| Excerpts From: 101 Practical
Exercises for Sexual Addiction Recovery by Weiss eBook It! (Available through Heart to Heart Counseling Center $39.95) EXERCISE # 35 IDENTIFYING & COMMUNICATING FEELINGS Any addict has difficulty with identifying feelings. If an addict has a feeling, he generally fixes it by taking a drink, drug, sex or some other way of medicating his feelings. Most sex addicts have not received any training in the area of feelings from their family of origin. Feelings are a skill that you can develop and acquire levels of mastery once you are trained. This is similar to growing up and not learning how to maintain a car. It doesn't mean that you are less intelligent or worthwhile because you can't fix a car. You would be simply untrained. If you were to take a class on car maintenance, you would probably be a good mechanic. The difference is that the skills you may have been exposed to and learned make you more skilled. Expressing feelings, in sexual addiction recovery, is very important for several reasons. Some are mentioned below. 1. In your acting out days, if you had a feeling, you probably would not know what it was. But if you masturbated or acted out in some way, the feeling would go away. In this process, you may not have learned to identify feelings and hence could not meet your own real needs. 2. In early recovery between the third to sixth week of abstinence from your acting out behaviors, (including masturbation for most sex addicts) you may begin to start recognizing feelings. This feels almost like a thawing out of emotions. It is best to have already begun to identify your feelings so that they don't confuse or overwhelm you and activate the cycle (feel --> act out --> feeling disappears). In recovery, you get to feel without acting out. 3. If you can identify your feelings, you may better know how to handle or manage these feelings so as to prevent relapses. 4. If a cycle or relapse occurs, you may be able to track down what emotion(s) preceded this and move forward in your recovery. 5. Mastering your feelings can allow more intimacy into your life. In the first month or so of your recovery, the feelings identification exercise may be one of the harder exercises in this book. The discipline you put into this exercise will have lifelong benefits in every area of your life including relationships, parenting, work, recovery, spirituality, and your social life. It may also save you from financial mistakes because your intuition will become more active in your decision making process. The feelings exercise is simple. Fill in the blanks. An example is given below. 1. I feel (feeling word) when ______________________. (present tense) 2. I first remember feeling (same feeling word) when _________________. (past tense) EXAMPLE: 1. I feel Calm when I am on the lake in a boat with a friend. 2. I first remember feeling calm when I was 10 years old, I had my own bedroom where I played with a racecar set. The goal here is to have experiences. In computer terms, an addict has an emotional database, but this database has no file names so you can't access the files nor can you utilize this data. This exercise, if you do two or more feelings exercises daily for a month to six weeks, will make your road in recovery a lot smoother. Those who do this in their recovery development early, never regret it later. Those who don't do this exercise, always regret it. So, I strongly encourage you to take the time to do this exercise today and for the next several weeks. A list of feelings that you can utilize for your feeling exercises is located in the book 101 Practical Exercises. The list is in alphabetical order. You can pick out your feelings randomly in any manner you choose. When sharing your feelings, it is important to maintain eye contact with the person you are sharing them with. This eye contact, may feel uncomfortable at first, but will eventually become comfortable to you. This is part of the benefit of this exercise. STEP TALK Excerpts From: Steps of Hope: A Twelve Step Guide for Sex Addiction Recovery by Weiss eBook It! (Available through Heart to Heart Counseling Center, $14.95) STEP TWO "Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity." SANITY List the behavior and attitudes which became insane during your sexual addiction that you would like your greater Power to restore. 1.___________________________________________________________ 2.___________________________________________________________ 3.___________________________________________________________ 4.____________________________________________________________ 5.____________________________________________________________ 6.____________________________________________________________ 7.____________________________________________________________ 8.____________________________________________________________ How will you know when these attitudes or behaviors are restored? 1.____________________________________________________________ 2.____________________________________________________________ 3.____________________________________________________________ 4.____________________________________________________________ 5.____________________________________________________________ 6.____________________________________________________________ 7.____________________________________________________________ 8.____________________________________________________________ In your own words, write what you believe to be the principle(s) of Step Two. ___________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________ On a scale from 1-10, rate yourself on Step Two. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Why? _________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ |
