Sex and Porn Addiction Healing and Recovery

A Practical Daily Reader for Sex and Porn Addicts

Inspiration, Information,
and Innovation

Copyright © 2019 Three iii Publishing

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-699-04562-6

Contents

Title Page
Copyright
JANUARY 1
JANUARY 2
JANUARY 3
JANUARY 4
JANUARY 5
JANUARY 6
JANUARY 7
JANUARY 8
JANUARY 9
JANUARY 10
JANUARY 11
JANUARY 12
JANUARY 13
JANUARY 14
JANUARY 15
JANUARY 16
JANUARY 17
JANUARY 18
JANUARY 19
JANUARY 20
JANUARY 21
JANUARY 22
JANUARY 23
JANUARY 24
JANUARY 25
JANUARY 26
JANUARY 27
JANUARY 28
JANUARY 29
JANUARY 30
JANUARY 31
FEBRUARY 1
FEBRUARY 2
FEBRUARY 3
FEBRUARY 4
FEBRUARY 5
FEBRUARY 6
FEBRUARY 7
FEBRUARY 8
FEBRUARY 9
FEBRUARY 10
FEBRUARY 11
FEBRUARY 12
FEBRUARY 13
FEBRUARY 14
FEBRUARY 15
FEBRUARY 16
FEBRUARY 17
FEBRUARY 18
FEBRUARY 19
FEBRUARY 20
FEBRUARY 21
FEBRUARY 22
FEBRUARY 23
FEBRUARY 24
FEBRUARY 25
FEBRUARY 26
FEBRUARY 27
FEBRUARY 28
MARCH 1
MARCH 2
MARCH 3
MARCH 4
MARCH 5
MARCH 6
MARCH 7
MARCH 8
MARCH 9
MARCH 10
MARCH 11
MARCH 12
MARCH 13
MARCH 14
MARCH 15
MARCH 16
MARCH 17
MARCH 18
MARCH 19
MARCH 20
MARCH 21
MARCH 22
MARCH 23
MARCH 24
MARCH 25
MARCH 26
MARCH 27
MARCH 28
MARCH 29
MARCH 30
MARCH 31
APRIL 1
APRIL 2
APRIL 3
APRIL 4
APRIL 5
APRIL 6
APRIL 7
APRIL 8
APRIL 9
APRIL 10
APRIL 11
APRIL 12
APRIL 13
APRIL 14
APRIL 15
APRIL 16
APRIL 17
APRIL 18
APRIL 19
APRIL 20
APRIL 21
APRIL 22
APRIL 23
APRIL 24
APRIL 25
APRIL 26
APRIL 27
APRIL 28
APRIL 29
APRIL 30
MAY 1
MAY 2
MAY 3
MAY 4
MAY 5
MAY 6
MAY 7
MAY 8
MAY 9
MAY 10
MAY 11
MAY 12
MAY 13
MAY 14
MAY 15
MAY 16
MAY 17
MAY 18
MAY 19
MAY 20
MAY 21
MAY 22
MAY 23
MAY 24
MAY 25
MAY 26
MAY 27
MAY 28
MAY 29
MAY 30
MAY 31
JUNE 1
JUNE 2
JUNE 3
JUNE 4
JUNE 5
JUNE 6
JUNE 7
JUNE 8
JUNE 9
JUNE 10
JUNE 11
JUNE 12
JUNE 13
JUNE 14
JUNE 15
JUNE 16
JUNE 17
JUNE 18
JUNE 19
JUNE 20
JUNE 21
JUNE 22
JUNE 23
JUNE 24
JUNE 25
JUNE 26
JUNE 27
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JUNE 29
JUNE 30
JULY 1
JULY 2
JULY 3
JULY 4
JULY 5
JULY 6
JULY 7
JULY 8
JULY 9
JULY 10
JULY 11
JULY 12
JULY 13
JULY 14
JULY 15
JULY 16
JULY 17
JULY 18
JULY 19
JULY 20
JULY 21
JULY 22
JULY 23
JULY 24
JULY 25
JULY 26
JULY 27
JULY 28
JULY 29
JULY 30
JULY 31
AUGUST 1
AUGUST 2
AUGUST 3
AUGUST 4
AUGUST 5
AUGUST 6
AUGUST 7
AUGUST 8
AUGUST 9
AUGUST 10
AUGUST 11
AUGUST 12
AUGUST 13
AUGUST 14
AUGUST 15
AUGUST 16
AUGUST 17
AUGUST 18
AUGUST 19
AUGUST 20
AUGUST 21
AUGUST 22
AUGUST 23
AUGUST 24
AUGUST 25
AUGUST 26
AUGUST 27
AUGUST 28
AUGUST 29
AUGUST 30
AUGUST 31
SEPTEMBER 1
SEPTEMBER 2
SEPTEMBER 3
SEPTEMBER 4
SEPTEMBER 5
SEPTEMBER 6
SEPTEMBER 7
SEPTEMBER 8
SEPTEMBER 9
SEPTEMBER 10
SEPTEMBER 11
SEPTEMBER 12
SEPTEMBER 13
SEPTEMBER 14
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SEPTEMBER 16
SEPTEMBER 17
SEPTEMBER 18
SEPTEMBER 19
SEPTEMBER 20
SEPTEMBER 21
SEPTEMBER 22
SEPTEMBER 23
SEPTEMBER 24
SEPTEMBER 25
SEPTEMBER 26
SEPTEMBER 27
SEPTEMBER 28
SEPTEMBER 29
SEPTEMBER 30
OCTOBER 1
OCTOBER 2
OCTOBER 3
OCTOBER 4
OCTOBER 5
OCTOBER 6
OCTOBER 7
OCTOBER 8
OCTOBER 9
OCTOBER 10
OCTOBER 11
OCTOBER 12
OCTOBER 13
OCTOBER 14
OCTOBER 15
OCTOBER 16
OCTOBER 17
OCTOBER 18
OCTOBER 19
OCTOBER 20
OCTOBER 21
OCTOBER 22
OCTOBER 23
OCTOBER 24
OCTOBER 25
OCTOBER 26
OCTOBER 27
OCTOBER 28
OCTOBER 29
OCTOBER 30
OCTOBER 31
NOVEMBER 1
NOVEMBER 2
NOVEMBER 3
NOVEMBER 4
NOVEMBER 5
NOVEMBER 6
NOVEMBER 7
NOVEMBER 8
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NOVEMBER 25
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NOVEMBER 30
DECEMBER 1
DECEMBER 2
DECEMBER 3
DECEMBER 4
DECEMBER 5
DECEMBER 6
DECEMBER 7
DECEMBER 8
DECEMBER 9
DECEMBER 10
DECEMBER 11
DECEMBER 12
DECEMBER 13
DECEMBER 14
DECEMBER 15
DECEMBER 16
DECEMBER 17
DECEMBER 18
DECEMBER 19
DECEMBER 20
DECEMBER 21
DECEMBER 22
DECEMBER 23
DECEMBER 24
DECEMBER 25
DECEMBER 26
DECEMBER 27
DECEMBER 28
DECEMBER 29
DECEMBER 30
DECEMBER 31

JANUARY 1

The Need to Work Step 1

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

In 12-step sexual recovery meetings we often hear discussion about ‘hitting

bottom’ and the resultant ‘moment of clarity’ where we finally understand
and accept the fact that we have a major problem and need to make
significant changes. Unfortunately, these moments of clarity can be fleeting.
When the crisis passes, so does our desire to live differently. This is where
Step 1 comes in. We work Step 1 by unearthing our complete sexual history
and the problems our sexual behaviors have created. In so doing, we see,
often for the first time, the totality of our addiction and its consequences. In
this way, Step 1 reinforces our moment of clarity, cementing our desire for
recovery and healing.

Task for Today

Write down ten consequences you have suffered because of your sexual
addiction.

JANUARY 2

Stocking Your Toolbox

Addicts must shape the tools of their recovery. Thereafter, the tools will
shape them.

As recovering sex and porn addicts, we know that triggers toward acting out
in our addiction are inevitable. As such, it is vital that we have a recovery-
centric toolkit we can utilize in our moment of crisis. After all,
implementing one or more healthy coping mechanisms (tools of recovery)
is the only consistently effective way to short-circuit the addictive cycle. As
British poet George Herbert once wrote: “Do not wait; the time will never
be just right. Start where you stand and work with whatever tools you may
have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along.”

Task for Today

Make a list of items in your recovery toolbox. What tools do you use the
most? What tools are underutilized? What tools would you like to add?

JANUARY 3

Connection is the Key to a Happy Recovery

Loneliness is the most terrible poverty.

An immense amount of mental and physical health research shows that

isolated/separated individuals suffer both emotionally and physically.
Conversely, people who place a high value on developing and maintaining
meaningful connections tend to be happier, more resilient, and more
successful. They even tend to live longer. Thus we see that emotionally
intimate connections are nearly as essential to life and well-being as more
obvious needs like food, water, and shelter. This is doubly true for addicts
in recovery. Without healthy dependency and connection, we may make it
physically, but we won’t be happy. When we go it alone, we fail to thrive.

Task for Today

If you’re feeling lonely, offer to help a newcomer. Notice how quickly your
loneliness dissipates.

JANUARY 4

Just Another Way to Numb Out

Sex and porn addiction are not about feeling good, they’re about feeling
less.
As sex and porn addicts, we use sexual fantasy and behavior to ‘numb out’
and escape from stress and other forms of emotional (and sometimes
physical) discomfort, including the pain of depression, anxiety, loneliness,
boredom, shame, etc. This is also why alcoholics drink, drug addicts get
high, and compulsive gamblers hit the casino. Whatever the addiction, we
are not seeking fun and pleasure; we are trying to control and manage our
feelings.

Task for Today

Sit with your feelings, whatever they are, experiencing them fully and then
releasing them.

JANUARY 5

What is ‘Sexual Sobriety’?

The ultimate goal of sexual recovery is learning to be sexual in healthy, life-

affirming ways.

People not familiar with sex and porn addiction often think that sexual
sobriety, like sobriety from drugs and alcohol, requires total abstinence.
This is not in fact the case. Instead, recovering sex and porn addicts,
working in conjunction with a 12-step sponsor or a sex addiction treatment
specialist, carefully determine which of their sexual behaviors are
problematic and which are not. They then commit, in a written sexual
sobriety contract, to engage only in the sexual behaviors that are non-
problematic and permitted within the bounds of this predetermined pact.
Task for Today
Think about which of your sexual behaviors cause problems and which do
not. Share about this in a meeting or with your sponsor.

JANUARY 6

What is Denial?

As addicts, we tell huge and powerful lies—most of all to ourselves.

Active sex and porn addicts routinely ignore warning signs of problematic
behavior—ruined relationships, depression and anxiety, trouble in school or
at work, financial problems, arrest, etc. Even when we are forced to look at
the consequences of our addiction, we tend to place the blame on others and
continue our activities without a second thought. It’s as if we are unable to
see, or we refuse to see, the destructive effects that our addictive behaviors
have not only on ourselves but on our loved ones. In other words, we ‘deny’
that our addiction is a problem.

Task for Today

Examine lies have you told yourself and believed about your addiction.

JANUARY 7

What is a Healthy Boundary?

A healthy boundary shows me where I end and someone else begins.

The purpose of healthy boundaries is to facilitate healthy relationships, not
to shut relationships down. Healthy boundaries are not about keeping other
people out, they’re about letting other people safely in. If other people are
behaving in ways that are safe for us, we can choose to let them in. If they
are behaving in ways that are not safe for us, we can choose to keep them
out. Their behavior belongs to them; our choice belongs to us.

Task for Today

Let other people behave as they wish. Accept that they are not yours to
control.

JANUARY 8

Working Step 1: The Powerlessness Inventory

Step 1 reinforces our ‘moment of clarity,’ cementing our desire for recovery.

Being powerless means we have lost control over our sexual behaviors. We
engage in these behaviors compulsively, even when we say we don’t want
to. And we have no ability to stop our sexual behaviors once we’ve started
(at least not until after sex and orgasm). Put simply, being powerless means
that despite the promises we’ve made to ourselves or others that we will
stop our sexual acting out, we find ourselves right back at it.

Task for Today

Think of three examples where you continued in your addiction even
though you wanted to stop. Share these examples in therapy or a 12-step
meeting.
 JANUARY 9

Sex and Porn Addiction Are Not About the Sex

There is a big difference between ongoing happiness and chasing euphoric

moments as an escape.

As sex and porn addicts, we are hooked on the dissociative euphoria (the
trance/bubble) produced by our intense sexual fantasies and patterns of
sexual behavior, including the endless search for sex. We find as much
excitement and escape in fantasizing about and searching for our next
sexual encounter as in the sex act itself. We can spend hours, sometimes
even days, in this elevated state—high on the goal/idea of having sex
without ever engaging in any concrete sexual act. As such, we nearly
always spend far more time engaged in the fantasy and ritualized pursuit of
sex than in the sex act itself.

Task for Today

Consider what you could have done during the hundreds (or thousands) of
hours you wasted on your addiction.

JANUARY 10

Adopting an Attitude of Gratitude

Grateful people are happy people.

Greek philosopher Epicurus once said, “Do not spoil what you have by
desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once
among the things you only hoped for.” For sex and porn addicts, of course,
this is not a natural way of looking at life. We seem to always want what we
don’t have, sexual or otherwise. In recovery, we must learn that what we
have is enough, and usually it’s more than enough. The good news is that
when we finally see and accept that truth, many of the triggers that set off
our addiction simply disappear.

Task for Today

Write down three things you are truly thankful for. Share your list with at
least one person you care about.

JANUARY 11

Approaching Life Differently

If nothing changes, nothing changes.

