PMO - Porn, Masturbation, Recovery

[Matt]

Also, you should not give yourself a 3-second “grace period” for gazing; it’s not healthy. It’s like a 3-second grace period for someone with a deadly peanut allergy. It doesn’t matter if it’s three seconds or three milliseconds; the allergy is deadly. Any amount of time is deadly.

You will be “searching and scanning” and gazing from time to time, especially in your early days of actual recovery, because you have been training yourself to lust intensely for many, many years. You need to disclose those “lust hits” daily to a trusted recovery contact. It can be your sponsor or it can even be here. Disclose who and when you objectified. No need to get too detailed describing the person or the situation, just enough to be clear about what you did and how you want to be free of this obsession.

[ErinTheSideOfCaution]

Requesting Sanity Check:

Sorry so long

So my primary addiction has been SLA (sex and love addiction) with PMO being a huge part of it, but once I started abstaining from PMO and working through various books/workbooks and starting therapy I realized that love/romantic intrigue/fantasy was running rampant in my compulsive behaviors. I worked with my wife to setup some bottom lines which included some things such as no mast*rbating, no porn, no fantasizing, no flirting with others and no checking out/sexually objectifying women.

This all went very well and I was able to do a 90 day reset where I stopped all forms of electronic entertainment like movies and video games, as well as no sexual contact even with my wife.

During this time I stayed heavy into my recovery reading, meditation, journaling, and started joining an SLAA recovery group. I gave up my phone for a Bark phone that was essentially a smart looking brick phone to help with any temptation and to give my wife some ease of mind.

I was able to achieve 15mo sobriety by doing this but sadly my wife was deeply hurt by my full disclosure and after some time and therapy for herself she decided she wanted to end the marriage and transition our relationship into a friendship, because she didn’t think that after 14 years that she would ever be able to trust me, and I understand.

The thing is, now that she’s gone I’m a single lady and I felt like some of my bottom lines could be shifted. So I removed the “no checking out” restriction and replaced it with “no predator like behavior regarding check out” (I found that in the height of my addiction I would do things like pretend I needed a grocery item if I had scanned and found an attractive woman in an aisle the local grocery store so I could get closer to check them out better.. ).

The thing is though, I don’t know what it’s like to live as a sober adult. I don’t know if people check other people out or how often that happens or when it’s a resurfacing of an addictive cycle vs simply being a single human that happened to see an attractive person and deciding to “check them out”.

Is it like, “you can look but don’t “double take””? Or “you can look if you happened to see, but it’s predator like behavior if you were intentionally scanning for an attractive person.”?

Sorry for the long message and I understand that everyone’s bottom line behaviors are different and you or I may be able to do things that you or I can’t do because of what constitutes our own personal bottom lines. My therapist has asked me to spend this next week mulling over my bottom line behaviors and re-evaluating my addictive cycle and my paths to acting out to try to rewrite my bottom lines according to my new life without my wife and me having to essentially come to my own rescue. thanks for reading if you made it this far(:

[LifeWarrior135]

Also i have been struggling with my mental health for awhile too (I have generalized anxiety disorder) so i need a job that i could do mentally that doesn’t stress me out too much.

So i like this job because it isn’t so stressful on my mind.

I had some very stressful jobs on my mind in the past: design engineer, mechanical test technician, mechanical designer/drafter, and landscape crew member.

I like this job also because it gets me to be physically active, which was a thing i wanted in my new job. Because i’ve worked sedsntary jobs in the past and i don’t like sitting all day craning my neck down at a computer screen all day. I think it ruins my posture.

To be honest i was mainly thinking of:

Can i do this job physically and mentally right now?

Would i be okay socially at this job?

(I like that It’s not isolated/remote from home, but also i am not the one doing a lot of the people focused actions, i am mostly doing the activities involving cleaning and using objects to do something. I don’t have to interact with the customers much)

And would i like the work that I’d do there?

Because i answered yes to these questions i took the job.

