9 months PM Free!

Technically this post is for tomorrow when (God willing) I will hit 9 months (270 days) of sobriety. There's a bit of allegorizing here, but living in a p-fog for so long really caused the lines of reality and fantasy to blur.

Recently I've been remembering that small part of myself which, in the depths of addiction and depression, held on to hope that someday I would be free of it.

At times, I think it was the dastardly plan of my addicted self to allow just a little hope to creep in, and then dash it to pieces with a relapse- an almost irresistible means of ensuring that the shackles would never completely come off.

Yet in spite of depression, hopelessness, shame, fear, and suffering, that small part of me managed to cling to a thread of hope that some day I would be free! I waited for many years going through the horrible cycle of relapse, shame, resolve and relapse, seemingly helpless to escape; but then a crisis birthed a miracle in my life. This crisis caused the door of my prison to crack open just for a moment of time... long enough to develop an escape plan and make good on it.

Now, I am living that dream! Still in the prison, but out of the dungeon and heading up the stairs to the exit, I am pressing toward a goal of one year PM-free. This may be the last opportunity in my lifetime to reclaim what has been lost, and I cannot let it slip by.

Do not give up hope, friends. Wait for your moment, and when it arrives, seize the day!

 

For me, the key things to have been "easy to say, but hard to do":

1) Having a strong "why" to start off
2) Making recovery #1 priority in my life
3) Learning how to control my thoughts moment by moment (probably the hardest thing to do)
4) Understanding the things in my past that I have been using porn to bury and/or medicate (also difficult)
5) Dealing with those past hurts/hangups and letting them go

I can think of specific times in the last 8 months when each of these things have happened; and every time I got through it, the foundation for long term recovery became more solid.

Best luck in your journey- If you did 6 months before, you have a pretty good base to build on this year.

 

You nailed it! Dealing with the past has been one of the key aspects of my recovery

 

Hey- sorry for the late reply. Sometimes I can't keep track of all that is going on here.

I started out with an accountability partner for the first 2-3 weeks, but then they disappeared without any explanation. The rest of it has been on my own.