Day 4
I'm starting to get over my internal shame of relapsing. That doesn't mean I don't care, it just means I'm finding it useless to beat myself up over it. It needs to be a learning experience.
I was chatting with a buddy who is several months departed from nicotine, and he explained that he had quit on "X" date, but had had a couple times along the way where he'd slipped up and smoked a cigarette, but got right back to it. He didn't reset his quit date to his relapse date, just acknowledged that he'd had a few slips, but was going strong overall. Given my particular situation, I found this thought process interesting, and I had the same thought process when I'd quit nicotine years and years ago. It's interesting how we do day counts when quitting porn as if they indicate the absolute start of our journey, as many times they do not.
I think on the surface it can feel shameful to lose a day count, and I could see how one could spiral after resetting that count because in their head they're "starting over again anyway", and I think that after spiraling out of control, like I have done many times in the past, we do start from the very bottom of recovery, mentally. In the example with my buddy, he never paid any thought to a day count, just that he was quitting, knew when that journey became official, and accepted that he'd hit a few obstacles along the way. Had he gone back to a pack a day after those initially minor obstacles, I'm sure his quit date would reflect differently, but he didn't, and that's the defining moment of the example, and his internal quitting period.
Anyway, I intend to keep my day count in line with my last relapse because thats important to me for my own accountability here, I'm just expressing a thought of interest I'd had during a random discussion, because I think its relevant to our mental states when we relapse, and this discussion offered a bigger picture view of recovery, to me . I do feel like June of 2022 I was at absolute rock bottom, and thats when my best efforts of towards porn recovery began, and I don't think I'll forget that unless I were to really go south again, and only time can tell where things go from here.
I'm off to start the weekend. I have a full day of fun outdoors planned with my girl, and we may link up with a few friends along the way. It should be a good time.