Revisiting Surrender

72 days sober:

Surrender. This is a word I have really struggled to understand. I don't fully understand it yet and I'm not sure I will ever. But I want to. I am trying to now.

I started over on the 12 Steps today. "What? You have 72 days of sobriety! You should be on like step 5 or something!" Yeah, well, I haven't been working the steps. I have gotten this far only through God's help.

I believe recovery is possible but I haven't always. As of yesterday I was a little doubtful. There was a little nagging feeling in the back of my mind while I was in group yesterday. That feeling was doubt. Its worse than fear.

I have a goal this week to read Step One material every day and then write about it. Write my thoughts. Write my feelings. Write quotes so I can remember them.

Surrender is...the key...to a joyful and purposeful life with others.

As I finished reading about Step One in the White Book of SA, I read something I haven't ever seen or thought of before. This sentence talked about sexual sobriety and emotional sobriety. For so long I have been focused on my sexual sobriety and wondering when I would be able to have a year, two, five, ten.

Mind opened today.

I'm 72 days sexually sober, but today I am starting my emotional sobriety. I am not going to count days, but I AM going to strive for emotional sobriety every day. Without this side of recovery...there will be no recovery.

I am powerless over my defects: resentment, anger, pride, annoyance with others, tiredness, dependency...and I am still working on finding others. But, I am powerless over them. I cannot control them without God's help.

I surrender myself to Thee, God, to do with me as Thou wilt.

With that, I will take another 24 hours.

-GH

At The End of The Day

1 day sober:

I made it 24 hours. Of course, 6 of those 24 hours were spent sleeping, but hey! I made it 24 hours!

I am so grateful, like the guy said this morning in SA group, that God answered my prayer and blessed me with 24 hours of sobriety. I am grateful that I was able to do so much today. I worked out, I went to an SA meeting, I got to work on a project with my fiance, I was able to hang out with some friends from high school and play Axis and Allies, and then I was able to hang out and cuddle with my fiance before going to bed. Today has been a great day.

This recovery is impossible without God. I might be able to get some sobriety (which I haven't been able to do yet) without directly turning to Him...but the only way that I am going to recover is to turn my will completely over to Him and let Him run my life.

I pray that I will be able to do that tomorrow. Here's to another 24.

-GH

We Have Emotional Needs

0 days sober: (I relapsed last night, so today is day 1)

I went to my SA group this morning and I learned so much. One of the guys was celebrating 2 years of recovery today and so we sang Happy Birthday to him and he brought donuts for us. Kind of like the Hobbit way of having a birthday - give presents to everyone instead of asking them to give them to you.

Anyway, to my real point in this post.

We all have emotional needs. For us Sex Addicts, recovering or not, we have learned to cope with those emotional needs by resorting to some form of sexual stimulation. This does NOT make the problem go away. In fact it is exactly opposite; this way of coping usually makes the problem bigger.

As I sat in group, I tried to figure out what my personal emotional needs are. If I can identify what they are then I can start REALLY trying to meet them instead of just dancing around them. Here is what I thought of:

1. Need to feel like I am relied upon - I want to feel like others rely on me and that I matter to them.
2. Need to feel needed - Similar to the one above, but this is more of a feeling that others need me in their lives. That their lives would be vastly different if I wasn't there.
3. Need to feel appreciated - I want to feel like others see my worth and appreciate it.
4. Need to be loved - This is one I don't fully understand yet...what does it mean to be loved? I think I will be asking that question for the rest of my life.
5. Need to feel thought of - I like it when I feel like others have considered that I exist...and then that they have done something about it.
6. Need to feel content with things around me - I spend so much of my time wishing that I was doing something more. I need to feel content with what I have and where I am.
7. Need to feel accepted - This goes back to the old playground idea. If you're not part of the group then you're going to get made fun of. Having been home-schooled for part of my life, I have a fear of not fitting in with other people.
8. Need to feel connected with others - This is a major one for me. I want to feel like I have a connection with others. That I am more than superficially interacting with them.

