Life can be pretty boring sometimes. Boring isn’t necessarily a bad thing in itself, but we can see it that way. If I’m bored, I must be an uninteresting person, or I have an unsatisfying job, relationship, home, etc. Boredom does not say anything about who you are, but how you react to it does. This is an area where I have failed many times. I allow boredom to tell me that I’m alone, and that I will always be alone. I operate out of feeling that I have a lack or need, instead of seeing it as an opportunity. Sure, sometimes having an abundance of free time has caused me to do good, but usually it’s quite the opposite. We want to go from feeling basically nothing, to feeling something, to being excited, captivated, overjoyed. These are good things, but they take a margin of effort to acquire, unless you turn to the internet. The danger of PMO is that you can create extremely high levels of excitement in mere seconds. Interacting with women around the globe all from the comfort of your chair. In “Out of the Shadows” author Patrick Carnes says that “the absence of a relationship and the desire for heightened excitement are the twin pillars of sexual addiction.” Perhaps some would change that to “the lack of a healthy relationship” but for me this is dead on. I beat myself up for being single, and then the desire to be excited (for a moment) is fulfilled by PMO. I’m working to be more disciplined, to flee, to reach out when trouble comes, but I am trying to be patient as well. I have learned in my recovery that a quick process is not often one that produces lasting results. All of the quick fixes that I tried over the years, haven’t solved anything. Sure, I had a few months of success, but the addiction would always come back. Likely because I had false expectations that I could get to the point of never being tempted again. I do believe healing and transformation are possible in this area, but my 20 year addiction is not going to be totally overcome in a few months. Which is okay, better to get the most out of this recovery journey than try to rush to the finish line. Whatever that is.
