from A State of Grace
PORNOGRAPHY
In my early teens, I spent hours in fantasy and masturbation, the only means I had to express my feelings. That pattern of withdrawal from human contact and solitary concentration on sexual release... became a growing part of my active addiction. — SLAA Basic Text, Page 164
For many of us sex addicts, using pornography was such a large part of our disease that it ended up totally consuming us. We locked ourselves up in our rooms with the glow of a computer or a glossy magazine. We entered a different world to escape the one in which we felt we could not function. Pornography has the power to twist our personal ethics to fit into a mould that will produce the greatest addictive outcome.
Healing from the frequent use of this substance is a long process. Sometimes the images can pop back up when we are at our most vulnerable. Entering into recovery means realigning ourselves with the person we are without pornography. We no longer need to live that detached painful existence where we objectify and use images for our own selfish ends. We no longer torture our brains with those mind-numbing images, losing ourselves and our humanity in the process. Our identity will reveal itself as we continue the slow process of healing. We can live happy, fulfilling lives without our substance of choice. We can reform our identity to become the person we were always meant to be.
I am leading a new life of connection to others, attempting to treat everyone I meet with love and respect. I am beginning to know who I am without pornography. I look forward to getting to know the real me.
From Answers in the Heart
God alone can finish. — John Ruskin
We may have been brought up with the idea that we always had to finish something once begun — a meal, a painting, a piece of work, a letter. In many cases this went along with our notions of perfectionism: if something is going to be done, it must be done perfectly — the way Dad does it, or the teacher, or God. And so, especially if we liked to experiment a bit or dream, we felt we really didn’t measure up.
But many of the greatest artists — Leonardo, Cézanne, Picasso — left work unfinished, as if to show the margin between impossible perfection and their own striving. What mattered was the effort and the process and the struggle. Each viewer of an unfinished picture could, by responding to the work’s creative urging with her or his imagination, fulfill the process.
Our lives are never finished — at least until we can no longer add any final touches. We are always in a process of change and becoming. That is why we keep taking the Steps in our program over and over — to remind us that our lives are journeys, always in the act of unfolding.
I feel relaxed when I view my life as an ongoing creative process rather than as a perfect work of art.
Daily Meditation Books
Answers in the Heart - daily meditations for people recovering from sex addiction
Touchstones - daily meditations for recovering men A State of Grace - daily meditations by SLAA members
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