What emotional needs do you have?

This is my check in for today. I pray that I will be able to have another 24 hours under my belt next time I post.

-GH

Reminder To Call

2 days sober:

I got a phone call when I was working this morning from another guy in SA. I wasn't able to answer it due to the fact that I was working, but after I got off I called him back and talked with him.

Obviously I won't share what he shared with me, but I will share the feelings I had while talking with him.

• I felt happy.
• I felt hope.
• I felt strength from another as we were vulnerable and shared with each other our problems and thoughts. We truly connected as we talked.
• I felt reassured that I am on the right path. Not from the fellow SA member, but from God.
• I felt renewed determination to battle my faults.

My point with all of this is that these feelings came from my being honest with him and also my being vulnerable. I was impressed with that today as I spoke with him and I am very grateful that I was able to feel this and be aware enough to realize what I was feeling.

This is my experience and this is my daily check-in.

-GH

A Good Storm

1 day sober:

Today I would like to list off the things I am grateful for. I am about to go to bed and I thought this would be a good practice to start up again.

• I am grateful for how blessed I have been able to stay within my budget so far this month. Even with acting out every few days I have been able to stay within my budget. Usually I go on binge spending or I try to make myself feel better by buying quite a few things. That hasn't happened this month and I am grateful for this!
• I am grateful I have a job and can make money for my future marriage. Saving this money has helped me realize that I can do so much with the Lord's help...but only with His help. I am lost without Him.
•  I am grateful for the storm that we had yesterday where I live. For the last while the air quality has been awful, but the intense wind yesterday blew all that nasty air out of the valley and so now we have some very clear air with which to appreciate the beautiful creations God has blessed us with.

• I am grateful for the wonderful cooking skills of my fiance. We had some wonderful pancakes for lunch and as I ate them I just became VERY grateful for her cooking skills. She is so wonderful.

This is my experience and this is my check in. Here's to another 24 hours of recovery.

-GH

To Act and Not To Be Acted Upon

2 days sober:

Reading in the SA White Book tonight I re-read the section on recognizing trigger mechanisms. Mind-blowing! I mean, I've read that section 3 or 4 times, but each time I am reminded of how many things can trigger me, especially my emotions.

Whenever I read about HALT I stop and think, "I need to be more aware of that." Actually, that thought comes probably 2 or 3 times a week. I need to be better at remembering and APPLYING the principles I learn.

So, here is my application of a principle. Or maybe a couple of them. I am reaching out to others instead of staying within my own mind and shutting others off. I am writing down something I thought about and feel is inspiration from God about how I can work on overcoming my addiction.

Hungry (haste, hurry, hyper)
Angry 
Lonely
Tired

Each one of these emotions or states of being are dangerous to an addict. I know that I personally have very weak resistance to temptations when I am any one of those. Another acronym is BLAST. Bored. Lonely. Angry. Stressed. Tired.

So, I know that I need to be careful and be aware of when I am in any one of those moods...but how do I do that? How can I remember to be aware of that?

I'm not sure, but that is what I am going to be investigating over the next couple days. Praying and asking for inspiration.

I have the choice to act...or I can let myself be acted upon by my sex-addiction. I choose to act and turn my will over to the Lord. Only with His help can I stay aware of my situation and change it accordingly.

This is my experience and this is my checking in. Please comment if you have any input at all. You can even check the anonymous box (or uncheck it?) so you don't have to put your name.

Thanks,

Grateful and Hopeful

The Lord is My Strength

2 days sober:

I am LDS. I accept the LDS scriptures as doctrine. We have a section of our canon of scripture called The Pearl of Great Price. In this book there is a book called the Book of Abraham. While reading out of that this morning I realized that God is all-powerful. Why I haven't relied on Him before now I don't know...I guess I just like to feel in-control of my life.

From my reading and pondering this morning, I decided that I will do my best today to rely on His direction. I am going to start off my day by letting Him know I want to be directed by Him today and then heading out.

This is my hope for recovery, and this is my checking in for the day.

