Another reboot

Made it a week today!
Fuck it, I am going to celebrate even though I hate congratulating myself. The difference this time is that I am facing the "shadow" by working with a co-sponsor doing "12 step".
Also, decided to welcome misery. Pain, misery, suffering and loneliness! These are all in the mind, and my plan is to invite these into my life so I can talk to them, reason with them and maybe become friends with them. Temporary insanity...I hope it's only temporary, I could go crazy and just stay that way, as long as porn/pot/alcohol are no longer part of my life, then I will welcome anything...yes, craziness, insanity...whatever FUCK IT!!!!!

 

Porn, weed and booze. For me, all of these have been a crutch in my life, especially porn. And when I say porn, I mean fantasies in the mind. Obviously modern pornographic videos enhance these fantasies, but I don't need them. I could fantasize all day long without any form of media, whether video or hard print, doesn't matter. So, ultimately it's in the mind, isn't it? I choose to think ponder, fantasize about whatever I want. It always starts in my mind, and the triggers can be anything. I could hit my head against a door threshold....trigger! It's crazy, just about anything could be a trigger. 12 step programs teach us to define our "higher power", so that this "higher power" can guide us. You can call it God if you like, or Krishna, or Jesus, or Odin, or the Universe...don't matter. I haven't come up with a suitable name yet, but mine is basically the "Great Spirit" and the Great Spirit tells me that porn is useless. I am a romantic at heart, but I have a shadow persona, and that shadow persona enjoys bondage porn, so I am facing this shadow, transforming the shadow, integrating the shadow...so that I can become a whole person again!

 

The emotional ups and downs are crazy. Total sobriety is crazy. Numbing the mind with porn and drugs is just that: numbness. Sanity is craziness. Sanity is riding the through the turmoil of life in a fully aware state. Sobriety equals sanity, but what exactly is sanity? What is natural? When I don't numb myself with porn or drugs, I have to use other means of slowing the mind...meditation or prayer, simplifying my life, which means prioritizing. Doing one task at a time and totally focusing on that task, no matter what it is...sweeping the floor or digging a ditch or writing in my journal. Life is fucking crazy!!!

 

Learning to act rather than react is a game changer. Porn use has always been a reaction for me. A reaction to stress in various forms. Most of the time it's involving people, relationships. Honestly, I could probably live a monastic life, free from the busy doings of modern survival...anything involving money, career or social norms is so damned depressing to me. Aspirations? I have none. Getting in touch with my emotions, having compassion for my neighbors, being happy...these are all foreign concepts to me. I do suffer from a form of melancholic romanticism, that is the best way to describe it I think, a perpetual depressed state, a longing to be freed from the cycle of human existence!
Is this who I am or is my character simply a product of accumulated experiences and memories? How many lifetimes of memories? Delving into the psyche, the world of dreams and subconscious tendencies, what do I discover? I discover a form of archetypal man that has lived through the ages and manifested itself in random acts of adventure and mystery. So, how do I act in accordance with the inner man of bygone lore and myth? The superhero, the warrior, the explorer of the unknown? I must transcend this modern state of humanity and re-connect with sun god, the ancient priesthood of the mystery religions...not in Hollywood movies, but in the matrix of actual existence!

 

30 years ago I tried a committed relationship, 20 years ago I tried religion, 15 years ago I tried moving to another state, 3 years ago I tried Alcoholics Anonymous. Nothing helped with my porn addiction. This is the most stubborn mother fucking addiction. Now I am diving into the subconscious. My aim is to reconnect with the so-called inner child, the true self, the dreamer, the god man, the divine spirit of the universe. Of course, this journey isn't a popular one because it doesn't fit into societal norms. The danger is either going crazy or not surviving, but so far, it's quite exciting and is far more interesting than watching porn and masturbating. Where is this journey going to lead me? My hope is that I will become a true mystic and somehow be able to still earn money and make a decent living, but my future is so uncertain right now...as long as I don't succumb to porn, that is all that matters, even if I die in the process, so what, I'll die knowing that I beat this addiction.

 

Honestly, I would become a drunk or a stoner again if it meant that I would never engage in PMO again. It seems like anything could be a trigger. Life is a trigger! Yesterday was a trigger!
What I've discovered is that PMO is a result of being stuck in a boy's mind. We are boys in men's bodies!
It is a perversion or "shadow" element of the "Lover" archetype, according to Freudian theory. We are stuck in a rut. In my case, my preference for bondage porn has been an attempt to "bind" the female influence, to conquer it, to slay the "she-dragon", to overcome the maternal dominance in my life. The shadow work I have been doing is quite illuminating. Culturally, there is a severe male dominance issue going on in the collective psyche, that is manifesting itself in porn big time. Our modern society is fucked up in other words.
What we must do is reconnect to the other archetypes in order to balance things out. The King, the Warrior and the Magician are the other three male energies that must be merged with the "Lover".
My father was basically weak and absent in my family, so the mother became this overbearing dominant force that I had to conquer, and here I am, fifty years old, just now discovering the source of my PMO addiction.
I've had some sleepless nights and strange dreams for sure.

 

Dopamine.
They say it's all about neurotransmitters. They say that addiction is a disease in itself, that anyone, regardless of social status, upbringing, genetic disposition etc. can be a victim of addiction.
The modern world we live in is full of addictive enticements. So what is the "antidote" to compulsive behavior? I think it's balance. Too much of anything is not good, just the right amount is good. But obviously some things are not good at all, like the endless cycle of PMO.
What is the definition of addiction? It's the continual behavior of a person despite that behavior causing harm.
Who determines if a certain behavior causes harm?
Also, if a certain behavior causes harm to myself, does it automatically affect the world and people around me in a harmful way? I think so, yes.