Day 1. Relapsed last night. It seems I was unable to walk away. I'm trying to go through my mind an retrace my steps to figure out what happened. I was doing well and now I'm back in the hole again. The trouble is going to be getting out of the hole. After a relapse, it's as though your willpower gets kneecapped. Shattered. Doesn't matter if it's been 3 days or 3 months. It's like building up a wall and then the enemy bursts through and you have to fight them off and painstakingly rebuild what you lost in the battle. But I'm getting too philosophical. I need to break down what happened:
-First mistake was redownloading a dating app. I don't use them for porn purposes, but the reaction my mind had to the idea of looking for girls was undeniably porn-driven. I felt it in my head at the time and had to double-take. I've since deleted it. I said I was done looking for girls through apps. I have to focus on self-improvement. I said I'd let God guide me to the right woman when He felt I was ready. Maybe I'm being overdramatic, but I feel like this may be my punishment for my arrogance. Either way, I'll never use a dating app again until long after I've kicked porn. And by then, I may have found someone. It doesn't matter. I'm off of them indefinitely.
-I can't forget that I was 17 days sober and my mind was wreaking havoc on me. I'm not sure how much of this can simply be boiled down to withdrawal driving me to it, but I can't discount the possibility, no matter how small. It certainly wasn't the main contributing factor, in my opinion. I was suffering sexual OCD, but no cravings.
-Snapchat. It's impossible to find porn on Snapchat (praise the Lord) but there's no shortage of half-naked girls, most of whom advertise an OnlyFans. It's all soft-core stuff, but it whets the mind's appetite for porn. Usually I have no issue with the app itself, although I may need to get rid of it now. It's proven too much of a problem. I didn't even glance at it until the after the dating app incident. Then I think it just fanned the flames.
-My PC is locked up pretty tight. I use CovenantEyes and for the most part, it works great. I've even blocked the option to Google search, so I can still access sites that I use regularly, but I can't browse for sites that might not be filtered. Make no mistake, I've learned the hard way that there is no 100% certainty in preventing porn access. The system works great, but it's not perfect. A few entries back, the filter failed entirely and I had access to all the porn I wanted. I rejected this and allowed the filter to reactivate. But last night I broke my rule about keeping my laptop out of my room. Tempted by the aforementioned issues, I began trying to break the filter. Using Wikipedia, I found a list of active search engines and began using them to search for porn sites that the filter didn't block. I found one. The rest is history. I've since added every single search engine to my block list. I can't use them anymore. I know this isn't a cure-all, there's no such thing. However, the least I can do is plug the holes in my wall when I discover them. The filter can still fail and there may be other methods of circumventing it I have yet to discover. I need to be ready when that time comes.
Right now I just feel numb, like after most relapses. I'm upset with myself and I'm definitely not looking forward to the week ahead. But, as I've written before, this is far from the first time I've been in this situation. I want to escape and I will come hell or high water. I will be free of this. And I've overcome relapse before, gone on streaks I never believed I could achieved. It's time to get back to that. I will continue to pray and journal. I've decided that I need to look at this journal of mine every single day, even if there's nothing I want to write. I need to beat all of the information into my head. The miseries of failure, the allure of success, and the knowledge and motivation provided to myself by myself in days past. If you're reading this, pray for me. Once again I go forth onto the road to redemption.