Wow! This point system seems a great way of getting things done & not giving into the impulse. Very important lesson learnt!
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it’s time for me to give an update.
In January, my wife found my smartphone after I kept it secret from her for 2 years.
I play dumb. I lie and say I don’t know anything about it. that I just found it downstairs and decided to charge it up to see whose it might be.
So she takes the cellphone for herself. My family tries to hack into it unsuccessfully. I still play dumb saying I didn’t know the password. Not even resetting the phone would work because my Lock Me Out app was still running (Cannot access settings while it’s running)
Meanwhile, on the way to my balloon twisting gig, I purchase another phone. I use it for Square when people want to tip when they have no cash. I cannot say that I remained sexually sober. I would cheat my locks.
But then, a month later, she finds my new smartphone on me. I confess that I kept it from her for months (lie). That I’ve only been using it for Square at my gigs (another lie). She goes along with me mentioning that if I needed the phone for Square then I could have told her. So I’m allowed to keep the phone for that purpose. At this time, full locks are on it with no breaks.
But what do I do? Since I cannot act out on my new smartphone, I go to Target and buy a cheap Fire tablet. And I binge on porn every night after work. I do this for about 2 months.
And then I have a moment of clarity and throw the Fire tablet away.
I’ve been sexually sober ever since.
I’m really out of control. And I’ve lost some hope. No, I’m not giving up! I will always be striving for progress. That, I know.
But part of me figures that I’m doomed to live a life of periodic relapse. Sober for a month, relapse. Sober for three, relapse. Sober for a week, relapse. Sober for a year, relapse…
Maybe this is as good as it gets. 
. Still better than acting full blown in my addiction.
One thing I know for sure, I can never, ever trust myself on the internet again for the rest of my life. If free porn is accessible on my computer or phone, that’s it! I’m going to take a hit.
As I’m reviewing this post, I feel like such a slimeball.
Don’t feel comfortable sharing my length of sobriety now. Maybe someday. I can say that I’m sober today and that’s all I can worry about. Can’t do much about the past nor can I promise anything about tomorrow.
But I do feel safe in my home. I’m reparenting myself. I have good enough boundaries in my life to ensure that if I want to act out with pornography, I will have to get a new device.
I need that because I’ll say it again. I am weak. I’m powerless. My addiction is much stronger than me and I cannot fight it.
Still there is that glimmer of hope within me because whatever miniscule length of sobriety that I have is the longest I’ve had in over a year.
Thank you everyone. I’ll keep coming back. You can count on that.
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Sitting in church right now. One of my sons procrastinated while in the shower. He does that to get out of church. Made half the family wait until he was done with the bathroom. So only to three of us could make it to church this morning. The other four will wait until afternoon service. Great start for Easter Sunday. 
Feels good to be sober today in church. At least I got that going for me.
Happy sober Easter everyone.
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Hi @FighterForever100. And welcome. You’re doing some good stuff there.
I have not worked on a to-do list for a few months. Feeling overwhelmed due to my busy schedule. But I think I’ll start again but small. I’ll start with brushing and flossing my teeth. Need to do it twice a day. Last week I was at the dentist to fix 3 cavities.
My wife has perfect teeth. She’s taken good care of them. Our dentist, who is Korean, said to her that she gets an A+. Then he mentioned to her in his broken English, “Your husband, he did not pass.”
Ha. Ha
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I agree. Making too elaborate to-dos tend to make you want to escape or procrastinate. Starting with a simple task for a very minimum duration each day is a very good way.
When I was devouring one novel after the other other in my 3rd year of med school, I used to tell myself I’d look at the book for just 5 minutes atleast. 5 min in 24 hrs 
. It helped. And that motivated me to take the sobriety step once & for all.
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I missed flossing and brushing my teeth last night. So that’s only one point for the day. I did it this morning though, and hopefully, I won’t forget again tonight.
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I’ve been flossing and brushing my teeth every morning, but I keep forgetting at night. Only did it once this week so far. I’ll set an alarm and see if that helps.
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Last Friday I’m walking our dog, Harley.
We rescued him after our neighbors couldn’t handle him. He would escape and get lost. And the neighbors loved him, but they weren’t home enough. So he would mess up the house and run away.
We’ve had him for a few years now. I’m not a pet person, but my wife and daughter, Natty are. Here is his picture.
So last Friday, I’m walking Harley and we run into his previous owners. They point out to me that there are a bunch of emergency vehicles across the lake that we live next to. We fear the worst. That someone drowned in the lake.
