No way. I fell again in less than 24 hours, this time to porn. When I wrote the previous post I thought I was handling things well and that positivity was going to help me out. But I think I simply downplayed the whole issue. At this moment I am more awake to the reality of the situation. I failed. And I was trying to make it so that it was merely an objective practical failure but
no. I failed entirely. If I had high expectations and high goals then I wasn't good enough to keep them. I need to be honest with myself and everyone here, I not only failed but during the last few hours I have behaved wretchedly. WTF, cam sex with strangers? WHAT A LOSER! That's not what I want for my life.
I will address the thing that I now believe was the ignitor of my relapse. A few days ago I got word that a distant family member died and a very small part of the inheritance is coming my way. The problem with money that arrives out of nowhere from "heaven" is that it is easier to spend stupidly. And I have a bad past when it comes to handling that, for when I was 18 I also received a small inheritance and spend it in prostitutes (I didn't went on a rampage, the use was spread evenly throughout the years that followed, but still pretty bad history I have). Prostitutes were my attempt back then to stop porn consumption and masturbation, I stopped that more than two years ago...although I ended up involving myself in a relationship with a prostitute that only ended exactly one year ago. What a loser!
Well, since I had a bad history with my first inheritance the second one triggered something within me: my thought pattern immediately associated this new inheritance with using it on prostitutes once again. I haven't even received it yet, but the past few days my thoughts were entertaining the positivity of that use in the future. And simply put I couldn't handle it. I couldn't say no to the ideas that were popping in my mind. It was like if I were keeping that option open in a safe box of the mind, just in case my life didn't turn up to get better after recovery...just in case I remained single a year from now, or just in case I got so disillusioned at life (even after recovery) that I would just choose to seek pleasure as some sort of reward or revenge for my suffering. But, in keeping that option open I betrayed everything, I betrayed myself, and therefore the journey couldn't go on because the foundations I used to build the man I wanted to become were rooted in the idea that such man would have said
no to prostitutes. It was written in the stone of the statue of Man that I was erecting for myself:
I am a man of honor, of dignity, of self value. I love, I seek, I challenge. I am above addiction, I am above sacrificing myself for pleasure. I trust in me, in life, and I shall find victory no matter how dark and lonely the road looks ahead. And now I stare like a child to that unfinished statue of Man, which is crumbling under my feet, and I know that the only way to build it again and succeed is only if I do the leap of faith, and that implies saying
no to prostitutes from the core of my spirit. Because only then I will be fully committed to becoming the man I want to be.
The thing with prostitutes is that I always thought it to be much more honest than taking advantage of a woman who has a crush on me only to have sex with her and then leave her (I think it is dishonest to pretend liking a woman as much as she likes you, but that is a stupid idea and I should stop taking the moral high ground with such stupidity...I don't have to be dishonest just to be with a woman and the opposite of that are not prostitues
). My rule has so far been that if I am not in love with the woman I cannot have sex with her, unless I am paying her for it (because that way I am making sure there is an established distance between us, the money creates that distance not only for her but also for myself, sure it didn't work when I ended in a relationship with one, so the rule is stupid). I have to also admit that going with prostitutes is also taking the easy road, it is not even trying to give a chance to my real self and a real woman. And to truly give that a chance I need to leave my old self behind, so goodbye prostitutes, goodbye fantasies, goodbye porn and goodbye masturbation.
Ok. Since this very moment I am ashes, burned by the fire of my defeat. And I will reborn like a phoenix. This time, my commitment to recovery is to the following: no masturbation, no pornography (or anything related to it), no cam sex, no prostitutes.
Day 0. I will make that leap of faith to create the man I want to become, and I will let that Man be my salvation.
It's on.