I’ve been on this journey for years. Like many here, I’d get to like 20-30 days max, get fed up, relapse, etc. Finally in the beginning of 2022, I got fed up and sought out help from one of the top sex addiction therapy groups in New York City. I see a CSAT (certified sex addiction therapist) once a week where we work on wounded inner child issues. I go to one 12 step meeting per week. And I go to a group therapy session once per week also. So I have three days per week where I get the poison out, so to speak, and work on identifying my triggers and how to deal with life’s problems without PMO. I’m about 6 months in. I haven’t been sober this entire time but I’m finally at a point where it’s getting easy to abstain. I’m 25 days sober now and I’m more confident than ever that this will be the time that sticks. I wanted to ask this question because I don’t think I’ve ever seen 12 step meetings or CSATs discussed much on these forums. But I’ve come to realize that both are critical for kicking this. Porn addiction is an ADDICTION. Simply forcing yourself to abstain for 90 days through sheer willpower, assuming it even works, won’t be enough to kick it for the majority of us. just wanted to start the discussion and raise awareness.
I tried doing a few SAA meeting virtually last year but it was uncomfortable and didn't stick for me. I had trouble with the statement "giving myself over to a higher power." I do see benefits in the 12 step program, but I'm not sure if it is for me. I am interested however to hear how it has benefited others.
I can understand that. I thought it had a religious connotation at first and I’m very anti religion. What I’ve come to understand is that “higher power” just really means an “external power”. So that can be the meetings, a CSAT, or any sort of external healthy release or help. In other words, it’s admitting that sheer willpower in a vacuum isn’t enough.
Yeah I think finding that external power or greater purpose is something I'm currently struggling with.
I was thinking very recently how little SAA is mentioned on this forum. I've recently started hitting SAA meetings after 7years on the NoFAP recovery journey. NoFAP has brought me so far, but doesn't facilitate the 'scratching the surface', or 'getting the poison out' as @njob93 says. So far, it feels like more of a natural progression. Firstly just calls, but now face to face. So far, very positive impression after my initial reservations. You have people, in real life, not just words on a screen linked to a pseudonym, who seem intent on helping you to be better and keep sober. Like most things (such as PMO), the virtual or online world isn't a substitute for that real life interaction in my humble opinion. @Mr Morale the 'higher power' thing can be a difficult one to reconcile or gain your understanding of. I'm not fully there yet, but I believe in concepts such as 'faith', 'positive attraction' and 'collective consciousness', all of which can be interpreted as a higher power than yourself. I would recommend reading Recovery by Russell Brand; his translation of the steps and the higher power side of things really resonated for me. If dedicated, it sounds like it's a system that will work
Part of the problem is that many on this forum think it’s a “ silver bullet”. They do not treat this as a real addiction. Most do not want to hear that they cannot beat this on their own. Reality is that statistically only 5% will get into long term recovery, other addictions this number is closer to 30%. I’m sure there are many reasons why, but I’m positive that one of the biggest factors is that few can be brutally honest and seek outside help. They do not want to hear anything other than “ it’s ok, just keep trying”. My husband goes to 3 group meetings a week, two private and one saa. He sees a csat twice a month. He did emdr for trauma and neurofeedback for adhd . He went to two years of counseling for depression from a different counselor that specializes in that. His first priority is staying in recovery, because if he doesn’t do that he will lose everything else. He is over a year and a half clean ( he must take a polygraph if I think he’s lying). He started recovery about 4 years ago, he relapsed at a year clean then struggled for another year of slips and resets. The amount of work and change he has had to do is enormous. Both group and counseling have been imperative to his recovery.
@Psalm27:1my light I believe what you say when you say that it's the willingness to accept help from others, and the sheer amount of work that goes into recovery. We all have our live's and routines in place and recovery comes as a disruption to that, albeit a disruption that for some people is entirely necessary to prevent them from doing harm to themselves. I also previously saw a sex therapist to get me on my journey 7 years ago, after the initial breaking point. I am currently considering doing the same again in addition to the SAA meetings.
