Hang in there, man. I respect and appreciate your humility and tenacity. You just keep staying after it, starting over, staying connected here, talking about what is going on. I admire your resolve. I'll be holding good, strong thoughts for you.
Best,
Cariad

Hi Lancer,
The way forward involves going back to cover old ground. How else can we remember what we learned back there? (If you're anything like me--I have about a two minute attention span.) Best wishes ...Galileo

Don't know if it is the phase of the moon or something in the air Lancer - all I can tell you is that there is the aroma of relapse all around me with my closest recovery buddies struggling and in my life also.

I hope you are able to review what was going on during the "4 days of compulsion" before your relapse - it should be fertile grounds for you to best determine how "to be more careful" to the future. I know for me in recent times, I have incredible clarity on what is triggering me and I am find myself much more accepting of my setbacks as I now understand they are part and parcel of my recovery.

What I can tell you is that after 2 years of recovery, my relapses are much less damaging to me and I see tangible proof that I am doing so much better than I ever did before.

I pick myself up, dust myself off and go to the next meeting, the next therapy session, write the next journal entry, receive the next insight from God and my recovery progress continues.

I know your strength and determination to succeed in your recovery and feel confident this is another minor blip on your radar - keep after it!

Richard

Well, I have had some more time today to think about my own situation. Today, I've been in a bit better mood. I woke up in a slightly better mood. Since then, I've been gradually improving. I'll feel better once some more time is put between my relapse. A half a week is a good start, and now at about +80 hours or so. Still, more time is needed.

I think I need to put some explanation at what happened to me over the last few days. First, I slipped up about two and a half weeks ago (note the diference in terms I'm using, there's an importance here). When that happened, I easily put it behind me and kept going. In fact, I thought it was probably good for me because it helped me control the lustful part of my mind I was having a lot of trouble with. Sometimes wiping the slate and starting over can help out a lot. Well, it did. For the next eleven days or so, I was doing fine.

Then came a discussion in here about "masturbation without guilt." As this discussion continued, I decided that I thought it was a reckless approach to treatment and recovery. As a result, I decided to show the others the damaging consequences of those actions. Therefore, I tried once to execute in this masturbation style. I made it very slow, all about sensuality. As a result, it reflexively became compulsive. That same style happened at least two more times that night, including once when I woke up at 4 AM that night.

Over the next four days, there was nothing particularly sexual going on in my life, but compulsions generally popped up at random times. I know that they were a response and a longing for something I said I wouldn't do. Well, I tried not to, until on Wednesday morning. I had just had a run-in with a pair of Marines who wanted me for some class, and while I wasn't stressed about it, it was the perfect seizure. I had just come back from working out and was in the shower, and I got overwhelmed.

Next thing I know, it happened three more times in about 2 hours and then I had to go to work. I went to work a mess, and really I was a mess the rest of the week. I just slowly moped along, always aware of the mistakes I'd made. Yesterday, I went to the library to return two books that were due, but I also checked out a book by Patrick Carnes called Out of the Shadows. I read about half of it before I went to work in about an hour and a half. I actually never finished it and won't. I found the book more depressing than helpful. I believe I fit the diagnostic criteria he laid down, and I looked a bit into the treatment he offered, which was just a 12-step program. One thing I've learned is that while I haven't been following a 12-step program in my recovery, it's actually pretty close to one. I did a lot of writing at first, digging through my past, as is the way Step One works. I found that some simple thoughts of the steps triggered a return to a stronger and more effective mindset. I started to feel better. By the end of last night, I felt so sick and tired from my entire ordeal. I went to bed, hoping some rest would relieve the psychological stress that manifested itself as physical symptoms.

It did just that. This morning, I woke up with a renewed sense of purpose. I've done a little bit of work today, completing a few various odds and ends. I've also in the last 24 hours begun prepping a plan to work on a major political project. I've been working on setting up several meetings to begin working on it. I've spent most of today just relaxing, still working to build back my resolve. I'm hoping to get back on track soon enough, but this stuff just takes time. For now, I wouldn't describe myself as content, but I would describe myself as stabilized. There's no massive train to stop. I leave that for Superman. I just try to remain human when my humanity's gone.

Just as your system seems to be very reactive to porn/masturbation (due to past excess ?), I seem to be very sensitive to sugar. Can it be an accident that when I was a kid I ate really sugary (Captain Crunch was my favorite!) cereals by the barrel-full?

Fortunately, there's a lot of really healthy food that I like a lot that has no refined sugar. Otherwise I'd be on a jittery dopamine roller coaster all the time.

I predict that someday your sweetheart and you will feel very fortunate to get most of your thrills from other intimate rewards.

we've trained ourselves *not* to go immediately to where the best source of alternative rewards lie...in supportive connections with our fellow humans. I keep reminding myself that our brains evolved in tribes, with lots of mechanisms for ensuring that we connect with others.