If ever I, myself, needed the understanding and support of those in the tribe of us, the recovering sex and porn addicts, it is now. Truly, if I can speak truth, this need largely escaped me until I joined the fellowship of SPAA. (Sex and Porn Addicts Anonymous)
It's repeated all over the earth. Addicts in 12 Step programs cannot recover alone, on their own resources, but must need have community and fellowship with those who share the particular addiction disease. So, it is.
Particularly in SPAA. This disease murders hope. My hopes of abstinence, when I entertained such hope, dashed countless times over decade upon decade.
Perhaps I can find the words to explain. In my family of origin, a shadow of shame darkened the light in the house. A lock on authentic expression curtailed capacity to learn how to feel. From my perspective, an admonition in the household acted like a curtain in a movie theater. If the curtain could have been opened, the movie would have been like a world of entertainment. Simple fun. Going fishing. Going to the sleep-over. Going to the sock hop in the 7th grade classroom. Going to see Natalie Wood in West Side Story. But the curtain, for the most part, never opened.
But, and I am grateful for this, when I reached puberty, I did find a manner to enjoy an endless supply of fun by bringing myself to completion, while imagining having sex with the girls I lusted for in grade school. Sexually acting out rescued my life in those early years, and I am indebted. In later years, most emphatically, I say the interest on that debt drove my subsequent life into a kind of vaguely noticed, but perpetual bankruptcy.
The brothers and sisters with whom I daily meet in our international SPAA Zoom meetings understand. My sentiment is that this understanding breathes forth the hope that gives the finger to sex and porn addiction. We share a common lung breathing hope.
Now. So, it is. Hope, one day at a time.
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