When the road gets difficult, we can embrace the challenge and think about
it as a chance to make ourselves and the world a better place. Or we can
look around for someone else to blame. “If so and so hadn’t done such and
such, I wouldn’t have relapsed.” Pointing fingers in that way is human
nature, but it gets us nowhere fast. Instead of blaming someone else for our
problems, maybe we should try something different: accepting the situation
as it is and figuring out a plan for moving forward in a successful and
productive way. If we don’t take this new and more difficult approach,
nothing gets fixed, and nothing gets better.

Task for Today

When things go awry, ask: “How can I fix this?”
 JANUARY 12

Is Sexual Recovery Worth It?

Scars represent not injury but healing. Scars are what make us whole again.

Healing from sex and porn addiction brings self-knowledge, integrity, and a
desire to become vulnerable (to be known for who we truly are, warts and
all). This new approach to life slowly but steadily replaces the double-life
that we have been living. When approached actively and honestly, sexual
recovery creates unexpected levels of emotional maturity and hope for a
future filled with life-affirming friendships and loving romantic
relationships. Recovering from sex and porn addiction is not easy, but it is
always worth the effort.

Task for Today

Ask yourself why you want to be sexually sober. What important aspects of
your life will improve with long-term sobriety.

JANUARY 13

How Do We Best Define Cheating?

Infidelity is the most piercing of betrayals.

When we are active in our addiction, our definition of infidelity likely does
not match our partner’s definition. We find all sorts of reasons for why our
behavior isn’t really cheating, even though we know that our significant
other, if he or she knew what we were up to, would strongly disagree. To
clarify, noted sex addiction therapist Dr. Robert Weiss states, “Infidelity
(cheating) is the breaking of trust that occurs when you keep sexual and
romantic secrets from your primary partner.” Interestingly, this definition
does not talk about affairs, porn, strip clubs, hookup apps, or any other
specific sexual or romantic act. Instead, it focuses on what matters most to
our partners: the loss of relationship trust. For our partners, it’s not any
specific sexual or romantic act that causes the most pain. Instead, it’s the
lying, the secret keeping, the lies of omission, the manipulation, and the fact
that they can no longer trust a single thing we say or do (or anything that
we’ve said and done in the past).

Task for Today

View your sexual behaviors through the lens of Dr. Weiss’s infidelity
definition.

JANUARY 14

A Basic Understanding of Love Addiction

Happiness is a butterfly, which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp,

but which, if we will sit down quietly, may alight upon us.

Healthy romantic love is a beautiful thing. Unfortunately, love addiction—

the endless, obsessive, dysfunctional search for romantic fulfillment—is
not. When individuals are preoccupied to the point of obsession with falling
or being in love, as love addicts are, they tend to behave in highly
regrettable ways—just like alcoholics, drug addicts, compulsive gamblers,
compulsive spenders, sex and porn addicts, etc. Over time, love addicts
inevitably experience the same basic consequences as all other addicts:
depression, anxiety, lowered self-esteem, ruined relationships, trouble at
work or in school, declining physical and/or emotional health, financial
woes, loss of interest in family, friends, hobbies and other previously
enjoyable activities, etc.

Task for Today

Think about how the pursuit of love and romance may be part of (possibly a
primary part of) your addiction.

JANUARY 15

Working Step 1: The Unmanageability Inventory

Without reflection, we go blindly on our way, creating more consequences

and failing to understand that we, not others, are at fault.

One way to measure the unmanageability of sex and porn addiction is to

look at the consequences of our compulsive sexual behaviors, both direct
(obviously connected) and indirect (less obviously connected). Many of us
have relationship troubles, STDs, reprimands at work, and even arrests that
are very obviously connected to our out-of-control sexual behaviors. Less
obvious consequences may include depression, anxiety, feeling worn out,
forgetting to pay bills, eating poorly, loss of interest in previously enjoyable
activities, etc. Any and all of these issues, both direct and indirect, are
examples of unmanageability.

Task for Today

List ten consequences of your addiction. Then share your list with another
person in recovery.
 JANUARY 16

The Importance of 12-Step Groups

The best teachers tell you where to look, but not what to see.

In 12-step meetings, recovering sex and porn addicts find a safe place to
talk about their active addiction, its consequences, and the trials and
tribulations of recovery and healing. They can also simply get current,
sharing about whatever it is that is affecting their lives—because everything
in a recovering sex or porn addict’s life affects his or her emotional well-
being and, therefore, his or her sobriety. Generally, sex and porn addicts
who worry that what they share about will not be well received find others
nodding their heads in agreement with what they’re saying, identifying with
the feelings if not the actual circumstances, and most certainly not passing
judgment.

Task for Today

Forget about the messenger and focus on the message.

JANUARY 17

Tolerance and Escalation

Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless
swamps of your addiction.

Addicts of all types typically experience an increasing tolerance to the

mood-altering effects of their addictive substance or behavior of choice.
Basically, their brains adjust to excessive dopamine levels caused by
continued use of an addictive substance or behavior by producing less
dopamine and/or reducing the number of dopamine receptors in the brain.
As a result, addicts must, over time, use more of the addictive substance or
behavior or a more intense substance or behavior to achieve and maintain
the desired neurochemical high. That is why addictions (and addiction
consequences) escalate over time.

Task for Today

Think about the ways in which your addiction has escalated. Were you
aware of this escalation as it happened, or did you only notice it in
retrospect?

JANUARY 18

Sex vs. Love vs. Affection

Sex without love is as hollow and ridiculous as love without sex.

Sex and porn addicts share certain characteristics. One of these common
traits is that we are unable to differentiate between sex, love, and affection.
Typically, this is the result of a dysfunctional childhood—often in the form
of abusive, neglectful, or inconsistent parenting. Because we did not get the
healthy attention, emotional regulation, and relationship modeling we
needed, our ideas about sex, love, and affection are jumbled and confused.
Any attention, especially sexual attention, feels like love to us. But affection
and sex are not the same thing as love. As part of our longer-term sobriety
and recovery, we must reparent ourselves about the true feelings and
meanings of affection, love, and sexual behavior.

Task for Today

Think of three ways to integrate sex, love, and affection. Share these ideas
in a meeting and ask for feedback.

JANUARY 19

Recognizing the Virtue of Adversity

You must never limit your challenges. Instead, you must challenge your
limits.

Sometimes recovering addicts are happy just getting by. We’re sober for
now, semi-comfortable, paying the bills, and maybe even keeping up with
the Joneses. But are we happy with that? Or are we bored? Most likely it’s
the latter, because an easy life is no life at all. If we want a great life, we
should not wish for an easy life; we should wish for a difficult and
challenging life and the strength to live it. In the words of Dr. Mihaly
Csikszentmihalyi, “Of all the virtues we can learn, no trait is more useful,
more essential for survival, and more likely to improve the quality of life,
than the ability to transform adversity into an enjoyable challenge.” If we
can accept that idea and live it, life’s little difficulties will no longer phase
us, and we’ll have a better and more successful existence.

Task for Today

Embrace the difficulties in your life, asking your Higher Power for the
strength to deal with them.
 JANUARY 20

Triggers

Our biggest crises can be triggered by the smallest things.

Triggers are catalysts that drive our need/desire to act out sexually. Most
often, triggers involve some sort of ‘pain agent’ like emotional or
psychological discomfort (stress, anxiety, depression, loneliness, shame,
boredom, anger, etc.) Positive feelings can also be triggers. So, if we get
fired from our job, we want to act out, and when we get a great new job, we
also want to act out. Triggers can also be visual (seeing a sexy image on a
billboard), auditory (hearing a noise that reminds us of sexual activity),
olfactory (smelling the perfume of a past sexual partner), or even touch or
taste related.

Task for Today

Make a list of your most potent triggers. Then make a list of healthy ways
to handle these triggers.

JANUARY 21

The Path to Healing and Recovery

Truth never damages a cause that is just.

When sex and porn addicts first enter treatment and 12-step recovery, we
need, more than anything else, a giant dose of reality. Beyond initial sexual
sobriety and safety, breaking through the façade of denial that allows us to
act out with (internal) impunity is task number one. Little forward
movement can occur until we understand and view our addiction as the
destructive force that it is. Once our denial cracks, which can be a difficult
and time-consuming process, a plan for ongoing sobriety (that incorporates
lots and lots of truth telling, trust building, and ongoing accountability) can
be implemented. Usually, this plan includes a mix of individual therapy,
addiction-focused group therapy, social learning, and 12-step (or similar)
support groups.

Task for Today

Are you holding onto some of your denial? If so, talk about this in therapy
or in a meeting.

JANUARY 22

Sharing Your Step 1 Inventories

Letting go of secrets gives you the freedom to move forward with a different,
better life.

For most recovering sex and porn addicts, creating powerlessness and
unmanageability inventories is the easy part of working Step 1. The more
difficult part is sharing these inventories with other recovering sex and porn
addicts, usually as part of a 12-step sexual recovery meeting. Telling the
truth is unnatural for sex and porn addicts, and we usually do not want to do
it. However, sharing our addiction history and its consequences lifts the
burden of compartmentalizing our behaviors and carrying around the heavy
burden of internalized shame.
Task for Today
Share a secret about your addiction with someone you trust.

JANUARY 23

Addiction Creates Chaos

I am amazed at how many of my problems—most of which had nothing to

do with my addiction, I thought—have become manageable or simply
disappeared since I got sober.

As sex and porn addicts, we generally understand that our addiction has
created problems with our relationships and perhaps our physical health
(STDs, unwanted pregnancies, etc.) What we often fail to understand is that
our addiction wreaks havoc in all aspects of our lives. Our lack of focus at
work keeps us underemployed or gets us fired. We no longer keep up our
yards and homes and this upsets our families and neighbors. We stop going
to the gym and get flabby. Our significant other, our kids, and our friends
feel left out because we’re not paying attention to them. Basically, we are so
interested in sexually compulsive behaviors that we just plain forget to live
life. And because we’re not focused on our living our lives, our lives
diminish and decay.

Task for Today

Identify three non-sexual and non-romantic consequences you suffered in
your addiction. Share these consequences with your therapist or in a 12-step
meeting.
 JANUARY 24

Asking for Help

It’s not the load that breaks you, it’s trying to carry the entire thing all by
yourself.

When we are triggered toward our addiction, the most effective way to
combat it is to talk to another recovering sex or porn addict, letting that
person know that we are struggling and asking that person for assistance.
Usually, however, we must practice this skill by reaching out when we’re
not in need. Without question, the sex and porn addicts who are most
successful in recovery are those who are willing to throw themselves into
the sexual sobriety community—participating in sexual recovery meetings,
socializing with other group members, making and taking recovery related
phone calls, and willingly being of service. The more we do these things,
the easier it is to reach out when we’re in need.

Task for Today

Call another recovering addict. If you don’t need help yourself, ask how the
other person is doing.

JANUARY 25

Guilt vs. Shame

Shame, the inherent belief that we are flawed and unworthy, is a soul-eating
emotion.
Guilt and shame are not the same thing. Guilt is the feeling that we’ve done
something bad that goes against our values and beliefs. Shame is the
inherent belief that we are inherently defective or bad. Guilt implies: I did
something that I regret, and I feel badly about that. Shame implies: I am a
horrible person and there is nothing I can do about that. For recovering sex
and porn addicts, guilt is a useful emotion to feel—a powerful motivator for
being a better person today than yesterday—while shame is just a cesspool
that keeps us mired in our active addiction.

Task for Today

Try to differentiate between feelings of guilt and feelings of shame.

JANUARY 26

How Denial Sets In

“I wasn't crying about mothers," he said rather indignantly. "I was crying
because I can't get my shadow to stick on. Besides, I wasn't crying.”

Denial usually builds slowly over time through a series of small, seemingly
innocuous lies. Typically, each lie has its own set of rationalizations,
minimizations, and justifications to bolster it. Cocooned in this intricately
woven alternate reality, our sexually addictive behaviors can seem utterly
reasonable to us . The rest of the world might easily see through this
tapestry of deceit, but we either can’t or won’t. For us, pinpointing the lies
we tell ourselves (and others) to justify our problematic behaviors—the
fabrications that comprise our denial—is a key element of lasting recovery.
Task for Today
Choose a lie that is part of your denial and debunk it.

JANUARY 27

Who Are You Going to Be Today?

At this moment, I am the right person in the right place at the right time.

Some days we wake up on the wrong side of the bed. For whatever reason,
we just don’t want to face the day. The world seems too difficult, and the
solution feels like crawling back into bed or re-engaging with our addiction.
At that point, we must ask ourselves, “What sort of day do I want to have?”
If we want to be miserable, we’re off to a good start. If we want to have a
decent day, we need to make a break with what we are feeling. And that
break always requires some sort of action on our part. We need to take the
proverbial ‘next right step.’ Sometimes this means getting out of bed and
thanking our Higher Power for our sobriety. Sometimes this means
compiling a gratitude list to remind ourselves that life is good. Other times
it’s as simple as dragging ourselves into the bathroom to brush our teeth,
shower, and get dressed. As we do the next right thing, and then the next
right thing, over and over, we start to accomplish things, and our day, no
matter how badly it started, gets better.

Task for Today

Spend your day asking, “What is the next right step?” When you answer,
act on your response.
 JANUARY 28

Sexual Sobriety Plans Need to Be Clear

When people will not weed their own minds, they are apt to be overrun by
nettles.

Sexual sobriety plans, also known as circle plans and boundary plans, are
created to define sexual sobriety and to provide recovering sex and porn
addicts with a clear outline for a healthier, happier life. When our sexual
boundaries are not clearly defined as part of this plan, we are far more
likely to decide in-the-moment (with a bit of rationalizing, minimizing,
justifying, etc.) that a certain activity is acceptable within the bounds of our
plan, even if that behavior (or a similar behavior) has been wildly
problematic in the past. Knowing this, we absolutely must be clear, concise,
and definite with our sexual sobriety plans.

Task for Today

Identify weak spots in your sexual sobriety plan that leave you with wiggle
room for acting out. Share this information with your therapist and your 12-
step sponsor to strengthen your recovery.

