My Outer Circle

As an accountability tool I will post my Sobriety Date every week.

I have been Sober since July 10th, 2008.

I have been sober for 1 year, 6 months, and 29 days.

I’m a somewhat lapsed Catholic. By lapsed I mean I haven’t been to Mass since Easter Sunday 1998 (other than my sister’s wedding in 2005), I don’t remember my last confession (though the Fifth Step really should count), and I was married outside of the church.  I do still consider myself Catholic though, and I observe things like not eating meat on Fridays during Lent.

The rapidly approaching Lenten season has me pondering what I will give up for Lent this year.  The point of the 40 days of giving something up isn’t to break us of a bad habit, it’s not like a New Year’s Resolution, the point is to remind we Catholics of Christ’s suffering.

Prior to entering recovery two years ago I would normally try to give up one of my addictive behaviors.  I can remember being 12 and giving up masturbation for Lent.  I couldn’t make it the whole 40 days, in fact I made it less than a week at a time.  I realize now that even at 12 I was an addict.  I would vow to not masturbate for 40 days.  When that proved impossible for me I would make “deals” with myself.  I wouldn’t masturbate too orgasm.  When that didn’t work, I wouldn’t masturbate to pictures.  (It wasn’t pornography yet…it was still ads from the Sunday paper or the Sears Catalogue.)  Finally it got down to I wouldn’t masturbate more than once a day.

As I got older what I would give up for Lent changed.  In my teens it was pornography.  I would vow not to look at porn during lent.  By the end of the first week it became I would only look at certain magazines.  By my early twenties it was sex with my girlfriend in semi-public places.  Since we could only get away from school on weekends basically I was only trying to give up sex five days a week.  I never made it.  I would begin to make “deals” with myself.  By my mid twenties it was giving up prostitutes, and of course the deal would end up giving up escorts but not massage parlors or prostitutes from the street.

Looking back on that history today I can see that I was a sex addict at 12 years old.  I tried to stop my compulsive behavior, and I was unable to.  When it came down to not being able to stop having sex in semi-public places or not to have sex with prostitutes for 40 days and I couldn’t do it I should have realized my problem wasn’t that I was a bad Catholic; my problem was I was addicted to compulsive sexual behaviors.  Everyone who masturbates, looks at porn, or visits prostitutes isn’t a sex addict.  Anyone who can’t go forty days without engaging in those activities if he wants to, probably is.

My Lenten reflections are a sobering reminder of the progressive nature of the disease.  My disease progressed from masturbation, to pornography, to semi-public sex, to swingers, to escorts, to street prostitutes.  I fear to think of where I would have gone next when I needed something more to provide the same level of “high”.  Worse, in my experience the higher the high, the lower the depths of pain and depression that followed, sometimes just minutes after the high. 

Next Saturday marks my second year in recovery.  I’m grateful that I was able to identify my addiction and do something about it. (And for Lent…I think I’ll give up my nightly post dinner, pre-bedtime snack.)

My unit has moved to a new building on the opposite side of post.  I had worked out a route home that didn’t take me past any areas that I would have acted out in when I was active in my addiction.  That’s a round about way of saying I worked out a route home that didn’t take me past any prostitutes.

Two things that can be found in abundance around any Army installation (well besides used car dealers, check cashing places, and pawn shops) are traffic and prostitutes.  At the worst point of my addiction I was picking up prostitutes weekly, a lot of the time on my way home from work.

Last week it took me an average of 45 minutes to drive the 12 miles from work to my house.  One night it took me an hour.  All of that sitting in traffic builds stress I don’t need in my life right now.  I have enough on my plate with home buying and working 12 hour days for 50 straight days.  I decided that I would try an alternate route.

All was well the first three days.  It cut my travel time to 30 minutes (still a ridiculous amount of time to travel 12 miles), and no sign of anything triggering.  Last night while I was stopped at a red light I spotted a prostitute. I didn’t violate the three second rule…actually I didn’t look for more than a second…I shifted my gaze to the traffic signal and went on my merry way.  It wasn’t until I got home and went through my nightly routine of greeting the kids, dogs, wife, feeding the fish, and changing clothes that I realized I wasn’t the least bit triggered.  I saw her, recognized what she was, and didn’t give it a thought beyond that. 