Here's to another 24 hours!

-Grateful and Hopeful

One day at a time

2 days sober:

We have a common saying or ideal that we try to live by in SA. That is to take our recovery one day at a time.

I don't do very well in thinking about this on a daily basis. Today I didn't really think about my recovery at all...until I caught myself taking street lust hits on some of the girls in the library I was walking through. I caught myself and for one of the very few times so far, I immediately thought about calling someone to get the shame and frustration out of my head. Not only to shed it, but to establish a connection with someone.

So, while I don't do very well in living this ideal, I did make a commitment with my Accountability Partner to be sober today. I can only promise sobriety for the rest of today because tomorrow is a whole new day.

This is my experience and I commit to sobriety for the rest of today.

-Grateful and Hopeful

Thoughts during a relapse

4 days sober:

I had a revelation Sunday night after my relapse. Well, it was actually right in the middle of it. This is the email I sent myself after my relapse: (Some of the words and terminology I use are common amongst members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I will try to explain what might not be understood)

"As I watched the porn video tonight I identified a different feeling. I've had this before while watching, but I never was able to identify what it was I was feeling. Tonight I think I understand better.
As I watched two women going at it and one being stimulated to orgasm I felt, very clearly, a strong aversion. In other words, I felt like it was wrong to watch that video. I don't think it was because I was breaking the Law of Chastity (a commandment from God that says not to have any sexual relations except between husband and wife), but because the act I was witnessing is such a sacred act that there shouldn't ever be videos made of it for others to view let alone it ever being put to film.
I think it is very interesting how I feel this now. I think I am starting to understand what Elder Holland meant when he gave the talk, Souls, Symbols, and Sacraments. (This was a talk that an Apostle gave at Brigham Young University) The power to create is so sacred and holy that I should only share it with the one special person with whom I am going to be married and sealed to for all eternity. (In the holy temples we build we are able to perform certain ordinances that will seal a husband and wife together so they will be married for all time here on earth as well as for the eternities after we die)
Now, how can I remember this from day to day so I can keep myself clean for her?
Print this off and read it each morning? Expound on it each day?
Pray for the ability to remember these feelings each day?
I need to do this each day though. I can feel that this realization is important for my recovery. I am grateful God was able to touch my heart tonight. Very grateful."

I have thought about this experience the last couple days. I have thought about it a lot...and it actually saved me this morning. I got up because of a truck that was working outside my window (very noisy, couldn't keep sleeping) and then had the thought, "I really don't want to call my accountability partner today." WARNING!!!! Yeah, I'm supposed to call him when I am done with this post, but I am so glad I was blessed with the presence of mind to notice the danger sign. Last night I was in danger as well, but I was able to go to an SA group meeting and then spend time with my girlfriend so I wasn't tempted to look at porn or anything.

I guess the focus of my post is having a clear presence of mind. Mine started Sunday night and I am very grateful for that. It isn't staying with me all the time...I have to work at it. I can't expect my mind to stay clear all the time because the tracks in my mind I paved while in the depths of my addiction are still very accessible.I can't just glide...I have to actively work to be in tune, or to have a connection with God.

I am grateful for this experience. I commit to being sober for the next 12 and 1/2 hours (until 12 am at which point I will be in bed asleep). This is my daily experience and this is my hope for recovery!

-Grateful and Hopeful

Responsibility is not fun?

1 day sober:

Today has had many different things happen, but the one thing that is on my mind...foremost at least, is when I slipped up last. It was last night around 2 am. Why was I up? Because I wanted to keep watching How I Met Your Mother episodes...yeah, that was the reason.

My plan last night was to be up and working around 9 in the morning. That didn't work because I didn't go to sleep until 5:15 this morning. I have been shirking responsibility for the past week. Staying up late, not reading anything I should, not keeping engagements that I don't think are fun...just things like that.

Why am I doing this? Is it because I'm just a flake and can't take responsibility? I'm not sure. I feel like I can be responsible when I want to be, but most times it is just so easy to not be. I guess I just need to man up and do my best in every way.

