Today, I have been sober (sexually, that is) for two months. Of course, I realized this while I was thinking about how much time I have left in my six month trial period, so I can start acting out again. Progress, not perfection, right?
Sorry I haven’t written much lately. I’ve been out of town, and I am doing well. I will try to write a longer entry soon.
Just kidding, I’m not even close. I did, however, have a very proud recovery moment tonight. HC contacted me after nearly four months. He said he missed me and that I had been on his mind a lot. If he had sent the same text two months ago, I would have wrote back, “I miss you too. I think about you all the time.” Instead, I thanked him, but told him I was no longer available.
While I’d like to think this means I am “cured” from my sex and love addiction, the fact that this happened a few hours ago and I am still shaking, tells me otherwise.
My sponsor says that even though I wasn’t looking for it, I took a big “hit” off my drug tonight, and I should expect some major withdrawals.
I don’t talk about the God stuff too much on here, because before I got into recovery it used to weird me out a little to hear people going on about God (probably an issue for another post). I’m still a little uncomfortable talking about my relationship with my Higher Power. But I need to mention him in this entry, because tonight he did for me what I could not do for myself.
In my last entry, I wrote about how I’ve been struggling the last week or so to stay present and how I had to keep forcing myself to take contrary action. I’d been kind of taking a mental vacation, but today I received some stressful news and I was forced to snap out of it.
If I don’t find a less expensive apartment and cut down my costs as soon as possible, I won’t be able to pay my rent in a few months, and I won’t have any savings left. Since I am a sex a love addict, I “sexualize stress, guilt, loneliness, anger, shame, fear and envy” and I “use sex or emotional dependence as substitutes for nurturing care, and support.” My first reaction was to find some man to take care or me, fuck the stress away, and make it all better. As appealing as that strategy sounds, I know from past experiences it does not really work out so well in the long run. So I’ve been facing the stress head-on — looking at apartments (I actually forgot craigslist could be used for something other than finding dates/sex partners), contacting consignment stores to sell some furniture I have in storage, and dealing with other money dramas.
I even placed an ad on craigslist (no, not that kind of ad) for housing wanted. I know it’s a long shot, but my sponsor always says to put things out to the Universe. My hope is some kindly mansion-dweller will be charmed by my ad and rent out a room to me. You never know, right?
Since I can’t deal with the stress I’m feeling now with sex, I used yoga, my sex alternative. I took a class today, and it was really hard for me to let go of my stress. My teacher had to keep reminding me to breath. We did a lot of hip openers in this class. I have always heard that hip openers can make people really emotional because feelings like guilt and stress that go unresolved are usually stored in the hips. I never really bought this because I am full of un-dealt-with emotions and my hips are so open I can do the splits. But the hip openers we were doing today were different poses from the ones I usually do, and stretched a different area than I am used to. I actually started crying in class! Luckily, I was able to quickly get myself together, and I don’t think anyone noticed.
Even though today has been stressful, I am grateful that I am able to be present, and that I am dealing with my affairs like an adult.
A classic Gemini, I am full of dualities and have always felt I have two opposing selves. The healthy me wants to do yoga, meditate, pray, eat healthy, write, keep in contact with my sponsor, make outreach calls, do step work, and go to meetings. The healthy me wants to do these “top line” behaviors every single day, because she wants to recover and live a healthy and happy life.
The unhealthy me, let’s call her Lulu, says “fuck that shit,” to all of the above. Lulu wants to do what she wants when she wants. She wants to eat junk food, drink a lot of wine (or beer, or whatever you’ve got), sit on her ass watching tv or, more likely playing mind-numbing video games (cause let’s be honest, Lulu usually doesn’t have a long enough attention span to watch a tv show). And when Lulu gets bored of sitting on her ass eating, drinking, and drooling all over her laptop; Lulu likes to fuck — the more inappropriate and unavailable the partner the better.
The last few days Lulu has taken over. Fortunately she hasn’t gotten bored of the sitting on her ass phase yet, but she has wreaked some havoc. Lulu wants to throw in the towel on this whole recovery thing, but the healthy me made a commitment to myself to try out this 12-step program for at least six months (we’ve got four left to go).
So I’m trying to keep Lulu in check and taking contrary action as often as possible, which is why I’m writing this blog right now instead of playing The Sims.
Late last night I had a slip. I was looking up a friend’s page on facebook. Her name starts with the same letters of HC’s name. While I was typing her name into the search bar, his name and new picture came up. Before I knew what I was doing, I had clicked on his name, and was on his profile. We aren’t friends and his profile is private, so there isn’t much info I can squeeze out of his page except that he has changed his picture. Seeing his picture was all it took, I was off.
