JacobTheAddict

Moving Readings – Part II

Hi, I’m Jacob, a grateful, recovering sex and love addict. I’ve been sober almost eight months.

This is the second departure from telling my story to share a reading that has meant a lot to me. This one, too, is from Sexaholics Anonymous (https://sa.org), and can be found at https://www.sa.org/solution/.

The Solution

We saw that our problem was three-fold: physical, emotional, and spiritual. Healing had to come about in all three.

The crucial change in attitude began when we admitted we were powerless, that our habit had us whipped. We came to meetings and withdrew from our habit. For some, this meant no sex with themselves or others, including not getting into relationships. For others it meant “drying out” and not having sex with the spouse for a time to recover from lust.

We discovered that we could stop, that not feeding the hunger didn’t kill us, that sex was indeed optional! There was hope for freedom, and we began to feel alive. Encouraged to continue, we turned more and more away from our isolating obsession with sex and self and turned to God and others.

All this was scary. We couldn’t see the path ahead, except that others had gone that way before. Each new step of surrender felt it would be off the edge into oblivion, but we took it. And instead of killing us, surrender was killing the obsession! We had stepped into the light, into a whole new way of life.

The fellowship gave us monitoring and support to keep us from being overwhelmed, a safe haven where we could finally face ourselves. Instead of covering our feelings with compulsive sex, we began exposing the roots of our spiritual emptiness and hunger. And the healing began.

As we faced our defects, we became willing to change; surrendering them broke the power they had over us. We began to be more comfortable with ourselves and others for the first time without our “drug.”

Forgiving all who had injured us, and without injuring others, we tried to right our own wrongs. At each amends more of the dreadful load of guilt dropped from our shoulders, until we could lift our heads, look the world in the eye, and stand free.

We began practicing a positive sobriety, taking the actions of love to improve our relations with others. We were learning how to give; and the measure we gave was the measure we got back. We were finding what none of the substitutes had ever supplied. We were making the real Connection. We were home.

I hope this resonates with you as it did me.

Jacob The Addict (jacobtheaddict@gmail.com)

Moving Readings – Part I

Hi, I’m Jacob, a grateful, recovering sex and love addict. I’ve been sober for almost eight months.

I’m taking a break from my story for the next two posts to share with you the two most profound readings I’ve encountered in my recovery. Both come from Sexaholics Anonymous and can be found on their website at https://www.sa.org/solution/. If they come after me for reposting their document, I’ll leave you with the URL.

The first one is called “The Problem” and is included here exactly as it appears on the SA website.

The Problem

Many of us felt inadequate, unworthy, alone, and afraid. Our insides never matched what we saw on the outsides of others.

Early on, we came to feel disconnected—from parents, from peers, from ourselves. We tuned out with fantasy and masturbation. We plugged in by drinking in the pictures, the images, and pursuing the objects of our fantasies. We lusted and wanted to be lusted after.

We became true addicts: sex with self, promiscuity, adultery, dependency relationships, and more fantasy. We got it through the eyes; we bought it, we sold it, we traded it, we gave it away. We were addicted to the intrigue, the tease, the forbidden. The only way we knew to be free of it was to do it. “Please connect with me and make me whole!” we cried with outstretched arms. Lusting after the Big Fix, we gave away our power to others.

This produced guilt, self-hatred, remorse, emptiness, and pain, and we were driven ever inward, away from reality, away from love, lost inside ourselves.

Our habit made true intimacy impossible. We could never know real union with another because we were addicted to the unreal. We went for the “chemistry,” the connection that had the magic, because it by-passed intimacy and true union. Fantasy corrupted the real; lust killed love.

First addicts, then love cripples, we took from others to fill up what was lacking in ourselves. Conning ourselves time and again that the next one would save us, we were really losing our lives.

From https://www.sa.org/solution/

I hope this resonates with you as much as it did with me.

Jacob The Addict (jacobtheaddict@gmail.com)

Made It to Step One

Hi, I’m Jacob, a grateful, recovering sex addict. I’ve been sober for seven and a half months.

