December 15 • If Not Sex, What?

Day 524

Looking back over the past many months of sobriety and working recovery, it is undeniable that my life is infinitely better than it was as an active addict. But now and then, sometimes for a few days at a time, a compilation of life issues comes together to create near-hopeless despair that my addict uses to tell me I'm still that other guy and that I'm just muddling through recovery. That's a classic lie, and even as it weighs on me, I know it is not valid.

When I take the time to analyze what is happening, the despair is usually related to work or something else far removed from anything sexual. Unfortunately, those same emotions and misdirections were heavy influences when I was acting out, too. But now I have tools. Now, I am no longer trying to survive in silence and darkness. Recovery has brought me peace where there was previously precious little.

I must regularly remind myself that this is a journey, and I am still on the entrance ramp to the freeway.

–JR

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With the jazz and the sin in the air

And once on a cold L.A. freeway

Going nowhere

And it’s strange, but it’s true

I was sure it was you

–Trisha Yearwood, ”On a Bus to St. Cloud”