I looked at his wife’s page, his mother’s, his brother’s, his wife’s twitter, his wife’s blog. I did a google search for his name, her name, their names together. I went on craigslist and searched for the terms I know he used in his casual encounters ads — he is still posting ads almost daily. I did this for about an hour. I don’t know what I was looking for, but I didn’t find it. Nothing I looked at told me he was divorced/getting a divorce or that he gotten his sexual addiction under control. However, everything I looked at told me, “yep… you’re still crazy.”
This man has not been in my life for more than three months now, what business of mine is it what he is doing? I have no right to secretly pry into his life. My sponsor says that whenever I find myself in my addiction, instead of berating myself for being such a creepy stalker, a slut, or whatever; I need to go back to Step 1. What I did last night is evidence that I am indeed powerless over this addiction.
Last night was a slip, but it doesn’t have to be more than that. Today is a new day. I am powerless over my addiction, but God is not. Everyday I need to remember that I can not do this without God. When I give my will and my life over to the care of God, I will be taken care of.
The past few weeks I seem to vacillate between, “Holy Shit, I’ve cured myself! Every thing is wonderful now and I am completely ready to have a healthy relationship!;” and, “Oh my God, what the fuck is wrong with me? Will I ever be normal?” One day I am ready to conquer the world, the next it is a struggle to even leave my apartment. Yesterday I wanted to act out on all my bottom lines and I had to force myself to do anything healthy. Today I am being all kinds of productive and doing everything right.
When I was in the active phase of my addiction, I thought that having a the perfect boyfriend/husband/lover would be the magical cure-all to all of my life’s woes. Now I realize nothing — not even the 12 steps is going to magically cure me. I have to work hard and use all the tools at my disposal to become whole.
Since I’ve been in recovery, I’ve been practicing yoga 4-5 times a week. Like everything else, yoga is not magic. I do, however, notice a huge different in my mind, body and spirit on the days when I practice. I feel more centered, and like I am approaching wholeness. It takes the edge off when I want to act out, when I’m depressed, when I feel like I hate everything in my life. Yoga reminds me to count my blessings, rather than count my disadvantages (which, unfortunately, was my default system of measure for most of my life).
Physically, I am more flexible, stronger, and have more stamina. My balance has improved, but I still fall regularly and am usually the first and sometimes only person in class to fall during a pose. Today, during class, when I lost my balance during a crescent moon pose (high lunge). The instructor said something like, “they say good balance is a sign of a peaceful mind.” That made sense to me, as my mind is always jumping from one extreme to the other.
I suspect when I learn to find a peaceful middle ground in my head, balance between extremes, I will find physical balance as well.
Don’t worry, I probably won’t, but I want to.
Craving sexual oblivion or some way to check out from my thoughts, my feelings… my self. I want to see HC or at least spy on him online.
How long do I have to go without this guy before my obsession ebbs? It’s been three months already. I know he isn’t sitting around thinking about me. This is pathetic. If I wasn’t in this program, I would have found some new guy to make these feelings go away, or at least to stuff them down for a bit. Which, I know isn’t a solution, but at least I wouldn’t be feeling so pathetic.
I just did a phone meeting and I wasn’t into it at all. There is a yoga class starting in about an hour that I usually go to, but I don’t want to. There is also an in-person meeting starting in about an hour. It’s one I haven’t been to before. Maybe I should go to that? I kinda just want to buy a bottle of wine, a wedge of brie, and turn off my brain in front of the tv.
Praying for the strength to take contrary action.
Update for my many three readers: I skipped the yoga class and the meeting, for the brie and the wine; but instead of checking out with tv, I made a series of outreach calls, and talked to three other women in my program. I did not act out. I guess this would be an example of “progress, not perfection.”
I met Joe in April 2010. He wasn’t my type (my type=tall, dark hair, musician/artist), but he managed to seduce me (a pretty easy task, if truth be told) almost right away.
Joe fancied himself a dominant, take charge kind of guy . He was also very possessive. The second time we hung out he told me that I wasn’t “allowed” to see anyone else. A normal person would have probably told him to get lost, but I, a non-normal person, thought, “hmm… let’s see where this goes.” I pretended to agree, but kept seeing other people.
