petitjean's choice: an atheistic journal

[petitjean]

11 full days porn free
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New readers should start here, my journal on the old board:

http://lightwave.proboards48.com/index. ... 1193075759

Just a few reminders:
1) I'm a 51 year old male porn addict, no other significant vices, UK nationality but living in France. I have made a conscious choice to give up using porn for the rest of my life. I'm finding it difficult to stay clean, but I'm learning fast.

2) I am happy for others to post in my journal as long as the message is polite and/or supportive. If you want to have a dig at me, please use a PM.

3) Although matters of religion are not taboo here (see below), do bear in mind that I'm an atheist and I will not take kindly to being told that God, Jesus, the Bible, prayer, churchgoing, or their equivalents in any other religion, are the answer to my problems. Been there, done that.

I've used this opportunity to change the title of my journal slightly. Although I'll continue to be as analytical as ever (it's in my nature), I wanted to emphasize more the element of choice. The other day, I came across this passage by the Irish writer John Burnside, which seemed to encapsulate some of the ways I feel about making this choice. WARNING: CONTAINS RELIGIOUS THEMES (is petitjean going soft ???):

[NOTE TO ADMINISTRATOR: I think this should be OK regarding copyright; I've seen whole song lyrics reprinted here. It's a small extract from a short story, not available online AFAIK.]

"The soul is present at the beginning, like mind or grammar, but it takes a lifetime to emerge fully into its true being, like those desert plants that flower only once every hundred years or so. ... We are, as we grow older, the products of the choices we make, both conscious and unconscious, and the only wisdom we can ever attain is the wisdom to know how the process works, at the most hidden level. Our conscious and our secret choices sometimes contradict each other, that is only to be expected. There are choices we learn to make, and there is the matter of the soul, which operates beyond convention or common sense. The best fortune a man can have is to choose with his soul, rather than with his heart or his head because, then, there is always a secret, there is always a place in his marrow that remains intact, sacred and untouchable, a noli-me-tangere place, like that shadowy place in the garden where Mary encountered Jesus, and didn't even know who he was."

Normal service will be resumed tomorrow.

petitjean

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I WILL NEVER USE PORNOGRAPHIC MEDIA AGAIN AND I WILL NEVER CHANGE MY MIND

[petitjean]

12 full days porn free

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petitjean wrote on October 21st:

I have a SO who caught me at it once - she came home unexpectedly... As it happens, I wasn't MB-ing at that precise moment and the picture on the screen wasn't particularly explicit. (Five pictures later... well I don't like to think.) So I was able to lie and minimize the situation and after an agonizing few days obtained a kind of 'forgiveness'.

It was a Tuesday morning, early in January 2006. I know it was a Tuesday because SO always visits a certain place on a Tuesday and I can usually reckon on her being out for at least 45 minutes, enough for a quick porn snack. (Anyone seen that episode of the Sopranos where Johnny Sack comes home unexpectedly to find his obese wife binging?) Anyway, as soon as she's out of the door I open up a PowerPoint file I've created that was a sort of 'highlights' package from my stash. Only I've also done some image manipulation because, erm, let's say, I liked to blur the boundaries between the real world and the porn world. That turned me on. I could be so f***ing creative when I was using porn.

Anyway she came back in after a few minutes because she'd forgotten something. I was in full screen mode and didn't have time to do all the mouse clicks necessary to close the file. She saw a

Trigger: Author has hidden potentially triggering text. Click to reveal.

full-frontal picture of a naked woman, a porn star

- the manipulated images were later in the file. I wasn't masturbating and I was fully dressed. She whispered "my god" and immediately went out again. I felt like a piece of s**t, but had the presence of mind to close and delete the file, then rushed to the window to call her back in. We had a long talk; I was in tears; I admitted to using before I knew her, said it was compulsive, talked a little about my therapy, and said that I had used "more than ten but less than 20 times" since I'd known her - a lie, it was more like between 50 and 100. I also told her I would never use again - another lie and I knew that then.

I'm feeling pretty bad about writing this and I can't go on right now, I'm sorry. I'll continue tomorrow.

petitjean

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I WILL NEVER USE PORNOGRAPHIC MEDIA AGAIN AND I WILL NEVER CHANGE MY MIND

[Al]

petitjean wrote on December 22nd:

... let's say, I liked to blur the boundaries between the real world and the porn world. That turned me on. I could be so f***ing creative when I was using porn.

Sneaking around creative? Or artistic creative? Maybe a little of both?

Creativity is a gift in all its forms. The trick is to use that gift for good.

