A New Start (Again)

4 Days Sober

I've decided to start again. This blog that is.

I relapsed four days ago and since then I have been a wreck. I've been depressed, angry, resentful, frustrated, sad, lost, hurt, and a whole host of other negative emotions. I don't know of any other way of dealing with this other than to write about it. I've had this blog pop into my head the last couple of days, so maybe I need to listen to God's prompting and actually do something with this. I hope it means something to someone else, but at the very least it will help me.

Maybe that needs to be the point.

I really want to recover. I've been reading out of Clayton M. Christensen's book How Will You Measure Your Life, well I actually finished it and then passed it on to my wife so she can read it. I really want to go back through and jot down some of the main points though, because I really want to change my life. From what I can remember, he made some really spot-on comments about how to live a righteous, connected life. Well, as spot-on as I can judge as an insane, out-of-control sex addict, right?

(There's been a lot of that too...self-deprecation)

Another book I've been reading is Stephen R. Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. I DO remember what I've been listening to (yeah, I have an audiobook version, so I'm not actually reading it). Mostly because I listened to it today while hiking, so I haven't had a whole ton of time to forget it. One thing he mentioned was the idea that we are and can be pro-active. I like that and I want to be as pro-active as I can be. Why? Because Covey said that between stimulus and response we have the ability to choose. I want to believe that and apply that to my life. I want to be able to choose a good way to respond to a sex trigger. I have hope that I can.

So, my point for today? I'm back. And I feel alone. My marriage isn't what I expected it to be, my wife isn't who I expected her to be, and I feel like I don't have many friends in the world. I hope that by getting my thoughts out on paper I can start opening up to those around me and start making connections with them. Maybe after I fix all of the myriad of psychological, emotional, and spiritual problems I have. Maybe then someone will want to be around me. (I think what I'm doing is bad, but I don't really care. It feels good.)

Even though I don't feel particularly Grateful or Hopeful right now, I'll take another 24 hours.

-GH