To a normal person, that sounds like a no brainer.  To me as a sex addict it’s an achievement.  There was no thought what so ever about driving around the block to get another look, or making a note of the location to come back another day.  There was no looking around for an unmarked police car, or wondering if it was is part of a sting operation.  I was just a father and husband wanting to get home as quickly as possible after a long day at work, with a little twist of “grumpy tax payer wondering why the heck the cops don’t do something about that” thrown in for good measure.

I haven’t forgotten I’m an addict, and I recognize the significance of that moment.  I know that I have to pay careful attention to my state of mind and make sure that I never drive home that way if I’m HALT (hungry, angry, lonely, tired), or under enough stress to interfere with my recovery.  But it is encouraging to know that on normal days I don’t have to be a slave to my addiction and I’ve progressed enough in my recovery that I can take the quickest way home.

Yesterday we spent six hours in a minivan with a realtor looking at houses.  People who’ve done this before (yes, I’m 42 years old, been employed every single day since I turned 16, yet I have never owned a house) warned us not to fall in love with a house, too many things can go wrong.  I’ll admit, there were a couple of houses I looked at on the internet that I really liked, one of which I would have bought on the spot, but when we walked through them I was able to be objective.

Then came the last house.  It was a house we would never have looked at, because we could never have afforded it.  2,400 square feet, a model home so it had upgrades to everything, a great neighborhood, great schools.  It was listed at 70,000 dollars below its market value because it was a short sale to avoid foreclosure.  When we pulled into the driveway we knew we wanted it.  We spent an hour inside.  Yes, the paint was awful (really, who paints a room orange?), but I could repaint before we moved in, there were some tacky touches (the mirrored wall in the bedroom was coming out), the yard was small, but I could just take out the lower deck and that would help.

We asked the realtor if we could give her an earnest money check and make an offer for the full list price on the spot.  She told us it had been on the market for 280 days, the bank would take the offer on the spot, and she would call the listing agent as soon as she got back to the office.

I actually said the Third Step Prayer to myself, I asked God to do his will.  We went to dinner and talked about what we were going to do with the house when we got it.  We drove two hours home and when we got there my wife checked her email.  The house was off the market, the bank accepted a mortgage adjustment from the owners and they were moving back in this week.

I wish I could say that I accepted the whole thing with grace, and that I knew it wasn’t my Higher Power’s intention for me to move into a house bigger than we really needed, with high property taxes, and three hundred dollar air conditioning bills in the heart of the Texas Summer.  I wish I could say that I realized the yard was too small for the kids and the dogs, and that we’d be better off with a smaller house that wasn’t so hard to maintain.

Unfortunately I didn’t react with grace.  My first reaction was great, glad my taxes are going to good use so the government can guarantee a mortgage for someone who already defaulted on one, so he can keep a house he can’t afford.  I got resentful that my wife didn’t really like the houses I loved, and vice versa.  Great, she gets her big kitchen, and all of my books and models can sit in boxes in the garage like they have for the last five years because she likes a bunch of houses with big kitchens but no office.  I resented that I wouldn’t spend that much time in the house anyway, because I’ll be driving an hour each way to work, and working twelve hour days so I’ll have enough time to get home and cut the grass take a shower and go to bed.  The only rooms I’ll see anyway are the bedroom and the master bath.

Naturally I was a joy to be around when I woke up this morning.  I moved the shower under a black cloud, made a sarcastic comment about the nearly empty bottle of grapefruit juice in the fridge, and slammed the garage door when I went to put out the trash and found the light burned out.  I took my frustrations about the house out on my wife.

If I were still actively practicing my addiction I would have calmed my nerves and covered my disappointment by acting out.  Fortunately I’m in remission from my disease.  I sat down and did a Fourth Step on the whole issue.  I recognized that my resentments came from my own selfishness and feelings of inadequacy.  I prayed about it.  Next comes the Tenth Step, I’ll call my wife and admit that I was wrong for taking my frustration out on her.  I’ll figure out a way to make amends for it. 

