Category: His story

By JP

I have not posted in a while because things have been good. I am not the same person I was when I started this journey in 2019. I have resolved the childhood trauma that kept me stuck in my addiction. It still happened, but it is in the past now. I have a new healthy marriage and a better relationship with my wife. Life still throws challenges at me, but I have learned to deal with them in a healthy, mature way. My wife occasionally gets triggered, but I have the maturity and empathy to hold her pain.

This journey was not easy and there are no shortcuts or magic bullets. I choose to be a better person and husband every day. I have replaced my maladaptive coping skills with new healthy habits. I see people as people and not as objects. God did not create us in His image except with a defect that causes us to objectify women. Anyone who still believes this is still using the addict brain.

There is hope to be free of this addiction, but there must be change. No one can do this on their own or just pray it away. You must want to change and become the husband that your wife married you for. You need the help of a therapist, preferably a CSAT. You need the community of other men to stand together. You need time to develop new habits to replace the old destructive habits. I have also become a better father to my daughter and a better grandfather to my grandchildren. I want to give back and help others. I have become a life coach to help other men who want help to beat this addiction.

https://sa-recovery-story.com/2020/12/02/progressive-hope/

By JP

It’s day 6 of my week of daily blog posts. Today I’m going to talk about change. Change is one of the hardest things to do. It is never too late to make the necessary changes in your life.

It doesn’t matter how many years you have been enslaved by your addiction. Change is always possible if you truly want it. You must be willing to let go of all the unhealthy habits that fuel your addiction. It will not be easy, but as long as you keep moving forward you can change your life for the better. I am not the same person that I used to be. I’m a better person and better husband now.

By JP

Day 4 of my week of everyday posts. I’m tired today, both mentally and physically. It has been a long stressful week at work and there’s still one more day left in the work week. I have a long weekend ahead of me, then back to work next Monday. In the past this would have been the perfect combination to act out.

Continue reading “Thursday – I’m Tired” →

By JP

Day two of my week of posting every day. Today I’m going to look at secrets. My addiction was wrapped in the secrets that I kept. I couldn’t tell anyone my shameful secrets. They became a cancer that rotted me from the inside.

Continue reading “Tuesday – Secrets” →

By JP

I am at a point of my recovery that I now see how certain ideas were toxic and counterproductive. I was an avid reader of Every Mans Battle. It was the first book that I read when I first admitted that I had a sex addiction. I re-read it again 5 years later. It must have worn off because here I was in the same place again. The truth is that the book hindered my recovery. It led me to believe that all men struggled with lust because that’s how God wired us. One therapist that I saw because his credentials said that he specialized in sex addiction, pretty much told me the same thing. I was a man and I couldn’t help it. He quoted the Coolidge Effect, which was a reference to chickens. So like a dumb ass I go home and tell my wife this. Instead of helping her heal, I dumped more trauma on her.

I know without a doubt that God created us in his image and men are not wired to treat their wives like anything other than their equals. So why is this message that all men are wired to look at other women so prevalent? Why are men using this as an excuse to continue this abusive behavior? I don’t have the answer to these questions. I can only look back at my own abusive behaviors and see that they were influenced by this polluted message. I hope that other men can see how their behavior has been influenced by this message and see the pain that they have caused. While you can not go back and change the past you can live a life of freedom where you honor your wife as God designed.

By JP

I don’t understand why this is so hard yet so simple. I am not the person that I used to be. I made the choice to make the changes and work on being the husband that my wife always deserved. It wasn’t easy, but nothing worthwhile ever is. My old life was toxic and it infected those around me. My life now is much better than it ever was. The choice to make the changes was easy. The work to make the changes was a challenge, but not impossible. Why are other men stuck in the process? Why do other men believe that they are wired differently and can’t change? There’s no secret or magic formula. It takes time and deliberate work to change your life and live in freedom. It takes having a vision of the life that you want to have and making it happen.

By JP

I believe that the only true way to recovery is the hard way. I have come to understand that my addiction was created due to my inability to deal with life. I learned to escape my painful emotions by filling my head with unhealthy garbage. Even after I understood that I had a problem, I never really faced it. I did just enough to get by and fool myself into believing I was better. I even had a therapist tell me I was cured.

Continue reading “The Hard Road” →

By JP

I can never forget the awful person that I used to be. I don’t want to ever forget it because going back to that old broken life is not an option. I see what I have done and how it is still affecting my wife. We are starting our third year on this journey of recovery. Our marriage is better than it has ever been. We have the connection that God designed us to have as husband and wife. Things are better but there are still triggers for her.

Continue reading “Triggers” →

By JP

I have reached a point in my life where I can look back and see who I used to be. I don’t like the person, but I am no longer that person. I made the hard choice of making a permanent life change. My previous life was influenced by my addiction and it was broken. I gave up that life and made the choice to do whatever it took to live a healthy life. I didn’t do it alone. My wife was with me and never gave up on me. I do not identify as an addict. I am a husband, father, grandfather, son, brother, and friend. I do not deny or will I ever forget my past, but it doesn’t define who I am.

