Before Thursday’s events I was actually having a good week last week. I started my week with a golf tournament to support my unit’s family Christmas party. When I was a kid I played a lot of golf. I started at about 6 and played at least once a week until I deployed for Desert Storm. I wasn’t great, but I wasn’t half bad. I think I loved the game…or maybe I just loved that I got to spend so much time with my Dad playing Golf.
I went to the driving range on Sunday, almost afraid to hit the first shot, since I realized I haven’t played golf since 1992. After a half bucket of balls the game started coming back to me, I realized that I missed it. Monday was a lot of fun. I played fairly well. One of the guys in my foursome mentioned that I would be a pretty good golfer if I played. He asked why I quit. I told him that I just didn’t have time to golf since I joined the Army.
I reflected a lot on that statement during my drive to my meeting on Saturday. “I didn’t have time.” How many other things didn’t I have time for? I gave up bass fishing for more than fifteen years. I gave up stamp collecting (I believe I mentioned earlier, I’m a geek…deal with it). I gave up competitive running. I gave up competitive pistol and rifle shooting. I just didn’t have time.
I did however have time for some things. I had time to troll the internet looking for sex partners. I had time to cruise for hours looking for prostitutes. I had time to read hundreds of escort ads and reviews, before making an appointment. I had time to sometimes drive a hundred miles each way to meet an escort. I had time to have cybersex, sometimes from sundown to sunup. I always had time for my addiction. I gave up things I loved doing, so I could do things that made me hate myself.
I realized that’s why the Outer Circle is so important. In my meetings we concentrate so much on the Inner and Middle Circles, focusing on how to stay sober. We never focus on what we’re going to do with all the time that sobriety will afford us. My own relapse with porn last July happened because I was bored. Things were slow at work, I got bored, I was aimlessly web surfing, and without thinking I went from bikini’s, to underwear, to nudity. By the time I realized that I was acting out, it didn’t matter to me anymore.
Even sober I don’t have time like I did twenty years ago. My job takes more time, I’m married with two young daughters, I have service work in my fellowship, my step work, my reading. But I have found that I have time to do some things for myself that I enjoy. I fish again, I had forgotten how relaxing it is to be alone on the water trying to outsmart a creature with a brain the size of a sunflower seed. I pistol shoot. I read with my kids, take hikes with my family. Slowly but surely healthy activities are taking up the time that my addiction occupied.
About two years ago I was fishing in a small pond. I casted a plastic worm into the wind and got the mother of all backlashes in my reel. I was trying to fix the mess, when I noticed the line was moving sideways. I assumed it was a catfish and started to reel him in. When I got him close to the bank the fish jumped two feet out of the water…the biggest bass I had ever seen. I fought with her for five minutes, and when I lifted her out of the water my knees were weak and my hands were shaking. My mouth was dry, my heart was pounding. She was a ten pound largemouth bass…the biggest I had ever caught. I unhooked her and moved her back and for the in the water until she was recovered and she swam away.
I recognize now that the weak knees, the shaking hands, the pounding heart, dry mouth…those were all of the feelings I had when I knocked on a motel room door when I was acting out. The feelings aren’t healthy or unhealthy. How we get them is.