The bright spot of the whole thing (besides I really don’t need a house that big, or a tax bill that large) is that I don’t feel like acting out.  Nothing that’s happened in the twenty four hour rollercoaster ride has flipped the switch in my brain that makes me want to stop by an adult bookstore or pick up a prostitute on the way home from work today.  The Twelve Steps have saved me from me again.  It works if you work it.

I’m not a psychologist, I didn’t even stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night, but I do a lot of reading.  The more I read about addiction, whether it be alcoholism, drug addiction, or sex addiction, the more I believe that addiction is the disease, drugs, alcohol, or compulsive sexual behavior are the symptoms.

I’m reading a great book right now, I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead: The Dirty Life and Times of Warren Zevon, by Crystal Zevon.  I didn’t start reading it for recovery purposes.  Warren Zevon happens to be my all time favorite singer/songwriter, so I was interested in reading his life story.  I knew that he was a recovered alcoholic and a drug addict, but I didn’t realize how much his life was like mine. 

There’s a great story in the book about Warren at a party with Clint Eastwood, Martin Scorsese, and Robert Deniro.  “These guys recognized Warren’s talent his uniqueness, his brilliance.  I wanted Warren to cultivate that, but he couldn’t.  To maintain those relationships was impossible for him, because he felt that eventually they would see right through him.  Of course it required the right combination of drugs to be with people at all.”

Until I entered recovery I was afraid to get close to anyone, because I was afraid they would see that my entire life was a façade.  I was a good student, but I never had to work that hard at it.  Academic achievement for the most part (everything other than Electrical Engineering 302 and Principles of Heat Transfer 301) came pretty easily to me.  I felt like I was a fraud, that I didn’t deserve the grades and honors I received because it wasn’t that hard for me.

I lived the same way in the Army.  I would get glowing evaluations and awards, but I never felt that I was good enough to deserve them.  I looked at my peers and I always felt inferior to most of them, yet they came to me for advice and when my bosses were looking for someone for the tough jobs they gave them to me.  I always felt that I was an hour away from being exposed as not being good enough.  I didn’t know how people didn’t look at me and wonder how I made it as far as I had.

So I turned to my drug of choice, sex, to put those feelings out of my mind.  By the time I was 11 it was masturbating to the images in the Sears catalog.  When I was 16 and could drive I would buy pornographic magazines at the 7-11 or go to the adult theater.  By 20 it was prostitutes.  By 22 it was swingers. By 30 it was all of the above, plus meeting people from the internet.

When I was acting out I could forget for a few hours that I was a fraud.  It was the only time that I acted in the moment.  It didn’t matter what I had to do tomorrow, it didn’t matter what else happened to me that day, when I was acting out the adrenaline rush made me forget everything but the now.

The ironic thing is that acting out made some of my fears of inadequacy a self fulfilling prophesy.  At work I would spent a quarter of my work day either thinking about acting out, or actively searching for someone to act out with.  I began to put projects off, either doing them at the last minute or rushing through them so I would have time to act out.  I devoted more time to sex than I did to my job or my family.  Sex was my most important need.  I was either acting out, planning to act out, or in euphoric recall about my last acting out.

Thanks to working the Steps and the fellowship I’ve found in SAA I’ve realized that I’m not nearly as bad of a person as I thought I was.  I’m flawed, but we all are. I have more knowledge and understanding of what my flaws are than most people who have never worked a Fourth or Fifth Step.  I’m working at minimizing those flaws.  I have no problem sitting in a room every Saturday morning and announcing that my name is John and I’m a sex addict.  Just as important I can go to work on Monday morning and say with confidence that I’m Lieutenant Colonel John F, I’m a battalion commander, and I’m damn good at my job.

I’ve still got the disease, I always will.  Thanks to my Higher Power, the Steps, and SAA, the disease is in remission, and I’m not plagued with symptoms.