So, I need to call my sponsor today. That is my goal.

This is my daily experience and check in. I pray I can get another 24 hours of sobriety and recovery.

-Grateful and Hopeful

A Habit of Relapse

1 day sober:

Yeah, I'm an idiot. Tonight I totally looked up some porn, watched it, and then masturbated. What happened this time?

Well, here's what happened:

• I watched a movie alone that I knew had racy parts in it. Why? Because I wanted to watch the movie. It was about soccer and I thought I would be able to handle it. Yeah, didn't happen did it...
• While watching the movie, instead of focusing on the story I focused on what one of the women in the movie was wearing. Her lingerie was definitely visible. Black lingerie has always been very triggering to me.
• Instead of turning the movie off and calling someone like I should have, I jumped into searching for a video. Found it. Watched it. Masturbated. Felt like crap. (You'd think that since I feel like crap every time I would be able to remember that...and avoid it? Nope...)

So, what am I going to do? I am going to call my sponsor right now, go to a group meeting tomorrow, and get back into doing all of my daily's. I have been seriously slacking on that and I can't do that.

Am I upset with myself? Yes...I am. I let my guard down today because I had gotten 30 days in a row of sobriety. However...I have pushed the line a couple times and it was getting more frequent. Ugh...gotta do better now!

This is my daily experience...and today is especially important. Feel free to comment in if you have any wise words...even if it isn't wise I would love to hear from you. I pray I can get 24 hours of sobriety.

-Grateful and Hopeful

A Home Cooked Meal

29 days sober:

My dad and I are launching a business in the next two weeks and so I have a lot to do...working with him to get it all ready. So, after living up at my apartment for a couple days, 4 to be exact, I decided to come down to my parent's house in order to be closer to my dad so we can work together better...but the wonderful meals my mom fixes are a lot better than what I usually eat on my own. So, that is a nice bonus.

But, I'm not only bragging about my mom's cooking here...this has made me reflect on what it means to have a home. I don't consider my apartment to be my home. It is a place I stay, but the place I really feel safe and warm in is my parent's house. I know I can come here any time I need to and I can be safe here. I am very grateful I have a place like that.

Feeling like I belong somewhere is crucial to my recovery. That is just one more sense of comfort that I have that makes me comfortable. Along with being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (and all the wonderful blessings of peace and happiness that come along with living the gospel) I have so many blessings in my life. A wonderful family, a cute (new) girlfriend, a car that drives, a bed to sleep in, food to eat...my life really is great.

So, I will be grateful for the wonderful things I have in my life. With this gratitude will come a greater appreciation for the things around me and I will ultimately become more loving. As I do this I believe I will be able to stay in recovery...but really the only one who can help me with that is my Heavenly Father. God is the only one who can help me get lasting recovery. I am so grateful He is in my life and I love Him so much!

This is my daily check in and my experience. I pray for another 24 hours of recovery and sobriety.

-Grateful and Hopeful

The Great Gatsby and a haircut

23 days sober:

I think its been awhile since I posted 2 days in a row...exciting eh? Ha ha, well, today I want to write about some thoughts I had while watching The Great Gatsby (not the new one, but the old 1974 one with Robert Redford) as well as write about how excited I am about getting a haircut!

The Great Gatsby - I thought it was a great movie and very well done, but the whole story just unnerved me a bit. I mean, a married couple are both having affairs with other people and then they end up together at the end again! I guess I understand Gatsby going after Daisy a little bit...he used to love her and the reason she didn't marry him was because he didn't have money. So, he spend 8 years making a fortune and then goes back to the dream he once had of marrying the girl he loved. A great story, but totally impractical.

When life goes on without us, we need to adapt and look at our changed circumstances. Something as important and impregnable as a marriage should never be tried with remembrances of past love. Daisy and Tom might not have loved each other as strongly as Daisy and Gatsby did, but surely they could have grown into their love and made something of it. Of course, it would have taken both partners being faithful.