[Matt]

Hi Erin, welcome to the thread

I assume when you started your thread with “Requesting Sanity Check” you meant you were looking for some perspective on your situation? That’s the assumption I’m going on here; feel free to correct me if I misinterpreted you.

@ErinTheSideOfCaution

I realized that love/romantic intrigue/fantasy was running rampant in my compulsive behaviors

I am the same. The intrigue, the tease, the forbidden, the fantasy: it’s all a secret world in my head that I escape to when I’m in my addiction.

@ErinTheSideOfCaution

now that she’s gone I’m a single lady and I felt like some of my bottom lines could be shifted. So I removed the “no checking out” restriction and replaced it with “no predator like behavior regarding check out”

The phrase “checking out” can mean so many things to so many people. It can be interpreted physically, but it can also be interpreted mentally and emotionally.

I am speaking for myself here; I am not speaking for any program or philosophy. Just myself and my experience.

Physical checking out (of any type) has never been necessary or helpful for me. In fact, it is and always has been harmful for me. The behaviour of physically checking somebody out has always become a fantasy thing in my mind, where I take a mental picture, and then in my thoughts I can have anything I want at any pace (or place) in any way, and I don’t have to understand anything or sacrifice anything. I can have everything in my fantasy, and for me, physical checking out has always eventually connected to fantasy, and I get lost in there.

I actually think letting go of my practice of physical checking out has helped me focus on understanding people and making healthy sacrifices, to be humble and helpful. All of that, for me, starts by remembering that my purpose for being here, my reason for being human, is to be helpful (and I can’t be helpful to anybody, myself included, if I am holding on to the behaviour of checking people out; it fills my glass with distraction and there’s no room left for constructive connection and growth).

I have a lot of faith in the universe. The seeds in the forest don’t worry about finding the ground and sprouting; the leaves in the trees don’t worry about whether the rain will come. Why should I worry about making the interpersonal connections I need to make? If I just focus on being the person I am, on being true and authentic (which also involves asking questions and learning), the rest will take care of itself. I can get involved in volunteering and community stuff, either directly or indirectly (for example, as a contributor of crafts or poetry), and I will meet people at the level of the mind and the emotions, and those are the levels where I truly, authentically connect with people.

[Matt]

A big part of why this works for me is I work my twelve step program actively, with daily check-ins with my sponsor.

[ErinTheSideOfCaution]

Hey Matt, thank you so much for taking the time to read and reply! I really appreciate hearing your perspective regarding “physically checking out”. It’s very interesting to me for sure. During my sobriety while I was still with my wife we had an agreement that I just wouldn’t even really look at anyone (especially no “checking people out”) unless I was actually needing to engage with them for some reason. Doing this was very tough for many months but I feel like it helped to rewire my brain. The difficult part was being in public places because people are kind of everywhere. I developed a pretty intense social anxiety and had tension/stress headaches when I’d go places because of the amount of effort I’d put into not even looking at people, kind felt like a zombie a bit honestly.

When my wife left, the tension headaches did too because I didn’t have to report back to her if I had “looked at anyone”. I try to not scan and look for people still but if I see someone attractive I don’t immediately whip my head away, but I also don’t stare or try to double take.

I guess I’m still just trying to find out what sobriety means for me. I don’t want to “move the goalpost” to make past acting out actions be “okay” now, if they’re actually bad for my sobriety. Thanks again Matt! It’s good chatting with you about this

[KevinesKay]

Congratulations on achieving 15 months. And great work getting connected with SLAA. And great work establishing good boundaries for yourself.

Sad to hear that your relationship ended after full disclosure. But it seems that you’re having a positive attitude. With your ex out of the picture, I trust that you will find boundaries and motivation that work best for you.

Being married myself, I find it easier to just not give myself permission to take that first look. But I don’t do that as a favor to my wife. I do that as a favor to myself. And my wife gets the benefit.

For me, it’s just easier for me not to look, than it is to look without lusting. I get numerous benefits by choosing to stick to this boundary of mine. I’m not heating up my brain’s toxicity level. I’m not reinforcing my toxic shame. I’m not embracing a faulty paradigm for I see women much better if I don’t look at them. And I increase my attraction towards my wife.