Things are moving fast and furious in my life right now.  In the past a week like this one (and its only Wednesday) would have caused me to be on edge, and I quite frankly would have dealt with the stress by acting out.  Thanks to working the steps in SAA that’s all changed.  Though life has been nuts, I’m pretty serene.  More important, I’m seeing that God really is doing for me what I couldn’t do for myself.

On Monday we got approved for a mortgage.  For the first time it’s becoming real to me, retirement is in sight, the end of the road, I’m going to have to look for a job for the first time in my life.  Granted that’s still about three years down the road, but we’re getting ready for it, and buying a house is the first step in the process.

Thanks to my addiction (actually thanks to my acting out) my finances weren’t pretty.  I spent money I didn’t have on porn and prostitutes.  Even when I wasn’t broke, I would be too busy acting out to pay my bills on time.  Even before I entered recovery, before my wife realized the depth of my addiction, she took over our finances.  Amazingly, despite my best efforts to screw it up, we now have excellent credit, it took us less than an hour to secure a mortgage, and we’re well on our way to buying our first (and hopefully last) house.

Of course while I was on the phone listening to the voicemail my wife left telling me that our mortgage is approved, we have a realtor, and we should be able to close on a house by April 30^th, I received an email from my branch manager.  (Think evil HR guy in Washington DC).  All the email said was, “John call me about assignment options.”  I thought that we had come to an agreement of assignments.  I was going to stay in my current job until November or December of 2010, move to a different unit at the same location, and deploy to Iraq in the summer of 2011 for a year.  A few emails flew back and forth, and I found out they wanted me to leave this job in April, and deploy to Iraq in August as an advisor to the Iraqi Army. Of course I had options, like retire in six months and try to find a job in the worst job market since the Great Depression.

Two years ago, pre-recovery, I would have accepted this as a done deal.  I would have stressed out about it, I would have deployed in six months, and I would have acted out constantly between now and then to deal with the stress it was causing me. 

Now that I’m sober I decided to take a break.  I read from the Green Book, I sent some check in emails to recovery friends, I did some service work that was on my plate.  I went home and told my wife that I might have to deploy a year earlier than we thought.  She was upset, so upset she couldn’t sleep at all Monday night.

Tuesday morning as I always do, I started my day with the serenity prayer.  “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”  I meditated on my situation.  I want to deploy again.  I volunteered to deploy again.  I want to lead to Soldiers in combat again before I finally retire.  That’s when I recognized a dangerous word for an addict: “WANT”.  I was being selfish.  I was putting my wants above the needs of my family.  It would be next to impossible for me to train for a deployment and move my family into our new home without putting a lot of stress on my wife and kids.

I called my assignments manager.  I told him I understood it’s been almost three years since my last deployment.  (The average time between deployments for Lieutenant Colonels is only 27 months.)  I explained my situation.  I told him that though I really wanted to deploy in a leadership position, if he wanted to send me to Iraq or Afghanistan as a staff officer at major headquarters in September I would prefer to do that so I could make sure my family was settled, but I wasn’t prepared to move to a new job in April or deploy in August, I  had to take care of my family.

I heard some typing at his end of the line.  He told me that the Deputy Brigade Commander position for the next Brigade to deploy from my location was filled, he asked if I was willing to serve as the Transition Team Chief (the officer in charge of all of the American advisors to an Iraqi Army Division) for the Brigade.  If I was willing to do that job I could stay at my current location.  I would report to my new unit in November and deploy in the Spring of 2011 for a year, I would likely be one of the last US Soldiers to leave Iraq…ironic because in 1991 and again in 2003 I was one of the first American Soldiers into Iraq.  I would get to lead Soldiers in Combat again, granted about 300 hundred of them would be American, the other five thousand would be Iraqi. 

I accepted the offer.  It allows me to take care of my family and settle them in our new home.  It allows me to serve another three years, improving our family’s financial stability.  It allows me to lead Soldiers in combat again.  It’s what is best for my family, the Army and me…in that order.  Two years ago I would have tried to impose my will on the situation, and do what I thought was best for me.  This week I turned it over to my Higher Power, and things worked out.  It turns out that doing what is best for my family is what’s best for me.