Sure enough, we hear in the news that 2 boys, ages 11 and 9, went out on a paddle boat that night. The water was rough so they should not have been out there. Anyway, the boat capsized, and the boys screamed for help. A nearby fisherman came by and rescued the 11 year old. However, he could not recover the younger one. So the police searched most of the night and continued in the morning. They finally recovered his body on noon the next day.
The fire department decided to have a fundraiser on Monday. And my wife offered her face painting services for the event. They refused, concerned that face painting would not be appropriate for this time. So my wife chose to do her own face painting fundraiser at our house. She gets some people, just a few. But later the parents and the family of the boy stop by to thank her. There are 4 daughters in the family. He was the only son. He was good friends with the neighbor boy that was with him when he drowned. The mother was not aware that they took a paddle boat out in the water.
My wife face painted the 3 younger sisters and hit it off with the family. They are Puerto Rican and so is my wife. They invited my wife to the memorial service on Wednesday. That would have been his 10th birthday. They were going to have a big party for him on Sunday, but instead, they’re mourning his death.
Our church set up another memorial service with food on Friday, yesterday. My wife has been gathering commitments from restaurants to provide meals for the family. The family is leaving today to go to Florida to have him buried there. They’ve only lived in Wauconda, IL for one year.
So my wife offered to care for their dog, China, for the next two weeks. China is a big 1 year old German Shepherd. And she wants to eat Harley and Lucy, our Chihuahua, and our 2 turtles, and our 3 birds, and our 8 guinea pigs.
Here’s a picture of her.
But there’s more. My wife and daughters and staying at a hotel for a church event. So I stayed at home by myself caring for the dogs. I’ll reiterate, I’m not a pet person.
But being at home by myself has it’s challenges. I could have acted out and I thought about it. I’m always craving. They left the TV on. I turned it off. Against my boundaries to watch it alone. Then I found my original smartphone still in the drawer where we left it. Locks were not set. So I reset them. I noticed that my daughter, Abigail, left her phone behind. It’s not a smartphone, but it’s still a 3G phone. Had to pick up my son from work and drop another one off to work so I didn’t have time to inspect it. Resolved to turn it over to my son when I return.
But instead, I go to bed. It’s 11:30Pm when I get home. I’m tired. I slept, but I still had a lot of cravings. Didn’t brush or floss my teeth that night.
Wake up at 5:30AM. My other son is done with work. He needs a ride. Before I head out, I check Abby’s phone. Yep! I can access the internet with it. 3G phones are the devil. If data is turned on, there is no way to block the porn. I could have acted out all night. Glad I didn’t. I will encourage Abby to password protect her phone today.
Wasted an hour skimming through the Friday Night thread. Didn’t floss my teeth this morning. I’m losing control.
Recently read a post from @Zuz_Anna on not being perfect. Thanks! That’s definitely me. Friday was not a perfect night, but I’m still sober and I’m gonna take it.
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You started a thread that got everyone sharing their two cents.
Why do we relapse?
Of course, we want to know what we can do to keep from relapsing.
And for me, I’ve been thinking about how that applies to me.
For a bit, I thought my program was solid. Had sobriety for over a year at times. Thought I could keep doing the same things that worked before and get results. Wrong!
The fact is sometimes my addict just wants me to feel good. And yeah, the feeling, for a moment, makes me feel better than anything in the world. Those moments of unclarity trump everything I’ve done days or months before.
And I still lack strength. Can’t do this on my own. And during my stretches of sobriety, I still have had moments where my higher power miraculously intervened and I didn’t act out. So I really can’t take credit for any of my sobriety. It’s pretty humbling to accept that I don’t have any control.
I’m certain that all of us here can recall similar events in our lives where we weren’t sober on our own. God, as we understood God, showed up in a big way. And if that didn’t happen, relapse would have occurred.
Who here among us has demonstrated 100% clarity, 100% of the time. Anybody? No, I didn’t think so.
Yeah, I still do my part. I set boundaries, reach out for help, take good care of myself, whatever I can do. But God ultimately, provides me the gift of sobriety. And if I don’t get it, than God must want me to learn something.
But by the grace of God go I.
We suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.
I have to admire your resolve to work on this area being that you’re so young. Glad to have you with us.