I’m behind in telling my story.

Several weeks ago, I met with my sponsor, Dan (not his real name), to go through my Step One work. It took me a while to get there. I think I’ve already covered that, but a quick summary is probably in order.

Step One is all about admitting that you are powerless over your addiction. My self-righteous inner self pushed back at that concept, as I spoke to a few posts back. Admitting powerlessness sounded like a cop out to me. I would just try harder.

But as I went through the worksheets associated with Step One in one of my workbooks, my rational self became the Prosecuting Attorney in the case of the People v. Jacob The Addict (detailed in OK, I’m Finally There). As Prosecutor, I amassed an enormous amount of evidence that proved beyond doubt that the Defendant (my addict self) was indeed powerless over his addiction. Powerless to stop, powerless to change and powerless to heal. Once presented with that evidence the Addict capitulated.

I’ve also spoken about the deconstruction of my faith that took place on a parallel track (Deconstructing My Faith – Part I and Deconstructing My Faith – Part II). This was also necessary, since the faith that I had was of little to no help in dealing with my addictive behavior and the shame that accompanied it.

When I met with Dan to go through my Step One work, I shared with him the discoveries that I’ve made in myself: the case I’d built against the addict, the deconstruction of my faith and stark assessment of what I believe and why. And the realization that I am powerless over SIN. And SIN just happens to be most pronounced in my life as sex addition.

So, I told Dan that I was, indeed, powerless over my addiction and that my life had certainly become unmanageable. And only two things matter at this point:

God loves me because of WHO HE IS, not because of who I am or am not, or what I do or don’t do, and
Jesus came to earth to do for me what I could never do for myself

With that, Dan told me I had completed Step One. But then he went further. He asked if I remember the parable of the Ninety-Nine and the One. The story of the Shepherd who left the 99 sheep that were safe to go in search of the one that was lost. I told him that I did remember it.

Then he said: “You are the ONE.”

Chills ran down my spine as I gradually understood the gravity of what Dan said. You see, every time I had read that story in the past, it was always about the Loving Shepherd who went after that wayward sheep, while I hung back with the other 98, lazing around eating green grass. The story was never about me.

But as I reflected on what Dan said, it hit me that I was the wayward sheep and that Jesus came looking for ME. And HE FOUND ME. I genuinely felt FOUND for the first time in my life.

Isn’t it funny how in order to be FOUND, I had to get to the point where I realized that I was LOST. That’s how God works.

As long as I was driving the bus, God was not going to intervene. When I thought I was in control, He stayed back. When I crashed and burned, He stepped in to rescue me. And He did it via Step One of the Twelve Steps.

He does move in mysterious ways. And He’s waiting for you.

Jacob The Addict (jacobtheaddict@gmail.com)

Deconstructing My Faith – Part II

Hi, I’m Jacob, a grateful, recovering sex addict. I’ve been sober a little over seven months.

Picking up where I left off last time …

My old faith stood in the way of my getting to powerless. That’s because it was a self-righteous faith. The kind the Pharisees had. You know the Pharisees, right? The only humans on the face of the earth Jesus took to task. The religious folks. That ought to tell us something about how God views self-righteousness.

Deconstructing my faith worked like this. I imagined that everything I believed was hung on my “Pegboard of Faith”, each on its own hook. I took each tenant of faith off the pegboard and placed it on a table in my mind. Every one of them. Now, I’m picking up those pieces, one at a time, and looking closely at them.

I’ll pick one up and roll it around with my fingers so I can see all sides of it. Then I’ll put it down and pick up another. I haven’t thrown any of them away yet. I need more time to reflect on them.

So far, only two things have gone back up on the Pegboard of Faith. And I’m not sure either one of them was up there to start with. I think both of them have come to me since I started recovery. And here they are.

First, God loves me because of Who He is, not because of who I am or am not – or what I do or don’t do. He loves me because that’s Who He Is. I can’t change a single thing about God’s love for me. It simply is. That doesn’t give me a free pass to do anything I want, but it does mean that I can’t escape His love.