EXERCISE # 38 AVOID H.A.L.T. In recovery whether it be from alcohol, drugs, sex or food, H.A.L.T. has been used to stand for the feelings Hungry, Angry, Lonely and Tired. These are important feelings to avoid for the recovering sex addict. Simply put, keep yourself eating regularly, not allowing yourself to get too hungry. Hunger may make you more susceptible to less logical thinking. Some researchers believe that eating certain foods can help you in recovery. A book that discusses this aspect of recovery is Help Yourself, by Joel Robertson published by Thomas Nelson Publishing. Anger can sneak up on you quickly and put you in an emotional state of, "I'll show her." Which could lead you to rationalize why it might be okay to act out. Some sex addicts have a whole system where they purposely start a fight with their partner, leave, act out and come back later justifying their acting out behavior because they were "Angry." If anger is a problem, be sure to refer to the exercise in 101 Practical Exercises on Anger Work. Anger can be an important piece of managing your recovery. Lonely is a difficult feeling for the sex addict to handle. Feeling alone can make the sex addict feel vulnerable to want to medicate the feeling by acting out. Having an action plan or an "I will do" list available in your wallet for when you feel lonely may be helpful. Some other suggestions are: 1. Go to a public place such as a mall or restaurant. 2. Call someone in the program. 3. Plan ahead to avoid your alone time gaps such as weekends or when your partner may be out of town. 4. Exercise. 5. Help someone else with a project. 6. Go to a meeting, church or other social gathering. 7. Pray. 8. Ask others what they do when they feel this way. Being "Tired" in your busy, fast paced life, is a familiar feeling. Tiredness can lower your resistance to the point of "who cares." To recover, you need to stay alert. Your sex addiction is a default program that wants to be fully activated anytime it can find a way. To prevent tiredness, get regular sleep and if you need to rest here or there, take it if you can. List your action plan for the following feelings that could trigger a relapse in your recovery. Hungry - ______________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________ Angry - ______________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________ Lonely - ______________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________ Tired - ______________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________ STEP TALK Excerpts From: Steps of Hope: A Twelve Step Guide for Sex Addiction Recovery by Weiss eBook It! (Available through Heart to Heart Counseling Center, $14.95) STEP THREE "Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him." MADE Since "made" is in the past tense, explain how you have been affected since turning your will and life over to the care of God, especially in your sexual addiction. (What has changed? What are you doing differently?) 1._________________________________________________________________ 2._________________________________________________________________ 3._________________________________________________________________ 4._________________________________________________________________ Making a major decision in your life often requires time and much thought. What were other major decisions you have made in the past? How long did it take to make them? (Marriage/divorce/business choices) 1._________________________________________________________________ 2._________________________________________________________________ 3._________________________________________________________________ 4._________________________________________________________________ In the above cases, where were you when you made that final decision? 1._________________________________________________________________ 2._________________________________________________________________ 3._________________________________________________________________ 4._________________________________________________________________ |
EXERCISE # 39 MY WORST MOMENT In the addict's active sexually addicted life-style, he rarely thinks of the pain he is causing himself or anyone else. In recovery from sex addiction, when the addiction "talks to you" it will try to sell you as to how "A little bit won't hurt," or "Who will know? You can act out just one more time. You are sober enough. It won't affect your recovery." These and many other lies try to maximize the current benefit to you (i.e., it feels good) and minimize the long term negative effects (i.e., this could be the beginning of two to ten year binge and you'll lose your marriage, business and possibly get a sexually transmitted disease). This addiction is very crafty! A tool that has helped many recovering addicts maintain recovery is having a negative experience locked in, almost memorized that maximizes the pain and minimizes the pleasure to act out. For some sex addicts this picture could possibly be getting picked up by the police. For others, their worst picture is getting kicked out of the house for good, seeing your child's face when you leave, seeing your spouse cry, hearing a judge say "no visitation privileges," the loss of a job, a flirt with AIDS or abortions. These are only a few of the negative experiences that could occur. You may have one or more painful moments that would minimize the pleasure of acting out. You may want to write down these experiences to