I want my marriage to be happy. I want my wife to be perfectly devoted to me and I hope and pray with all my heart I can give her the same. I want my wife to know that I love her. I want to make her happy and smile every day. I hope I can do that.

Now, onto something I am very excited about; getting a haircut! My hair has been looking awful these last couple weeks while I have been recovering. Now, I know I'm recovering and I shouldn't care what my hair looks like, but I am a person who likes to have a good self-image. I like to present myself to people and I like to look good. I know my hair looks good shorter and so I have been having a hard time coping with how my hair looks right now. But, tomorrow that will all change! I just hope I have someone cut my hair that knows what they are doing and can make it look good.

I need something little like this to be excited about. I am glad I can be excited about it and I can't wait!

This is my experience today. I am grateful for my life and for the inspiring lives of others! I pray I can have another 24 hours of sobriety and recovery!

-Grateful and Hopeful

Scraping by while trying to be refined

18 days sober:

Well, I came close to slipping up about 10 minutes ago. I have an obsession with sports bras. For some reason I find them very triggering and very attractive. And for the last couple days I haven't been able to get sports bras off my mind! It seems like each female I look at is almost instantly slipped into a sports bra in my mind in order to see how she looks in one...that is sick. I am sometimes blown away by what my mind will do in order to get the next "fix."

I posted a couple days ago about refinement. Well, I didn't go too much into my thoughts on the matter. I just posted the article I had read and mentioned that people should read it. So here are a couple of my thoughts.

Refinement - this is something I strive for. I want to be a gentleman. I want my language to be refined and elegant. I would like my appearance to be clean, neat, and respectable. I want to be familiar with the great works on literature, music, and art. Art not so much, but music and literature? Yes...I want to know them and love them. I want people to respect me and see me as a man of my word and as a person who will do whatever I say. Starting off great as a sex-addict right? Ha ha, yeah...not so much.

Anyway, those are my thoughts. The day I read the article I listened to some classical music, started memorizing a poem (IF by Rudyard Kipling), and didn't watch as many movies as I usually do.

*Side note: I am recovering from a surgery and am consigned to a couch. Movies are one of the things I can do while I am sitting here.*

BUT, that devotion to becoming refined only lasted that one day. Today I have watched a lot of movies and boy...I sure came close to slipping up! What causes this? True...I am a bit more tired today and yesterday than I have been...so tonight I will go to bed a bit earlier and try to sleep longer so I am not struggling with being tired.

Back to refinement. I need to be patient with myself as I try to establish habits of refinement. Only by making more, better habits will I be able to become refined.

This is my daily check in, and this is my experience. I pray I can get another 24 hours of recovery.

-Grateful and Hopeful

Living a life of refinement

16 days sober:

Yesterday I had something wonderful happen to me. I had a group of friends from the apartment complex I live in at school come down to my parents' house (where I am staying while I recover from my surgery) and visit with me. In the LDS Church we do something we call Family Home Evening (FHE). Typically we sing a hymn from our Church hymnal, pray together, have a discussion on a gospel topic or about a talk that one of our Church leaders gave, have treats, and then play a game together or have some other type of activity. So, this is what this group of friends did! They came down to have FHE with me and to help me feel like I am still a part of my ward at school. (In the Church we organize our congregations into things called wards. Typically they have about 200 to 600 people in them.)

So, this is what happened to me. Now why is this wonderful? Well, for 2 reasons.

1. Because they took time to drive down and see me, I felt loved and noticed by them. I felt like I was still a part of my ward, something I have been struggling with - not feeling loved by anyone other than my parents.
2. The discussion we had as a group really opened my mind up to how I should be spending my time right now while I am recovering as well as how I can spend my life in search for information and knowledge.

The talk we discussed was this: Our Refined Heavenly Home

If you get a chance, I would strongly recommend reading it. It is an amazing talk and the information and ideas in it are very well thought out and presented.

