Remorse after a slip

Jlied

Active Member
Hi gents, how do you handle remorse and shame after a slip. I went to a chat room today and edged for about an hour. Now I feel like shit and like I’m never going to get better. Looking forward to any tips you may have.
 

CoolBreeze

Active Member
Try to recognize what has triggered you to act out sexually and try to stop it there. The despair you feel now is the last stage of the addiction cycle. Start over. Come here and Journal if you feel triggered. The best way to feel better about the remorse and shame is not to get there.
Recognize your Triggers that lead to fantasy that lead to ritualization that lead to acting out that lead to numbing and despair and shame.
Tomorrow is a new day and can be a new beginning of no more shame.

Peace and Strength Brother
 

Caravan7

Member
The slip is due to the addiction, you have done nothing terribly wrong. Who did you hurt? Porn addiction is not, per se, a moral issue, it's a health issue (there are of course moral considerations regarding the existence of porn itself, but you getting hooked up, like we all did, just happened).
There is really no need for any shame and remorse. Just some mild disappointment suffices :) Just treat it as an objective problem: how to avoid relapses. Focus on strategies, techniques, journaling, meditation, exercise, therapy to investigate the deep reasons, and the like.

If I relapse, I just go "ouch, damn it, gotta do better tomorrow," and that's it. It's a marathon, not a sprint, so to succeed in the long term you need to stay serene. Long-term change is more likely to happen without huge swings in emotions (positive or negative). Focus on changing habits, with small adjustments day by day... it will gradually get just a little easier.

Give yourself empathy (which does not mean being self-indulgent) rather than shame

The journey continues ....
 

guitar1968

Well-Known Member
Hi gents, how do you handle remorse and shame after a slip. I went to a chat room today and edged for about an hour. Now I feel like shit and like I’m never going to get better. Looking forward to any tips you may have.
I agree with the guys above. Just recognize what triggered you and move on to the next day. We are all going to have slips and relapses, but I think we have to just hop right back on the horse and keep soldiering on. I don't know how long you've been doing good before this little slip, but just because you did slip doesn't mean you are starting at zero. You're here posting and seeking to be better. You are doing the right thing.
 

Jlied

Active Member
Try to recognize what has triggered you to act out sexually and try to stop it there. The despair you feel now is the last stage of the addiction cycle. Start over. Come here and Journal if you feel triggered. The best way to feel better about the remorse and shame is not to get there.
Recognize your Triggers that lead to fantasy that lead to ritualization that lead to acting out that lead to numbing and despair and shame.
Tomorrow is a new day and can be a new beginning of no more shame.

Peace and Strength Brother
Thank you for your comment. It’s encouraging and promising to read your words. I think journaling for me is hard. For some reason I feel like I don’t know what to do or how to do it. Plus it doesn’t come second nature so I always forget to do it. You are right, though, the shame I feel generally makes me feel like I can’t do better which leads to a cycle. I can do better, I want to do better, and I will do better!
 

Jlied

Active Member
The slip is due to the addiction, you have done nothing terribly wrong. Who did you hurt? Porn addiction is not, per se, a moral issue, it's a health issue (there are of course moral considerations regarding the existence of porn itself, but you getting hooked up, like we all did, just happened).
There is really no need for any shame and remorse. Just some mild disappointment suffices :) Just treat it as an objective problem: how to avoid relapses. Focus on strategies, techniques, journaling, meditation, exercise, therapy to investigate the deep reasons, and the like.

If I relapse, I just go "ouch, damn it, gotta do better tomorrow," and that's it. It's a marathon, not a sprint, so to succeed in the long term you need to stay serene. Long-term change is more likely to happen without huge swings in emotions (positive or negative). Focus on changing habits, with small adjustments day by day... it will gradually get just a little easier.

Give yourself empathy (which does not mean being self-indulgent) rather than shame

The journey continues ....
You mention meditation, how do you meditate? How do you keep focus? What kinds of things do you make part of your meditation routine?
 