Second, Jesus came to earth to do for me what I could never do for myself. He died to set me free. My death will simply be justice for the sins I’ve committed against God, myself and others. Jesus’ death, however, paid the price of my rebellion and restored me to life.

That’s it. Just those two things on my Pegboard of Faith. Plenty of things on the table to be looked at over time. But for now I rest assured that God’s love for me cannot be extinguished and that the blood of Jesus restored me to life.

Now, what’s on the table? Here are a few things to consider:

Should women be allowed to wear pants to church?
Should a church have any kind of images inside or outside the building?
Can a church support orphans’ homes?
Is it OK to worship with a piano? How about a guitar? An electric guitar? Drums? How about a fog machine?
Can a church have just one pastor? Or should it have a plurality?
Is full immersion baptism the only way to be saved?
Can a church have a praise team or must it be a single worship leader or songleader?
Does the name of the church you attend matter?
Is taking the Lord’s Supper required every week or only on certain days?
Is the multitude of denominations acceptable to God?
Is Wednesday night attendance required?
Can women preach? Or make announcements in church?
Should a church have a kitchen?
What about Sunday School? Is it OK or is it an abomination?
Is it OK to use anything other than the King James Bible?
Can communion bread have salt in it?
Is an “invitation” or “altar call” required at every service?
Must a church have pews or are chairs OK?
Can giving to a cause other than your local church be counted as part of your tithe?
If I say “$@!?%” and get hit by a truck before I can ask forgiveness, am I going to Hell?
Can a divorced person be saved?

There’s a very short sample of the things I’ve heard folks turn into doctrine over the years. Some of those made it into my thinking and I’m glad to have them down on the table where I can see them. I already know what I’ll do with some of those, but others will take a bit longer to come to a certain answer.

But I do know that, even if I don’t get all of them right, the blood of Jesus still makes me whole. That’s already been permanently affixed on the Pegboard of Faith.

Thanks for reading.

Jacob The Addict (jacobtheaddict@gmail.com)

Deconstructing My Faith – Part I

Hi, I’m Jacob, a grateful, recovering sex addict. I’ve been sober for 7 months.

As I’ve told you in the past, I’ve been a Christian since my teen years. And some of you have judged me for saying that. “How can you call yourself a Christian when you are a sex addict?” I’ll deal with that in a future post, but today, I want to talk about deconstructing my faith.

When I came into the recovery journey, I was very self-righteous. I may have had a “struggle” with pornography (the term I used while deluding myself) but I was certainly no addict. And I was MUCH better than those other guys in that twelve step group. In fact, I would go for a couple of weeks to prove that I didn’t need to be there and then go back to normalcy.

However, things didn’t go that way. I quickly realized that I was just like every other guy in the group and that I belonged there. Little by little, my self-righteousness began to fade. It dawned on me that all of those things I did to “earn” God’s grace did not help me one bit in dealing with my addiction.

Little by little, the Spirit began to chip away at my self-righteousness – my attitude, my sense of superiority, my arrogance and my pride. Once that was gone, I was left with nothing of merit.

I hope some of you reading are saying “Well, duh!” at this point because you’re long since realized that you have nothing of worth to bring to God. But for me, all the many delusions of addiction merely encouraged my self-righteousness to try and hide the reality of addiction.

So, I went to church, taught a Bible class, preached occasionally and was even on the leadership board of my church for a while. I did all the right things and said all the right things, I regularly checked all the right boxes and was pretty good, all things considered.

In fact, the Lord was pretty lucky to have me. I had been in church since I was born. I was sprinkled as an infant in a reformed church and baptized as a teenager in an evangelical church. Talk about nailing it! I was about 60% good. So, I just needed Jesus to “top me off” with the other 40%.

When confronted with my addiction and starting to work the steps, I balked at Step One: “We admitted we were powerless over sex and love addiction…” Whaddaya mean “powerless”? I’m pretty good. I’ve got the Lord on my side. I can’t be powerless. See how hard I’m working? I’ll just try harder.