[William1000]

Hi PetitJean,
Tough break getting caught.
Hopefully in the long run it will be positive and not negative.
Make this the line in the sand.
I hope you can repair the damage.
Its a crappy time of year for this to have happened.
You know now more than ever why you want to quit. It messes up your life.
Don't lose what you have going for you.
My thoughts are with you - Don't give up, show her how good you can be.
Kind Regards
William

[petitjean]

13 full days porn free

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Thanks _al and William for being my first guests on the new board. _al, I was creative more in the second way. My only techniques for avoiding detection were lying, plus deleting history files and caches. Sadly, outside the porn life, I was not at all interested in the advanced features of PowerPoint or Photoshop. I will think about your remarks.

William, the events I am describing happened nearly two years ago. There have been no new slips since December 9th nor new incidents of discovery since the one I am describing (actually a neighbour came closest towards the end of September). It's important for me to re-examine in this journal the most significant moments in my addiction and recovery; it's partly about being honest - this is the only place I can be totally honest right now - partly about self-analysis.

Anyway, after we'd had our talk, SO made it clear she wasn't going to leave me, but she was pretty frosty for a few days, understandably, and definitely no sex or even physical contact. I was also interrogated every time I'd been alone with the computer for more than a few minutes, and I could answer truthfully in the negative for a limited period at least. (I've since lied again, more than once.) Eventually another bout of tears and several days of sheep's eyes melted her resolve and she 'forgave' me. She never asks me directly about porn any more, though there is the occasional barbed allusion when she's annoyed with me for another reason.

petitjean wrote on October 21st:

<Being caught> was enough to traumatize me out of the habit for several weeks, but it gradually crept back after SO set off for a
long absence from home for family reasons. I would like to tell her everything but don't feel anywhere near strong enough to do that yet; I am too afraid of losing her.

Actually, looking back it can't have been "several weeks", since we got the new desktop computer (the one I'm using now) also in January 2006 and I used porn on the old one (for the last time I told myself!) before dismantling it. SO insisted that the new computer be porn free, and I think that resolve held for about a month until her absence. After she was back I continued taking risks while she was around, but then that started shredding my nerves, so I developed a partial abstinence habit without really thinking about it, only using when she was staying away from home. That partial abstinence habit kicked in about a year ago, and I have only relapsed once in 2007 while she's been around, being within a key turn of being discovered again. But this isn't much of an achievement as her absences are long and frequent; I tended to binge when she wasn't here.

How I'm ever going to tell her properly about my addiction I don't know. Having lied the first time round makes it all the more difficult now. If she asks me a direct question... well I don't know, I may offer to show her the clean K9 logs.

Maybe I will never tell her. Maybe it'll be the secret place of me, the shadowy place in the garden that John Burnside talks about. Not just the addiction but the recovery too, the choice.

petitjean

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I WILL NEVER USE PORNOGRAPHIC MEDIA AGAIN AND I WILL NEVER CHANGE MY MIND

[petitjean]

14 full days porn free
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Christmas is coming. I don't particularly enjoy it any more but I obey the rituals. I sort of admire my friend HB ("bah humbug") who just locks himself away for two weeks with his whisky and his Dr Who videos, totally ignoring the festive season. But then again he's single (always has been) with a drink problem and I'd rather be me than him.

This is what petitjean wrote on October 21st:

I don't think there's anything wrong with MB without P; in fact I think it's a good thing, or least an inevitable part of most people's lives. It's certainly been a vital weapon in my struggle these last two weeks. And even my SO recommends it to her teenage children

Well I still believe most of that but the sands are shifting. I wouldn't have got to the initial 15 porn-free days (Oct 5th-19th) without masturbation so in that sense it was a morale-booster. But... 6 or 7 times in the first 14 days but only three times in the last 14 days. That says something. Orroz says that the Beast doesn't get off on the orgasm, but on the tension/excitation that precedes it, even before the porn use technically begins. Hence the slight sense of disappointment if I came quickly after starting a session. If I'd recently masturbated, then I would have to "work harder" to maintain the excitation and the period of tension would last longer, which was pleasing to the Beast. Does this make sense to anyone? Two of my recent porn slips have occurred after masturbation in the preceding couple of days.