By JP

I have spent most of my life lying about things. I’m not sure when it all began, but it went hand in hand with my maladaptive coping skills. I believe that I lied to myself as much as I lied to everyone else. My lies fed my false beliefs and kept me emotionally stunted. I am not proud nor am I bragging about my ability to lie. I became so good at it that I could make things up in an instant. I chose a profession where my ability to make things up quickly was an asset.

Continue reading “Honesty” →

By JP

I realize that it is a challenge to believe our recovery has progressed this far this quick. When we first started it was all doom and gloom. There were no positive stories. We believed that we were stuck with this addiction and that I was going to have to live the rest of my life surrendering and attending meetings. This is not how we wanted to spend the rest of our lives.

Continue reading “Too good to be true” →

By JP:

My wife asked me to share my thoughts on the full disclosure process. Initially it scared the heck out of me. I had spent all my life lying and manipulating. Now I had to tell the truth and tell her everything.

Continue reading “Disclosure” →

When writing or talking about his recovery from sex addiction, JP always mentions how his CSAT helped him resolve his childhood trauma. So why would a Certified Sex Addiction Therapist treat childhood trauma? Why wasn’t she focusing on his porn use and other acting out behaviors? I decided to make this post a Q&A to help explain those answers.

Continue reading “Why do we talk about childhood trauma?” →

By JP

I have reached a point in my recovery where I have more clarity. I have made it this far by making drastic changes to my way of living. The addict’s dream is to move on and get back to normal. “Let’s focus on the future and forget the past.” Forgive and forget was a common theme. All of these were lies and part of the denial in active addiction.

Continue reading “Normal” →

By JP

My wife had questions this evening about a specific acing out incident. I immediately stopped what I was doing and gave her my full attention. I answered her questions to the best of my ability. I fully owned what I did and expressed my sorrow for causing her pain. I can never change what I did but I can be present in the moment and hold her pain. This has been a major changing point in my recovery.

Continue reading “Getting it out and beating it up” →

By JP

I have reached a point in my recovery where I am free of my addiction. I can look back and see with some clarity how I got here and why I am in a good place now. I stopped my acting out over a year and a half ago. Stopping was easy, I had done it many times before. Staying stopped was a whole different battle.

Continue reading “Stopping” →

By JP

I have come to see the pain that I have caused my wife over the years. I lied, manipulated, and gas lighted her for years. I was not mature enough to see the consequences of my actions. There is no excuse for my behavior. I chose to live a life of lies and deceit. I never imagined that it would cause her so much pain.

Continue reading “Trauma” →

By JP

Relapse is a word that is used way too often in recovery. Early on in my recovery my wife and I agreed that that there was no room for relapse in recovery. Relapse is just another excuse for more betrayal trauma. It’s a built in excuse to act out. It is part of the addiction cycle and not part of recovery. True recovery is getting to the root cause and resolving it. We must face our trauma that led us to our addiction and kill it. I have done this and my addiction is no longer part of my life. I have found freedom in my new healthy way of living.

By JP

I have been on this journey of recovery for over a year now. I have a 12 step online support group that I attend weekly. My 12 step group has helped me develop healthy connections. The one aspect of the 12 step group that I didn’t understand was the surrendering. I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life surrendering lustful thoughts.

Continue reading “Surrendering” →

As I have progressed through my recovery I have become a different person. I have made changes in my life that have led to a healthier way of living. A little over a year ago I was tired of the way I was living and the trauma that I was causing my wife. I chose to stop watching all television. I got rid of all social media and limited my use of the internet. I didn’t know the long term affect that it would have on my recovery.

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By JP

I am not alone nor will I ever be. My journey through recovery has showed me that the opposite of addiction is connection. I chose to isolate myself a long time ago when I was a child. I developed a false belief that I was alone and I could never ask for help. I developed a false belief that asking for help was a sign of weakness. A year ago I found myself alone in a crowded world.

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By JP

When I started this journey last year, I didn’t understand my addiction. I thought is was as simple as me being a bad person who wanted to watch men and women have sex. I didn’t have the capacity to understand the full extent of my addiction and how it hurt my wife. Fortunately my wife kept pushing me to get to the “why” of my addiction.

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By JP

A year ago I did not have the ability to forgive myself. I hated myself and the awful things that I had done. I finally saw the price that my addiction had cost. It was in the pain and trauma that I put my wife through. I finally got the bill for my addiction and my wife had to pay it. How could I ever be forgiven for what I had done? There was not enough pain and punishment for my sin.

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My wife is the most beautiful woman in the world. My addiction tainted my view of my wife and kept me from seeing her beauty. My addiction kept me in a place of shame and darkness and I couldn’t see my wife for who she was. My first major step was by letting go of my illusion of control. Once I brought out my addiction to the light it began to lose power. I started to tell the truth. It was painful to tell my wife how much I manipulated and lied during our marriage.

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