Work has been crazy since the 10^th of this month…and will continue that way through the 20^th of February.  There have been days when I get to work at 7 am and get home at midnight. I haven’t had a day off since January 3^rd.  So, my meditation and writing have been slipping a bit.  Thankfully I’ve been able to keep my Saturday mornings clear so that I can make it to my home group meeting.

This afternoon I had a little time to myself and I decided to check a couple of recovery blogs I have bookmarked. I read a post from a fellow addict who just lost his dog.  His post broke my heart, and I can sympathize.

In the deepest, darkest, depths of my addiction I truly felt that I was unlovable.  I was so deeply flawed that I felt not only was it impossible for anyone who knew the REAL me (as opposed to the “John mask” that I wore) to love me, but that I was unworthy of love.  I didn’t understand that unconditional love could exist.

There was one exception.  I knew my dogs loved me unconditionally.  No matter how deep I sank, my dogs loved me.  It was obvious.  I would come home from work and our little blind Corgi, Nettie would run as fast as a little blind dog could run to the door to greet me.  Our Pitbassador Bull Hound (he’s a pit bull, basset, lab mix) Nigel would be right on her heels.  The days when my wife wasn’t speaking to me, or was ready to kick me out of the house because of my cheating and lying were the worst days of my life, the times when I made plans to kill myself.  Those dogs saved my life, just by sitting beside me and licking away my tears, letting me know that someone still loved me.

I lost ten Soldiers the first time I was in Iraq.  Several of them were close to me.  I never cried at their memorials.  I was heartbroken, but I never cried.  The only time I cried in Iraq was when my wife emailed me that Nettie had died.

Nigel is eight years old now, and has gone from rambunctious pup to a dignified middle aged dog.  He remembers me going to Iraq and every time I pack a suitcase or even a gym bag to go to work he lays on our bed and cries.  This week he had some minor surgery, nothing to worry about, but any time a dog has general anesthesia you have to worry a little.  Tuesday I couldn’t concentrate on anything until my wife called to say he was out of surgery and awake in the recovery room.

What’s the point of all this?  I don’t know exactly.  I guess I just wanted to say I love my three dogs. (Since Nettie has been gone we’ve adopted another Corgi, Trevor, and a Rat Terrier/Chihuahua mix, Iggy.)  Just basking in the unconditional love of those three dogs brings me peace.  It’s part of my Outer Circle. 

We can learn a lot of lessons from dogs.  They live in the moment.  To a dog there’s no shame about the past, there’s no worry about the future, there’s just now.  My dogs taught me that even though I’m far from perfect, I’m worthy of being loved.  They remind me every day.  They’re part of my recovery.

Yesterday at my home meeting I received my key tag recognizing 18 Months of Sobriety.  It hit me as I was walking back to my seat that I never dreamed that I could maintain that kind of sobriety.  I didn’t act out for an entire calendar year and then some.

It’s traditional in our meeting for someone to ask, “How did you do it?”  I had been thinking about what my answer would be all week. 

I didn’t do it.  I tried to do it when I first entered recovery.  I white knuckled my way through six months of “sobriety” that was really abstinence.  I hadn’t truly admitted that I had no control over my addictive behavior, I relied on accountability phone calls and distractions to avoid acting out.  I suffered.  Then I had a relapse.  For three weeks I viewed websites that bordered on pornography, I posted some sexual messages on a website, finally I crossed the line and viewed pornographic images. 

I began to take Step Work much more seriously.  I did my First Step, worked hard on the Fourth Step, and began to realize that what I had before was just abstinence, that I had to work the steps if I wanted serenity and sobriety.

I am not perfect, I never will be.  But thanks to working the Steps (I am currently working the Eighth Step) I understand that the steps are not about abstinence, they are about changing the way I live to achieve serenity and with serenity comes true sobriety.

I didn’t do it…the Steps, the fellowship of SAA, and God did it for me.