But what if my wife was no longer in the picture? For me, I wouldn’t change anything. If I wanted to meet another partner, using my eyes, giving myself permission to check out other women without it going to lust is a laughable solution for me. Most women don’t share my values, won’t assimilate with me. Most are not in my age group. And most are not physically or emotionally available for a relationship. So it would make more sense to me to locate a partner without using my eyes, and to put myself in specific environments where I have better results finding a suitable partner. Most have chosen dating apps. Personally, I would find good results at local churches because many women there would share my same beliefs. Before 1960, people didn’t talk to strangers. One would solely date people referred by friends and family.

My point is that it’s not necessary to start checking out people outside my circle in order to pursue a relationship. If fact, I don’t think it’s very effective.

Thanks for sharing. Your post inspired me to come out of hiding. I’ve been invisible for some time too.

[ErinTheSideOfCaution]

Hey! Thank you for reading and replying! I really appreciate hearing other people’s thoughts and perspectives about the topic. The “looking” was always a big problem before recovery and I was with my wife for 14 years so now that it’s over I’m just not really sure what to do differently with my behavior. But I see your point and it makes a lot of sense. I’m not currently looking for a new partner. I’ve got a lot of big life stuff coming up and I’m not emotionally any where near being ready to “move on” from my wife, so I have no interest in dating apps or even meeting someone organically. Therefore, I actually do agree with you and @Matt about your inputs and it means a lot to me that you both shared your opinions with me. I don’t want to set myself up for failure and think that “it’s okay, I’m single now so looking no longer hurts anyone.” and then get wrapped back up in fantasy or not seeing people as people again. Thank you again and I’m glad that my post inspired you to post because your post has inspired me lol

[Boban]

How do i make posts?

[Matt]

Tap the pencil-and-paper icon at the top right of the screen if you want to make a brand new topic (a new conversation thread).

If you want to reply to posts on an existing thread, tap the “Reply” arrow under the post you want to reply to.

Welcome to Talking Sober!

[Boban]

Navigation on this app is difficult i have no idea whats going on. Lol

[Matt]

You’ll figure it out eventually. It’s kind of like figuring out sobriety: it takes time but it’s worth the effort

[Olivia]

Hi Erin,
thank you for your honest post. I’m sorry your marriage ended. That alone is a major life event and going through that while pursuing recovery (we never stop being in recovery but the early days can be rough) is kind of a double whammy. I’m glad you’ve been holding onto your sober goals nevertheless.

For context, I’ve never done SLAA or anything AA related, so I’m not very familiar with their terminology, like the bottom line. I do understand what it means but just FYI to avoid confusion

Looking is such a multi-layered topic. We can suggest, theorise and learn from experience but the matter of the fact is, that there’s no hard line that fits all. You can close your eyes, but at least I have years worth of material in my head. You told us how exhausting it was to go to places and trying not to look at people. We have twisted view of other people, whom we’ve reduced as objects for our selfish pleasure. However, that’s not the root of the issue. The root is that there’s something broken in us, that needs healing. Addiction is a symptom of something dysfunctional within a person. In my case, it was the lack of love and affection growing up. I was not taught how to manage my emotions so pmo became a release valve. I was very caught up with my imaginary world because my real life was filled with tension and anxiety. Fantasies and pmo became a counterfeit for love that I longed for.

I’m trying to point out that battling with your symptoms, like a lustful gaze, is not the only front. A deeper healing needs to begin that allows the hollow places to be filled. The more whole we become, the more our mindset towards others change and we truly see their value. If you value and respect something, it’s difficult to exploit it. This is an abstract journey that has no maps, no timetables and not even landmarks but people that go with you for a certain leg.

