So, It’s now officially day 5…
Yeah. I’m excited that today is day 5. Things are going pretty well. I ran into one of my old friends who expects “more” of me and I totally didn’t give in. Which is saying a lot for me, because seriously. I love this man. I don’t care that he really only gives me the time of day when I can give him what he wants–I love him anyway. We’re talking like the kind of love that makes me want to marry him more than any other guy I’ve ever met. No joke. But duh–God has someone better in store for me than this guy who treats me like crap and uses me. I just like the attention I think–even if I have to do certain things to get that attention. But like I heard about the other day on a LifeChurch podcast. The best thing to do in a dangerous situation is to run for your life, because it really is my life that is at stake here. So…all things considered. I’m glad I did what I did because it was the right thing. It made me feel really good too. Better than all of those ‘highs’ that I have been looking for for so long.
Things are going really well right now. My best friend and I are keeping each other accountable in the areas that we are each struggling in. It is helping me a lot, and it is really helping us grow closer which is awesome.
Good news. I am enjoying music again (I find that when I’m surrounded by crap I hate music, even though it is one of my biggest passtions). I am also happy again. Laughing again. Walking with my head held high again. Sleeping soundly again. Having fun with my friends again. I like this a lot. It’s still hard, but the rewards are SSSOOO much better that what I am giving up.
Ciao friends!
Day Three begins.
As I woke up this morning, I realized that today is day three of my ninety days. That is cool…except that last night I already messed up.
I was online, filling out a form for a scholarship when all of the sudden, my head started filling with images that I have seen in the past. They made me want to go look and find them again. I told my head ‘no’. But then my mouth started talking (to myself of course). “You know you want to do it.” “You know it makes you feel good”…and other things of the like until it was almost like I didn’t even have control over myself anymore. My hands typed in the web address faster than I knew I could typed and within seconds I was there. Watching my drug of choice. I guess determination really isn’t enough to keep me away from the pornography that is so easily locateable. So. I downloaded some accontability software that tracks the websites I go to…and I put my best friend on it.
Day three. I’m ready for it.
For anyone who may read this that has trouble with pornography and you want to stop…I highly reccommend X3 Watch. It is free and you can download it at xxxchurch.com. You put in the e-mail addreesses of friends who you want to keep you accountable about what sites you visit on the internet and it will send them an update e-mail every 2 or 4 weeks. I highly reccommend it.
Here I go….
I’ll just start with the basics right now. Be warned, my addiction is of a sexual nature, so if that bothers you then just stop reading now.
It all started on my high school graduation night. I was 17. She was 15. We were the best of girl friends and she had told me that she wanted to try something new with me that night. I was excited, and I kind of knew what she meant, but I wasn’t positive. Yeah, she totally meant sex. But I was perfectly okay with it. I liked it.
The next day, I was checking my e-mail and I a pop-up came up on my computer for a lesbian porn site. Intruiged, I followed the link. The vicious cycle began. At first, I only looked at pornography once every few days or so…but within two weeks time I was looking every day. By the time the month was out, all of my free time was consumed by pornography–straight, lesbian, threesomes…whatever I could find. During this time, I found a site that had adult personals, porn, and chat all on the same site and it was free…so I totally joined. I probably visited that site every day for hours upon hours…I would ‘go to bed’ early and then get up after my family had all gone to sleep for the night then I woulud get up and spend the rest of the night on my computer. At first I just thought it was my own dirty little secret. But before the summer was out, I had come to the point where I couldn’t sleep at night without porn, and when I wasn’t near my computer, I was thinking about it constantly–replaying the images in my head. Even though my ‘secret life’ of pornography and cyber sex completely controlled my life, I refused to admit that I had a problem. Pornography controlled my life for over 6 months before I finally admitted that I had a problem.
Like most any addict, I figured that I could control it on my own and so I just kept things to myself. Then about a month later, I finally admitted to some close friends that I was addicted to porn. They helped me by keeping me accountable and praying with me, and I cleaned up my life for more than three months. Then one day I slipped up. But it was just once, and so I just kind of brushed it off as being nothing. Then I kept going back, again and again. But I managed to get things under control before the end of the school year and so once again, I was more or less ‘clean’ for the entirety of the summer of 2006.
During that time, I was an intern at a Christian organization and I hadthe opportunity to travel with them to several different places. It was the experience of a lifetime and I came home on somewhat of an emotional high. It is my experience that when I experience an emotional high like that, once I come off of the high I end up being somewhat depressed and so I have learned to prepare myself for that depression. But this year it snuck up on me in a different way. I cam home, spent time with my family and friends, but much to my surprise the depression didn’t come….At least not until almost three weeks later when it hit me big time. I just wanted to spend all of my time alone in bed. And if I HAD to get out of bed, all I wanted to do was to sit down with my computer and watch porn and have cyber sex. So I did just that. For three entire weeks, that was virtually all I did. My computer was never off of ‘my’ porn site unless I was in class or at work. And when I was in those places, my ‘home life’ was all that I could think about. I would get off work or out of class and practically run to my car, just so I could get home that much faster and be with my beloved fix once again.
Now here I am. Those three weeks I mentioned earlier? Yeah, yesterday was three weeks. And yesterday was the day that I decided to give up pornography and cyber sex for 90 days. For those of you who aren’t aware–ninety days is a freak nasty long time. That puts me to the first day of December. It’s going to be hard, I know that. But Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do. So here I go….
