Showing posts with label addiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label addiction. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 1, 2021

Why I Quit AA


BLOGGER'S NOTE. As I celebrated 31 years of sobriety today, I remembered something I had written WAY back - in 2010, as it turned out. I was just beginning to blog on Salon.com, and was naive enough to publish the piece - after which I was bombarded with the most hateful comments I have ever received about anything. One small sample: "Where did you attend meetings - in a lunatic asylum?" I was called nuts, looney, a whack job, a head case, and every other hateful synonym for "mentally ill" that anyone could dredge up.

I think, to some extent, it proved my point.

AA saved my life, but that doesn't mean it's appropriate to cling to a life preserver forever. Re-reading this for the first time in more than 10 years, I'm kind of taken aback by the anger in it,  and in the way I didn't spare the horses but came right out with every objection to the program I'd ever felt, and was never allowed to express.

So I'm re-publishing it today, since I still agree with most of it. I did sift out some extremely valuable life skills from attending meetings, but most of that was gathered wisdom from the friendships I had formed. It was the people, not the program which saved me - and yet, AA constantly focuses on "principles before personalities".

At any rate, I stopped going to meetings in 2005, and am sober today, and surprisingly happy and well given all the current circumstances. But since I've been given the power and ability to express things, and enough guts to put it out there in full knowledge of the risks, I won't waste this piece by keeping it in a moldering file. 

I have no idea if AA is different now. I even flirted with going to a meeting during the most brutal phase of the pandemic, not so much for the program as for the people. I just wanted a little companionship, what they used to call "fellowship",  with people whom I knew would be struggling with the whole situation. But all the meetings had been shut down due to quarantine.


Why I Quit AA

A sober alcoholic’s journey back to individuality

The other day I was lurking around in the children’s section of my favorite bookstore, trying to figure out what a four-year-old grandgirl might want for her birthday. Flipping through the $30 board books and propaganda about toilet training and environmentalism, I heard someone call my name.

I looked up. Oh, hi, Jim. Oh, I’m doing OK. Yes, really. Just doing a little shopping here. No, really, I’m OK. How are you?

It’s hard to be looked at with a mixture of embarrassment and pity, but that’s what I was seeing in Jim’s eyes. Clearly he didn’t want to run into me, as he had been making certain assumptions: that I had either “gone back out” and was drinking again, or else was in such a state of “dry drunk” rampage that I was making myself and everyone around me miserable.

Welcome to the wonderful world of an ex-AA. As with an ex-con, the sense of ensnarement never ends, at least not without a Velcro ripping-away and endless guilt.

There was a time when I needed AA like I needed to breathe. Yes, I am a real alcoholic, and I didn’t fully realize it until I crawled into a meeting on my belly in 1990. Scared sober, I became enmeshed in an organization that quickly took over my life. Moreover, the more embroiled I became, the greater the praise heaped upon me. If I went to a meeting every day, I was a “good” AA member; more than once per day, and I was a spiritual giant.

It’s often said at meetings that you never graduate. This might be OK if I at least had a sense of moving on to another level, but this is discouraged. People with 20 years sober are supposed to say at meetings (whether they feel it or not) that they are at exactly the same level as the newcomers, and are only one drink away from disaster.


I agree with this part: I’ll never be safe to drink again, and I’d better not forget it. After years and years of having this fact jackhammered into my head, I think I’ve accepted it (for after all, “acceptance is the answer to all my problems today”).

From the very beginning, I was disturbed by certain pervasive beliefs in the organization. Conformity is one. Don’t ever speak “outside” the AA rhetoric, or other people will assume you’re not doing it right, or you’re fighting the mighty truths of sobriety. There is such a thing as AA dogma, often promoted by the elder statesmen: one elderly man, a veteran of World War II, came to the same noon meeting every day (supplementing it with evening meetings nearly every night) and talked at length about the war. He talked about the war as it applied to AA, of course, about how he drank his way through the horrors of the battlefield (who wouldn’t?), came home to a wrecked life, and began to set himself straight on the Road of Happy Destiny.

I can’t begrudge an old man the comfort and safety of sobriety, but why do exactly the same dynamics have to apply to a 15-year-old kid? In AA, one size fits all, and if it doesn’t fit, YOU are made to fit yourself to it. If you ever hear a criticism, it’s always couched in terms of “well, I used to object to this and that” (I once was lost, but now I’m found, was blind, but now I see). But glory hallelujah, now I see the light.

The 12 steps, forged in the ‘30s by a failed stockbroker and an inebriated doctor, are all about breaking the will, surrender, and absolute reliance on God “as we understood him”. Though the founders were in some ways quite spiritually evolved, leaving the door open to diverse interpretations of the divine, the actual practice of the program involves the God of Sunday school and revival meetings and “that old-time religion”. As usual, the practice is light-years removed from the actual text.

We constantly hear things like “ninety meetings in ninety days”, “it works if you work it”, and reams of other cute sayings (my favorite of many acronyms: sober stands for “son-of-a-bitch, everything’s real!”). None of these are found in the main text of Alcoholics Anonymous, usually known as the Big Book. Though many members preface everything they say with “the Big Book says”, their interpretations are often pretty far off the actual content.

But that’s not what made me quit.


Though there was one defining crisis that caused the actual split, there had been a steady accumulation of episodes that disturbed me. No one seemed to be willing to talk to me about any of this, as they were too busy going on and on about humility, surrender and the “incredible journey”. (Many AA members I knew literally had no friends or even business associates outside the program, and had brought their spouses and children on-board. Those who didn’t usually ended up divorced: AA widows abound, and affairs rage in spite of the organization’s unnaturally pure motives.)