I think part of why you don’t see any of the 12 step groups mentioned much is that the people involved in them are less likely to be on here. The 12 step ideology tends to think of itself as the only solution and if it doesn’t work for you it’s because you weren’t really honest with yourself. They claim something like a 70% success rate after four years (they leave out the part where only 5% stay involved that long). The other part is it seems like a majority of the participants here are only interested in addressing the symptoms by way of temporary abstinence as opposed to treating the underlying causes that contribute to their maladaptive behaviour in the first place.
A 12 step group has been key for me to get that poison out. I go every week. I also met my AP there. I definitely wouldn’t have gotten this far without this AP. Just started seeing a therapist who works in sexual addiction recovery.
What do you mean by this? I'm trying to learn more about the 12 step program so any information you can provide would be helpful.
Went to 12-step group once; there were sex offenders ordered to attend by a court, guys who flash people on the subway, and people miles away from anything I could possibly relate to. Tried another one in a different part of the country and the guy running it was super religious and super controlling, demanding to know one's first and last name before they would deign to let you attend even one meeting as an observer. I have trouble with low-iq humans in general, sorry..."our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name" indeed. And holding hands, fuck that.
@Mr Morale, I should preface this by acknowledging that this is just conjecture on my part, I’m making a lot of generalisations and I don’t have any real data. I’m assuming that the posts I see are representative of the general population of members and realistically they probably aren’t. It seems to me that a significant portion of the posts I see on NoFap are people that are upset about PIED, or the fact that they can’t get a girlfriend. Their goal is just to abstain from P for 30, 60, or 90 days to fix that one problem and that’s it, back to the status quo. The totality of their self-improvement is to take a few cold showers and do push-ups when they feel an urge. In my case, and I assume for many others, the compulsive P and M is just a behaviour I learned to use to distract myself from the things I didn’t believe I could deal with. It became a crutch and because I was so accustomed to using that I never developed the skills I needed to live a healthy life. 12 step programmes do address this to some extent although their guidance consists mostly of anecdotes and platitudes. I see the real benefit of the 12 step groups as the community, structure, routine, the chance to be completely honest in a safe environment, and experience acceptance by a group who understand what you are experiencing. Oh, and it’s basically free and fairly accessible. If you have the means, go to a meeting and check it out. I don’t think it’ll hurt, but I don’t think it will be all you need to recover either. If you are interested in resources check out the Recovery Nation workshop. I think their model of addiction makes a lot of sense and the exercises are really through and well thought out. https://www.recoverynation.com/recovery/recovery_workshop_contents.php There is also SMART recovery. These exercises are based on scientific research and it is intentionally non-theistic. It is intended for any addiction, but they have a thread for sexual maladaptive behaviour. https://www.smartrecovery.org/
I can definitely relate to this. I feel like my problem isn't just with P, but a larger issue that plagues masculinity in general. I know that it is an addiction and that I should be treating it more like a real addiction despite what my friends and family say. Thank you for the resources!
@SnakeyWakey when you say Sounds like you had a particular bad experience from the 2 meetings. I guess the meetings will be somewhat subject to local cultural beliefs and practices. I live in a fairly liberal and young city, where the meeting has many porn addicts as far as I can tell, mostly young guys around my age. There are also multiple meetings with different crowds in my city, so if it were the case that I felt uncomfortable, there are other options. Even though the 12 steps are fairly clear, people are people and will interpret them differently I guess. @new socks I agree with a lot of what you said. There are parts of this forum and no doubt historic posts that deal with the 'spiritual growth' element of recovery, which ultimately the step meetings are trying to achieve. That 'scratching below the surface' part of it is tougher to face for most people i'd say based on, at least it has been for me. I guess maybe why therapy + 12 step isn't so widely mentioned on here