Except that I’ve been trying to stop my addictive behavior for decades. Time and again, I’ve sworn I would stop only to go back to it – sometimes only hours later.

So, all that “working for the Lord”, ticket-punching and (self) righteousness I had did me no good in battling addiction.

Little by little, slowly but surely, I came to realize that I really didn’t have a real faith to hold onto. I believed in God, but I had a stronger belief in my ability to earn His love. So, my focus was on earning His love instead of living in His Light.

OK, I’ve written you a book but I haven’t gotten to deconstructing my faith. But maybe I’ve laid enough groundwork that you are ready to read “the rest of the story”. That will be my next post.

Blessings,

Jacob The Addict (jacobtheaddict@gmail.com)

OK, I’m Finally There

Hi, I’m Jacob, a grateful, recovering sex addict. My sobriety date is unchanged since my very first post.

I’m hoping this is the last time I’ll write about getting to powerless. But I need to share my final inventory with you. Or, perhaps better said, the case I’ve been building against myself.

And here it is. The list of things I’m powerless over.

The dysfunction in my family of origin.
The addictions and abuses of other members of my extended family.
The codependency I developed with my Mother.
The pain caused by my Dad’s emotional absence.
The hurt I carried away from my home life.
The feeling that I’m “less than” … less than just about everything.
The drive to prove myself over and over and over again.
The addiction I turned to to numb the pain I’ve felt for so very long.
The constant acting out, swearing to myself and to God that I’d never do it again, then returning to that behavior in short order.
The long list of broken, dysfunctional relationships I had before I met Amy.
The hurt and betrayal that I’ve caused my dear wife, Amy,
The harm that I’ve caused to others who were objects of my addiction or were victims of collateral damage.
The emotional harm I’ve caused my kids by my failure to be present in their lives.
The numbness I feel from day to day.
The anger and rage that lies buried deep inside.
Sin.

And then, there’s the acceptance that my life is unmanageable. Here are a few clues that might be the case.

I lost touch with my God; how long ago, I cannot say.
I lost touch with Amy, my soulmate, a long time ago.
I lost touch with my adult children.
I lost touch with the few friends I have.
I all but lost touch with my siblings.
I lost touch with my church family.
I let this addiction take over my soul, reaching the point that I don’t care what might happen.
The only thing I never really let get out of control is my work, and the fact that is true proves I’m messed up.

So, that’s the case Jacob the Sane presents against Jacob the Addict.

The prosecution rests its case, feeling it has proved, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Jacob the Addict is powerless and is living a life that is unmanageable.

Men and women of the jury, what say ye?

Jacob The Addict (jacobtheaddict@gmail.com)

I Think I’m Powerless

Hi, I’m Jacob, a grateful, recovering sex addict. By the grace of God, I’m still sober.

My last post was about “powerless-ness” and how hard it is for me to get there. But I think I’m almost there.

Recently, I was listening to my sponsor talk about his past (“telling his story” – an important part of the realization and recovery process) and a great deal of what he said resonated with me.

He talked about how many times in his life he had purchased pornography (magazines, movies, etc.), used them for self-gratification, then destroyed them all, swearing he’d never do it again. Then find himself at the magazine shop or video rental place buying more.

Last time, I gave you a list of the evidence in the case I’m building against myself related to being powerless over this addiction. When I made that list, I had not even considered what Dan was talking about.

I cannot begin to count the number of times in my life that I’ve done exactly the same thing: bought magazines or movies, downloaded images, watched online porn, etc., “used” them, then destroyed them (or the browsing history leading back to them), swearing that THIS would be the last time.

Then a few days later (hours, sometimes), find myself desperately trying to find the same material I had just destroyed.

I’ve tried willpower, web filters (with a friend serving as my “parent”), accountability partners, encouraging notes to myself, scripture, “white knuckling it” – you name it. And nothing has ever kept me clean. NOTHING.

Now, my prayers for forgiveness immediately following acting out have almost always been genuine. I’ve asked the Lord to “create in me a new heart” so many times that He knows what I’m going to say long before I approach Him (He does anyway).