Item: I was a couple of years in, doing well, stable, sober, and going to five or six meetings a week. Anything that bothered me about AA and its principles was relegated to some sort of seething pit of doubt that was without question my fault, due to my arrogance, lack of surrender and refusal to absolutely rely on God.

For you see, “everything happens for a reason”, everything happens “the way it’s supposed to happen”. (When my son’s roommate was savagely kicked to death outside a bar, an AA member I knew said it was “all part of God’s plan.”) You hear this nearly every time. Though I didn’t voice my objection, because you don’t do that at meetings, this seemed like passivity to me. “Self-will run riot” was the ultimate evil, but it often seemed that having any individual will at all was somewhere between a sin and a crime.

My friend Louise told me this story: she had been horribly abused as a child, bullied by a sexual tyrant who was now beginning to abuse his grandchildren. As she sat around a campfire meeting, an exclusive club in which your deepest feelings were expected to be revealed, she finally shared the agonizing decision she had made: “I’m going to lay charges against my Dad.”

There was a brief, embarrassed silence, followed by this from the meeting’s ringleader: “Louise, I believe you have a resentment.”

There followed a long discussion (or rather, a series of uninterrupted soliloquys: AA doesn’t do “cross-talk”) about how Louise had to surrender, let go of her anger, forgive. This was what she “should” do. I met her several months later and asked her how she was doing. “Much better. I’ve left the program. I was tired of twisting myself into a pretzel.”

Another episode, even more harrowing, involved a young woman who had been systematically tortured by her father. Her sponsor told her she must pray for the person who abused her, and wish for him everything she would want for herself. If she forced herself to keep doing this for long enough, she would actually want these things for him and feel mercy for him. She was also told during her Step 5 (the confessional step) that she must always look for her part in everything that ever happened to her. She wrenched her brain around trying to figure out what her part was in being sodomized at five.

She stood up at the meeting, looking fragile as glass, with tears running down her face. “I just don’t know how to make amends to my Dad. My sponsor says I’ll feel so much better if I do. But I feel like killing myself. I guess I’m just a lousy AA member. This is supposed to work. I’m not supposed to feel this way. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.”


I would have talked to her after the meeting (God knows what I would have said) except that a phalanx of members swarmed her afterwards, eager to make her case fit the immutable model. I wonder what happened, if she ended up like Hannah whose background was similar. Unable to endure what had happened to her, she committed suicide. Members talked about “those with grave emotional and mental disorders”, and carried on.

If I am painting AA too darkly, if I am leaving out the tremendous compassion I found at those early meetings, then I apologize. But as time went on, I found I couldn’t keep the dogma fresh. Except for some of the stories in the back, the Big Book has not changed since its first printing 60-some years ago. What other self-help program wouldn’t update itself in so many decades? What about all the discoveries we’ve made about family dynamics, about heredity, about mental illness? What about issues of race, of sexual orientation? (There are a few “gay AA” meetings in which members are held in quarantine. But in the general assembly they have to keep their mouths shut. I once saw a man at an open meeting refer to coming out, prompting an old geezer to literally stomp out of the meeting saying, “I didn’t know this was a meeting for fags.”) No, it’s all swept into the great gulf: obviously the program “works if you work it” the way it is, so why change it?

But I have come to believe that if the program works, it is because people sublimate their individuality, their power to differ, discern and object. The fact that the 12 steps have been applied to every addiction and disorder in existence alarms me, as if the steps truly are the holy grail of recovery, unassailable, irreplaceable, and beyond question.

My irritability mounting as the years went on, I finally hit a real crisis in 2005. I had suffered from some kind of psychiatric disorder all my life, and in spite of years of good remission I feared a return, but was repeatedly told in AA that it would never bother me again if I stayed sober and constantly relied on God. It was obvious to them (though not to me) that it had all been caused by the demon alcohol. I secretly took two drugs to control my whatever-it-is (and in all that time I’d never had a correct diagnosis, because the psychiatric system is so incompetent, abusive and full of shit that it deserves to be torn down forever). Suddenly I learned over the ‘net that both these drugs had been recalled at the same time. My doctor had no idea this had happened. So I was left with a choice: try something new, as my doctor recommended, or go “drug free”, as all my AA friends had been urging me to do.

My first reaction was a huge flush of euphoria, of tremendous energy, and an eerie turning back of the clock. I had never had so many complements about my appearance: I looked ten years younger! Looking back on photos of that time, my eyes were like pinwheels and I was constantly beaming, but apparently no one thought this was wrong.

Oh, and the compliments on finally being “clean”! “Oh, thank God you’re finally off all that stuff.” “I knew you could do it!” “See, you don’t need to lean on pills because you have God in your life.”



My sleep was whittled down slowly, but by the time I was down to two hours, strange things were starting to happen. In deep hypnosis (by a friend who didn’t know what he was doing), I had an encounter with the Divine that was completely shattering. Almost at the cost of my life, I learned that “meeting God” isn’t at all peaceful or pleasant. The ancient belief that we will die if we see God face-to-face turned out to be true.

The sickening free-fall that followed, the dive into a depression that pushed me below ground, is beyond my powers to describe. It was three years before I began to feel like a human being again. I am now on five drugs and have finally found a decent, competent psychiatrist on the recommendation of a friend. I no longer take medical advice from people who aren’t doctors or try to “heal myself” on milk thistle or coffee grounds But when I think how close I came to giving up and committing suicide, it makes me shudder.