JANUARY 29

Understanding the Obsession

I must get my soul back; I am killing my flesh without it.

As sex and porn addicts, we are preoccupied with sex to the point of
obsession. If we use hookup apps, we usually have profiles on half a dozen
or more, and we check them first thing in the morning. Sometimes we get
up in the middle of the night to check them. And if someone has displayed
interest, we’ll forego a good night’s sleep to drive halfway across town to
act out with them. If porn is our preferred behavior, we are just as
obsessive. The same is true with affairs, strip clubs, prostitutes, webcams,
voyeurism, etc. Whatever form our active addiction takes, we can’t stop
thinking about it, fantasizing about it, and acting on it.

Task for Today

List five examples of your obsession with sex. Share your list in therapy or
a 12-step meeting.

JANUARY 30

The Three-Second Rule

The mechanic that would perfect his work must first sharpen his tools.

As sex and porn addicts, we cannot control the thoughts that pop into our
minds. We can, however, control what we do with those thoughts once we
become aware of them. One option is to implement the three-second rule.
After recognizing a problematic sexual thought or fantasy, we allow
ourselves a maximum of three seconds to turn away from it and focus on
something else. Sometimes the three-second rule only helps for a few
minutes, and during difficult periods unwanted sexual thoughts might pop
into our minds almost constantly. One unwanted fantasy is banished, and
moments later another arrives. In these situations, the three-second rule can
be used repeatedly. And this is a good thing, because implementing the
three-second rule on a regular basis can, over time, decrease the power of
unwanted sexual thoughts (because these triggers are not rewarded and
reinforced by acting out).

Task for Today

Pay attention to addictive sexual thoughts and fantasies, and get rid of them
as quickly as possible.

JANUARY 31

The Power of Sexual Fantasy

Lost for now is not the same thing as lost forever. We can find our way back.

As sex and porn addicts, our primary coping mechanism for any and all
forms of emotional and psychological discomfort is sexual fantasy. We start
thinking about how much we enjoyed past sexual encounters and how much
we would enjoy a sexual encounter either right now or in the near future. At
that point, the sexual obsession kicks in. Suddenly, every person we
encounter is seen as a sexual object. And no, our fantasies do not involve
memories of bad experiences or unwanted consequences. Once we ‘lose
ourselves’ in such a fantasy, it is very difficult to stop the addictive cycle.
Usually, our best hope is to talk to another recovering addict who can
remind us of the consequences our addiction brings.

Task for Today

Debunk one of your favorite fantasies by adding its consequence-filled
conclusion.

FEBRUARY 1

Working Step 2

As sex and porn addicts, we fool ourselves into believing we don’t need
help.

Thoroughly working Step 2—coming to believe that a power greater than

ourselves will restore us to sanity—is vital to our recovery because it
prepares us for the longer-term solution to come. It introduces us to the idea
that we must accept outside assistance and guidance if we want to establish
and maintain sobriety. We’ve tried it on our own and we couldn’t stay sober,
so now we’re going to have to rely on something greater than ourselves. If
we envision a traditional version of God or religion as this ‘power greater
than ourselves,’ that’s perfectly OK. If not, we can think about 12-step
groups and others who support our recovery as that power.

Task for Today

Accept that you can’t recover on your own.

FEBRUARY 2

The Desire for Escape

Closing your eyes and plugging up your ears won't fix anything.
As active sex and porn addicts, we compulsively used sexual fantasy and
activity as a way to numb out and not feel stress and other forms of
emotional discomfort, regardless of potential or actual consequences. And
we lacked empathy for those who were negatively affected by our
addiction, including spouses, partners, kids, friends, neighbors, and
employers. Sometimes we even blamed our ‘need to escape’ on the attitudes
and actions of these other people. We also found ourselves living a double
life, separating our sexual activity from our work and home life—keeping
secrets, telling lies, manipulating, juggling, minimizing, justifying, etc.

Task for Today

Choose to live in reality, however uncomfortable you find it.

FEBRUARY 3

Growth is Not Comfortable

Stop accepting who you are. Start working on who you want to be.

Are you comfortable with your life? If you are, consider that a warning sign
because complacency is the enemy of lasting recovery and healing. As
recovering addicts, we should never be 100 percent comfortable. If we’re
completely comfortable, we’re not testing ourselves; we’re not growing;
we’re not improving ourselves, our lives, or the world. We always have
room to improve. To achieve this, we can set aside a small amount of time
each day to learn. We might listen to a podcast on our way home from
work, scroll through a book while we eat lunch, or play with an app that’s
designed to educate and make life better. However we go about it, we must
at least occasionally step past the boundaries of our comfort zone. If we fail
to do this, we fail to become our fullest selves.

Task for Today

Focus on a task or challenge that makes you uncomfortable, and work to
complete that task or overcome that challenge.

FEBRUARY 4

Low Self-Esteem is a Factor in Sex and Porn Addiction

We are not born with low self-esteem. We acquire it. We learn it.

Sex and porn addicts share certain characteristics. One of these common
traits is that, because of our low self-esteem, we use sex to feel validated
and worthwhile. Usually, we learned early in life, as the result of
inconsistent, neglectful, or abusive parenting, that our thoughts and our
needs did not matter very much. So we started to wonder what was wrong
with us that put us in that position, and eventually (often with outside
assistance) we identified a whole bunch of things that we felt were
inherently wrong or bad or unlovable about ourselves. In other words, we
developed low self-esteem. And then, somewhere along the way, we learned
that if someone wanted us sexually, that caused us to feel (at least for a few
moments) worthy and wanted. Is it any wonder that we began to search that
out compulsively?

Task for Today

Ignore the chatter between your ears that tells you you’re not good enough.
That chatter is a lie.
 FEBRUARY 5

To Tell or Not to Tell…

The truth may hurt for a while. A lie hurts forever.

If you are looking for advice that will tell you that after you cheat on your
significant other, you should probably just keep things quiet for the sake of
your relationship and your partner’s well-being (because learning that you
cheated would be painful for him or her), you might want to look
elsewhere. Before you do that, however, you should know that the glue that
holds healthy and enjoyable long-term relationships together is not sex or
money or even the kids; it’s trust. When you violate your partner’s trust,
you violate your relationship. And this is true even if you’re just keeping
secrets as opposed to actually lying. (In fact, keeping secrets is just another
form of lying.) So yes, eventually, as part of your recovery you will need to
disclose the full truth about your addiction.

Task for Today

Make a list of secrets you are still keeping about your sexually addictive
behaviors.

FEBRUARY 6

Sex and Porn Addiction Are Not Related to Sexual Orientation

Being gay, lesbian, or bisexual does not make you a sex or porn addict any
more than being straight makes you a sex or porn addict.
Sometimes people seek sex and porn addiction treatment in the hope that it
will change their sexual orientation. Occasionally, they do this at the behest
of a misguided family member, spiritual advisor, or clinician. However,
removing elements from one’s arousal template is not possible. If you’re
attracted to men, that’s the way it is; if you’re attracted to women, same
story; and if you like both genders, you’d better get used to it, because
that’s not going change no matter how much analysis you have or how
many 12-step meetings you attend. Put very simply, sex and porn addiction
are not in any way defined by who or what it is that turns you on. Neither
homosexual nor bisexual arousal patterns are factors in the diagnosis of sex
and porn addiction, even if those arousal patterns are ego-dystonic
(unwanted).

Task for Today

Work on accepting (and maybe even celebrating) your own or another
person’s sexual orientation.

FEBRUARY 7

Cross and Co-Occurring Addictions

You may have to fight more than one battle to win the war.

Sex and porn addiction are not always standalone issues. In fact, most of the
time they’re not. A significant percentage of sex and porn addicts also deal
with a cross or co-occurring addiction. Individuals who are cross-addicted
switch from one addiction to another. People with co-occurring addictions
deal with multiple addictions simultaneously. Typically, cross-addicted
people move seamlessly from one substance to another, from one behavior
to another, and even from substances to behaviors and behaviors to
substances.

Task for Today

Think about whether you may have a cross or co-occurring addiction. If you
think you might, share about this in therapy or a 12-step meeting.

FEBRUARY 8

Working Step 2

The addict’s definition of insanity: Doing the same thing over and over but
expecting different results.

One issue that many recovering sex and porn addicts have with Step 2
centers on the step’s last four words, restore us to sanity , mostly because
this phrase implies rather strongly that we are insane, and most of us think
that we are not. For those of us who struggle with the ‘restore us to sanity’
portion of Step 2, it is helpful to ask, “If another person was engaging in the
same behaviors as me, would I think that he or she had gone off the deep
end?” Usually, if we answer this question honestly, we realize that if
someone else was engaging in behaviors similar to our own, we would
think that person was at least a little bit crazy. Then, based on that, we can
start to view ourselves in the same light.

Task for Today

Make a list of sexual behaviors you’ve engaged in that others might view as
less than sane.

FEBRUARY 9

Help from Your Higher Power

God has no religion.

The 12 steps let us develop our own conception of God. As soon as we do

this, in whatever way we go about it, even if it’s as simple as thinking about
God as Good Orderly Direction, we can begin the process of accepting help
from that entity. In a general way, this means going to and participating in
12-step meetings, getting a sponsor, interacting with other recovering
addicts, taking advice and direction from our therapist, becoming
accountable with our family, etc. It might also mean going to church,
confessing our sins, praying, meditating, etc., but only if those actions
happen to be a part of how we understand and interact with the God or
Higher Power of our understanding.

Task for Today

Think about your conception of God or Higher Power and allow that entity
to help you in your recovery.

FEBRUARY 10

The Pink Cloud of Recovery

As recovering addicts, we must learn to enjoy the ups while staying
prepared for the downs.

Many sex and porn addicts experience a ‘honeymoon period’ in early

recovery, in which we suddenly lose all desire to engage in our addiction.
Fascinated by the insight we’re developing and thrilled to have finally
found a solution to our problem, we move forward thinking that recovery is
easy and we’ve got our addiction in the bag. This is not, however, the case.
The pink cloud of early recovery is temporary, and the desire to act out
eventually returns—often stronger than before. If this is not expected and
anticipated, it is easy for us to think that something has gone awry in our
recovery. In reality, nothing is amiss. This is a normal part of the healing
process.

Task for Today

Think of one healthy thing you can do when the ‘recovery blues’ hit.

FEBRUARY 11

Recovery Ruins Addiction

Denial is the worst kind of lie because it’s a lie you tell yourself.

In Alcoholics Anonymous, they say that nothing is worse than a belly full of
booze and a head full of recovery. This is also true with sex and porn
addiction. Once we know that we have a problem with sex or porn
addiction, compulsive sexual behaviors lose their appeal. As soon as our
denial begins to crack, our addictive behaviors can never again occur
without at least a tiny understanding that ‘this is a very bad idea and I really
need to stop.’ Eventually, of course, we must fully commit to either
recovery or the ever-deepening downward spiral of addiction. Those of us
who opt for the former nearly always find that our lives and relationships
steadily get better. Those who opt for the latter tend to experience a
continuing series of negative life consequences. If those individuals are
lucky, they will eventually return to recovery with a true commitment to
change.

Task for Today

Think about the ways in which your denial has cracked since you started
recovery. Can you still lie to yourself in ways that make your addiction
seem OK?

FEBRUARY 12

Identifying Sex and Porn Addiction in Women

Addiction knows no race or gender. It does not discriminate.

Female sex and porn addicts can be more difficult to diagnose and treat than
male sex and porn addicts. This may be due, at least in part, to socio-
cultural attitudes about sex. Men who have a lot of sex are often celebrated
as ‘studs’ and ‘players,’ while hypersexual women are denigrated as ‘sluts’
and ‘nymphomaniacs.’ As such, male sex and porn addicts are usually quite
willing to discuss their sexual behavior; they may even be proud of their sex
life despite the repeated and continually escalating negative consequences
wrought by their sexual behaviors. Conversely, female sex and porn addicts
—even when they’re being sexual just as frequently, in the same ways, in
similar venues, and with the same basic consequences as their male
counterparts—tend to downplay their sexual involvement, instead
discussing their behavior in terms of relationships, dating, and intimacy.

Task for Today

Pay attention to the different ways you think about male vs. female
sexuality.

FEBRUARY 13

Early Recovery and the Onslaught of Feelings

Sobriety requires courage—courage to face the world without the emotional

shield of addiction.

As sex and porn addicts, we engage in our addiction not to have a good
time but to escape from life and the emotional discomfort it sometimes
brings. However, we cannot selectively numb our emotions. When we
shield ourselves from pain by escaping into sexual fantasy and behaviors,
we also shield ourselves from joy, beauty, and intimate connection. It’s a
terrible trade-off. When we get sober, we no longer have this shield at our
disposal and we must feel (and deal with) the onslaught of emotions we’ve
been avoiding all through our addiction. Many of us find that in early
recovery we cry or get angry at the drop of a hat. Happily, this emotional
instability fades the longer we’re sober. And if it doesn’t, we can seek
external assistance (therapy, medications) that can help.

Task for Today

Choose to experience your feelings. All of them, both good and bad.
 FEBRUARY 14

Are You Love Addicted?

Knowledge is being aware of what you can do. Wisdom is knowing when to
do it and when not to do it.

Love addiction, also known as relationship addiction and romance

addiction , is diagnosed using the same general criteria as sex and porn
addiction (and all other addictions).

• An ongoing preoccupation to the point of obsession with intense

romantic fantasies and new relationships.

• An inability to exercise control over romantic fantasies and new

relationships.

• Negative consequences directly or indirectly related to out-of-

control romantic fantasies and serial relationships.

Interestingly, love addicts are not actually seeking love. What they’re really
chasing, over and over and over, is the emotional escape provided by ‘rush’
of new romance. So love addiction is not about love any more than sex
addiction is about sex.

Task for Today

Think about whether you’re seeking love and connection or a
neurochemical rush that helps you escape from life.