My point is this. Each new personal discovery, or challenge to remember the past, or hearing of a fellow addict’s story helps me understand even more how futile my effort to stay clean has been. If I’ve tried for decades to beat this and have only managed to get deeper in this hole I’ve dug, then I must certainly be powerless over it.

And, by the way, the “it” in my case is pornography and sex with self, but the more general term is “sin”.

I am therefore POWERLESS over sin, regardless of how it manifests itself within me. I am powerless over this addiction to sex, regardless how it may present itself at any particular time.

I need help from God Himself to change anything about me or this addiction. He is my only hope of becoming a whole human being, one that is useful to Him. I’m glad I can finally say that and really mean it.

Thanks for reading.

Jacob The Addict (jacobtheaddict@gmail.com)

Getting to Powerless-ness

Hi, I’m Jacob, a grateful, recovering sex addict. I recently passed six months sober. I’m working on admitting that I’m powerless.

As I mentioned in a previous post, Step One of the Twelve Steps is:

We admitted we were powerless over sex and love addiction – that our lives had become unmanageable.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t much like the word “powerless”. It sounds wimpy and weak. It sounds a bit whiny. In some ways, it sounds like a cop-out, as in “Yeah, I’m addicted to sex, but I’m powerless against it, so I’ll keep doing whatever I want because I’m powerless.”

I like to think that I’m powerful enough to manage my own affairs. I’ve never been a “power freak” by any means, but just powerful enough to take care of myself. On the flip side, to admit to be powerless sounds a lot like failure to me.

Maybe that makes me a control freak. I do like to be in control and drive the bus. I think I’ve done a pretty good job, thank you. I have a great family. I have a great job. I’ve been successful.

Except for the fact that I’m sex addict. And have been for decades. And while trying to not be an addict, I keep going right back to the same behaviors.

I get angry, I act out.
I get sad, I act out.
I get lonely, I act out.
I get scared, I act out.
I get euphoric, I act out.

Looking at that, it appears that when most anything happens in my life, I act out. Maybe that is powerless after all.

And then there’s the baggage I carry around from a long time ago.

I’ve been working with Hank (not his real name), my counselor, on identifying past traumas. Things that I didn’t really identify as trauma at the time because I was a kid. But as an adult looking back on them, they were traumatic because adults treated a kid that way.

In the exercise we’ve been working on, I went through all my past traumatic experiences and identified: 1) the roles I played in my family of origin, and 2) the unwritten rules that existed in our family. Then, reflecting on those, I was to write the mission statement of our family as I must have understood it.

Here are some highlights:

Keep Mom happy
Don’t express negative emotions
Love is conditional
Protect the family name
Be perfect
Work hard
You must out-success your Father
You are a bad judge of character
You may not act independently of Mom

I don’t have time for the backstory here, but all of those are spoken in my Mom’s voice. She was larger than life. She was in control. She was nurturing and explosive at the same time. Crossing her was dangerous.

She’s been dead for a while but I’ve still been living in her shadow. I’m seeing that as it is for the first time in my life. But it’s hard to deal with.

So how do you break the addictive cycle I started out with above, PLUS deal with all the baggage I carry around from my childhood? I think I’m coming up on the answer.

Here it is: You Don’t

You want to know why? Because I am powerless to change any of those things by myself. And that’s not a cop-out. That’s an absolute fact.

So, maybe I’m coming up on Step One. Maybe I am powerless after all. I do know that my life has become unmanageable. And I’m ready for things to change.

I’ll be sharing all of what I’ve shared here with my Sponsor, Dan (not his real name), and see what he thinks. Maybe I’m ready to start “working the steps”.

I pray that someone out there reads this and finds hope. That’s the only reason I’m baring my own soul here.

Blessings,

Jacob the Addict (jacobtheaddict@gmail.com)

Brokenness

Hi, I’m Jacob, a grateful, recovering sex addict. My sobriety date is unchanged since my last post.