A few thoughts on practical aspects of looking. I’m of the opinion that we as humans can not NOT look. You can train your eyes but you can’t rid the tendency off. Things like 3 second rules and double dipping/looking are elementary safety measurements, literal lines in the sand. Our thought processes happen faster than we can grasp, and whoops, off we go. The more I’ve healed, the less I have lust in my eyes. I’ve tried to teach myself that my thoughts are like water flowing through my fingers. I CHOOSE what I hold onto and what I let go. I do turn my head away from certain things/people when I feel triggered and keep going, letting the water flow. If get caught up, I silently ask for forgiveness from my HP and the person I’ve oogled at. I train my mind to recognise people’s value and that they are not to be objectified. This is not from any book or programme, so I don’t endorse it generally, but share it as something that has worked for me.

Edited to add: I mentioned that we as humans can’t help looking. Having the tendency is still not a “licence to look”. If you take it as such, you are deceiving yourself and your motivation is off. After re-reading my post, it felt important to include this. The internet needs disclaimers.

[rich369]

Thanks for this share, really good to read your take on it. A lustful gaze is something I struggle with, particularly in the summertime when there is more skin on show.

I 100% get what you’re saying about “we as humans can not NOT look”. I think it’s natural to look at people in the street, but I also feel like as sex addicts this is turned up to 11, and not in a healthy way. Recently I’ve noticed myself looking at people before I’ve even consciously made the decision to do so, like I was walking through town the other week and before I’d even seen a couple of women as I walked round a corner, I was already looking at them. It got to the point where it started to really upset me. I don’t want to feel like my eyes are bouncing around treating everyone like a sex object, constantly scanning for potential sexual partners.

I spoke to my sponsor about checking people out/ogling/objectifying yesterday.
He was saying that the 3 second rule to him feels like more of a punishment, which makes it difficult to use and stick to. What he has found helpful is saying a prayer “God, help me find in you what I look for in them”. He’s not religious, neither am I, but I’m going to try this out and see if it helps. It feels like a more positive action than the 3 second rule.

[leah11]

I relapsed on alcohol and sex, and i feel so tired and defeated, wonder if I should even fight this anymore…

[Olivia]

Feeling is defeated is understandable. After a relapse such a feeling is even inevitable. But that’s all it is - a feeling. If you look at your life and the things in it, they’re probably NOT destroyed by this relapse. You might have consequences but altogether, life is STILL worth living and sobriety worth pursuing. Not for others but you, because YOU are valuable even when you feel the lowest of the low.

Remember that addiction is a fatal all consuming disease. It does not care what is good for you, your life, your relationships. Addiction gives you nothing in return, it makes you chase shadows that you can never catch. It will eat you alive until there’s nothing left.

Life is worth fighting for, your life is too valuable to be wasted in addiction. Please stay safe.

[rich369]

Sorry to hear about your relapse.
Please don’t allow this to spiral into something worse than it needs to be.
99.9999% of people on here (probably 100%) have relapsed one time or another. It’s not pleasant, but you can learn from it and use it as a positive thing to help protect you from future relapses.
Prior to the relapse, were you triggered? How can you avoid, mitigate, or deal with these triggers in a healthy way in the future?

There’s a great community of sex addicts on here, if you are struggling, please reach out. It’s often said that the opposite of addiction is connection, and this is really true. If you isolate yourself and allow the negative thoughts to build up, you’re gonna spiral and relapse. Keep coming back here, post, chat, and we can all help each other stay sober.

[rich369]

This will probably turn into a long ramble…

Last Thursday was 1 year sober, no acting out.
The last couple of weeks I’ve been coming round to the realisation/understanding that my sobriety from sexual acting out has led to me “acting in” and becoming sexually anorexic.
I’ve been so scared of fucking up and relapsing that I’ve not allowed myself to engage in healthy sexuality. I have been ignoring, minimising, invalidating and beating myself up for having any sort of sexual thought or impulse in order to maintain my abstinence. I put masturbation in my inner circle, but haven’t done any thinking on how masturbation can be healthy, and how it can be done in a mindful way to connect me to my feelings and my body.

I have spoken to both my sponsor and my therapist about this, I need to speak to them a bit more about it and put some work and thought into what healthy sexuality is for me. I feel like this could be me about to do some proper recovery, rather than just blindly putting up walls to any sort of sexual feeling and expression, be it healthy or not.