AA did not help me during the most harrowing time of my life. All I got was more unhelpful rhetoric. I wasn’t surrendering, I wasn’t practicing the principles, I wasn’t adhering to the tenet of “no mind-altering substances” (another thing that’s not in the Big Book, but often “quoted” by members with a cigarette in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other). In other words, it was my lack of commitment that had made this happen. Almost everyone assumed I had “slipped” and was drinking again (which I didn’t – I had a healthy terror of the stuff by then). At first it was subtle, but then I felt roped off, excluded, unable to strike up a conversation with anyone. I stood in the crowd after meetings looking at a lot of turned backs. Even my sponsor always seemed to be busy.

I had been a loyal, sober member of the program for 15 years.

It didn’t really occur to me, because I had been so thoroughly indoctrinated, that there were other, equally effective ways to be peacefully sober. So I ventured out. I rediscovered a close friend who had also dropped out, and we compared notes. I began to realize that in any other case, if a human being were relentlessly exposed to the same simplistic information over and over and over again, it would be reasonable to assume they “got it” and wouldn’t need any more exposure. Do we go to Sunday school until we’re 47? Do we need to have the Golden Rule blasted into our ears by loudspeaker every morning?



OK, I realize that if AA no longer means what it used to, I don’t have to go. But the guilt still sometimes jabs at me like pinpricks, even two years after I left. The pity in Jim’s eyes, the sense of “oh, she’s going to fly apart at any minute” was palpable. In his view, there is simply no way that an alcoholic can ever stay sober and be happy and productive (though the program is not very big on “productive” and discourages normal ambition) without relentless exposure to the principles of the program.

I hope I don’t drink again, but I know there is no guarantee I won’t. I am profoundly committed to the sober life. I do appreciate what I was able to learn from my many years in AA, but I don’t think I’ll attend meetings again unless my view changes or I find myself in a dangerously slippery place. And if I do, I will not expect “fellowship” or any kind of a welcome. I can imagine what they would think if they saw me again: some version of “I told you so”.

I no longer see AA recovery as real recovery: as with “that old-time religion”, no one questions the tenets, assuming they are infallible. Longtime members creep me out. They are broken records of recovery, parrots fed on the same bland diet, grateful to be huddling together in a place where everyone accepts them and nothing ever changes.

But that’s not life. Things don’t stand still except in old Jimmy Cagney movies, preserved in time. Life necessitates constant adaptation to change which is often unexpected, wrenching and unwelcome. But we are not taught that in AA. We are taught to rely absolutely on God “as we understood him”, to believe that everything happens for a reason. When adversity hits, we’re told it’s “all in God’s plan”.

If this is so, I think I’ll make a plan of my own.

Sunday, September 11, 2016

The loneliness of the long-distance drinker





ABC | PEOPLE

Elizabeth Vargas to Share Story of Alcohol Abuse and Anxiety in Book, ABC Special

By Mark Joyella on Aug. 23, 2016 - 5:40 PM

Two years after she announced she would write a memoir, 20/20 anchor Elizabeth Vargas will mark the release of her new book, Between Breaths: a Memoir of Panic and Addiction, with an hour-long ABC News special.

The special edition of 20/20 will feature ABC News Diane Sawyer interviewing Vargas about the secret she kept for years–and the difficult recovery she continues today.





Sawyer and Vargas will also report on the link between anxiety and alcohol abuse; and Vargas talks to an expert at the National Institutes of Health, visits a treatment center and speaks to alcoholics who are trying to get and stay sober.

The special airs Friday, September 9 at 10 p.m. ET, and the book will be released the following Tuesday. “When I first began to worry about my own drinking, I turned to books other women had written about their own alcoholism. I learned I was not alone, and it helped me find the courage to reach out and get help,” Vargas said when the book was announced in 2014. “I have spent my entire life telling other peoples’ stories. This one is my own, and is incredibly personal: the burden and loneliness of of the secret drinker.”




You know, even as I sit here, I wonder if I even want to do this.

I watched the 20-20 special with Diane Sawyer last night. Couldn't NOT watch it, I guess, for the same reason everyone else has: the train-wreck-in-slow-motion effect, the watching through your fingers, which is even more dramatic with a "celebrity" who has been in the limelight for some time. Not just for her journalism, but for her drinking.

Now, barely two years sober, Elizabeth Vargas announces she's releasing a memoir about her alcoholism titled, very curiously, Between Breaths: A Memoir of Panic and Addiction. Note that "panic" (with that odd image of breathlessness) comes before "addiction". And nowhere does the title mention alcohol.





Strangely enough, last night, that's almost all she talked about: stumbling around blind-drunk, coming out of a blackout in the Emergency Room with her blood alcohol at a near-fatal level. . . fucking up at work. . . I don't know. I guess it's just that I've heard it all before. And heard it, and heard it, and heard it, particularly from celebrities.

All the way through this hard-to-watch thing, Diane Sawyer kept mentioning "red flags" (hiding booze, excuses at work, chunks of lost time, being unable to get off the sofa for her kids). But I saw some red flags of my own.

When I first saw an item on 20-20 about Vargas and her alcoholism, she said she announced it only because she was "scooped" and wanted to set the record straight. She looked very, very uncomfortable. Her smile was tight, her body language rigid, and she looked as if she couldn't wait to get out of there.





The story goes that her first stint in rehab was pretty much of a disaster. As was her second. The third time seemed to be the charm, except. . . 

Except that there were still red flags.

Sawyer: Do you think you hurt your children?
Vargas: Oh, no. I'd die for my children.

A little later on:

I will never be able to forgive myself for the way I hurt my children.

Sawyer asks her, near the end of the piece, "I know not every alcoholic wants to say how many days they have in. . . "

Vargas didn't just shut down. There was an audible slam. No, she did not want to say.

Sawyer was not quite ready to let up. "But do YOU know?"

"Oh yes. I know." But her face had closed down again, as it had done several times during the hour.

