Yukon Joe's Journal - a musher's path away from a lifelong addiction

I now realize how hard change can be. Serious change.

 

Joe very insightful posts. I think you are correct the term Jihad really applies to a battle in the self.

We all seem to have that dual nature friend. Our greater self and our lesser.

Yes, focus on your Greatest visions of your grandest self.

 

Four days and counting. I'm on a flatline again. To fight this I'm trying to keep busy.

Last night I went out with some male friends to an NYE celebration.

Today is a day off work. A time of danger. I started out a little depressed. Tried to keep myself busy cleaning up the house and working on cars. I played the saxophone a little and watched some Netflix. Anything but MB to P. It helps me to keep busy so I don't reach for the laptop.

I have this habit of wanting to see what's new on my favorite P sites. That's how it starts. Just looking. Then I decide what the hell and go for MB. After it's all over it just doesn't seem as good as it used to. Honestly I wish the hell I had done something else. I spent a lot of time in the gym over Christmas. Last night I spent a lot of time walking around downtown for NYE. My legs are sore today. When I keep busy I don't MB. That's the bottom line. When I have nothing to do is when I am venerable. I have to keep myself busy. Books to read. Movies to watch. Things to take care of. I want to push this to at least 30 days this time if not longer.

 

Finding ways to replace masturbation is a good idea. I've spent a lot of time studying the problem, reading about it and learning as much as I can.

 

Celebrating 7 days. At two weeks I start feeling the difference!

 

Good going. Read Uncle Bob's Porn Recovery Tips at YBOP.

 

Going through that right now. I think that 7 to 15 days is the danger point for me. If I can get past 15 days I can make it.

 

Those tips were my lifeline early on.

 

Officially two weeks as of today! Woo Hoo!!

Yesterday was strange. I had brain fog at work in the afternoon and a lot of emotion. I felt like screaming in my office. It's like coming down off of some kind of drug. Feelings of depression and brain fog and then a release and a good feeling. Sometimes my brain feels like its full of worms. I keep reading YBOP and see that this is not unusual in the recovery process. I know I just need to push through to the other side and things will get better.

 

They should abate soon.

 

16 days now. Withdrawal symptoms are hitting me like a baseball bat. Brain fog followed by euphoria. I guess the brain fog was always there. It's the lifting that makes things strange. I am getting more done around the house. Sex drive has totally flatlined. This is worse than the last couple of attempts at reboot but I am determined to stick this one out because I don't want to do it again. Everything I read says it gets better after about 30 days.

I guess I have to realize that I am kicking a lifelong addiction that has gone on for about 40 years. It won't be easy but it will be life changing.

Pushing forward.

 

It should start to get easier any day now. Hang in. It's worth it.

 

19 days. The withdrawal symptoms are gone but I'm still flatlining. I'm actually feeling better. Able to concentrate more at work. Leaving on a four day ski vacation to Colorado tomorrow. Looking forward to having more energy for this.

 

Wow. 27 days. Almost to my goal of thirty. I do have more energy now. I even find myself running back to the car from work!

I do have an unfair advantage now for the next two weeks or so. I went skiing last weekend and crashed on the right shoulder. Shoulder and arm are sore now and masturbation would actually be painful. Yeah. Skiing is the cure for MB addiction. Rented a snowmobile too. Came home from the mountains really sore.

I'm actually meeting a woman I met online this weekend and I'm corresponding with two others. Lets see how this goes....

 

You are past the worst of the reboot process already.

 

Yukon Joe,

Great man, you are making such good progress in your recovery... Sorry about your ski accident, man I'm lucky skiing since I was 8 and only one broken pinky finger in all these years... I still don't wear a helmet skiing, but that should change.

Hope you heal up fast and well. I hear that no PMO life promotes faster healing, along the lines of Wolverine!! LOL

 

Wolverine is one of my heroes. Like me, he had a rough start in life and went through a lot of crap. Like me, he survived.

I hit my 30 day goal. My new goal is 90 days.

Push on.

 

Good going mate.

 

35 days now. I'm really in a weird place right now. No energy. No sex drive. Boss told me I fell asleep at my desk. I didn't. I was looking down at my cell phone but they are watching me at work. That is extra pressure I don't need in my life right now. My brain just feels weird. It was kind of weird when I was skiing last week too. I lost a lot of weight in the last couple of years and my balance is off. I'm afraid to ride the motorcycles right now even if my shoulder wasn't injured.

I'm seeing a therapist now. I've talked to her twice. My fear of losing my job drove me to this. I told her all about my lifelong masturbation to porn addiction. She didn't see it as all that unusual. A lot came out about my alcoholic father who beat the shit out of me a few times when I was a kid. My meth addicted sister who died at age 42 while married to a 22 year old drug dealer. My dad dying leaving my mother with a big fancy house near the Country Club neighborhood that she could no longer afford, my sister in another expensive house my dad was providing for her and a ton of debt that supported all that delusion. There were crooked bill collectors, house flippers trying to grab my sister's house in a foreclosure that I actually stopped with a sale and actually got some money from the house to pay moms bills. It went on and on and on, and in the middle of it I lost my high paying corporate job and ended up working one temp job after another. There were times I thought of sticking a gun in my mouth. My whole damned upper middle class family disintegrated into a smoking pile of addiction, debt, drugs and alcohol. My therapist is really surprised that I survived my life as well as I did so far without becoming a full blown alcoholic or drug addict myself. My only addictions were to porn and food. Both are being dealt with.

I just wish I had a little more energy right now. I'm doing everything I can. This week I started treatment with an acupuncturist. Told him the whole damned porn addiction story too. He wasn't blown away or even surprised by it. He said it's quite common and was actually more concerned about what all my internet surfing was doing to my brain. He said my pulse was a little low and my kidneys needed a little work. Things the MD who checked me out after the ski crash didn't notice.

It's not like I have the brain fog from whacking it to porn all the time anymore. It's more like there is a hell of a lot on my plate still to deal with and I am running myself ragged trying to deal with it. I was actually sending out resumes the other night looking for a better job. Somehow I feel that once I get my brain rebooted I could handle a lot more. I am really underemployed right now and quite honestly I could use the money. I did some writing on a short story I wanted to publish and I am meeting a woman tomorrow who I found on the internet. Yeah. My therapist says I am pushing too hard, too soon. Maybe that's it. There is soo muich I want to do once I fix myself. I'm just hoping the energy to do it will be there soon.

 

38 days. Things are getting better.

Sunday night I did some of the best writing I had ever done on one of my projects.

Later Sunday night I had this vivid dream. My father was still alive and my mother brought home this old bathtub Porsche. Not a restored one, but a well worn one that was common on the roads maybe 30 years ago. She parked it next to the newer old Porsche I had owned for almost 20 years and said I could drive it whenever I wanted. It came with an old Airstream trailer converted into a race car trailer and an old one ton truck with distinctive aluminum bodywork as a tow vehicle. My drug addicted sister who was the cause of so much misery in the family was nowhere in site.

I have no idea what any of this means.

On Monday I got a new work assignment similar to the one I messed up a few weeks ago. I was actually able to focus on it and complete the assignment with absolutely NO MISTAKES. My thinking is more clear now but still a little slow and deliberate. The reboot is saving my job.

My therapist thinks I am expecting too much too soon from the reboot. To just relax and allow it to happen. I am thinking of applying for better paying jobs but it may be too soon for this. It's like my frontal lobe that does all of my rational thinking is coming back. When I drive down the street I notice things I didn't used to notice. Rewiring is happening.