Caravan7

Member
You mention meditation, how do you meditate? How do you keep focus? What kinds of things do you make part of your meditation routine?
I can tell you what works for me, and it's a bunch of different things:

I use general meditation (not focused on porn addiction per se), the same you can find described on various website such as headspace.com (I paid for a few sessions, but then learned the thing and started doing it by myself): the goal here is simply to make you calmer in general. You can do it daily, or 3-4 times x week, at any time.

Then, my focus for our common problem is actually specifically what to do WHEN the urge arrives. I have had successes (not perfect) with these approaches:

1) A technique I made up called R.E.L.A.X. Look it up here on RebootNation, I describe it in another post. The gist is Recognize (that the urge is rooted in conditioning), Evaluate whether it's important for you (it's not!), Let go (accept the urge, let it be there, do not respond, let go), Acknowledge (that you have a bigger problem and you're working on it long term), and Xplore (other thoughts and ideas: start thinking about something completely non-sexual, such a work project or hobby; some call this the rabbit hole technique). Repeat the RELAX cycle if needed.

2) Very simply, when you feel the urge, go for a walk. You can't masturbate in public! plus, the exercise of walking and fresh air provides alternative healthy endorphins.

3) Immediately when I feel the urge, I open a Word doc on my computer and start journaling about the emotions underlying the urge. These change from person to person. For me, I discovered that PMO was a way to vent anger and frustration. So I write to myself about my anger and frustration. On at least one occasion, something wonderful happened: while writing I reached a sore emotional spot and broke up in tears, which gave me enormous relief. At the same time, the urge disappeared completely. You cannot expect this to happen every time, but when that happened for me it demonstrated without doubt that PMO is not about sex necessarily, it's a cover up.

4) Psychotherapy. This doesn't do anything for the single urge in the moment, but will help in the long haul.

Hope this helps!
 

CoolBreeze

Active Member
Thank you for your comment. It’s encouraging and promising to read your words. I think journaling for me is hard. For some reason I feel like I don’t know what to do or how to do it. Plus it doesn’t come second nature so I always forget to do it. You are right, though, the shame I feel generally makes me feel like I can’t do better which leads to a cycle. I can do better, I want to do better, and I will do better!
You're welcome my friend.

You can try journaling on your computer or phone at first. I just write what I feel in my journals and my private journals. When I first started journaling in 2012 the first thing I wrote was. " I suck" because that's how I felt at that particular time on that day. I also read something I wrote in 2012 about certain behaviors I was aware of that I still exhibit. I felt disappointment in myself but I gotta keep at it.

I will research my addictions also. To get information. When I first quit porn the first thing I read was the book Your Brain on Porn. It gave me information for the Porn Addiction Fight. I'm also reading books on Sex Addiction which is the umbrella my Porn Addiction falls under.

Ultimately it's progress not perfection.

Peace and Strength.
 

Jlied

Active Member
You’re right, it’s progression, and I think as someone else said earlier the remorse and shame I’m feeling is because I know enough now to know that when I have a slip it’s counter productive to what I’m trying to achieve. To have a slip or relapse now is a conscious choice, not unconscious like it was before. It’s just dejecting in the fact that even though I have come a long way the ability to make a mistake is so easy. It’s daunting to think that this may be a daily choice I have to make forever yet promising to know that if I stay diligent I may not have to make a duly choice anymore because I will have retooled my brain to seek out other forms of stimulus rather than default to old hurtful ways.
 

Caravan7

Member
I love your sentence "a daily choice I have to make forever"... it energizes me too. The "forever" would feel daunting by itself, but the "daily choice" feels doable. We only live one day really, then we sleep and, surprise, we live another day! and so on. So doing well with the day is plenty. Then repeat. Good one
 

Jlied

Active Member
That kind of goes along with a saying I really like. When people say “you only live once” it’s actually not true. You only die once, but every day yiu wake up you get to live again. When you think about it like that I feel like you get a whole new appreciation for life.
 
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