I have to tell you what I think about this. Addiction makes you lie. Otherwise, how could you hide all those bottles? And you don't necessarily stop lying because you have stopped drinking.





I don't think Vargas knows her sobriety date. She has had to start all over again so many times that she has lost track. But in the 15 years that I went to AA, I came to realize that a person's sobriety date is more important than their "belly-button birthday". If you don't know it, don't remember it, it's very likely you'll just keep re-setting the clock. 

So now, a book, a tell-all.  I wonder who told her to do this. For surely, someone did. Writing a memoir is a way to redeem yourself - quickly - by "breaking the silence" and "helping others reach out". It puts a shiny cover (literally) on the whole thing, makes you look noble for being brave enough to share it, and makes it all - what? Containable? At very least, it turns it into a commodity that can be bought and sold.





We live in a culture which claims that throwing the gates wide open and pouring out every trauma to the public is the path to "healing". "Sharing the pain" is supposed to give us lasting and/or permanent relief. Going public is therapeutic, isn't it? Well - isn't it?

I don't know how we've come to this point. It's not that I didn't identify with Vargas' blackouts, trips to the ER, high blood alcohol levels, and even screwing up at work (in her case, even on the air). It's that I DID identify. I did most of that stuff, and repeatedly. But I came to realize - the hard way - that it is very, very dangerous to expose yourself, to peel your skin off like that, when you're newly sober (meaning, the first five years or so).

Though Vargas wasn't as tight-lipped and uncomfortable as on that first night of revelation, there was still some acting going on. This woman makes her living in front of the camera, has done so for twenty years. Her face flitted from warmly confidential to deer-in-the-headlights to wretchedly guilty, to unreadable. Understandable, perhaps, but why stand under the glare of TV lights so soon? 




But the thing that I puzzled over most was the emphasis. The show I watched last night was almost all about alcoholism. Yes, there was some reference to anxiety and panic, but not as much as I thought there would be. And yet, the title of her memoir leaves out alcohol altogether! "Addiction" can mean playing too much bingo. The "between breaths" - a very strange allusion, I think - seems to be pointing to something like asthma or emphysema. It's as if she still can't quite spit it out - in writing, at least - that she's an alcoholic. Perhaps "someone" advised her not to put that in the title. Emphasize the panic and anxiety. They'll go down better. They are, after all, badges of honour in her high-pressure industry.

Why do I get this slightly vertiginous sense of spin?





It has taken me a long time to write about all this. Last November (November 30, to be exact) I celebrated 25 years of sobriety. Though I no longer attend AA, I would return to it in a heartbeat if I felt my sobriety were compromised. But I still remember, as booze-drenched as I was, what my last day of drinking was like.

You have to remember that date, or at least the date you first dragged your ass into detox or a meeting (or a meeting in detox). Otherwise, you're doomed to repeat it. It means you're "vague-ing" it off (and vague can be a verb, as far as I am concerned).

My last day of drinking was stupid, boring and depressing, but it summed up the sad joke my life had become. I was huddled in bed in the middle of the afternoon. It was deluging rain outside, had been for days, and so dark it was almost like night. The blinds were closed.  I had a bottle of cheap wine in my hand and I was taking pulls out of it. When I had sucked it dry, I threw it on the floor and said, "It's not enough." And then, for the first time in probably years, I heard myself.





In moving to Vancouver from a small town in Alberta, I had wanted so much more. I had ranted in my diary about this in a nearly-unreadable, intoxicated scrawl: "How the FUCK did this happen?? I had so many dreams and I lost them all and I want them back. In fact, I insist on it!" It was a funny thing to say during your last week of drinking.

There was another thing. I have to say this, I really do, because it's so important, a huge factor in my recovery. Before moving to Vancouver, I wondered aloud to my much-older sister what would happen if I couldn't adapt myself to life in the big city. She shrugged, made a pooh-pooh mouth, and in her best little ice-water voice, the one with the heartless little lilt in it, she said, "Oh well, I guess you'll just self-destruct."

Lying in that bed shaking my empty fist, I was GOD-DAMNED if I was going to let that poisonous prophecy come true. That toxic bitch probably has no idea how much she helped me that day.





But I digress. I think. 

I don't know about getting my dreams back, but at least I didn't die. It was extremely rough in the land of the sober, and sometimes I thought sobriety was even worse than drinking. I latched on to people very hard back then, and I think in a lot of cases I made them uncomfortable. It was extreme even by AA standards.

But I wasn't going to put my "anxiety" (or my PTSD or my bipolar disorder, then undiagnosed, or perhaps underdiagnosed) ahead of my drinking at a meeting. I had to talk about alcohol, even as I was thoroughly sick of it. Because anxiety wasn't really my problem. Panic wasn't my problem, nor was some sort of vague respiratory condition. Calling it that would have sanitized my messy, tawdry, stigmatized condition, and I couldn't afford to do that.





It's a long time later, years and years and years, and though for the most part I don't even think about alcohol, watching something like that 20-20 show last night can start things clanging. I don't think Elizabeth Vargas is out of the woods yet. She may have a couple more trips to rehab before she gets her feet on the ground (and don't get me wrong - I sincerely hope she does). Whoever advised her to do the book so early in her recovery - a recovery that seems rather fragile to me - is cockeyed. And if she decided on her own, then SHE'S cockeyed. But I think somebody should have taken her aside and set her straight. Too much "brave" too soon can be a recipe for rehab (again). And fourth times are seldom lucky.

The 20-20 Facebook page has hundreds and hundreds of comments, almost all of them rhapsodic, about Vargas' honesty and courage. But I think when sobriety is relatively new, these kinds of revelations need to be shared only with a trusted few. To throw it wide open is to open yourself to infection. It's peeling all your skin off. Why is unmitigated, unregulated, unrestrained "sharing" considered so therapeutic? Because it reduces the stigma! - doesn't it? 

