Courage's blog

I've been using a technique recently that's been helping me overcome my addiction like nothing else. I've made it through several very strong urges in a matter of seconds and I'd like to share it with you. I hope it might help someone as much as it's been helping me.

I've posted something about logismoi (tempting thoughts) in the past.

http://www.reuniting.info/node/3921

You can read a summary about it there.

In it Father Maximus says

Marnia wrote:

Where did you go? And how are you doing?

Hugs,
Marnia

Through my journey with battling my sex addiction I've also made many other life altering decisions. I've decided to cut out anything that I feel may be addictive, either substance or behavioural. Some things I've decided to cut out so far are masturbation, drinking, smoking, coffee, sugar, fantasy, the internet and television. Why you may ask? What's the meaning of life if you can't have a little fun? Mentally and physically I feel much better without all these addictions and I can concentrate on things that will truly make me feel better instead of the quick fix my addictions provide.

Day 7

Overcoming this addiction is one of the most humiliating and humbling experiences of my life. Lately I've been thinking, what if being tempted isn't a curse but actually a gift? What if this whole process is a way to keep me in check and keep me from becoming too proud and arrogant? I'm finding it harder to judge and condemn people the more I follow this path. How can I when sometimes during this experience I feel lower than low? This for me is a very humbling experience, and I like it.

Lots of love
Courage

According to the Orthodox church logismoi is a term used to describe assaultive or tempting thoughts.

I'm currently reading a book called the Mountain of Silence by Kyriacos Markides, which I highly recommend to anyone interested in learning about Christian Orthodox spirituality. One chapter focuses on logismoi and the role they play in our spiritual lives which I think is very interesting. This is an excerpt from the book about the stages of logismoi.

I'm really getting back into this masturbation thing, and the bad thing is I used porn again. I masturbated once on Friday, where I really didn't have any strong urges to do so, but I thought I'd experiment with masturbating to release the sexual energy and use circulate it or whatever. At first I was sort of enjoying it, and I was doing it without fantasy, but I found as I progressed the good feeling turned to sort of dark ugly feelings and the animalistic urge to just release won me over.

It's day one for me again today as I went on a mini binge and masturbated 3 times during the past two days and one of them unfortunately was with porn. The first masturbation was supposedly to release tension so I wouldn't give in to porn. The second was the same idea. The third was one of those "you've already given in so what the hell" sort of things. So basically my plan to masturbate the first time so as to not give in to porn was a bad idea.

I've made a rule for myself that I try to keep to help me to view women as people instead of a piece of meat that I can get what I want from. The rule is to try to focus on their faces instead of their curves, buts, breasts etc. I think this also helps me to be more flirtatious and natural around them and it helps me to pay more attention to what they're saying to me and what they're feeling around me, since there is so much you can tell about a person from their facial expressions. I use this rule on the computer too.

I had another relapse yesterday after my relapse two days ago and I viewed porn and masturbated again. Surprisingly I got sucked in while watching those youtube videos Marnia posted the "pornography the perfect poison". While watching these videos there where videos in the related videos section of some famous celebrities with large breasts (ironic) which kicked off the porn frenzy again. It seems my perception has gone back to adoring big breasts again since I relapsed.

Getting things done during my free time is painful for me, literally. I feel a sort of dullness in my head and I can't think clearly when I try to force myself to do something. Maybe it's all the rewiring that needs to be done and the new pathways that are being created, but I'm finding I'm slowly starting to get things done during my free time.