FEBRUARY 15
Working Step 2

The process of change begins with self-awareness.

Those of us who struggle with the ‘restore us to sanity’ language that

appears in Step 2 might want to consider the addict’s definition of insanity:
doing the same things over and over but expecting different results. In this
light, we can ask ourselves, “Does that sound like me? Do I continually go
online ‘only for a few minutes, just to see what’s happening,’ even though I
can’t remember the last time I managed to log out in less than an hour (or
less than several hours)?” Upon reflection, we nearly always realize that the
loss of control we have over our addiction causes us to behave in ways that
do not make sense, and that we might very well benefit from a restoration to
sanity.

Task for Today

Share with another recovering sex or porn addict at least one example of
your addiction-related insanity.

FEBRUARY 16

Recovery Requires Other People

Whatever you do in life, surround yourself with smart people who will
disagree with you.

The great UCLA basketball coach and philosopher John Wooden once said,
“Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be.” Recovering sex and
porn addicts could use this as a mantra. We need to understand that we’re
unlikely to change without assistance from others. Honestly, our own best
thinking got us where we are, so maybe it’s time to listen to others. To
continue with the John Wooden theme, maybe it’s time for us to join a team
of recovering people who might occasionally have useful ideas and advice
on how to navigate life.

Task for Today

Ask a trusted advisor for advice and implement whatever actions are
suggested.

FEBRUARY 17

How Do I Get a 12-Step Sponsor?

Asking for guidance is a divine compliment.

In 12-step recovery programs, sponsors are personal guides to healing and

staying sober. You choose a sponsor by listening to various people at
meetings until you hear someone whose message resonates with you. When
you find someone you connect with, you simply approach that person
before or after a meeting and ask, “Are you available to be a sponsor and, if
so, would you like to have coffee and hear my story?” This is the best way
to start. If that person says no, don’t take it personally or give up, just ask
someone else.

Task for Today

Swallow your pride and your fears and take a leap of faith by allowing
another person to help you.
 FEBRUARY 18

Loving the Word No

Learning to say no expands our ability to say yes and mean it.

Most of us are taught from a young age to people-please. This means we’re
supposed to be helpful and friendly and say yes when people ask us to do
things. And let’s be honest, saying yes is usually a lot easier than saying no.
If we do what people ask, they tend to like us (even if they don’t respect
us). As recovering addicts, because we’re working so hard to be good and to
make amends, we can sometimes fall into this yes trap, agreeing to do
things that push us away from our number one priority—staying sober. In
recovery, we must evaluate all requests with ‘recovery first’ in mind, and
we needn’t feel bad about saying no to anything that might push us away
from our desire for sobriety, happiness, and living a better life.

Task for Today

Evaluate requests and demands on your time from a recovery perspective,
saying yes or no as appropriate.

FEBRUARY 19

The Power of Ritualization

You can never really run away. The only true way out is in.

Ritualization is the part of the addictive cycle where our sexual fantasies
move toward reality. This stage adds excitement, intensity, and arousal. We
log on to the computer and go to our favorite porn site, or we hop in the car
and drive to a place where sex workers congregate, or we book an out-of-
town business trip on which we can act out sexually without restraint, or
whatever. This stage of the addiction cycle is also known as the bubble or
the trance because we tend to get lost in it. Real-world issues and concerns
disappear as we focus more and more intently on our sexual fantasies. It is
this stage, rather than actually being sexual, that provides the escapist
neurochemical rush that we seek. So we often try to stretch this stage for as
long as possible—looking at porn, cruising for casual sex, chatting via
webcams, and engaging in similarly ritualized behaviors for many hours (or
even days) before we actually become sexual and reach orgasm.

Task for Today

Think about the ritual of your addiction. Then think about ways to interrupt
the ritual and stop your addictive cycle.

FEBRUARY 20

Technology Facilitates But Does Not Cause Sexual Addiction

Technology is neutral. How it affects us depends on how it's used.

There is little doubt that sexnology facilitates and drives modern day sex
and porn addiction. However, tech does not appear to be a root cause of
these addictions. In fact, most people can use porn, hookup apps, webcams,
and the like in non-compulsive and life-affirming ways. They do not
become addicted and they do not experience negative consequences.
However, the individuals who are predisposed to addiction (usually thanks
to a combination of nature and nurture) may well struggle with sexnology,
just as they might struggle with alcohol, drugs, gambling, or any other
potentially addictive substance or activity.

Task for Today

Stop blaming tech for your addiction and look within yourself for the
underlying causes.

FEBRUARY 21

Masturbation in Sexual Recovery

Some (but not all) sex and porn addicts have a pathological relationship
with masturbation.

When constructing a sexual sobriety plan, sometimes referred to as a circle

or boundary plan, one potentially problematic gray area is masturbation.
For individuals who compulsively masturbate (with or without
pornography), the decision is clear: Masturbation is a prohibited activity
(inner circle/boundary). For others, there is less clarity. In such cases, we
must ask ourselves if masturbation consistently fuels the ‘high’ of the
addiction. Depending on the answer, masturbation might be viewed as a
prohibited inner circle/boundary activity, a slippery but still-sober activity
(middle circle/boundary), or a healthy activity (outer circle/boundary).
When there is confusion about where to place masturbation within a sexual
sobriety plan, it is best to err on the side of caution.

Task for Today

Think about your masturbation history. When did it start? How has it
escalated? What role does it play in your addiction?

FEBRUARY 22

Working Step 2

Faith in something greater than ourselves enables us to do what we have

said we’ll do, to press forward when we are tired or hurt or afraid, to keep
going when the challenge seems overwhelming and the course is entirely
uncertain.

One issue that recovering sex and porn addicts sometimes have with Step 2
centers on the words ‘power greater than ourselves.’ Many of us
immediately connect this language with the God and organized religion of
our childhood. For some of us, this is helpful. For others, not so much. The
good news is that there is no right wrong way to define ‘power greater than
ourselves.’ If we choose to include a formalized version of God and religion
in our definition of ‘power greater than ourselves,’ great. If not, we can
think about 12-step fellowships, loved ones, and others who support our
recovery as that power.

Task for Today

Consider the many possible meanings of ‘power greater than ourselves.’

FEBRUARY 23

Gaslighting Makes Betrayal Worse

Gaslighting is an attempt to alter the truth.

Gaslighting is a form of psychological abuse that involves the presentation

of false information followed by dogged insistence that the information is
true. For example, “I never said I’d be home by eight. I don’t know why
you would think that,” and, “Why do you keep asking me if something is
going on? You’re completely paranoid. It’s really annoying.” Even if we
didn’t tell those exact lies as part of our addiction, we almost certainly told
similar whoppers. And when our loved one worked up the courage to
question our dishonesty, we flipped the script, insisting our lies were true
and that our partner was either delusional or making things up for some
absurd reason. We did everything possible to convince our partner that he or
she was the issue, and his or her emotional and psychological reactions
were the cause of rather than the result of problems in our relationship. In
short, we made our partner question his or her perception of reality.

Task for Today

Stop denying your partner’s perception of reality

FEBRUARY 24

Learn from Your Mistakes

Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.

No person does life perfectly. Nor does anyone do recovery perfectly. All of
us make mistakes, and we make them all the time. The difference between
the people who ultimately reach their goals and the people who don’t is that
the people who succeed are willing to recognize, accept, and learn from
their mistakes. As recovering addicts, it is important for us to view our
mistakes as what they truly are—precious life lessons that can only be
learned by us the hard way.

Task for Today

Think about a recent mistake. Find at least one life lesson that it’s taught
you.

FEBRUARY 25

Tolerance and Escalation

We cannot turn back time and make a new start, but we can start from now
and create a new ending.

Nearly all sex and porn addicts experience tolerance and escalation. With
substance addictions, tolerance and escalation manifest when the addict
must take more of a substance or a stronger substance to achieve and
maintain the neurochemical high that he or she seeks. With sex and porn
addiction, tolerance and escalation occur when we spend increasing
amounts of time engaging in the addiction, or when the intensity level of
our sexual fantasies and activities increases. Over time, thanks to tolerance
and escalation, we sometimes find ourselves engaging in sexual behaviors
that hadn’t even occurred to us early in the addictive process. Sometimes
we act out in ways that violate our personal moral code, our spiritual
beliefs, and perhaps even the law.

Task for Today

Think about where you started with your addiction, and where it took you.
Ask yourself how you feel about that.

FEBRUARY 26

Sexual Integrity

Integrity is the essence of everything successful.

A primary goal for most recovering sex and porn addicts is developing what
noted sex and porn addiction therapist Dr. Rob Weiss refers to as sexual
integrity. Sexual integrity looks different for every person, but there are
some basic tenets that apply to everyone. Most notably, sexual integrity
involves honesty about what turns you on and transparency about all
aspects of your sexual and romantic history. If you are completely honest
about these things with yourself and with your long-term intimate partner,
and in a boundaried way with any new sexual or romantic partners, then
you have sexual integrity. The best thing about sexual integrity is that if you
are honest, transparent, and risk vulnerability by recognizing and revealing
your deepest desires and hopes, you are much more likely to feel loved,
intimately connected, and valued—and to have a rewarding and fulfilling
sex life.

Task for Today

Think about how nice it would feel to no longer keep parts of your sex life
secret.

FEBRUARY 27
‘HALT’ the Addiction

Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you
will call it fate.

HALT is an acronym for Hungry, Angry/Anxious, Lonely, and Tired. Any

of these conditions can leave us more vulnerable than usual to acting out.
Heck, even ‘normies’ tend to behave in ways they later regret when their
judgment is clouded by hunger, anger/anxiety, loneliness, or exhaustion. So
what chance do we addicts have? The trick is learning to recognize and
address these needs when they arise, rather than lumping them in with every
other form of emotional discomfort that we don’t want to experience (and
once tried to avoid through addiction). When triggered, we must learn to
HALT and ask ourselves: When is the last time I ate? Did I get enough
sleep last night? Is there some conflict in my life that I need to resolve?
Would a few minutes spent talking with someone who understands me help
me feel better?

Task for Today

Stop and do a HALT check-in at least three times. Pay attention to how you
are feeling and why.

FEBRUARY 28

Working Step 2

Tell me and I forget, teach me and I remember, involve me and I learn.

Many sex and porn addicts do not want to accept outside assistance as part
of their recovery. This resistance is part of the disease. Overcoming this
resistance is vital to healing. If you struggle with this, it’s time to take a
good long look at your fellows in recovery. In so doing, you will almost
certainly see at least a few people who are no longer active in their
addiction, no longer behaving in problematic ways, and no longer
experiencing serious life consequences as a result. And almost all of those
recovering individuals, if asked, will say that they did not establish or
maintain their sobriety on their own. Instead, they trusted the help of others.
In other words, they worked Step 2.

Task for Today

Actively trust your fellows in recovery, learning from their experience,
strength, and hope.

MARCH 1

Working Step 3

I would rather walk every day in the darkness with a God who remains a
mystery to me than in the light with a God I completely understand .

In some ways, Step 3—made a decision to turn our will and our lives over
to the power of God as we understand God—is the first action step of
recovery. It’s the first time we’re asked to do something. We are asked to
‘make a decision’ that outside assistance and guidance from a Higher Power
will be accepted and followed. Of course, many of us balk at the ‘God’
language of this step. The good news is that the final four words of Step 3,
as we understand God , provide us with a lot of freedom. For instance, a
completely new concept of God can be developed, and that concept doesn’t
have to be a spiritual entity. One popular option is turning God into an
acronym, short for Good Orderly Direction, with that direction provided by
fellow recovering addicts, sponsors, therapists, and supportive family
members.

Task for Today

Release any and all bad memories of God that you might have, opening
yourself to new ideas.

MARCH 2

Daily Meetings

Fire cannot be made with dead embers.

When new to sex and porn addiction recovery, we often balk at the
suggestion that we need to attend 12-step meetings every day. If so, we are
usually asked, “Did you act out every day?” Then we are told that if we did,
we should also go to a meeting every day. If we still balk at this
commitment, we are asked, “How many hours per day did you spend on
your addiction?” Then we are told, whatever our answer, that we can surely
devote at least one hour to our recovery. And when we wonder how long
this daily regimen must last, we are asked, “How many years did your
active addiction last?” By then, we’ve usually caught on to the fact that
daily meetings are a good idea.

Task for Today

Commit to 90 meetings in 90 days. If your town does not have daily
meetings, commit to an online meeting on days without an in-person
meeting.

MARCH 3

Blaming Others for Our Problems

At the end of the day, only I am responsible for my success or failure.

One long-sober sex addict often jokes, “I didn’t come into sexual recovery
to heal or change my behaviors. I just wanted to know who I should
blame.” In truth, blaming others is a significant part of most sex and porn
addicts’ denial. Instead of accepting that we may have a serious issue, we
ignore complaints and attempted interventions and accuse others of
nagging, being prudish, trying to stifle us, failing to understand us, and
asking too much of us. We do this not because we truly don’t care about
other people’s thoughts and feelings, but because we ‘need’ to protect our
addiction.

Task for Today

Stop blaming others for your addiction and start taking responsibility.

MARCH 4

Rethinking Exercise

Warning: Exercise has been known to cause health and happiness.

The goal for most people who exercise is to lose 20 pounds and to stop
huffing and puffing every time they climb a flight of stairs. But maybe
that’s not the right goal. And maybe it’s time to redefine the word exercise .
Instead of thinking about exercise as a horrible half-hour on the Stairmaster,
we can view it as any form of movement that unites our body with our mind
and spirit. When we think about exercise in this redefined fashion, it’s no
longer about losing 20 pounds, it’s about living a better life. Redefining
exercise in this way gives us the freedom to find physical activities that are
enjoyable, and this enjoyment (rather than our goal of losing 20 pounds)
will help us stick with our regimen.