Except that it doesn't. 





So what does? People going about their business, sober, once they have met the dragon face-on. Living a good life, a productive life, even a happy life - sober. It's being an example. People can pay attention to it or not, but if there are enough examples walking around like that, it can't help but make a difference.

Sunday, December 6, 2015

Let's take a VERY close look at internet porn!




Let me preface this by saying:

a) I didn't write this article (on Christian solutions to internet porn addiction),  and

b) I think it's completely bizarre in its approach to defeating porn addiction and its attending horror, masturbation - a practice described in terms that remind me of an old Baden-Powell Scout manual from 1913.

That said, I actually do think we have a problem. I think we have a serious problem, because at least a few times, when I've tried to find something quite neutral on Google, I have found hundreds of very explicit images - to me, anyway, who grew up in the swingin' '60s, when everyone THOUGHT things were "liberated". At a click, even an accidental click under a very bland search term, I instantly see men and women, or men and men, having sex of all and every kind, inserting this into that, and most vigorously. Images of gigantic erect penises and spreadeagled, vulva-displaying women abound. The pictures are almost cartoonish in their exaggeration and have the posed, passionless quality that reveals just how much these participants are being paid to pretend they're having fun.

These are the milder, more bland public images Google has no problem with, so the humiliating, sado-masochistic stuff, mostly involving the shocking subjugation and abuse of women, must be much more extreme. And if people are addicted to THAT, they have to keep upping the ante to get the same thrill.

Any 9-year-old, or 6-year-old, could find themselves looking at the supposedly neutral Google images I stumbled on in half a second. Is this a good thing for kids, do you think? And what exactly does it contribute to the male psyche, let alone the greater good? I won't even answer that because I think it's fairly obvious.






Now everyone, especially the conservative Christian community, is trying to overcome porn-driven masturbation the way they did back in the Victorian era. Whole sites are devoted to it.  As the images become more and more intoxicatingly extreme, men are exhorted not to touch themselves at all, but to go cold turkey (and I know that sounds weird). But does that mean they can automatically go back to enjoying so-called "normal" sex with their partners? Sex itself suddenly takes on the significance of "the enemy", or - much worse - "sin".

I used to go to 12-step meetings for alcoholism, and I would hear about Sex Anonymous, as if the goal was to give up sex altogether, or at least stop enjoying it and treat it as a fairly mechanical or strictly reproductive process not related to things like female (or male) nudity and/or passion/desire, or (much worse) pleasure.  I had no idea how a person would moderate these things. I knew a lot of people in Overeaters Anonymous, and "success" meant adhering to a rigid and very UNenjoyable, lifelong bland diet. Any deviation from it caused intense shame and a sense of failure in the food addict. All the sensory enchantment and social pleasure we associate with food had been taken from them as a penalty for their compulsion.

It doesn't work. This kind of renunciation sets people up to fail.

I found the following article(s - I kept finding more and more) mind-boggling for a lot of reasons. If you're to believe the statistics, things are not so rosy in the bedrooms of fundamentalist couples - though other things are coming up roses late at night, sitting in the dark, alone at the computer. What's behind all this? Do their wives not put out, or what? Or do they, like a lot of people, have to resort to more and more extreme measures to feel anything at all? Is this, in fact, rewiring the male brain so that nothing but the smuttiest smut will do?

This article is a real artifact and shows how impractical and even ludicrous the "solutions" can be.  It has a faint flavour of The Onion about it, but I honestly don't think it's a parody. I was going to highlight the particularly ludicrous and useless strategies in blue, then realized that practically the whole article would be in blue. So my comments appear in lavender italics. And don't forget, boys - if you want to stop being sexually enslaved, just give up dessert!

5 Practical Ways to Defeat Porn Addiction

JUNE 23, 2014 BY KEVIN KUKLA 2 COMMENTS




Over one billion times has pornography been searched for online… since the beginning of 2014. That’s one out of every eight internet searches.

Internet pornography generates three billion (with a ‘b’) dollars of revenue.

One half of all Christian men and one-in-five Christian women admit they are addicted to pornography.

ONE HALF? What's the general rate - about five per cent? Maybe going to church DOES  change people's morals.

If you’re in that camp of porn addicts, you’re not alone. There is a way out.

If you do not struggle with this temptation yourself, likely someone you care about does.

There is no set magic bullet to get out, for most people. Multiple tactics will be necessary.

So, whether you can take advantage of doing these steps for yourself, or can recommend them to someone who confides in you their compulsion, here are five practical ways to overcome porn addiction.




1. YOU NEED TO BE ACCOUNTABLE—YOU CAN’T GO IT ALONE

“The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak,” Jesus says (Matthew 26:41).

You very well may hate what you are doing. If so, this is a wonderful and necessary response. But it is not enough. You need help.

What if you love what you're doing? Shut up, Margaret.

By making yourself accountable to someone else, who does not struggle with this sin, you will gain traction in your climb out. Yes, you will need to be vulnerable, exposing your sin to someone else, but this is necessary.

You can set up a weekly, or even a daily meeting with a trusted friend, an uncle, or counselor. You can discuss what temptations you faced and where you need help.

Or six times daily.

“Let us then cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light… and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires,” reads Romans 13:12,14.

A very wise step to take for those serious about wanting to break free from the chains of pornography is to install accountability software of every device that has internet access.

One of the best in the industry in providing this accountability is Covenant Eyes. They have affordable software that sends a report to an accountability partner.

His name, by the way, is Big Brother.

Installing this software would be a prudent for any parent. This way you be assured that such toxic material blocked from your child’s sight.

