Sex/Porn Addiction Recovery: Living in a Green Circle

Scott Brassart

Jack is a 31-year-old divorced high school counselor. During his active porn addiction, he felt terrible about himself and felt like the worst person on earth—who spent his days persuading children to live a good life and his nights compulsively viewing pornography. After a period of inpatient rehab, Jack achieved six months of sexual sobriety. In addition to working from 8 to 4 every workday, he keeps a journal, meditates, and attends 12-step meetings at least three times a week. He also meets weekly with an outpatient therapist and 12-step sponsor. Despite his hard work and success, he found himself depressed and uninterested in sexual abstinence and life in general. He told his therapist and sponsor that he still wanted to be sexually sober and that he knew his life would be much better without all the sex, but that he didn’t like 12-step meetings and he was grumpy at work , he seriously thinks about “going back online” at least ten times a day.

Jack’s story is not unusual. In fact, many, if not most, recovering sex and porn addicts will experience similar feelings at some point during their recovery process. Often this is because their only real goal early in the process is to stay sober. While this is an admirable goal, it doesn’t quite provide them with direction and meaning. Because of this, when the shiny new recovery adventure inevitably loses its luster, shame returns, leaving them with nowhere to turn for motivation.

Jack, for his part, was aimless except for work and rehab. In therapy, he was asked, “What do you want out of life besides sobriety?” He was surprised to find that he had no idea. His therapist then assigns the task of moving from shame to grace, which means Jack needs to figure out his short- and long-term goals beyond sobriety. His therapist asked him to list these goals and let Jack know that they would discuss them during their next therapy session.

A week later, Jack made the following list:

• I want to “live in the moment” and not be insensitive.
• I want to complete these 12 steps by the end of this year.
• I want to be a respected member of my twelve-step fellowship.
• I want to do my job well.
• I want to feel better about myself.

When Jack shared this list with his therapist, he was very satisfied. However, his therapist wasn’t impressed and said, “Yes, that’s all very admirable, but what more do you want?” Jack was actually a little confused by the question, so his The therapist says, “Do you want to start dating and maybe get married? Do you want to take an exciting vacation? Do you want to pick up a hobby? Do you want to join a softball team? Do you want to be more involved in the community?” Jack admits he wants all of these things. “Then why aren’t they on the list?” his therapist asked. “All I see now is work, work, and more work. How about having fun and spending time with other people?”

Jake’s therapist makes a good point: If the addict can’t have some fun and enjoy life while sober, then what’s the point of being sober?

Healing sex and porn addiction is more than just stopping problem behaviors. The recovering addict must replace these behaviors with worthwhile behaviors. Sure, at first it might be okay for a recovering addict to do nothing but therapy and 12-step meetings to fill the sudden free time, but it will eventually become dull and boring.

To avoid this type of fall, addicts must educate themselves in various ways, remembering to take care of themselves in ways that foster not only a sense of sobriety but also a sense of fun and enjoyment of life. In other words, they need to live within their green circle. Interestingly, this process can feel so alien to some addicts that it ends up being the most difficult part of recovery and treatment.

Not surprisingly, when Jack began incorporating some new activities into his recovery, his depression disappeared. He started small, starting fellowship after 12-step meetings. This was fairly easy for him because many other coffee goers shared his social discomfort. Over time, he discovered that two of the men enjoyed baseball, and they planned to attend a few games together. Soon after, Jack realized that he had made friends with several people in the 12-step group and several others in the men’s group at his church.

With new goals, Jack learned that life in recovery could be very enjoyable. Yes, he still misses the dramatic dopamine rush his addiction provided. But he learned to appreciate the “slow dopamine drip” of healthy happiness—socializing with friends, providing real support to the people he cared about, pursuing hobbies, and so on. Rather than compulsively seeking an addictive life full of ups and downs, Jack is now able to enjoy the relative peace and tranquility that comes with sobriety.

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If you or someone you care about is struggling with a sex or porn addiction, help is available. For porn addicts, Seeking Integrity offers a low-cost online work group series. Click here for information. We offer a similar work group series for sex addicts. Click here for information.