Task for Today

Exercise in a way that you enjoy, like playing a game with your kids, riding
your bike, or going for a walk with your significant other.
 MARCH 5

How to Continue Breaking Your Partner’s Heart

Beware the person who justifies bad behavior with apologies.

The betrayal of infidelity is, without doubt, among the most painful adult-
life emotional experiences anyone can have. As sex and porn addicts, this is
what we inflict on our spouses and partners. And sadly, we often continue to
do this even after we enter recovery. Seven common mistakes we make that
continue to break our loved one’s heart include:

Continuing to cheat.

Continuing to lie and keep secrets.

Blaming anyone but ourselves for our behavior.

Apologizing and expecting/demanding immediate forgiveness.

Trying to ‘buy forgiveness’ with flowers, dinners, trips, jewelry,

sex, etc.

Using aggression or threats to establish control.

Trying to calm our partner down.

Task for Today

Pay attention to the seven bad behaviors listed above. Are you engaging in
any of these actions?
 MARCH 6

Isn’t Treatment Enough?

You can shake the monkey off your back, but the circus never quite leaves
town.

A lot of times recovering sex and porn addicts think: Gee, I’ve been through
treatment and I paid a lot of money for that, and now they want me to go to
12-step meetings? Shouldn’t I be cured by now? The answer, of course, is
no, because there is no cure for addiction. It doesn’t matter how good a
treatment center is, it can’t and won’t cure an addiction. We don’t spend a
few weeks or a month in treatment and then walk out the door perfectly
OK. Instead, we depart with an understanding of our basic issues, some
useful coping skills that can help us avoid relapse, and a plan for carrying
sexual sobriety forward into our lives. The purpose of sex rehab is not to
cure sex and porn addiction, it’s to prepare us for the lifetime of recovery to
come.

Task for Today

Accept the fact that while you will never be cured of your addiction, daily
effort can keep it in remission.

MARCH 7

Early Sobriety and Cross-Addiction

What breaks you down is not the amount of pressure you feel at one time,
it’s the way you perceive and handle it.
When we are new to recovery, many of us find ourselves replacing (or
wanting to replace) our primary addiction with some other compulsive (and
highly emotionally distracting) activity. Sometimes this will manifest as a
cross-addiction. For instance, when we stop acting out, we may experience
a flood of uncomfortable emotions, and without compulsive sexuality to
numb and stem the tide of those feelings, we might turn to drinking,
drugging, smoking, eating, gambling, spending, or any other pleasurable
substance or behavior. Knowing this, it is incredibly important that we keep
a watchful eye on our other behaviors, especially in the first few months of
the recovery process.

Task for Today

Think about how you may be using other potentially addictive behaviors as
a replacement for your sex or porn addiction.

MARCH 8

Working Step 3

Thoughts frame your portrait. Action paints it.

When new to recovery, many of us looked at Step 3—made a decision to

turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand God—
and immediately started to complain. Often, this is because we have
unpleasant early-life memories of a misogynistic, bigoted, or punishing
deity. You know, tall guy, long silver hair and beard, white robes,
Birkenstock sandals, gets very, very angry and floods the planet or drops a
plague of locusts when we don’t do what he wants. Many of us, even those
who are desperate for recovery, want no part of that guy. The good news is
that those of us who have bad memories of God or a lack of belief in
organized religion don’t have to utilize that conceptualization. The final
four words of Step 3, as we understand God , make this perfectly clear.

Task for Today

Act as if you believe in a benevolent Higher Power that cares about your
recovery.

MARCH 9

Becoming Vulnerable

To be alive is to be vulnerable.

In her bestselling book, The Gifts of Imperfection , Brené Brown writes,

“We cultivate love when we allow our most vulnerable and powerful selves
to be deeply seen and known, and when we honor the spiritual connection
that grows from that offering with trust, respect, kindness, and affection.”
This is the complete opposite of active sex and porn addiction, where we
run from rather than embrace our thoughts, feelings, needs, and
vulnerabilities.

Task for Today

Be vulnerable. Offer your true self to another person.

MARCH 10
Gratitude in Early Recovery

Happy people are grateful for what they have, regardless of what that is.

Many sex and porn addicts in early recovery (and sometimes even those
with significant amounts of sobriety) struggle with feeling grateful. Usually,
we look for the downside in every situation. We grumble that roses have
thorns when we ought to be celebrating the fact that thorns have roses.
Sometimes we feel as if we are incapable of gratitude. This, of course, is
not true. To get started, all we must do is look for little things to feel
grateful for—clean water, a sunny day, fresh air, a day of sobriety, etc. As
author A.A. Milne wrote in Winnie the Pooh , “Piglet noticed that even
though he had a Very Small Heart, it could hold a rather large amount of
gratitude.” Newly recovering addicts are the same—capable of far more
gratitude than we’d think at first glance.

Task for Today

Be like Piglet.

MARCH 11

The ‘Why’ of Addiction

Knowing why you are addicted will not cure or even control your addiction.

The first question that almost anyone diagnosed with sex or porn addiction
typically asks is pretty much the same: “How did I get this way?” Rather
than focusing on the fact that we are addicted and what we are going to do
about it, we want to know if there is some external influence we can blame
for our problems. Ultimately, of course, the reason we are addicted is
unimportant from the standpoint of establishing sobriety. Nevertheless, this
question is posed, often repeatedly, and sometimes we are unable (or
unwilling) to move forward without some sort of answer.

Task for Today

Ask yourself why you want to know why? Will it help your recovery, or do
you just want someone to blame?

MARCH 12

Using Sex as a Drug

The goal is not sobriety; the goal is to love yourself so you don’t feel the
need to escape through your addiction.

Sex and porn addicts share certain characteristics. One of these common
traits is that we use compulsive sexual fantasies and behaviors as a drug.
For us, sexual fantasies and behaviors are not about feeling good and
having a good time; they’re about feeling less and escaping from our lives.
We don’t want to feel lonely, or anxious, or angry, or ashamed, so we
distract ourselves with the intensity of sexual thoughts and actions.
Unfortunately, the escape is temporary. When we are done acting out in our
addiction, whatever it is that we were trying to not feel is still there—often
laced with feelings of guilt or shame about the behaviors we just engaged
in.

Task for Today

Make a list of five times you used sex or porn as a drug—as a way to not
feel. Share this list with your therapist, sponsor, or a friend in recovery.

MARCH 13

Why Do We Need Healthy Boundaries?

Boundaries represent awareness, knowing what the limits are and then
respecting those limits.

When properly implemented, healthy boundaries promote healthy

relationships, healthy intimacy, trust, and relationship safety. At the same
time, they prevent enmeshment, enabling of bad behaviors, and
unwarranted attempts at control. Healthy boundaries protect us from the bad
behavior of others, and others from the bad behavior that we sometimes
engage in. With healthy boundaries, we can establish and maintain mutually
beneficial connections. This is what Dr. Rob Weiss refers to as
prodependence —attachment relationships that are healthfully
interdependent, where one person’s strengths fill in the weak points of the
other and vice versa, with this mutual support occurring automatically and
without question and without trampling boundaries.

Task for Today

Are your primary relationships prodependent or out of balance? If they’re
out of balance, discuss in therapy or with your sponsor the idea of setting
some healthy boundaries.

MARCH 14
Adult-Life Symptoms of Covert Incest

Covert incest is like the air in the room. It’s here, but you don’t see it.

Survivors of covert incest (individuals who were emotionally and

psychologically sexualized by a parent or some other important caregiver)
typically respond in the same ways as survivors of overt (hands-on) sexual
abuse, with one or more of the following adult-life symptoms and
consequences:

• Addiction (especially sex and porn addiction)

• Difficulty developing and maintaining intimacy

• Shame and feelings of inadequacy

• Dissociation

• Difficulties with self-care (emotional and/or physical)

• Love/hate relationships (especially with the offending parent but

also with others)

• Inappropriate bonding with their own child (intergenerational

abuse)

Task for Today

Dig beneath the surface to see if covert incest may underlie some of your
behaviors. If you think it might, discuss this with your therapist or a
supportive friend in recovery.
 MARCH 15

Working Step 3

Spirituality is not adopting more beliefs; it’s uncovering the best in yourself.

If you are among the addicts who want or need to reconceptualize their
vision of God, the following exercise may help: Write a job description for
God as you would like him or her to be. As you do this, ask yourself: “What
do I want from this entity? How can I learn to trust this entity? What sort of
interactive give and take am I looking for?” You might want to write this
job description in the form of a want ad, perhaps something like: “Sought:
A power greater than myself to help me stay sober and navigate life. Must
be available 24/7/365. Must be nonjudgmental. Must care about my
physical, emotional, and psychological well-being. Sense of humor a plus.”

Task for Today

Write a want ad for your Higher Power.

MARCH 16

Getting Out of a Rut

When life gets harder, challenge yourself to be stronger.

Being stuck in a rut, whether that rut is addiction or some other aspect of
life, is an indication that rather than facing and overcoming life’s
challenges, we’re avoiding them. When we see an obstacle, we’re turning
away from it and looking for an easier, softer way. And where does that get
us? Deeper in the rut, that’s where. If we want to get out of a rut, we must
challenge ourselves. We must take ourselves out of our comfort zone and do
something completely different. For some of us, this means walking into a
12-step meeting for the first time. For others, it’s going back to school, or
training for an endurance race, or whatever. As Dr. Mihaly
Csikszentmihalyi says, “The best moments in our lives are not the passive,
receptive, relaxing times. The best moments usually occur if a person's
body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish
something difficult and worthwhile.” That is what recovery is all about.

Task for Today

Identify a challenge you’ve been avoiding and take at least one step toward
overcoming it.

MARCH 17

Honesty in 12-Step Meetings

You can’t save your face and your ass at the same time.

Many recovering sex and porn addicts worry that if they go to a 12-step
meeting and tell the truth about their addiction, others will judge them and
possibly even gossip about them. And this may in fact happen, though
usually it does not. Instead, the vast majority of fellow addicts will
appreciate the honesty. They also tend to identify with the feelings
experienced (and often the actual behaviors). Generally, 12-step sexual
recovery rooms are filled with empathy and support rather than judgment.
After all, anything that one sex or porn addict has done, at least a few others
in the room have probably also done.

Task for Today

Go to a meeting and share about something you’ve heretofore kept secret.

MARCH 18

Understanding Sexual Sobriety

In recovery, the road narrows but the horizon widens.

In sexual recovery, the definition of and boundaries for sobriety are

determined based on each addict’s unique history and goals. This means
that sexual sobriety looks different for every recovering addict. What is
prohibited for one person may be perfectly acceptable for another.
Regardless of what an individual addict’s sexual recovery plan looks like, if
that addict’s sexual behaviors conform to the boundaries of his or her plan,
that addict is sexually sober.

Task for Today

Don’t judge yourself based on the sexual sobriety plans of others. And don’t
judge them based on your definition of sexual sobriety.

MARCH 19

We Hurt Our Kids, Too!

Your eyes are unfathomable to me, hostile, even, as if you have removed
yourself to a place where I cannot reach you—somewhere I cannot know.

Kids can’t help but notice emotional distancing in their caregivers. They
wonder why mommy and daddy seem so far away all the time, why they’re
not as fun and available as they used to be, and why they don’t hug all the
time like they used to. And sadly, children who experience this are likely to
internalize the blame for this divide. Despite their young age, they know
that something is wrong, and they mistakenly think it is somehow their
fault. After all, to young kids, parents are perfect, so if something goes
wrong, they assume that it must be their fault. As the days pass, they start to
feel less important, less special, and less wanted, which does a pretty
serious number on their self-esteem. So, rationalizing that “even if I was
horrible to my spouse, I never let it affect the kids” is smoke and mirrors.
As sex and porn addicts, we don’t like to think about this, but it’s true.
When we actively engage in our addiction, we hurt our kids as much as we
hurt our partners.

Task for Today

Think about how the emotional distancing inherent in your addiction has
harmed your children.

MARCH 20

Triggers

Learn how to cope, sweet friend. There will always be dark days.

Almost anything, items both internal and external, can be a trigger for sex
and porn addiction. Internal triggers typically involve some form of
emotional discomfort—depression, shame, anxiety, anger, fear, guilt,
remorse, boredom, etc. External triggers can be people, places, things, and
events. We must also deal with intertwined triggers (triggers that are both
external and internal). For instance, if we argue with a loved one or have a
bad day at work (external triggers), we are likely to feel anger, shame, and
other forms of emotional discomfort (internal triggers). And our resulting
desire to act out might be exacerbated by still other triggers (such as driving
past strip clubs, prostitutes, and drug dealers).

Task for Today

Think about what you will do to stay sober the next time you are triggered
to act out.

MARCH 21

Standard Issue Denial

Addicts would rather deny a hard truth than face it.

The most common form of sex and porn addiction denial, used by almost
every married or partnered addict, centers on the following lie: “What my
significant other doesn’t know can’t hurt him/her.” Frankly, it’s amazing
how many of us convince ourselves that this blatant lie is true. In reality,
even though our partner may have no idea that we’re sleeping around or
looking at porn or otherwise acting out, it is almost certain that he or she
feels and experiences some degree of emotional and even physical
distancing on our part. Sadly, our partner may internalize blame for this,
wondering what he or she did to create this rift and to provoke our
defensiveness and anger when he or she questioned us about this sense of
emotional separation.

Task for Today

List ten ways your addiction has caused pain to a loved one. Share this list
in therapy or a 12-step meeting.

MARCH 22

Working Step 3

Don't wait for the right conditions. All that you need for growth is available
to you in this moment.

With Step 3, most sex and porn addicts prefer to think of ‘God as they
understand God’ as something spiritual, even if it’s completely unrelated to
the God of their childhood. If you want or need to reconceptualize your
vision of God, the following exercise may help: Get a sheet of paper and
draw a large circle in it. Inside the circle, write down attributes you would
like in a friend or mentor—reliable, caring, non-judgmental, fun, smart,
tactful, nice, etc. Outside the circle, write down attributes you would not
like in a friend or mentor—angry, boring, vindictive, controlling, etc. Then
grab a pair of scissors and cut away everything outside the circle, throwing
that material into the trash or ceremonially burning it. The traits that are
left, the items inside the circle, can then be used as your conception of God.