If you know anything about 12-Step programs and the steps themselves, then you probably know that Step One reads like this (modified for sex addiction):

“We admitted we were powerless over sex addiction— that our lives had become unmanageable.”

That may seem like a pretty simple thing to do – admit that one is powerless over one’s addiction. But it’s not.

Human nature says that I can beat this if I just try harder. Never mind the fact that I’ve tried for decades to overcome this by myself, without success.

I’ve read self-help books on overcoming pornography and I’ve implemented their recommendations. Then I’ve white-knuckled through several years of not acting out, only to relapse.

I’ve had accountability partners that I’ve promised to check in with. And I’ve forgotten about them or misled them into thinking I was OK when I wasn’t – and relapsed.

Nothing has worked for more than one or two years. Eventually, the stress or the pain or the anger or the whatever gets bad enough that I return to my drug of choice.

You can probably read what I just wrote and say: “That sounds like ‘powerless’ to me.” But for me, saying I’m “powerless” feels like a cop-out. It feels like I’m looking for (or claiming) an excuse.

Part of my problem is that I was “raised in church”. I’ve gone to church since I was born. When I responded to the “invitation” or the “altar call” when I was 12, it was out of fear, rather than surrender.

For many years, I’ve tried to work my way into God’s favor. And most days, I felt like I was carrying about 60% of the load and just needed Jesus to “top me off” with the other 40%. That attitude is a long, long way from surrender.

I hate to say it, but my church upbringing actually stands in the way of my surrender in Step One. You see, I’m a pretty good person, all in all, and God is pretty lucky to have me on His team. Again, that is a very long way from surrender.

Thankfully, the work toward Step One requires serious reflection on all the things I’ve done, all the places I’ve been, all the times I’ve tried to stop my addictive behavior and all the times I, like the dog in Proverbs, have returned to the vomit.

Looking at the many situations I’ve written about in my step work, it becomes very obvious that there’s a dysfunctional pattern. And the weight of evidence seems to indicate that I’m unable to stop my acting out.

With that said, I’m getting closer to surrender every day. It’s a scary thought to finally yield my will to God’s, approach Him with empty hands and bowed head, and say “Lord, I got nothin’.” But as one of my readings said recently, its time for me to get out of God’s way and let Him lead me where He wants me. After all, He made me and knows how I’m wired.

When I get there, it will be the first time in my life I’ve truly surrendered my will to God’s. Its high time I stopped trying to control everything. After all, its quite easy to see what a fine job I’ve done in screwing things up til now.

May God grant me the humility to yield my will to His.

Best, Jacob the Addict (jacobtheaddict@gmail.com)

A Small Breakthrough

Hi, I’m Jacob, a grateful, recovering sex addict. My sobriety date is unchanged since my last post. I’m still sober.

You probably realize that I’m still very new at this recovery thing. I’m learning new things about myself and my addiction every day. I don’t pretend to be wise about any of this, but I’m figuring stuff out.

I attend a 12-Step meeting one night a week and am trying to work in a second one. I attend group therapy one night a week and I have individual therapy every other week. In between all that, I’m reading every day and doing work toward Step One.

In short, I’m filling my head with the right stuff: tons of information about addiction, codependence, intimacy disorders and such. Now, I have to sort through it all and make some sense of it.

Last weekend, I escaped to the family farm and did some manual labor. In my eyes, nothing clears the mind like hard outdoor work. Amy was not too excited about my running away, but I’m glad I did because I made a minor breakthrough while away. It’ll take a little background to help you understand what happened.

At the recommendation of my therapist, Hank, I’ve been reading ”Facing Codependence” by Pia Mellody. I knew nothing about codependence before reading her book, other than the fact that I made fun of my sister when she felt she was struggling with it years ago.

I came away from that book realizing that I lived in a codependent relationship with my mother from birth until the day she died. I knew she was a bit unstable and had a Jekyll/Hyde streak in her. She’d be loving one minute and rip your head off the next. One of my jobs was to be responsible for keeping her happy – or at least not angry. I learned a great number of other dysfunctional behaviors from her, as well. I came away afraid of and angry with women in general because I projected her onto virtually every woman I met.

