1/2

Couldn't agree more. It's like the inverse of the sunken cost fallacy - Just after a reset you don't have anything invested and therefore you are very prone to making an error.

 

Day 3/4 checking in.

 

Day 4/4 today!

Today is going to be a clean day again! I will be 7 days clean already! Really proud of myself

Going for step 5 tomorrow.

 

2/2, second step completed. Over to step 3!
0/3.

 

Step One done.

 

1/3. Having a low (total) counter value makes my mind echoing the words "you have nothing to lose, just one more time". Obviously the only right thing to do is to increase the counter value.

 

Same story here bro... going back to step 4 due to a reset... ashamed of myself, but this is the price we pay for having the courage to end our addiction... It will get better, it will get easier... We just have to keep on going, believe in ourselves and realize why and for whom we are doing this!

 

2/3.

Summarising the feeling is easy: Withdrawal. I wish I could go back. I must not forget what the last day of binging made me do: totally lose control. I binged for many hours that day and if I could, I wouldn't have stopped. So the withdrawal I feel is this sensation of continuing where I left off. How harmful can it be to look at some non-nude girls on the internet? I know the answer to that question myself, I just don't want to admit it.

 

1/4 again!
This week is going to be a clean week again.

 

Instead of just resetting the current step, wouldn't it be better to go back one step instead? One thing that is pretty common when one relapses is they just try over and over again, or even committing to a harder challenge. In my opinion, if you failed with the challenge, you need more milestones, not less.

 

3/3, over to step 4.
0/4

Yeah, I agree that it sounds good in theory, however, if you relapse that's a sign that the challenge you took was too hard. By going one step back, it would have similarities with feedback systems from control theory, which could have interesting feature of adapting itself to one's performance.

 

This is not ok. I relapsed. And it's already getting worse, I didn't just do M - i also used P! Something I haven't consumed for almost three years. Problem is, after this long time, I seem to have forgotten why I stopped. I also seem to have forgotten how much I changed when I stopped using P. I transformed myself to a whole new person... Nowadays, I take this person for granted. If I go back to the life I had three years ago, I will slowly transform myself back to the person I was before I stopped using P. As I obviously have forgotten what that means, I have to recall what decisions I made back then and why. I have to remember how I handled triggering moments and I have to redevelop the guard.

I knew this could happen, that has been my analysis all the time. If your motivation is high enough, you will develop a strong guard. If you fight hard to keep your guard up, you will eventually have a strong guard that you can rely on. Then the urges disappears and you can enjoy a life without any P and without any fight for staying away from it either. At this point, your guard starts to weaken as you don't need it anymore. Sooner or later, the guard won't be strong enough to withstand small temptations.

I don't want to fall back again. I will have to develop an action plan for handling this situation.

 

2/4

Getting back on track!

 

Thanks for the tip, that’s exactly what I need to do. I’m at home alone almost all the time. Have to figure out how to change that.