If you don’t think your child would be seeking this out, guess again. The average age for first porn exposure is 12 years old. Plus, more than 7 out of 10 teens hide their online behavior from their parents.

Get the software, Dad. Time to protect your kids, Mom.

(OK, I MUST say something here. "Go it alone"?)





2. PRACTICE PENANCE—DON’T LET YOUR FLESH DO THE BIDDING

Christ said some demons could not be driven out but by prayer and fasting (Matthew 17:21).

“Well, I do not run aimlessly, I do not box as one beating the air; but I pommel my body and subdue it, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified,” says Saint Paul (1 Corinthians 9:26-27).

"Pommel my body". This is just too good - I don't even need to say anything.

Due to our fallen human nature, being weak morally comes easy to us. A sexual addiction or a porn addiction obviously are a sin of the flesh. Thus, the flesh needs to be chastised, in order to be defeated.

If you want to defeat a vice, then you need to practice its opposite virtue.

A porn addict gets accustomed to feeding the body its desires. Thus, it’s time to allow reason to triumph over the flesh. It’s time to show your body who is boss.

Down, body! Down!

Here are some practical ideas of ways to overcome your flesh—to defeat your body’s will, so to speak.

A. Practice delayed gratification.

When you get a letter in the mail you want to read, wait ten minutes before opening the envelope. Be the last one in line to get food. Wait to read that internet news article until your next break, skipping this one. Basically, learn to tell your body “not yet.”

Since nobody ever gets letters in the mail any more, the wait may be several years.




B. Practice abstinence in food and drink.

Practice not eating meat on Fridays. If already doing that, add another day of the week. Skip dessert. When out to eat, identify what you want most, and order something else. Eat more of what you don’t like and less of what you do.

This is also known in medical/psychiatric circles as an "eating disorder". It can be pretty hard to explain to your friends: oh, I love burgers and fries, but I'm ordering liver and onions because I have a porn addiction.

Here, you’re literally denying satisfaction to your bodily appetites. Doing this is bound to have a positive effect when the temptation to look at porn comes. You are training yourself to resist. This is absolutely vital.

3. PRACTICE CUSTODY OF THE EYES—DO NOT LUST

“So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate” (Genesis 3:6).

Note. It's all Eve's fault for being such a seductress. Without her and her scandalous fruit-eating habit, we wouldn't even be in this mess.

One of the many problems with viewing porn is that is causes the addict to devalue the dignity of other people. Most commonly, men are viewing porn—although not exclusively. By doing so, he is training himself to regard and to treat women as sexual objects for his viewing pleasure.

Thus, porn addicts almost always succumb to committing lust throughout the day, not just when in front of the computer. He starts scoring every woman he sees, at the mall, at work, at church, on a scale of sexual desirability. This tosses out the woman’s dignity and worth, replacing her value with his selfish desires. It is degrading.

It's also what guys do.

In place of this, the addict must train himself to start looking women in the eye, not at her chest. I recommend making a concerted effort to determine the eye color of every woman he meets. If he is busy determining if her eyes are hazel or green, then he is not thinking about the size of her bra.

Oh hahahahahahahahaha

The porn addict can also practice looking away at other pleasures to better train himself. Not looking into the store window. Or skipping watching the sunset.

Look, God’s creation is beautiful, especially the female body. But proper respect must be paid. By looking away from other delights to the eyes, the addict to porn will help break his impulse to lust toward women.

WTF? Or should I say: WT-"I never beat off"?



4. GO TO CONFESSION WEEKLY—DON’T GIVE UP

“He who conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy,” Scripture assures us (Proverbs 28:13).

The Sacrament of Confession has many healing effects. For starters, you receive forgiveness for transgressions. You get to hear this from the priest and can take it to heart.

As well, God supplies you grace to avoid the very sins you just confessed. Confession is medicine for the soul.

If you are addicted to porn, then the Catholic Church would say you are guilty of a grave sin. As such, you ought not receive Communion until first going to Confession.

We're not WORRRR-thy!

How often should you go to the Sacrament of Confession? If you are addicted, then you need to go often, probably weekly. In fact, you can go daily, if needed.The idea is to break yourself of the bondage that sinful activity has over you. Go, receive the remedy, the grace, as often as you possibly can!

I think you should go sixteen or seventeen times a day, once for every manual transgression. That priest will soon be pretty tired of seeing your guilty puss and grant you a rubber-stamp absolution in a matter of seconds.

By humbling yourself before God, admitting you need Him to remove this scourge for you, He will honor that and oblige. The fact that He allowed you to have this Cross was a means to draw you to Him. He will happily remove the obstacle for you, in His time.

5. ATTEND EUCHARISTIC ADORATION WEEKLY—DO NOT TIRE IN SEEKING CHRIST’S HELP

Christ shares the parable of a widow who persisted in her petition to a certain judge. He became so annoyed with her, he finally granted her request, just to make her go away (Luke 18:1-8). He uses this as a model for us to follow in our prayer life.

We need to be persistent, consistent, and constant in prayer.

Where better to spend time in prayer than in front of Christ Himself, present sacramentally in the Eucharist? By committing to Eucharistic Adoration, for at least one hour a week, your prayer life will grow exponentially.

God will see you coming to Him personally, physically. He will hear your pleas to remove this Cross. And He will answer your prayer. In accord with His timing.

Cross?




YOUR TURN

Have I forgot an obvious sixth method to overcoming porn addiction?
Has anyone deployed any or all of these methods in the past to overcome an addiction of any kind? Care to share your story?

Please ‘Share’ this post and let’s pray for those in bondage to sin.