Soon after I married Amy, I realized that I was projecting my mother onto her, but seemed unable to keep from doing so. Anytime she would express the least bit of frustration with me, I would recoil from her, wanting to crawl under a rock. To say that’s caused problems in our marriage would be an understatement.

Let’s label that Factor One in this equation I’m developing. A factor that leads to a painful and unfulfilling relationship with one’s spouse.

Now Factor Two is inherent to sex addiction. The addict’s life revolves around sex. Sex is like oxygen. Without it you will die an agonizing death. Or at least that’s what the addict inside tells you. And so if you can’t get sex from your spouse, you must get it somewhere. For me, it was porn and masturbation, i.e., sex with self. But for the grace of God, I could have found it in other women.

In recovery, one of the standard readings in my 12-Step group reminds us that we eventually learn that sex is optional. Who would have ever thought that sex was optional? Certainly not this addict.

But when I stopped acting out and began to “dry out”, so to speak, I started to get some clarity in my thinking. I went through a withdrawal period and on the other side, it became easier to do without constant sexual stimulation. Amy and I have made love a handful of times during the time of my recovery, but I have stayed “sober” by not acting out in sex with self. So, I really am learning that sex is optional and life doesn’t end without it.

On to Factor Three, which is being a people pleaser, a definite codependent characteristic. I can’t stand for someone to be upset with me. So, to avoid that, I give in, retreat, cower, grovel or whatever in order to make the other person “not mad“. I’ve done that with Amy since Day One of our marriage.

So how do these three factors interrelate? Well, it works like this (and it is as bizarre as it seems when you go back and read it again):

Amy constantly wants to know what I’m thinking, feeling, how I’m doing, etc. That’s part of her definition of intimacy. (I don’t have a definition of intimacy that doesn’t include the word “sex” three or four times.)
Now, let’s say that she’s done something that frustrates me. That might be what’s going through my head when she asks me “what are you thinking?”.
But I can’t tell her that I’m frustrated because she will get mad (because that’s what my mother always did). That will be horrible. I’m a people pleaser and can’t let that happen.
Besides, if she gets mad at me, she won’t want to have sex with me.
And if I don’t have sex, I will die. (It’s oxygen, remember?)

So that’s what’s been happening in our relationship forever. I won’t approach any conflict with Amy because it might lead to no sex and my figurative death.

But here’s the flip side.

If I don’t tell Amy about my frustrations, we can’t work on the underlying issues and the frustration continues.
Then I get mad at her because the things that frustrate me continue.
But I stuff those feelings because I’m afraid that Mom (or my projection of her onto Amy) will rip my head off.
I reach a point where I am unable to deal with all of the repressed frustration – or more accurately, anger – and I need something to dull the pain.
So I turn to my drug of choice and act out in my addiction.
And then the guilt and shame set in, which add to the repressed feelings of anger, along with other guilt and shame, which in turn need to be medicated.

And that is how sex addiction becomes a real thing in a seemingly “normal” marriage.

So, I shared that entire cycle with Amy earlier this week and she wasn’t shocked or surprised. She was hurt, but followed my distorted logic quite well.

But, for me, knowledge is power and now that I recognize this bizarre pattern, I can do something about. Now that I’m starting to realize that sex is truly optional (from a physiological standpoint at least) then I need not fear addressing conflict with Amy for that reason alone.

I’ll still have to work through the projection of my mother onto Amy, but the fear of dying from lack of sex because she might get angry is much less scary than before.

Now, Amy and I can start working on potentially contentious issues and I can learn to let her be mad – if necessary – and not feel like I have to fix it.

None of this is easy, but it feels like missing pieces of a puzzle are turning up everywhere. Who knows, I might eventually find enough pieces to see what the puzzle is supposed to look like.

Please let me know if any of this speaks to you.

God bless.

Jacob The Addict (jacobtheaddict@gmail.com)