remind yourself of them when you are tempted to relapse. After you write down these experiences, picture it in your mind as vividly as you can and feel the feelings. Practice this picture in a public place (you're not as likely to act out) 2 to 3 times a day for three days. Rehearsing this image and the feelings that go with it will make you ready to beat the addiction. STEP TALK Excerpts From: Steps of Hope: A Twelve Step Guide for Sex Addiction Recovery by Weiss eBook It! (Available through Heart to Heart Counseling Center, $14.95) STEP THREE "Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him." If Step Three is thought through carefully, it is probably a decision much like marriage or the choosing of a vocation. How much time have you put into this step up to this point? ____________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ Can you identify a specific moment or culminating event that marks when you initially completed your Step Three? If so, please explain. ____________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ If the previous answer is no, explain how you know that you have completed Step Three. ____________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ STEP TALK Excerpts From: Steps of Hope: A Twelve Step Guide for Sex Addiction Recovery by Weiss eBook It! (Available through Heart to Heart Counseling Center, $14.95) STEP THREE "Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him." MADE Since "made" is in the past tense, explain how you have been affected since turning your will and life over to the care of God, especially in your sexual addiction. (What has changed? What are you doing differently?) 1._________________________________________________________________ 2._________________________________________________________________ 3._________________________________________________________________ 4._________________________________________________________________ Making a major decision in your life often requires time and much thought. What were other major decisions you have made in the past? How long did it take to make them? (Marriage/divorce/business choices) 1._________________________________________________________________ 2._________________________________________________________________ 3._________________________________________________________________ 4._________________________________________________________________ In the above cases, where were you when you made that final decision? 1._________________________________________________________________ 2._________________________________________________________________ 3._________________________________________________________________ 4._________________________________________________________________ |
EXERCISE # 40 WHAT MY ADDICTION
COST ME Every addiction costs the addict something. You can probably talk all day about emotional, relational, social and vocational losses that occurred due to your sexual addiction. Determining the cost, in financial terms has helped many sex addicts put in perspective the immense damage that their sexual addiction has caused in their life. The knowledge of the estimated financial damage due to sexual addiction has helped some addicts say "no" to acting out. The average cost over the lifetime of many addicts from the onset to when recovery began is approximately $250,000 dollars. Most of us wish we had that amount on hand today! To list the cost of your addiction, you may want to consider several things: Cost of actual pornographic material purchased $__________ Cost of professional sex services $__________ Cost of legal fees (including divorce) $__________ Divorce loss $__________ Child support $__________ Missed opportunities (college, job promotions) $__________ Working in a job under your abilities $__________ Loss of creativity and energy over years $__________ Guilt spending (spend to make you or partner feel better) $__________ Geographical moves (running from addiction) $__________ Emotional/financial immaturity due to addiction $__________ Losses by trusting untrustworthy people (scams/investment) $__________ Other ____________________________ $__________ Other ____________________________ $__________ Other ____________________________ $__________ TOTAL $__________ When you see a person you want to objectify or act out with, some addicts have found it helpful to take the total cost of what their addiction has cost them and visually place it over that person's head similar to a cartoon caption. It will definately decrease the temptation to act out! STEP TALK Excerpts From: Steps of Hope: A Twelve Step Guide for Sex Addiction Recovery by Weiss eBook It! (Available through Heart to Heart Counseling Center, $14.95) STEP THREE "Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him." Of what areas in your life are you most reluctant to have God in charge? List these areas and explain. Why? 1. __________________________ 1. __________________________ 2. __________________________ 2. __________________________ 3. __________________________ 3. __________________________ 4. __________________________ 4. __________________________ 5. __________________________ 5. __________________________ Explain how you did or how you will allow God to have your will and life in these areas. 1._______________________________________________________________ 2._______________________________________________________________ 3._______________________________________________________________ 4._______________________________________________________________ 5._______________________________________________________________ |