Oh God, save me. Save me from reading more of this. I had not heard the term Custody of the Eyes since reading a biography of the celibate Jesuit priest/poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, who used to force himself NOT to look at the beauty of nature (upon which all his greatest poems were based) in order to punish himself for lustful thoughts about other men. Oh boy. But here is a whole 'nother article about it, making me wonder how we can be so backward in a time when everything seems to be moving too quickly.

Just when I thought I had seen it all. . . 

You are here: Home / Chastity/Dating / 10 Reasons Men Should Practice Custody of the Eyes

10 Reasons Men Should Practice Custody of the Eyes

JULY 30, 2014  BY MARCEL        LEAVE A COMMENT

10 – It helps teach discipline.
Men should discipline themselves to be in control of their passions and not allow passions to control them.

9 – It avoids the near occasion of sin.
To avert your eyes when you feel tempted to use a woman lustfully is a good thing.
“But I say to you, everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” -Matt 5:19.

8 – Custody of the eyes builds up chastity.
Chastity means properly ordering our sexuality to our current state in life (single, married, religious, priest). If we do not have custody of the eyes, it means our sexuality is dis-ordered toward objectification – not love – and needs to be healed.

Chastity? When married? There's another term for that: divorce.

7 – It is what every gentleman should do.
No woman who respects herself wants to be lusted after or looked up and down. No real gentleman would dishonor a woman by doing so.


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6 – It helps a man to see the whole woman, not just parts of her body.
When most men see an immodestly-dressed woman, their brains automatically start to objectify her. Thus, men need to be able to see the truth about who a woman is – not just to break her down into objects he can use for his selfish pleasure.

5 – It avoids scandal.
Think of King David. If he would have practiced custody of the eyes he might have been able to avoid much worse sins – adultery and murder. Now think of what happens when a man is caught in a lustful look toward a woman.

THESE GUYS ARE REWRITING THE BIBLE! This divests it of every bit of wisdom through trial and struggle/redemption of sin in its pages. If these guys had their way, Onan never would've done all that dirty business, there would be no more "begin the begats", and Adam and Eve would've kept their fig leaves on and nobody would be here at all.

4 – It helps fight off temptation.
Men suffer from sexual temptation frequently. To have custody of the eyes helps a man to fight off an even stronger temptation of lusting after a woman after he looks at her.

3 – It helps our sisters not feel objectified.
If for no other reason, we should witness to the dignity of a woman by controlling our passions. While our sisters in Christ should also help by dressing modestly, even an immodestly dressed woman is made to be loved.

What - what- what???

2 – It is a virtue we should chase after.
It is related to chastity, modesty, and temperance. Without self-control, we are unable to give ourselves away in love. We can’t give what we don’t control.

Chase after. Odd choice of words, that. Freud would love all this.

1 – It focuses us back on more important things.
“Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides.” – Matt 6:33
Christ should be our first priority. Honoring the height of his creation (our sisters) should be the second. We should be third.

"Sisters" doesn't exactly fan the flames of romance, does it now? It throws the cold water of incest over the whole thing.





And this one, I swear it's real, or at least has been quoted in dozens of other articles (all furiously denouncing the very idea of a "Christian porn production"). In these productions, which I assume are videos and not live sex shows, the players must pray together as well as play together, and instead of  crying "Jesus fucking CHRIST" in orgasm, they must shout "Hallelujah!" Other than that, it sounds to me like normal, old-fashioned, skeevy porn. The kind you beat off to.

Toward a Framework for Christian Porn

It must depict only married couples engaging in sexual acts. This means that any sexual partners in a Christian porn production must be husband and wife, both on and off screen. All actors must be married in real life and portray married couples onscreen. And they must only be depicted having sex with their wedded spouses.

It must portray sex within the context of a Christian marriage. It must be apparent through the actions, behaviors, and speech of the characters portrayed that they are Christian, lead a Christian lifestyle, and have a marriage in which their faith is central. This could be depicted in a variety of ways, with scenes showing a couple praying together, studying the Bible, attending church or church functions, and generally relating to one another as loving Christian spouses outside of the bedroom.

It must be instructional. Part of the mission of Christian pornography is to graphically educate married believers in how to achieve more sexual pleasure, intimacy, and closeness in their relationships. It can do this by dramatizing various sexual techniques and positions so that couples can learn how to incorporate them into their lovemaking routines. In their onscreen roles, the actors should model both correct sexual techniques and appropriate sexual attitudes, by being respectful and treating one another’s bodies as the sacred gift from God that they are.




Husband and wife must both receive their due benevolence. This is in keeping with the scriptural mandate of I Corinthians 7:3, which says “Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband.” This means that both sex partners must be shown getting equal pleasure and sexual attention from one another.

No extramarital sex, unless it is to illustrate the downfalls of adultery. The spouses in a Christian porn production must never have adulterous relations, unless they (and their partner in extramarital crime) suffer and are punished fittingly for their sins. (In deference to modern conventions, the punishment does not have to be one mandated by scripture, i.e., being stoned to death.)

It must be uplifting and inspirational, focusing on strengthening Christian marriage and Christian faith. Christian porn must have an overall positive message. Of course, its primary message would be to demonstrate the sacred use of sexuality and sensuality to reinforce the bonds of Christian marriage. But in all other respects, it should affirm Christian values of community, family, faith, honesty, charity, and so forth. It should show that having a joyous and fulfilling married sex life is one of the fruits of following the path of righteousness.

No profanity. Although exclamations of pleasure are acceptable, as are the natural sounds and vocalizations of lovemaking, Christian porn should contain no profanity or swearing. The participants should address each other lovingly and respectfully at all times. Of course, it goes without saying that the actors will not take the Lord’s name in vain, nor that of his Son.

