March 13 • Energy Suckers

Day 247 An hour ago, I was talking to my wife about how good I was feeling today, and how it's on days like this (rare as they are) that I realize how low, depressed, and searching for energy I've been, especially while acting out. Since I started recovery, I've also been guilty (if that's the right word) of going to the other extreme of compulsivity and going long stretches with low activity. More specifically, low activity toward my job. These days, I tend to do things that are personal instead of the work tasks, and I think it's largely a pain-masking habit. When I was acting out, I had days of enormous productivity at work, at home, and everywhere else. Unfortunately, that energy often came from a motivation to 'earn' a trip to a massage parlor, or an afternoon in the local bar, or some other related reward. The problem was, if my productivity broke down, I would seek the solace of my sexual haunts to make me feel better about all that energy that I had sucked out of my reserves. It's not just the sexual misdeeds I must control; I must find the paths to get healthier in the areas of compulsiveness and living in the extremes. Those patterns have the power to take me back to the out-of-control hellish days where every impulse became a mandate to act. –JR