Now that I’m doing some more thinking around this, I wonder if perhaps my abstinence for the last year has been a form of self-punishment, not allowing myself the good stuff that a healthy attitude towards sexuality can bring.

I’m not about to jump straight back into “bed” and go back to masturbating the way I used to, because that definitely wasn’t healthy. I’m still feeling very anxious about how I can navigate a healthy sexuality while maintaining sobriety, and I have a lot to learn and figure out.

To be honest, the last day of two I was feeling pretty positive about exploring my sexuality in a healthy way. But today I’ve just been feeling weird about it, like I think because I’ve been thinking about masturbation more it’s becoming a big deal and I’m getting worried about what my intentions are and whether I want to masturbate because it’s healthy natural urges, or if it’s the addiction trying to dig it’s claws back into me.

Anyway, yeah. Enjoy that brain dump.

TLDR
Stopped acting out, started acting in, realised after a year that I’m sexually anorexic, confused af.

[KevinesKay]

Are you in a relationship?

If not, than I think choosing a celibate lifestyle would be a viable choice for you right now. In SA, the bottom line set is no sex with self or any other person other than a spouse. So single members of SA would stay celibate until marriage. And I think it’s very possible to embrace celibacy without assuming sexual anorexia. Plenty of members in SA, SAA, SLAA, and TS are not having sex, and are okay with it.

Now if one is being sexually abstinent while in a marriage, that’s a different story. I was sexually anorexic with my wife for a number of years.

I know everyone in the world is going to a have a differing conflict beliefs when it comes to sexuality. But if I was in your position, desiring to experience sexual intimacy, I would start pursuing relationships. Dating. Learning to show up in a women’s life in my own masculine energy. Personally, I think people jump into sex to quickly. I think it’s best to establish commitment first. A commitment such as marriage.

A know of lots of spouses that would NOT be okay if they discovered that their partners had a secret masturbation habit. So if one can demonstrate self control before marriage, it will go a long way to ensure that the sexual intimacy shared is exclusive.

A lot of this is my opinion, but along this journey of mine, it’s forced me to dig deep and embrace good reasons for the choices that I make in my life.

[rich369]

I’m not in a relationship currently.

I regularly go to SAA meetings and have recently switched sponsors, my current sponsor is pretty on it and I’m feeling positive about working the steps with him.
I think abstinence has its place for sure, and I think a period of celibacy is good, but I don’t think 100% celibacy is the solution. With a drug/alcohol addiction of course you’d want to go 100% abstinence, but I think sex addiction has to be more like a food addiction in this respect, to abstain completely is not gonna work. It’s about finding a way to re-engage but in a healthy way that isn’t going to hurt oneself or others.

I’ve been reading a bit around healthy sexuality, and I don’t see why masturbation would be excluded from this. Provided it is done with the right intent, mindfully, without the use of pornography, and not to excess. I’m still working on a more complete “definition” for healthy masturbation to sit in my outer circle.
When I spoke to my sponsor about this he explained how masturbation was in all three of his circles. In mine it is currently only in my inner circle.

I don’t want to date at this moment in time. Does this mean I am to live a sexually unfulfilled life?
When I started my recovery, I decided not to masturbate, not because I thought masturbation was inherently bad or wrong, but because at the time I had no concept of what healthy masturbation was, and saw it only as a slippery slope right back into porn and acting out.
However, with careful thought and practice I believe it can be a way of connecting with oneself, being present in the moment in an act of self care and self love.
If I can’t be present and in the moment with just myself, how am I gonna show up in the same way for a partner in the future?

It’s not about having a secret shameful habit of masturbating. Shame has no place in a healthy sex life. But I don’t think masturbation has to be seen as a dirty secret to be ashamed of, provided it’s done in a healthy, non-compulsive way.

Respectfully, I’m going to disagree with you on no sex before marriage. I think our values don’t align here and that’s okay. If it works for you that’s great but I don’t agree with it.