One Friday in June he failed to show up for a date. At first I was worried about him, but after calling and texting him for a week, I realized that if something had happened to him, someone else would have probably have gotten back to me. Or if he was lying undiscovered in a ditch, his phone would be dead and going straight to voice mail, which would be full. But his phone was still ringing and I was still able to leave him voice mail messages.
I was pissed. Of all the spineless ways of breaking up with someone, standing them up and never calling again was the worst (maybe second to a sudden stop in communication followed by facebook friend removal — yes, this has happened to me before… twice). Keep in mind I had been seeing him for two months at this point, it wasn’t like it was our first or second date.
One night I sent him a drunken text that said something like, “since you don’t seem to have enough balls to actually break up with me, I guess you don’t mind that next weekend I have dates with two other men.” The actual text probably had a bit more swearing, name calling, and drunken spelling errors. Also, I think I described the physical attributes of these (imaginary) men.
To my surprise, the next day I got a phone call from Joe. Joe had one of the best excuses (ever!) for standing a girl up and not returning her phone calls for two weeks. You see, the Friday that Joe and I were supposed to have that date he failed to show up for he had been in a car accident. He was riding in his friend’s (of course) car and another car had crashed into his friend’s car. Although Joe didn’t break any bones or get any cuts or bruises, his phone was destroyed. Also… Joe had sustained a head injury and had been in a coma (a fucking coma!) for the past two weeks. So that’s why Joe had stood me up and hadn’t been return my phone calls. That’s why.
The point of this story isn’t to flame this idiot, but rather to show what kind of nonsense and drama used to pass for a “relationship” in my head; to show how desperate I was for any crumbs of attention and affection I could get. The sick part is, even though I knew Joe was telling me the biggest whopper I had ever heard, I still was willing to give him another chance. As luck would have it, we never ended up seeing each other again, but it wasn’t due to lack of tying on my part.
I know if I don’t work on myself and fix all this crazy shit inside of me, I will spend the rest of my life bouncing from one Joe Turner to the next.
*While the asshole part is true, the name is made-up.
When I realized in June that I was going to have to give up dating and sexing for at least six months, I was pretty bummed, to put it mildly. It wasn’t just that I was going to have to abstain from men, it was that I was going to have to do this during the summer. In the summer I work less than I do during the rest of the year, and as a result I have a lot of time on my hands, but not a lot of cash. I foresaw a miserable sexless, fun-less summer ahead.
The previous summer, I had used men as “free” entertainment. From June to August I was involved with several men:
Joe — Very dominate and possessive. We got sexual almost right away. This guy was so nuts, I’ll have to write an entry about him later.
Fergus — Tall, Scottish, insane. He had bright orange hair and would say things like, “I’m a recovering alcoholic,” without any hint of irony, while guzzling large quantities of liquor. We made-out once or twice, but never had sex.
Jason — Much older than me, but still extremely handsome. I met him over a year before. We had dated twice previously, and he had blown me off both times. At one point we were actually “dating,” meaning he would come to my place, pick me up, and take me to dinner before we had sex; but then he started skipping the taking me to dinner part. Never a quick learner, I was surprised and hurt when he stopped returning my phone calls a third time. He never did “break up” with me, but I eventually got the hint when he removed me from his facebook friends.
Tim — A very nice older man. He took me on wonderfully romantic dates, but I felt no chemistry. When I was somewhere with him I was usually thinking, “this would be an amazing date… if I were here with Jason.” He was so nice, I wish I had been more attracted to him. We never did more than kiss.
Dustin — A total tool. He was more than 20 years older than me, but always acted like he was doing me a favor when he came over. I actively disliked this guy, but that didn’t stop me from sleeping with him for several months.
David — I met him in mid-August and thought I had found the perfect boyfriend. He was handsome, well-educated and successful. We waited until our fifth date to have sex (his decision; I was usually willing to give it up on the first or second date). I think he was initially attracted to me, because on the surface it looked like I had my act together (I can put on a good show for at least a month). He quickly realized what a mess I was. By October, we were over.
What a difference a year makes. It is now halfway through August, and I have not been on one date or had a single sexual encounter all summer. I thought this summer was going to suck, but quite the opposite is true. I may not have a lot of cash, but have discovered that I don’t need to rely on a guy to foot the bill and take me out. My summer has been spent reconnecting with friends and doing plenty of fun, free/low-cost activities — going to free concerts, hanging out at my friend’s pool, doing lots of yoga, making meals for friends instead of going to restaurants all the time. Even going to meetings has been kind of fun, in a way. While they aren’t always a barrel of laughs, and can at times be emotionally draining; it gets me out of the house and is a social activity. Spending the evening at a meeting, listening to other addicts’ experience, strength and hope, is better than sitting at home, depressed waiting for some guy to call me.