And here is the most amazing strategy of all for beating porn addiction, and you can buy a bag of 200 at the Dollar Store for a buck twenty-five.




Before I tell you what it is, I am going to tell you what material you need to build the tool. This is all you need.

I know what you must be thinking. “I read two blogs, tracked my Triggers, Thoughts and Actions for a week and this is what I’ve been waiting for. “An Elastic Band??? Seriously??”

Yes, this simple elastic band can change the way you think, bring a deeper awareness to your compulsions, and drive behavior change. Period. If you don’t believe me try if for a week. All you have to do is:

Find elastic
Put elastic on wrist
Snap elastic immediately after you experience an unhealthy sexual or self defeating thought.
Use slight pain to snap back to reality
Take positive action instead of watching porn
Repeat as necessary

Yup, that’s it. That’s the secret. I have successful clients, leaders in their respective industries and communities, clients all over the world using this technique. Why? Because it works.




POST-BLOG BADDA-BOOM: That bit about Christian porn CAN'T be real. I even found (blush) some sites with dirty pictures of very, shall we say, ordinary-looking men and women (almost all women) doing various things with various orifices and bodily parts, all in the name of Jesus. Bad skin, stretch marks, unattractive teeth, the works. Kind of depressing. I guess Christians can look at porn so long as the people in it are ugly.

Now maybe these links are on the level. Who knows. Try it for yourself. Seek, explore, poke around in it a little bit. You may emerge dripping with sanctity and full of the fist-pumping ecstasy of spiritual fulfillment.


More Articles:


SPECIAL BONUS QUOTES!





Martin Luther:

“[T]he exceedingly foul deed of Onan, the basest of wretches . . . is a most disgraceful sin. It is far more atrocious than incest and adultery. We call it unchastity, yes, a sodomitic sin. For Onan goes in to her; that is, he lies with her and copulates, and when it comes to the point of insemination, spills the semen, lest the woman conceive. Surely at such a time the order of nature established by God in procreation should be followed. Accordingly, it was a most disgraceful crime.”

John Calvin:

“The voluntary spilling of semen outside of intercourse between man and woman is a monstrous thing. Deliberately to withdraw from coitus in order that semen may fall on the ground is doubly monstrous. For this is to extinguish the hope of the race and to kill before he is born the hoped-for offspring.”





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Wednesday, May 7, 2014


Rob Ford calls rehab ‘amazing’, promises to return to election: report
Ford says he is enjoying rehab, is on the mend, and will be back for the election.
Rob Ford announced last Wednesday  that he would be checking into a rehab facility.


FRANK GUNN / THE CANADIAN PRESS

Rob Ford announced last Wednesday that he would be checking into a rehab facility.

By: Sean Wetselaar Staff Reporter, Published on Wed May 07 2014

Mayor Rob Ford’s exact whereabouts are still unknown, but according to a media report, he is enjoying his time in rehab.

“I feel great,” he told Joe Warmington, a columnist for the Toronto Sun. “Rehab is amazing. It reminds me of football camp. Kind of like the Washington Redskins camp I went to as a kid.”

Ford announced last Wednesday evening that he would be stepping down from his campaign and checking into a rehab facility to deal with substance abuse issues — though his statement focused primarily on alcohol use.



Though Ford would not lay down an exact timeline on his return, he was adamant that he will return in time for elections on October 28.

On Tuesday, Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong confirmed Ford is in rehab, but refused to say where he was.

“Councillor Ford passed me the phone because Rob wanted to speak to me,” Minnan-Wong told reporters

“He said that he was in rehab, he was working out. He asked how things were going at council.”

On Tuesday, The Globe and Mail reported that Ford voluntarily turned back from the United States after landing in Chicago, before he could be denied entry.




Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti, a supporter of the mayor on council, also chimed in Tuesday, telling reporters people deserve to know where Ford is receiving treatment so it can be verified.

“I think that, based on the mayor’s behaviour over the last number of years, because of the amount of opportunity he’s had to come forward and tell the truth and hasn’t on different issues. I would say to you right now that at the very least the city should know the city that he’s in for treatment, and with some verification that he is in fact being treated. And then I’d ask everybody to just leave him alone and let him be treated,” Mammoliti said at city hall during a break in Tuesday’s council meeting.

So far, the name and location of his rehab facility is unknown.

Council will resume at City Hall Wednesday at 9:30 a.m., without the mayor.



I just don't know where to start here. I might as well grab a random thought: addicts lie. It's what they do. Ford has been lying to the nation and to his constituents for years now, and in particular he has been lying to us about his addiction(s), consistently denying flagrant abuse of crack cocaine in public places. So why are people so easily duped? He's "in rehab" now (or so we are told). So doesn't that mean he's getting better?

If Ford is indeed in rehab, it sounds more like a luxury resort to me. If you're in real recovery, you don't feel "great". You usually feel totally wretched, either experiencing the horrendous effects of physical withdrawal or beginning to realize how your addiction has laid waste to your life and your loved ones. This isn't happening, folks, because RoFo is a shallow bastard with no capacity for real insight and self-reflection. He has never had ANY negative consequences for his appalling behaviour, and may even win the next election, not in spite of but because of it.



Ford will say whatever will get him out of trouble and/or call attention to himself. He's playing the rehab card to gain sympathy, and the appalling thing is, IT'S WORKING. He's a slimy slug of a man, repellent in every way, and the people forgive him over and over again, seemingly not caring that he has made a laughingstock of himself and of his entire country, fodder for late-night comedians and editorialists everywhere. This has gone global, folks, and his next escapade - leaving "rehab" early because he "feels so great" that his counsellors have said he can go - will only gain him more attention, the thing he thrives on. Fire up the crack pipe, Dougie - he's heading home.