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Sunday, June 26, 2019
Prayer 1
Bible 1
Worship
Floss teeth 2
Clean 1
Workout
Family 1
Forum 1
Outreach
App
Wife 1
8 points today
Monday, June 27, 2019
Prayer 1
Bible 1
Worship
Floss teeth 2
Clean 1
Workout
Family 1
Forum 1
Outreach
App
Wife
7 points today
Love challenge Sunday June 26th 2019
Tell wife I love her 1
Give compliment 1
Avoid negative 1
Unexpected kind 1
Call from work
Special greet 1
Pray w/ her 1
Monday June 27th 2019 love challenge
Tell wife I love her 1
Give compliment 1
Avoid negative
Unexpected kind 1
Call from work
Special greet 1
Pray w/ her 1
I have been craving so much these last few days. White knuckling it? Yeah.
Hey, I really don’t care how I get sober right now.
But this is unusual from previous sobriety periods of mine because in the past years, I’ve had less struggle because I did a better job of taking care of myself.
Now I’m a lot more busier working two jobs having less sleep; harder to do this but I know that it has an impact.
@TMAC, you called me out on it
And I’ve learned a lot about myself over these past 70 days of sobriety, and it’s been a hard 70 days.
One thing I learned is that my middle circle boundaries are AWESOME. Yep. There could have been at least a couple of dozen times which I really really really wanted to act out so bad just like right now and I didn’t because porn is not within my arms reach. I’m going to have to spend money or go out of my way to act out and so that gives me a chance to stop myself despite the fact that I have every bone in my body saying I was just want to feel good and get high. Choosing recovery and sobriety, but it’s not fun.
As you see, I’ve started to incorporate my to do list back into my recovery. This time instead of recording it by the week, I’m tracking by the day hoping for better results. And so far, I’ve had a really good 2 days when it comes to taking care of myself. Seven points, by the way, is a really good score on my to-do list. certain things are on there that I might not get to for a while such as working out or working on that app that I’ve wanted to work on for so long.
I’m just too busy, but I do feel that it’s important to keep those on there because down the road, I’d like to work on those.
And maybe just a good defense is a good offense, and maybe then, sobriety won’t be as difficult. Thanks everyone
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What a good streak you have @KevinesKay!!! My most heartfelt congratulations. Thank you for sharing all the process and the struggles 
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Thank you Thomas. You’re having a good streak yourself. 80 days. Job well done!
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To-Do list May 28, 2019
Prayer 1
Bible 1
Worship
Floss teeth 1
Clean
Workout
Family 1
Forum 1
Outreach
App
Wife 2
Love Challenge
Tell wife I love her 1
Give compliment 1
Avoid negative
Unexpected kind 1
Call from work
Special greet
Pray w/ her
So my To-Do list suffered a little yesterday. Love Challenge didn’t go well at all. But God stepped in and my wife and I had an intimate moment. And that was huge. Thank you, Lord.
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I am approaching milestone month. What does that mean? Well, I’m almost to 90 days, and then 100. And then the next milestone is at 120 days. That milestone is significant because when I first became a member of this forum, I was able to achieve 115 days of sobriety. And then I relapsed and went AWOL from this community for about 18 months.
Sobriety was easier then, unless I was lying in my posts. A lot more white knuckling this time. But I’m sober, and I’m gonna take it. Feel safe right now. I have hope.
Because of these milestones, though, I’m not expecting the next month to be a cakewalk. I’m expecting for some of these days that I will be lacking clarity.
That 18 month binge of mine really concerns me. I mean, one day I’m looking good, getting sobriety. Appears that I’m stable. Then the following day, I act out. A major Screw it moment.
@Yoda-Stevie,
I remember you shared that you always have one more drink in you. But that you don’t know if you have another quit in you.
For me, if I wind up relapsing, how long will it take for me before I get myself back on track? Boy! That scares me. I really don’t have this under control. But I’m enjoying this moment of my life right now.
Thanks everyone. I would not be at this place in my life if it weren’t for all of you.
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Just need to put it out there.
Struggling with cravings tonight. Came real close to MB. Started working on my car. Walking the dog. Managing my life. This too shall pass.
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It’s time to rethink my strategy. Because these past couple of months I’ve mostly been white-knuckling it. This addict inside me is out of control. Whenever I’m outside, I’m like a dog chasing a squirrel whenever I pass a woman. I’m craving a lot. It’s obvious that my addict and I are in conflict with each other. I can be a good white-knuckler. But to be honest, I can only do this for so long, 6 months max. So unless I change something, it’s only a matter of time before I’m back to day one. I know that I can’t keep going like this. Previous periods of sobriety have not been like this because I was doing a better job of taking care of myself. I was demonstrating self-love. And I wasn’t fighting my addict. That’s important. Don’t fight my addict. He’s much stronger than me, and has always kicked my butt.
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