adventure in recovery

Sobriety is most elusive for a sex addict prior to entering recovery. Through “white knuckling” it, you may be able to stop acting out for days, weeks, months, and sometimes years. But you know that the acting out will return. Upon entering recovery, you may soon discover that you no longer have to rely on a “white knuckle” approach to maintaining sobriety. 

Rather, you are able to appropriate tools that make long-term sobriety possible. And, if you’ve not been sober in a great while—perhaps for all your adult life—maybe for as long as you remember—sobriety itself is an adventure. Finding out that you can go a week, then a month, then several months without acting out is an immensely affirming experience. But if sobriety is the goal, the journey is not much fun. It is like walking through a desert. Lots of sand, heat, sun, and not much fun. Therefore, the goal is not sobriety but recovery.

The dictionary defines recovery as:

…bring back to normal position or condition:

For many addicts, the greatest difficulty is identifying what normal is. And it may be impossible for you to remember what life was like before addiction because it has been a part of your life from your earliest memory. Therefore, to bring back to normal means entering into a life-long quest to discover normality.

…to make up for:

This is a tall order. As with some addicts, it may seem as if a lifetime of right living will not make up for your acting out of the past. In truth, for your partner, that is very close to true; sex addicts can never fully appreciate the injury done to a partner. But in the process of recovery, as long-term sobriety is established, and you and your partner learn new boundaries, a new way of relating, new sexual behaviors, to a large extent recovery does make up for what addiction took away.

…to find or identify again:

This may include re-identifying your career and relationship goals as well as character traits you want to mark your life.

…to get back:

For you as a sex addict, recovery means reclaiming your life. Recovery means being able to look in the mirror and say, “I really like the person I see!”