I don’t want to make it sound like everything has been rainbows and lollipops. The pain of withdrawal is intense. But instead of avoiding withdrawal and moving from one guy to the next, I have chosen to experience the emotional and sometimes even physical pain. I can’t stuff down the pain with men anymore, but I can take the edge off by doing fun, healthy, enriching activities that are changing my life for the better.
In May, HC, who I had been seeing since December, broke up with me.
HC was a tall artist and musician with dark hair and soulful green eyes. I’m not sure exactly what it was – he was by no means the hottest, funniest, or most charming man I’d ever met – but as soon as I met him, I knew I was in trouble. I was hooked. We had sex on our first date, which was less than two hours after we had first set eyes on each other. Sex with him was probably the best sex I had ever had. Logically, I understood that I barely knew him (with the exception of our first date, we would never go out), but when we were together sexually, it felt like love.
He said that he’d been divorced for about a year and was just starting to date, but a month later, I found his supposed ex-wife’s twitter. According to what she had been writing, they were still happily married. I confronted him about it, and even though the evidence was pretty damming, he denied he was still married. He made up a half-assed story that didn’t make sense, but I was so into him that he could have told me up was down and down was up and I would have believed it.
I kept seeing him after I found the twitter, but I didn’t trust him. I became obsessed with spying on him and his wife online – desperately looking for evidence that he was actually divorced. Although I found a few things that looked promising – she had stopped mentioning him in her twitter, for example – I found an equal number of things that made it clear he was still married. Additionally, I also found out there were four or five other girls he was seeing regularly and that he was posting ads on craigslist for anonymous gay sex. Sadly, I was so addicted to him and so sick, that when I found out about all the other people he was seeing, I actually felt a little bit of relief. How could he be spending so much time with me, seeing several other people, and still be married?
HC had two small children. He frequently used emergencies that came up with his kids to come over hours after we had originally planned or to cancel altogether. How could I get mad at him for flaking on me when his son was sick or his ex was late picking them up? One time HC told me that he had his kids for the weekend. He was texting me telling me what a great time they were having at a local amusement park. A few days later, I looked on craigslist and found that the same time he was texting me he was with his kids, he was also posting ads for anonymous gay encounters. Had he been lying to me about having his kids or was he posting this stuff while he was with his kids? Was he meeting these strangers for hookups while his children were in his care?
Every new thing I found made me sick, but still I kept seeing him. I wanted to believe that he was the amazing person I had mad him out to be in my head. I could not let go of this fantasy HC I had created.
I knew I was ill. This wasn’t the first time I had gotten myself obsessed with an unavailable man and had been unable to let go. It had happened three years earlier with Anthony, two years before that with Jonathan, and probably at least a half a dozen other times. Still, I could not stop seeing him.
I kept spying on him and his wife online. Although her facebook page was private, one day she changed her profile picture to their wedding picture. This is not something a divorced woman does. I sent him a text confronting him. He wrote back that he was tired of explaining himself to me and this wasn’t working anymore. I was devastated, but I backed off. My plan was to lay low for a couple of weeks, and then contact him once he’d cooled off.
How fucking sick was I? I knew he was married, I knew he was seeing several other women, I knew that he was meeting strangers for anonymous sex, and I wasn’t even the one to end this mess. He had to break up with me.
Unfortunately, this still is not the end of the HC story. Although I wasn’t contacting him, I was only bidding my time until I would go back to him. Meanwhile, I was scouring the internet looking for anything I could find on him. Even though I wasn’t communicating with him directly, I needed the high of spying on him. I even set up some fake email addresses and answered some of his m4m craigslist ads. One night I stayed up all night doing this and made myself physically ill. I had to call in sick to work the next day. This was my bottom.
I realized that I could never go back to him and I could not keep spying on him online. I needed help so I started going to meetings in early June. It took me a few weeks to do more than just show up, but I kept showing up. Finally I got a sponsor, set some bottom lines and became “sober.”
I count June 29th as my sobriety date, although I have had some minor slips since then. I haven’t contacted him, but I have checked facebook, twitter, and craigslist a couple of times, although not in a few weeks.
Not contacting or spying on HC is just one of my bottom lines. There were many other ways I acted out as a sex and love addict, and many behaviors I now abstain from. Almost every day is a struggle for me, but with the help of God, my sponsor, and my recovery partners, I am getting through this.
This Imperfect Journey 