celibacy (day 4)

I have decided to follow the Sexaholics Anonymous definition of sobriety until my divorce is final. That group has the strictest definition of sobriety of the five S-groups -- which as I understand it fractured over two issues: The definition of sobriety and whether unmarried couples (including homosexual couples) can be sober.

SA states that sobriety means no sex with oneself or with anyone other than a spouse. So that eliminates all unmarried couples, and all gay couples, even the ones who have been able to get married, because SA states that a spouse is a partner in a marriage between a man and a woman. Many addicts find that restriction highly discriminatory. But the other way -- setting with the help of one's sponsor individual "bottom lines" that are the behaviors that would cause sobriety to be reset -- can have some inherent dangers. In my case, it was easy to "straddle" a bottom line without crossing it; for instance, I'm not supposed to look at porn on the internet, but what if my girlfriend knows about it and is fine with it and even looks at it with me? Does her innocently codependent behavior enable me (in my head) to violate a bottom line? That's just what happened. Of course, I also did things that she didn't know about that were clear violations, like cheating on her with men. In my sick thinking, my addict convinced me that it wasn't so bad because I wasn't seeing any women, which is what she had expressed concern about. As if she wouldn't have expressed concern about men if she had known it was even a possibility! But that's the "stinkin' thinkin'" of the addict. (I'm not bisexual but i had the urge to experiment, and in particular to seek humiliation to satisfy my self-loathing. It was NOT enjoyable sexually.)

I was celibate for 90 days after exiting Keystone, though I had a couple slips and had to start the 90 days over. So actually, I had three orgasms in six and a half months, dating from when I entered the Keystone treatment center. I never believed that could be possible, after orgasming daily since the age of 14. And the last 90 days of that was continuous -- even though I was married and could have had sex within SA's definition of sobriety! But Keystone believes that sex for us addicts is literally a drug, that we are feeding off the endorphins and adrenaline, and that we have to let our brain go through withdrawal from these chemicals (at least from sex sources). So my wife and I were celibate -- she actually had NO orgasms during the six and a half months! And that was good for our marriage as we did a lot more talking and worked on emotional intimacy. Eventually the marriage didn't work out -- our codependencies were too intermeshed -- but that's for another post.

My new celibacy began Thursday, Sept. 16, 2010. I masturbated on Wednesday, seeking comfort from the breakup which occurred early Tuesday morning. So Thursday counts, making today day 4. I do not know when the divorce will be final, sometime this fall. So it may or may not be 90 days. Regardless, I see it as a milestone, that I am then truly free to date. I shouldn't have been dating during my divorce -- my therapists at Keystone warned me about that, as did guys in the program -- but I met this wonderful woman and neither of us could help ourselves. Now, it will be cleaner. I hope we keep in contact and hope we might start dating again after my divorce, that she will be able to forgive me for cheating on her, and I will be able to prove the kind of boyfriend I can be. But that's not my primary purpose here; whether she marries me or never speaks to be again or anything in between, my job is to truly and fully engage in the program, establish sobriety, work the steps and finally, finally stop letting my small head do most of my thinking! Then, and only then, can I have a healthy romance.

Hope