Escort relapse after 1yr undefeated

Hi @UkWarrior22, focus on the one year escort free which is a great achievement. A relapse hurts for sure but it cannot take away the many sober days. Interesting is that you set a goal of a year, passed that then the relapse happened. Could it be that after you achieved your goal there was no more clear intention to stay away from escorts?

 

This is an ongoing process that doesn't get resolved in one year. If the behavior is linked to trauma, you need to keep working on it. A support group or ongoing therapy can help - but not all therapists can deal with sexual trauma so it helps to work with someone trained in that area.

 

I always say the main problem with hiring a prostitute is that a prostitute gets richer. its a moral issue mainly, more than "I failed" thing. Anyways you can make a firm resolve now, now that the bad feelings are fresh, so promise yourself you'll avoid creating situations, which create this very bad feelings!

 

I walked into a massage parlor and paid a provider for sex after almost 300 days of sobriety from P and MB. The learning experience for me was that I had to stop paying attention to my behaviors, and I had to start paying more attention to what was going on in my own brain. Because for most of those days, I was just white-knuckling it. I was craving everyday. And what I didn't realize is how important it was for me to gauge what I was entertaining my mind and eyes with. I may have been avoiding porn, but I was still thinking about it. A lot! And I still wasn't demonstrating custody of my eyes. Allowing my mind and my eyes to go wherever they pleased with no restraint, I was unknowingly heating up my brain and keeping myself in a state of craving.
Looking back, on many days I was actually compensating for the lack of porn and MB, by fantasizing and lusting more. I was still giving myself a dopamine fix. A Psub. Thus, the more I fantasized, the more I fantasized. The more I lusted, the more I lusted.
The more I craved, the more I craved.
And I realized that in order for the cravings to stop, I had to stop the craving.

So it's not enough for me to just stop the behaviors. My mind and my eyes are fragile. And I need to be very careful on what I expose them to. If a recovering alcoholic could simply get drunk just by looking at or thinking about the bottle, then that person is just simply going to have to stop looking at or thinking about the bottle.

The easiest way for me has been (with the help of God) to clean up my inside so that my outside would be clean.
As opposed to cleaning up my outside hoping that some of that cleanliness would rub off on the inside.

 

Well said.

Same thing for me. I’ve had to focus on changing what I think about and not giving the lustful thoughts any real estate in my mental world. If I let them linger for a while and plant their roots, it’s much harder to eradicate. But still possible.

 

You’ve just nailed it so well!! And that’s the harder journey!!

 

Thank you. But I need to dispell some brainwashing that all of us have been victims of. The truth is I didn't choose the harder journey. I actually, finally chose the easier one. I'll reiterate this again.

 

I like the way that @KevinesKay and @Bradziggler1990 stated it. I also believe a crucial factor in your relapse was not setting a new goal. As you approached success on your goal of one year clean, I think that setting another achievable, but a "stretch" goal (somewhat challenging) goal would be important.

I heard a lecture many years ago about the brain and behavior that addresses this very issue but, was not regarding sexual behaviors. The gist of the lecture was that any goal needs to be replaced with a new one prior to or immediately after achieving the intended goal. This could be that you want to learn to play guitar and set an initial goal of learning some fundamental chords, when you are just about there, set a new goal of learning a particular song, etc. This keeps the mind engaged/focused. Of course if you don't want to learn guitar any more then, you find something else. This progressive goal setting is true in all life's realms: physical, mental (learning), diet, exercise, spiritual, interpersonal relationships and so on. And, I am very glad this subject came up because, I also need to follow this philosophy, I've let many goals in my life slip through my hands by not following this protocol.

Anyway, Best Wishes and I think that you should still reflect on your one-year success and be happy with that. And then look ahead to your next success because you are on a positive path to heal yourself.

 

Yes. I lost 11 months when a woman I knew made herself available to me on a trip. I must do the work to not only change the behavior but change my mindset about the behavior. The mindset is the hard part.

 

me me me …