JohnG (where is he??) had a world-weary post in which he said he'd lost count of the number of people who came to this board saying they wanted to quit porn but were OK about masturbation. For him it was all part and parcel. I'm sort of beginning to see his point of view, though I still think masturbation has its *tactical* uses in the battle against porn use.

petitjean

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I WILL NEVER USE PORNOGRAPHIC MEDIA AGAIN AND I WILL NEVER CHANGE MY MIND

[petitjean]

15 full days porn free
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Christmas Day, and 10 years to the day since I first used internet porn (see October 27th post). I won't say 10 wasted years, as I've done some good things in those years too - got three new qualifications, published two books, and most importantly started a loving relationship with the most beautiful woman in the world. This may be heresy here (funny how those religious categories keep cropping up!), but even porn addiction (and now recovery) has given me some insights into myself I might not have had otherwise. However, I still wish I'd made a different decision on that fateful night 10 years ago.

Like 10 years ago, I made a proper Christmas dinner. This time I cooked for a friend who's going through a difficult time in his personal life, and was able to offer some good cheer. After he left I had this feeling of what the French call "disponibilité", the feeling of being free to choose whatever I want to do, and I briefly entertained the notion of choosing to view some porn. However, I resisted the feeling fairly easily by focusing on the dissatisfaction I would inevitably feel at the end of a porn session - and by reminding myself of my commitment never to use porn again.

Tomorrow I go to England, first to see SO, then visiting various family members, and I probably won't have much opportunity to post in my journal. I return here alone on January 6th and experience tells me that will be a massive triggering moment. So I am making this appeal to all who are following my journal to POST MESSAGES OF SUPPORT HERE (OR BY PM) ON OR JUST BEFORE JANUARY 6TH.

A Happy New Year to one and all.

petitjean

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I WILL NEVER USE PORNOGRAPHIC MEDIA AGAIN AND I WILL NEVER CHANGE MY MIND

[Swisha]

Hey man,

Hope you have a good trip, I live in England!

You've achieved so much in that 10 year period, I think you could do as much if not more in the next by keeping up your positive mind frame. I find concentrating on future goals, like work projects helps, so have goals to meet, which will require your mind to innovate and be absorbed.

I was interested by your slogan, its to the point:
I WILL NEVER USE PORNOGRAPHIC MEDIA AGAIN AND I WILL NEVER CHANGE MY MIND

However I was recently a book called 'Pink Elephants' possibly the best and stupidest book I have ever read in my life. What is says is when reading your slogan above, the things that will jump out to our subconscious mind will be 'pornographic' 'media' 'change' 'mind'. So your setting yourself to resist something that you are aware is a problem, but not setting yourself up to achieve an alternate future.

If you create a slogan that focuses instead on what you want to create or achieve, then each time you read it, your subconscious mind will latch on to that concept instead and this means that pornographic media increasingly moves out of your life and is replaced by your real desire. I think part of it is just writing down exactly what you want, in opposition to a life of MB and porn.

Hope that helps,
S.

[Cry2Me]

Salut petitjean, ton journal est tres interessant!

Maybe you being to close to Grand Brittania gives me a greater affinity towards it. If when I am 50 I have published two books then I will feel a very acclomplished person.
Stay clean!

A beintot!

C2M

[petitjean]

27 full days porn free
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I'm back. I arrived home about 4 hours ago, alone, with the Beast raging, triggers everywhere - NG with her bf, a nice woman in front of me in the check-in queue at the airport, another one in the station buffet, naked female bottom on my news magazine cover (bienvenue en France ) ... Returning from a trip has traditionally been porn binge time, but I managed to keep things at bay using a combination of porn-free masturbation, the Orroz clench, and - not least - reading posts on this board. A big thankyou in particular to Swisha and Cry2Me.

This is now my longest clean run since recovery began on October 5th. It wasn't difficult to get from 15 to 27 as I had very little computer access while I was in the UK, so achieving this run almost felt like cheating. But they all count. My final subscription runs out in 40 minutes' time - after only one use of it, way back on Dec 9th. I feel like I'm pulling off the same trick as I did to give up smoking. But there's still a lot of real effort ahead.

To be honest, the visits to family and friends were unsatisfactory in several respects. However, SO and I made love twice in the week we were together, so that felt good. SO is using my laptop at the moment and we had to take it in for repairs. I just hope the techies don't attempt to carry out any deep data recovery...

No reply from NP after I 'confessed' to him before Christmas. I wonder what's going on there? I feel a bit apprehensive about re-contacting him.

A happy new year to all,

petitjean

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I WILL NEVER USE PORNOGRAPHIC MEDIA AGAIN AND I WILL NEVER CHANGE MY MIND

(Swisha, I'm going to keep this slogan for now - I'll explain why tomorrow.)