Basically the visit was an answer to my prayers and questions. Some of which I didn't even know I had! How does this apply to recovery as a sexaddict? Well, it gave me strength to know that I have a loving Heavenly Father who cares about me and who blesses me. Strength to continue on when my struggle to recover seems pointless. I am grateful for that.

This is my daily experience and check in, and I pray I can get another 24 hours of recovery and sobriety.

-Grateful and Hopeful

Worst year of my life

13 days sober:

The last year has been one of the hardest/worst years ever. But it has also been very good.
The bad:

• Sick over Christmas break from school while all my extended family was visiting. Couldn't do anything with them. Couldn't eat any good food.
• Girlfriend announced over Christmas break that she was going to leave on a mission.
• Can't get any length of sobriety or recovery from my sex addiction.
• Went in for surgery in February and was limited to activities that I could do from a couch - for 15 weeks.
• Girlfriend left on mission.
• Went in for surgery again in June.
• Because of surgeries can't do anything I love to do - outdoors activities, running, biking, hiking - and won't be able to for another year.

The good:

• Surgery is fixing a problem that would have caused serious pain in the very near future and for the rest of my life.
• I still have my life.
• I am in a recovery program.

I've been feeling very discouraged for the last while because of how much negative there has been in my life. I have not been doing enough to grow my life in my church and I have not been doing enough to recover. I feel like my life is crumbling because I can't do anything I love because I am in a cast and can't run, or bike, or work out. Any dates I go on are really lame because I can't do anything fun. So...my life pretty much sucks right now.

This is my experience and this is my daily check in. I pray for another 24 hours of recovery and growth spiritually.

-Grateful and Hopeful

Making a decision to love and be happy

12 days sober:

For Independence Day all of my siblings and I all gathered at our parents' home in order to celebrate and have a mini family reunion. I have two 4 year-old nieces and then two more nieces who are twins and are about 10 months old. For some reason they have all been super tired and screaming and running around the house. Well, that is the behavior you would expect from kids that old, but it was still getting on my nerves.

Why? Well, since getting my surgery last week on Friday I haven't had much patience. I've been doing my best to not get upset with my parents taking care of me because that usually gets on my nerves! Then, to add in the pain I have from the surgery which at times is excruciating, I am on the edge basically all the time. Having some screaming kids running around really helped me get frustrated and angry.

So, I moved all my recovery stuff down to my room in order to not be around all of the others. What does this all have to do with recovery? Well, what I decided to do next is the important part.

I believe a positive mindset is one of the most important tools in my toolbox of recovery. The times when I have had a positive mindset...when I have felt like I can recover from this no matter how many times I fall, I recover in great leaps and bounds! (Now I have to be careful right now because I am starting to feel confident and boastful...which are precisely the moods I get in right before I start my slide to acting out) So, I made a decision to be happy and to just love my family. I want to be positive!

"But it's not that easy." - This might be running through your mind right now. Here's my answer - Yes, you can't just make this decision ONE time...its the same concept of staying sober. One day at a time, one hour at a time, one minute at a time. This is how I live and this is how I can stay positive. I have made a negative attitude such a strong habit in my life that it will take awhile to switch that habit over to being positive.

After I made this decision it was a lot easier to be around my family. I still get frustrated, but I am more able to forgive, surrender, and change my attitude. I am so grateful the Lord helped me do this. Without His help I would not be able to be where I am today.

This is my daily experience and this is my check in. I pray I can get another 24 hours of recovery!

-Grateful and Hopeful

My bottom lines and surgery

9 days sober:

Yes, it is true...I have been sober for 9 days! I am still just taking it one day at a time though. That is the only way I will be able to rely on God enough to have His strength, love, and power in my life so I can beat this addiction.

Today I wanted to list out my bottom lines. Bottom lines are things I will never do because I know that if I do one of them, then acting out is right around the corner. Since coming up with these I have not been perfect, but they have sure helped me recognize when I am on the edge of acting out and they have helped me step away from that tipping point many times.