Task for Today

Think about your Higher Power as an understanding and supportive friend.
 MARCH 23

Hooked on Porn?

The amount of porn on the internet is unmeasurable.

In their book, A Billion Wicked Thoughts , researchers Ogi Ogas and Sai
Gaddam write: “In 1991, the year the World Wide Web went online, there
were fewer than 90 different adult magazines published in America, and
you’d have been hard-pressed to find a newsstand that carried more than a
dozen. Just six years later, in 1997, there were about 900 pornography sites
on the Web. Today, the filtering software CYBERsitter blocks 2.5 million
adult Web sites.” Now think about the fact that Ogas and Gaddam publisher
their research in 2012, well before the advent of sexy selfies and other
forms of ‘user-generated porn.’

Task for Today

Think honestly about your porn use? Is porn part of your addiction? Is it a
bottom-line behavior for you? Why or why not?

MARCH 24

Here’s Wishing You a Long, Slow Recovery

Sobriety is a long and winding path, and none of us ever really knows
where it’s leading.

One long-recovering sex addict loves to tell the story of his 90th day of
sobriety, when he went to a meeting to take a chip and had another addict
say, “That’s really great. I wish you a long, slow recovery.” Well, the now
old-timer did not like this one bit. He wanted to be well right now . But
that’s just not how recovery works. Recovery is a journey. It is meant to be
enjoyed. We should take our time and revel in each tiny success. We don’t
have to be well by tomorrow. In fact, we don’t ever have to be completely
well. The true goal of recovery is to do life better today than yesterday.

Task for Today

Take a few minutes to stop and enjoy what you’ve accomplished in your
recovery.

MARCH 25

Porn Addiction Can Ruin Real-World Sex

What's the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something
remarkable?

Research shows that approximately 1 in 4 male sex addicts struggles with

sexual performance—most often erectile dysfunction. This percentage is
significantly higher for men who primarily act out with pornography. And
this issue is not related to the frequency of masturbation or the need for a
refractory period (a time in which males reload, so to speak). Instead, the
issue is related to the fact that when a man spends the vast majority of his
sexual life masturbating to online porn—endless images of sexy, exciting,
constantly changing partners and experiences—he is, over time, likely to
find his real-world partner(s) less sexually stimulating than the visuals
parading through his mind. For these men, porn creates an emotional and
psychological disconnection that manifests physically as sexual dysfunction
with real-world partners.

Task for Today

Create a list of ways in which porn has negatively affected your real-world
sex life. Share that list in therapy or a 12-step meeting.

MARCH 26

Bookending Keeps Us Sober

When I’m at the bottom looking up, the main question may not be, “How do
I get out of this hole?” In reality, the main question might be, “How do I get
rid of the shovel that I used to dig it?”

Sometimes, as recovering sex and porn addicts, we are triggered

unexpectedly. Other times, triggers can be seen miles away. For example,
attending a social engagement where people will be looking their best and
drinking alcohol is an obvious potential trigger for most of us. Knowing
this, we can arrange to ‘bookend’ such an event with phone calls to our
therapist, our 12-step sponsor, our accountability partner, or any other
supportive person in recovery. During the ‘before’ call, we commit to
sobriety and we discuss plans to avoid relapse in this particular situation.
The ‘after’ call provides an opportunity to discuss what happened, what
feelings came up, and what we might need to do differently next time. More
importantly, making this before and after commitment to sexual sobriety
goes a long way toward preventing slips and relapse.
Task for Today
Look for a potential trigger in your future. Create a plan to bookend that
trigger.

MARCH 27

The Hole in the Soul

Addictions are an attempt to externally fill an internal void.

Sex and porn addicts share certain characteristics. One of these common
traits is that even when we got the love of another person, it wasn’t enough
and we were unable to stop lusting after others. This is generally the result
of our internalized shame and low self-esteem. We think we are not good
enough, and that we are unworthy of true love and intimacy. Some of us
describe this as ‘the hole in the soul.’ And that hole is so wide and so deep
that no single connection with another person could possibly fill it. So we
keep searching for someone or something else. What we fail to realize is
that the only way to fill the void is to work on our inner selves. There is no
external fix for the hole in the soul. Day by day, as part of our process of
recovery and healing, we combat our shame and damaged self-image. We
do this by living with honesty and integrity. In time, we begin to see
ourselves as worthy of love and connection. We heal our self-image, and
suddenly the connections we have are more than enough to fill the hole.

Task for Today

List three things you value about the emotional intimacy you have in your
life.
 MARCH 28

I Thought I Was the Only One

Reaching out to others can be profoundly healing.

Sex and porn addiction can harm our sense of reality, interfere with healthy
relationships, and force us into social isolation. One highly effective way to
address these issues is to include some sort of group experience in our
recovery (group psychotherapy, 12-step meetings, other support groups). In
a group setting, we can meaningfully encounter (perhaps for the very first
time) other individuals who have faced challenges similar to our own.
Group experience creates a universality, an awareness that we are not alone
in life and others have experienced similar thoughts, feelings, and fears.
This connection with others leads to a realization that our pain is not
exclusive or unique, and that others are willing to support us.

Task for Today

Think about how you’ve been helped by attending groups and how you’ve
helped others through your group participation.

MARCH 29

Working Step 3

Your true self is a boundless spiritual being. You are spirit in body.

Step 3 reads: “Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the
care of God as we understand God .” The final four words of this step tell
us we are not tied to any definition or set of beliefs. Each of us is free to
choose a Higher Power that works for us, regardless of how anyone else
might feel about it. So, whatever version of God we choose to believe in,
nobody should tell us that we’re wrong. This is God as we understand (or
don’t understand) Him/Her/It. Our personal understanding of our Higher
Power has absolutely nothing to do with what our sponsor, best friend, or
anyone else believes. And that is just fine.

Task for Today

Don’t let others judge your conception of your Higher Power. And don’t
you judge theirs.

MARCH 30

Are You Struggling With the Steps?

There is no illusion greater than fear.

The 12 steps can seem a bit daunting. Sure, when we go to our first sexual
recovery meeting and read the steps (on that ubiquitous giant scroll hanging
on the wall), they seem relatively straightforward. Usually, they even make
sense, sort of. But when we think about actually doing them, about turning
our life over to a Higher Power, about dredging up our worst moments and
talking about them with another person, about making amends for our
wrongs to people we may still be incredibly angry with… Yeah, right.
That’s not going to happen. No way, no how, forget about it. Well, guess
what? Working the 12 steps, doing all of those things that sound incredibly
awful when we first learn about them, is the path to long-term sobriety and
healing.

Task for Today

Be willing to fully work the steps—all of them, not just the ones that seem
palatable.

MARCH 31

Withdrawal

When things go wrong, don’t go with them.

The core signs and symptoms of sex and porn addiction are generally the
same regardless of age, race, gender, social history, and psychological
underpinnings. For instance, nearly all sex and porn addicts experience
withdrawal. With sex and porn addiction, withdrawal tends to manifest not
so much physically, as often occurs with substance abuse (i.e., delirium
tremens when detoxing from alcohol), but emotionally and psychologically.
In withdrawal, we tend to become depressed, anxious, restless, irritable, and
discontent.

Task for Today

Try to think about being in a poor mood as a form of withdrawal that will
pass as you establish your sobriety.

APRIL 1
Working Step 4

We don’t learn by doing, we learn by reflecting on what we’ve done.

For many recovering sex and porn addicts, Step 4 is a huge sticking point.
The idea of taking a long, hard look at ourselves and our behavior just isn’t
appealing—especially if we’re still engaging in the type of denial that
externalizes the blame for our addiction. We all know the drill: “I use porn
because my family treats me badly,” “I get erotic massages because my
partner is not as interested in sex as I am,” etc. If we are justifying our
addiction in this way, taking any type of action that forces us to see our own
role in our addiction and its consequences seems frightening, daunting,
shaming, depressing, etc. And who needs that, right? Well, we do. Until we
take Step 4, we stay stuck in denial, and we are more vulnerable to relapse.

Task for Today

If you have not worked Step 4, talk to your sponsor about getting started. If
you have worked Step 4, share in a meeting about what you learned from it.

APRIL 2

Spiritual Fitness

Don’t look at or judge your past too harshly. You don’t live there anymore.

The road of spiritual fitness narrows over time. Behaviors that seemed
perfectly OK while active in addiction or during early recovery (telling
white lies, gossiping, eating few grapes at the grocery store without paying
for them, cutting someone off in traffic, etc.) become, over time, much less
acceptable for the majority of recovering sex and porn addicts. In other
words, our definition of ‘spiritually fit’ changes, becoming ever more
stringent, as we mature in our sobriety.

Task for Today

Identify a behavior or thinking pattern that used to be OK but isn’t now.
Share about this in a meeting.

APRIL 3

Women Can Be Sexually Addicted, Too

Viewing genders differently puts women not on a pedestal, but in a cage.

Many people think that sex and porn addiction are adult male disorders and
that women are not susceptible. And in truth, prior to the Internet, most self-
identified sex and porn addicts were indeed adult males. However, as digital
interconnectivity has brought easy, relatively anonymous, and highly
affordable access to an astounding array of sexual content and contacts,
there has been a corresponding increase in the number and variety of people
struggling with sexual addiction—including women.

Task for Today

Ask yourself what you can do to make sexual recovery safer and more
welcoming to women.

APRIL 4

Relationships in Sexual Recovery

When we open our hearts, our lives get better.

Addictions, especially sex and porn addiction, wreak havoc on

relationships. Recovery can remedy this. When we begin recovery, if we are
married or in an otherwise committed relationship, our process of healing
brings a deeper understanding of both our own and our partner’s emotional
needs and desires, at the same time encouraging and allowing both partners
to become more emotionally intimate within the relationship. If we are not
in a romantic relationship, recovery builds self-esteem and helps us make
healthier choices about dating, sexuality, and (if we so desire it) the
formation of a long-term intimate partnership.

Task for Today

Think about how your addiction created problems in both your romantic
and platonic relationships.

APRIL 5

Love the Process of Recovery

It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that

matters, in the end.

Any distance runner can tell you that the real joy is not in winning (or even
finishing) the race, it’s in the hard work that got them there. Recovery is the
same. Yes, we want to reach our goals, but loving the process is just as
important. Reaching our goals is only a tiny fraction of what we do in
recovery, and the rest will grind us down if we’re not enjoying it. Thus, it’s
important for us to have fun in recovery, appreciating each step we take and
each little milestone we reach. If we can do this, we will continue our
journey of recovery no matter what, even when we’re faced with setbacks,
annoyances, and even outright failures.

Task for Today

Think about a mundane aspect of recovery as fun. Then share about this
enjoyment with another person in recovery.

APRIL 6

Working Step 4

Honest self-reflection opens the mind to reprogramming, change, success,

and freedom.

Often, as recovering sex and porn addicts, we dread the thought of Step 4,
of taking a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. Because of
this, we may try to delay Step 4. Some of us might stop working the steps
altogether, deciding we can stay sober on meetings alone. Others might
create excuse after excuse to procrastinate—pretending we’re stuck on
Steps 2 and 3, choosing to focus on our career or our relationship, switching
sponsors because the old one seems too pushy, etc. Whatever our reasons,
not working Step 4 leaves us stuck in a rut, moving neither forward nor
backward in our recovery. When this happens, we need to understand that
working Step 4 is the key to both internal growth and lasting sobriety. After
all, Steps 5 through 9—the healing steps—all build on the work we do in
Step 4.
Task for Today
Choose to not fear self-reflection. Instead, view it as a pathway to growth.

APRIL 7

Risk Factors for Addiction

Addictions of all types form and manifest in the same basic ways.

The risk factors for substance and behavioral addictions (including sex and
porn addiction) are the same: most often a combination of genetic and
environmental factors. Generally speaking, people are at risk when there is
a history of addiction (any type) or mental illness (any type) in the family,
and when they’ve experienced early-life or severe adult trauma. A lot of the
time, at-risk individuals turn to alcohol, prescription medications, or illicit
substances to self-medicate feelings of stress and other forms of emotional
discomfort. Other at-risk individuals turn to an intensely pleasurable pattern
of behavior (like using porn or acting out sexually). Either way, addiction is
driven by the same underlying issues.

Task for Today

Ask yourself if it matters why you are addicted. Or is the fact that you’re
addicted the most important thing for you to deal with.

APRIL 8

Overcoming Denial
Denying the truth doesn’t change the facts.

As recovering sex and porn addicts, we must develop an honest

understanding of our addiction—what it is, how it negatively affects us and
others, why we engage in it, etc. And this knowledge is best attained
through concrete, unfiltered discussion and review of past sexual behaviors,
past relationships, and past hurts to ourselves and others. Once this
information is uncovered, it’s harder to pretend that compulsive sexual
fantasy and behavior are not a problem. This is doubly true when this
information is ‘witnessed’ by a therapist, a 12-step sponsor or group, an
accountability partner, and other supportive people who are also in the
process of healing from sex or porn addiction. To recover from our
addiction, we must talk about our addiction.

Task for Today

Share three facts about your addiction with at least one person who actively
supports your recovery.

APRIL 9

Our Resistance to Asking for Help

An obstinate sense of independence is most people’s greatest challenge.

As recovering sex and porn addicts, we nearly always need outside

assistance if we hope to change our problematic behaviors and live
healthier, happier, more fulfilling lives. If we could stop what we’re doing
on our own, we would. Most of us have tried that many times, failing
repeatedly. We’re fine for a few days, but then we’re right back at it, as lost
as ever. For us, shame and remorse are not enough to prevent relapse.
Willpower alone doesn’t cut it. For lasting recovery, we need the impartial
insight and accountability that only sex and porn addiction treatment and
12-step meetings with other recovering sex and porn addicts can provide.