Here they are:

• I will never be on the internet alone
• I will never have my laptop in my room ( I live in an apartment with 3 other guys and it would be really easy to isolate myself in my room)
• I will always have at least 3 meals a day - Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner
• I will always get at least 6 hours of sleep a night
• I will be in bed by 11 pm every night
• Every shower I take will be 10 minutes or less

These are boundaries I have set so that I will know if I am getting close to acting out. I am grateful for my sponsor for reminding me to do this. He also helped me come up with a couple of them.

I am very grateful for doctors right now. I had surgery this last Friday and I am so grateful that the doctors have the knowledge they do so they can fix my leg.  The wonders we have available to us through the medical field are amazing!

Well, this is my experience and this is my daily check in. I pray for another 24 hours of recovery!

-Grateful and Hopeful

A conversation with my father

4 days sober:

I messed up Monday. I jumped on Netflix, watched a movie I have watched in the past for getting my drug, went and masturbated...and then I felt awful! I was at 7 days and in 15 minutes I blew that streak. Not that I am upset about the number of days per say, but I am upset that I blew away the peace that has been on my mind. That peace comes for me when I have good recovery...and usually it takes about 7 days of sobriety to get good recovery. I've often heard SA members say that recovery is all about quality, not quantity. I try to keep that in mind as I go through my ups and downs. It feels like my 47 days of sobriety was a dream. I can't imagine having that much right now!

Now I am feeling almost like I was on Monday. Well, before my slip-up. I feel hopeful, grateful, connected in a small way with God...and its wonderful! I am loving it! Why do I feel this way? What makes the difference?

Prayer

I have really been reaching out to God for the last couple days, pleading with my Father in Heaven to lift me and strengthen me. I believe He can do it. I want Him to do it. I want to turn my every thought and action into whatever He wants them to be. My honest conversations with Him have made the difference the last couple days. At least, that is what I believe is happening and helping.

Also, yesterday I went to lunch with my dad and one of his old business friends. That was very fun and I loved being with them. After lunch me and my dad talked a little bit about how he has dealt with this addiction in his life and he offered some advice of things he has learned. I found them all very helpful and I found that I have even been guided to try some of those things myself.

Disconnection is one of the greatest evils in my life. I think this is true for most addicts, but since I only have lived my life, I only know about my own life! Imagine that huh? Anyway, I noticed this morning as I got up and started my day...something was just off. I wasn't sure what. Ok, maybe it was because I was just sitting on my couch watching Burn Notice...yeah, that might be part of it. However, what really makes me feel disconnected from society? Not quite sure.

For now, this is me. This is my experience. Feel free to comment on any of these posts. It can be done anonymously!

This is my daily check in and this is my reaching out to others. I pray for another 24 hours!

-Grateful and Hopeful

I'm a Mormon and love it

7 days sober:

Yesterday I attended a special broadcast for the LDS Church (Mormon Church) and was totally blown away by the feelings I had while I was there. After realizing yesterday that I need to get out and talk to people more I was really excited to attend this broadcast. As the Church of Jesus Christ we as members are called to take the Lord's gospel to all the world. We are called to share this gospel with our friends and neighbors and really do our best to be good friends and neighbors to all those around us.

Also, we have missionaries who are called to preach the gospel full-time. The boys, who are called around age 18, serve a mission for 2 years and girls, who are called around age 19, serve a mission for 18 months or a year and a half. I myself served a mission when I was 19 and returned from that mission about 2 years ago. It was one of the most wonderful and hardest times of my life. I loved every minute of it though!

When I heard the message at the broadcast that members and missionaries are supposed to work together more I felt really good about that! So, in keeping with yesterday's post, I am going to go out and try to make as many friends as I can so I can share the wonderful gospel with them. Not that I am going to make friends with them just to share the gospel with them, but I am going to make friends and then share the gospel with them because I love them.

This is making me excited and I can't wait to get out and talk with people!

So, this is my daily check in and these are my hopes and dreams. I want to surround myself with those that I love...and I want to love those who are around me. I pray I can get another 24 hours of recovery!

-Grateful and Hopeful