Task for Today

Reflect on how much easier sexual recovery is when you’re not trying to do
it all by yourself.

APRIL 10

The Gratitude List

If the only prayer you say is “thank you,” that is enough.

As sex and porn addicts, we may have used our sexual fantasies and
behaviors to numb out for so long that we forgot how to experience
emotions in a healthy way—particularly uncomfortable emotions like
anxiety, depression, fear, shame, and the like. As a result, sometimes,
especially early in the recovery process, we can feel overwhelmed by those
emotions, losing sight of what is going well in our lives and our recovery. A
great way to combat this ‘stinking thinking’ is to create a gratitude list.
Most of us find that a ten-item gratitude list counteracts almost any trigger
toward addiction.

Task for Today

Write out a ten-item gratitude list. Carry it with you and refer to it often.
Add to it as the day progresses.
 APRIL 11

Working Step 4

Until we face our shadows, they will haunt us.

The goal of Step 4 is for us to take a hard, unrelenting look at our problems
and our role in creating those problems. After working Step 4, we realize
that we are not victims; instead, we are active participants in the mess our
lives have become. And believe it or not, this realization is empowering . In
fact, many of us point to Step 4 as the turning point in our recovery. Before
working Step 4, we were battling external factors—other people, events,
and organizations that ‘drove us to addiction.’ By the time we’re done with
Step 4, we know that the real enemy lives within. We understand that we,
not others, are the cause of our misery. Our addiction belongs to us and no
one else.

Task for Today

Stop blaming others for your problematic sexual behaviors.

APRIL 12

Your Sexual Sobriety Plan: The Process of Revision

The times they are a-changin’.

With each new form of technology (digital technology in particular), the

sexual and romantic landscape changes. As recovering sex and porn addicts,
we must do the same, revising our sexual sobriety plans as needed to reflect
new temptations and potential problems. That said, we should never change
our sobriety plan without significant discussion and input from our
therapist, our 12-step sponsor, and other members of our recovery support
network. If we change our sobriety plan without this input, we are usually
doing so as a way to justify addictive behavior, not as a way to stay sober.

Task for Today

Examine your sexual sobriety plan to see if any changes are needed. If you
think changes are needed, talk to your therapist, your sponsor, and others
before implementing those changes.

APRIL 13

The Disease of Addiction

We don’t recover from addiction by quitting. We recover by creating a new

life where it is easier to not engage in the addiction.

Once upon a time, addiction was thought by most to be a moral failing, a

lack of self will, or a deep psychological flaw (a personality disorder),
rather than a chronic emotional illness. This moralistic belief system was
prevalent until the mid-20th century when our understanding and view of
addiction began to slowly but steadily shift. One reason for this shift was
recognition that addicts are nearly always survivors of severe or chronic
trauma. And the more we know about addiction, the more sense this makes.
For one thing, it is clear that addictions are not about feeling good , they’re
about feeling less . We turn to addictive substances and behaviors not
because we want to have a good time, but to self-medicate and self-regulate
our emotions. Our primary goal is to escape from life and to not feel stress,
anxiety, depression, fear, and other forms of discomfort. That is the disease
we must overcome.

Task for Today

Pay attention to your feelings, especially to feelings that trigger a desire for
escape.

APRIL 14

Love Addiction is Just as Irrational as Sex Addiction

Courage is resistance to fear, not the absence of fear.

Love addicts spend the bulk of their time either searching for the perfect
love interest or wriggling out of their current relationship so they can focus
on a new one. They constantly check their profiles on Match.com,
eHarmony, Ashley Madison (even though they’re not married), JDate (even
though they’re not Jewish), etc. Almost every decision they make—what to
wear, where to eat, where to socialize, where to exercise, what job to have
—is colored by their desire to meet and hook their perfect partner, the one
person who can make them feel complete and whole and perpetually
excited about their relationship. But that is not really what they’re seeking.
Like sex and porn addicts, substance addicts, and all other addicts, love
addicts use their behavior as a distraction—to escape from stress,
depression, anxiety, and other forms of emotional and psychological
discomfort.
Task for Today
When you feel the compulsive urge to pursue romance, think about the
feelings you’re trying to avoid. And then talk about those feelings with your
therapist, your sponsor, or a friend in recovery.

APRIL 15

At-Risk vs. Addicted

Non-addicts can (and usually do) limit or stop their behaviors when they
start to experience adverse consequences. Addicts? Not so much.

At-risk users of sexual fantasy and activity are men and women who go
through periods of intense engagement with non-intimate sexuality, perhaps
using it as a distraction from emotional discomfort and other life issues.
Sometimes at-risk users look a lot like addicted users, hiding the nature and
extent of their sexual behaviors, temporarily ignoring potential and even
actual consequences, and escalating the nature and extent of their use. What
differentiates at-risk users from addicted users is at-risk users can stop the
activity on their own while addicted users cannot. At-risk users retain
control and choice over their engagement with non-intimate sexual fantasy
and activity. Addicted users do not.

Task for Today

Think of three times when you lost control and choice over your sexual
behavior.

APRIL 16
Stop Saying “I Can’t”

Challenges test our courage and our ability to change.

In both our lives and our recovery, it is counterproductive to look at

something daunting and say, “No way, I’ll never pull that off.” Instead of
saying “I can’t,” we need to acquire and master the tools we need to
succeed, one tool at a time. And then we must give it a shot, whatever our
challenge happens to be. As we master each new tool, we learn what it feels
like to use it and succeed with it, and then we’re ready and excited about
learning and using and succeeding with the next tool. Success breeds
success. And that is an incredible feeling. But we can only experience that
feeling when we toss our preconceived notions about what we can and can’t
do into the garbage.

Task for Today

Listen for the words “I can’t” and change them to “I can.”

APRIL 17

Working Step 4

The greatest of faults is to be conscious of none.

As it is with all of the 12 steps, there is no set way to work the fourth step.
If we look around, we will find all sorts of methodologies suggested in
online forums, articles, and recovery centric books. And any of these
methods will likely work for us, as long as they’re constructed with the
same basic goal—for us to see the ways in which we were an active
participant in our addiction and its consequences. No matter how we choose
to work Step 4, we need to look at our part in the addiction and its
consequences.

Task for Today

Take full responsibility for your addiction and the problems it has caused.

APRIL 18

Becoming Vulnerable

You are worthy of love and intimate connection.

Becoming vulnerable means trusting both ourselves and others. It is the

only way to live honestly, with integrity and authenticity. When we become
vulnerable—in friendships and in intimate relationships—we open
ourselves up to the possibility of being wounded, trusting that we are
worthy of love and that the other person won’t decide to hurt us. This is a
very scary thing to do, but the ultimate rewards are joy and true connection.
It’s worth the risk.

Task for Today

Be vulnerable and trust that you’ll be loved in return—eventually, if not
right away.

APRIL 19

Sex and Porn Addiction Are Not Fun

Lots of people joke about sex addiction, saying, “Where do I sign up?”
Those people don’t understand what it’s like to be a sex addict.

Many people view sex and porn addictions as less serious than ‘real’
addictions (i.e., substance addictions). In reality, nothing could be further
from the truth. Sex and porn addiction bring the same types and levels of
misery as alcoholism and drug addiction—relationship trouble, issues at
work or in school, declining physical or emotional health (depression,
anxiety, loss of self-esteem, etc.), emotional and physical isolation,
financial woes, loss of interest in previously enjoyable activities, legal
trouble, and more.

Task for Today

Remember the downside of your addiction and use that as motivation for
recovery.

APRIL 20

The Sexnology Factor

Don't let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.

Nearly everyone in modern Western culture either owns or has easy access
to a computer, laptop, tablet, pad, smartphone, or some other internet
enabled digital device. As a result, we now have 24/7 access to information,
entertainment, and social interaction—with much of that material and
interconnectivity being sexual in nature. For most people, this is not an
issue. They can play with and enjoy sexnology in healthy ways without
becoming addicted or experiencing negative consequences, just as most
people are able to enjoy things like alcohol, gambling, video gaming, and
recreational drugs without becoming addicted or experiencing major
problems. For sex and porn addicts, however, technology can be a danger
zone. As such, we must set and maintain healthy boundaries around our use
of technology.

Task for Today

Think about the interplay of digital technology with your addiction. Porn?
Apps? Websites? Webcams? And what else?

APRIL 21

How Many 12-Step Meetings Until I’m Cured?

The question is not how to get cured, but how to live.

One common misconception about professional treatment for sex and porn
addiction is that after completing the recommended program, we will never
again struggle with problematic sexual behaviors. This is not in fact the
case. In reality, there is no cure for sex or porn addiction (or any other
addiction), and we must battle the addiction on an ongoing, lifelong basis.
Our desire to act out sexually does not go away. It lessens, certainly, and we
learn to respond in non-addictive ways when triggered, but our desire to
engage in the addiction does not disappear entirely, no matter how good a
treatment center is or how motivated we are to fully recover. This does not,
however, mean that professional treatment is not valuable. Nearly always, it
is an incredible jumpstart for healing and recovery, helping us break
through our denial and preparing us for the lifetime of work to come.
Task for Today
Accept that you can get better every day but you’ll never be completely
well.

APRIL 22

The Voices in Our Head Aren’t Always Bad

Nothing on earth can stop the man with the right mental attitude. Nothing
on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.

As recovering sex and porn addicts, we learn, over time, through working
the steps, talking with therapists and sponsors, and listening in 12-step
meetings, that when we are doubtful or agitated or depressed or anxious, we
simply need to pause and ask our Higher Power to supply us with the right
thought or action. Usually, that ‘next right step’ will come to us within a
few short moments; often, we ‘hear’ it as if our therapist or sponsor were
speaking to us telepathically. If that doesn’t occur, we can simply telephone
those folks to ask for their advice. We do this because we know that when
we try to run the show based on self-will and our own ideas with no outside
input, disaster often ensues. We proved that over and over in our active
addiction. So, in recovery, when we are unsure or agitated, we ask for and
accept outside help.

Task for Today

When you feel a strong emotion, pause and think before you act.

APRIL 23
Working Step 4

Self-reflection helps you steer your thoughts, emotions, and feelings in a

healthy direction.

Creating our Step 4 inventories can be a miserable endeavor. Basically,

we’re dredging up the worst parts of ourselves and writing them down on
paper, knowing we’ll soon be sharing this information with another person
(as part of Step 5). If we’re working on Step 4 and we start to feel serious
anxiety or depression, we should take a break. We can put the step away for
a day or two and share what we’re feeling with friends and loved ones who
support our recovery. Later, when we are less overwhelmed, we can return
to this work. As long as we don’t put it off indefinitely.

Task for Today

Accept the emotional discomfort that comes with recovery.

APRIL 24

Stopping a Slip from Becoming a Full-Blown Relapse

Fall down seven times, stand up eight.

Dr. Robert Weiss defines a sex and porn addiction slip as a brief, mostly
unintended return to addiction. He says that relapse occurs when a slip is
kept secret, thereby setting the stage for slips of increasing frequency and
intensity. No matter what, if we find ourselves in the midst of a slip or
relapse, we should immediately get honest about what’s going on,
confessing to our therapist, 12-step sponsor, and social support group.
We’ve established these loving and empathetic connections for a reason;
now is a great time to use them. If we’re in the midst of a slip or relapse and
unable or unwilling to ask for help, our downward slide will almost
certainly continue. If, however, we reach out and ask for assistance, we can
regain our sobriety and integrity.

Task for Today

Be completely honest about your thinking and behavior with someone who
supports your recovery.

APRIL 25

Where Are You Going in Life?

If you don’t ‘come alive’ several times a day, you are wasting your life. And
life is too short to waste.

Did Einstein secretly want to open a restaurant? Probably not. He was one
of the lucky people who knew who he was and what he was meant to do
right from the start. Because of that, he was laser-focused from moment
one. Most of us, however, especially recovering sex and porn addicts, are
not so lucky. We don’t have some utterly awesome natural talent that points
the way, so we need to do a bit of soul searching to find our true path. To
help with this, we can ask: “When does my life drain me and when does it
revitalize me?” The stuff that gives us energy is probably related to our true
purpose; the stuff that saps our energy is not.

Task for Today

Think about the times in your life when you felt the most joyful and eager.
Try to define your true purpose based on those moments.

APRIL 26

Can a Behavior Be an Addiction?

Whether you sniff it, smoke it, eat it, or shove it up your ass, the result is the
same: addiction.

Sex and porn addiction are, in most ways, the same as any other addiction.
At the very least, they are defined by the same basic criteria:

1. Preoccupation to the point of obsession with the substance or

behavior of choice.

2. Loss of control over use of the substance or behavior, typically

evidenced by failed attempts to quit or cut back

3. Directly related negative consequences—relationship trouble,

issues at work or in school, declining physical health, depression,
anxiety, diminished self-esteem, isolation, financial woes, loss of
interest in previously enjoyable activities, legal trouble, etc.

Task for Today

Ask yourself if your sexual behavior meets the criteria for addiction.

APRIL 27

Combatting Shame
When we share our story, shame cannot survive.

Overcoming the deeply rooted shame that drives sex and porn addiction is a
process of learning to recognize shame and its triggers, and then learning to
‘reality check’ the shame we feel by reaching out to supportive others and
receiving empathy as they hear about and experience our shame with us.
Needless to say, this is easier said than done. In fact, most of us would
rather eat dirt than talk about our feelings of shame. That said, healing from
shame requires vulnerability—the courage to reach out to supportive others
and share our darkest secrets.

Task for Today

Either talk about your shame or eat a handful of dirt. One will leave you
feeling better; the other will not.

APRIL 28

The Spin Cycle of Addiction

Sometimes we motivate ourselves by thinking of what we want to become.

Sometimes we motivate ourselves by thinking about who we don’t ever want
to be again.

All addictions are cyclical in nature, with no clear beginning or end and one
stage leading to the next (and then the next, and the next, and the next). And
the cycle intensifies with each repetition, requiring more of the same
substance or behavior or a more intense substance or behavior to reach and
maintain the desired neurochemical high. This transforms the cycle from a
repetitive loop into a downward spiral that leads to relationship, work,
health, financial, legal, and other crises. These crises then become the
triggers that set the addictive cycle in motion yet again.

Task for Today

Think about ways you can interrupt the spin cycle of your addiction.

APRIL 29

Working Step 4

Don’t look for someone to solve your problems; look for someone who won’t
let you go through them alone.

Because of the difficult and painful emotions that Step 4 tends to bring up,
it is wise to increase your meeting attendance while working it. You might
also want to increase the amount of time you spend with friends in
recovery, the number of conversations you have with your sponsor, and the
number of sessions you have with your therapist. If you are in a
relationship, you should let your significant other know that you’re working
on Step 4, and you’ll likely be feeling more vulnerable than usual while
doing it. The more support you get, the better off you will be.

Task for Today

Reach out to others whenever you feel upset in any way.

APRIL 30

What is a Sponsor?
Sponsors light the torches that lead others through the dark.

Sponsors are personal guides to healing and staying sexually sober, usually
not friends to begin with and never lovers. Typically, a sponsor is someone
of the same gender who has been in sexual recovery long enough to have
achieved some success. He or she should be active in recovery and have
worked his or her way through the 12 steps. In addition, a sponsor’s
personal situation should somewhat match that of the sponsee, so that he or
she can guide the newly recovering addict more individually. For example,
if the newly recovering sex or porn addict is married with kids, a sponsor
who is also married with kids might be preferable. If the newly recovering
addict is HIV-positive, it might be helpful to have an HIV-positive sponsor.
Etc.

Task for Today

Create a list of the people you know in recovery who ‘speak your language’
and ‘have what you want.’ Do this even if you already have a great sponsor.

MAY 1

Working Step 5

When at last you find someone to whom you feel you can pour out your
soul, you stop in shock at the words you utter. They are so rusty, so ugly, so
meaningless and feeble from being kept in the small cramped dark inside
you for so long.

After completing the fourth step, we suddenly find ourselves staring at Step
5—admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact
nature of our wrongs. Though Step 5 is one of the simplest steps to work,
many of us approach it with dread. And that is a perfectly understandable
feeling to have given the nature of what we’re about to do—sharing our
Step 4 inventories with another person. If you are dreading Step 5, you need
to understand and accept that the majority of recovering sex and porn
addicts find that they cannot successfully maintain sobriety and move
forward in their recovery while keeping shameful secrets. You are likely no
exception. Step 5 must be worked!

Task for Today

Share a shameful secret in a meeting, with your sponsor, or with your
therapist.

MAY 2

Being Gay, Lesbian, or Bisexual Does Not Make You a Sex or Porn
Addict

Sex and porn addiction are unrelated to who or what it is that turns a
person on.

There is a widely held perception that people with non-traditional (i.e., non-
heterosexual) sexual orientations are, by nature, hypersexual—especially
gay and bisexual men. This is not in fact the case. In reality, gay and
bisexual men (and other members of the LGBT community) are no more or
less sexual than their straight counterparts. Perhaps some of this
‘oversexed’ belief arises from the fact that topics like ‘gay sex’ are still
attention getters in both the media and private conversations, despite the
many recent worldwide advances in the normalization of homosexuality
and homosexual behaviors. Either way, a person’s sexual arousal template
is not a factor in terms of identifying, diagnosing, and treating sex or porn
addiction.

Task for Today

Try to separate the nature of your primary sexual and romantic attractions
from your addiction.

MAY 3

The Pain That Drives Our Disorder

It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life.
Where we stumble, there lies our treasure.

Addictions form primarily because early-life traumas have poisoned the

well of interpersonal attachment. As Gabor Maté writes in his book, In the
Realm of Hungry Ghosts , “A hurt is at the center of all addictive
behaviors.” Basically, thanks to unresolved early-life trauma, we learn to
associate fear rather than comfort with human intimacy and attachment.
Thus, we refuse to turn to others, even loved ones, for help when we’re
struggling or feeling down. Instead, we compulsively and obsessively self-
soothe by numbing out with an addictive substance or behavior.

Task for Today

Tell a loved one about an unresolved wound from your childhood. Accept
the love, support, and empathy that person gives you in return.
 MAY 4

Creating a Sexual Sobriety Plan

It is not wise to leave a dragon out of your calculations if you live near him
.

Many sex and porn addicts new to the healing process openly wonder: “If
sexual sobriety doesn’t require lasting sexual abstinence, what does it
require?” Interestingly, there is no cut-and-dried answer to this question.
Each of us arrives in recovery with a unique life history and set of
problems, along with highly individualized goals for the future. Thus, each
of us, with the help of our therapist or sponsor, must craft a personalized
version of sexual sobriety. To do this, we must first delineate the sexual
behaviors that do and do not compromise or destroy our values (fidelity, not
hurting others, etc.), life circumstances (keeping a job, not getting arrested,
etc.), and relationships. We then commit in a written sexual sobriety
contract to only engage in sexual behaviors that are non-problematic (for
us). As long as our sexual behavior does not violate these highly
individualized boundaries, we are sexually sober.

Task for Today

If you do not have a sexual sobriety plan, create one. If you do have one,
review it with your therapist and your sponsor.

MAY 5

Can Teens Be Sex and Porn Addicts?

Most parents (and schools) are afraid to talk to kids about things like sex,
porn, and addictions.

Asking if teens can become sexually addicted is a bit like asking if they can
become alcoholic or drug addicted. Of course they can. In fact, they are
every bit as vulnerable as adults to addictions of all types—perhaps more
vulnerable because their emotional immaturity has prevented them from
developing healthy coping skills, and because adolescent brains are more
malleable (and therefore more easily wired toward addictive stimuli) than
adult brains. This may be even more true with sexual stimuli than other
stimuli, considering a primary evolutionary task of adolescence is focusing
on and learning about sex.

Task for Today

Think about how old you were when your sexual addiction kicked in?
Discuss this in therapy or a 12-step meeting.

MAY 6

But It Was Just a Webcam!

There is no more piercing betrayal than infidelity. People are undone by it.

As our world has moved increasingly into the virtual/digital arena, the once
clear line between sexual fidelity and cheating has, in many instances, gone
blurry. Generally, the question that begs to be answered is this: Is live, in-
person contact required for sexual infidelity, or does digital sexual activity
count equally? To answer this question, researchers conducted a survey of
individuals whose partners were engaging in significant amounts of
extramarital sexual activity, either online or in the real world. Probably the
most important finding of this study was that when it comes to the negative
effects of one partner having sex outside a supposedly monogamous
relationship, tech-based and in-the-flesh sexuality are no different. The
lying, the emotional distancing, and the pain of learning about the betrayal
all feel exactly the same to the betrayed partner.

Task for Today

Think about ways you’ve acted out sexually that you previously dismissed
as not cheating or not part of your addiction. In light of the information
above, do you now feel differently about those behaviors?

MAY 7

Stimulant Abuse Paired with Sexual Addiction

The feeling of having shared in a common peril is one element in the

powerful cement that binds us.

Cross and co-occurring addictions are relatively common with sex and porn
addicts. Stimulant drugs like cocaine and methamphetamine (aka, ‘meth’ or
‘crystal meth’) are often the co-occurring drug of choice. Alcohol, GHB,
MDMA, and various other ‘party drugs’ are also used in conjunction with
sexual addiction, but cocaine and meth are most prevalent. This is because
cocaine and meth allow users to be sexual for several hours (or even days)
at a time. Unfortunately, stimulant drugs (and most other drugs of abuse)
are highly disinhibiting, which means the user’s beliefs about the need for
safer sex may disappear when high, greatly increasing the risk for HIV and
other STDs, unwanted pregnancies, and numerous other life and health
consequences. Plus, stimulant abuse is highly destructive in its own right,
both physically and mentally.

Task for Today

Talk about your substance use/abuse with your therapist or in a 12-step
meeting. Ask for feedback.

MAY 8

Working Step 5

Addiction helps you keep secrets. Recovery helps you own them.

After we’ve completed our Step 4 inventories, many of us find ourselves

feeling lower than low and more alone than ever. Deeply ashamed of the
things we’ve done, we might think we’re the worst person on earth. And
now, with Step 5, we’re supposed to share the exact nature of our wrongs
with God, ourselves, and another person . Most of us would rather not do
that. Now some truth: If we do not work Step 5 with complete and total
honesty, our risk of relapse increases significantly.

Task for Today

I will look at any secrets I am keeping and I will ask myself why.

MAY 9

The ‘G’ Word

The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.

Some recovering sex and porn addicts, especially those new to recovery,
can get turned off by other addicts’ use of the word God during 12-step
recovery meetings. An easy way around this is to understand that 12-step
programs are not in any way religious, and they do not in any way try to
define how we should conceptualize God. So, when we see the word God,
we can substitute any other term that we are comfortable with—Spirit,
Goddess, Higher Power, or anything else. We should not get hung up on the
‘G’ word in ways that might interfere with our sobriety. Religious belief is
not a requirement for recovery.

Task for Today

Ask yourself what the word God means to you, and how you feel about
that. If you struggle with it, think of alternative terms that might work better
for you.

MAY 10

Developing Obstacle Immunity

Obstacles do not block the path. They are the path.

Life constantly presents difficulties—financial challenges, injury, illness,

flat tires, tornadoes, and all sorts of other crazy and totally unexpected stuff.
And most people, especially addicts, because we’ve spent our entire lives
avoiding rather than facing and overcoming challenges, are stuck when we
run into one. We don’t know how to overcome even the simplest of
obstacles because we’ve never done it before. The good news is that
anyone, even a recovering sex or porn addict, can develop what is known as
‘obstacle immunity.’ This is where we learn how to face and overcome
obstacles (usually because we’re doing it on a regular basis). When we
develop obstacle immunity, even the biggest problems don’t deter us. In
fact, they barely slow us down. Sometimes, we find that we actually enjoy
facing and overcoming them.

Task for Today

Pick an obstacle you’ve been avoiding and overcome it. If you need advice
or assistance, ask for it.

MAY 11

The Hawthorne Effect

Accountability breeds success.

Have you ever been jogging or riding your bike and you thought you were
doing great and then someone passed you? If so, what did you do in
response? You sped up, of course. Because that’s the natural human
response. When we have others around us, we put in more effort and get
better results. Scientists refer to this as the Hawthorne Effect. Whatever it is
that we’re trying to achieve, we’re more likely to get there when we have
others around us. Nowhere is this more true than addiction recovery.
Countless studies show that when we try to establish and maintain sobriety
on our own, we tend to struggle. But when we try to do the same in the
company of others, we’re likely to succeed. As recovering addicts, we do
better when we’re not alone—if for no other reason than the Hawthorne
Effect kicks in and we work harder.
Task for Today
Share your goals for recovery with trusted friends and family, knowing that
when the people around you know what your goals are, you’re more likely
to achieve them.

MAY 12

Entitlement

When we feel entitled to something, we’ll step all over someone else to get
it.

As sex and porn addicts, we often feel entitled to act out. We convince
ourselves that what we desire is no less than what we deserve, no matter
that we may be hurting loved ones and others in the process. Rather than
feeling grateful for our blessings, including the fact that many people do
love and care about us, we decide that they and everyone else owe us
something. We say, “Just look at all that I do for my family. I deserve a little
reward, a little something that’s just for me.” So we decide to get what’s
ours, no matter the consequences.

Task for Today

Identify a ‘lie of entitlement’ you’ve used to justify your addictive behavior.
Share that lie with another person. Ask for feedback.

MAY 13
Accepting Life on Life’s Terms

The first step toward change is awareness. The second step is acceptance.

The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous has a passage that states,

“Acceptance is the answer to all my problems.” This is as true for sex and
porn addicts as it is for alcoholics. One of our biggest triggers toward
sexually addictive behavior is wanting and trying to control a situation that
is not ours to control. As the AA Big Book says, “When I am disturbed, it is
because I find some person, place, thing, or situation, some fact of my life,
unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person,
place, thing, or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this
moment.” So, if we want to establish and maintain lasting sobriety, we need
to learn to accept people, places, and things exactly as they are.

Task for Today

Stay in your own hula hoop. If it’s not within the boundaries of your hula
hoop, don’t try to control it. Notice how your stress levels decrease when
you do this.

MAY 14

Love Addiction vs. Sex Addiction

Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping-stones to

success.

Love addicts use romantic fantasy and the intense neurochemical rush
caused by being ‘deeply in love’ to achieve the same type of escapist
emotional self-stabilization as sex addicts, and, as such, they are usually
just as detached from the reality of their situation. The primary difference
between sex addicts and love addicts is that sex addicts tend to direct their
attention toward whomever or whatever is in the vicinity, often chasing
multiple ‘fixes’ (anonymous sex, casual sex, affairs, porn, etc.) over a
relatively short timeframe, whereas love addicts tend to focus obsessively
on one person or relationship at a time. Typically, this one person becomes
the sole object of the love addict’s life. Recreation, friends, work, and other
interests fall by the wayside.

Task for Today

Think about the purpose of your sexual and romantic actions. Are you
seeking true connection or something else?

MAY 15

Working Step 5

Lies and secrets are cancer to the soul. They eat away what is good and
leave only carnage behind.

Plenty of recovering sex and porn addicts tell themselves that their most
distressing and disturbing behaviors should not be shared. Ever. Not even as
part of Step 5. In fact, plenty of us embark on Step 5 fully intending to omit
our most shameful behaviors. That said, a lack of complete honesty when
working Step 5 is not only unwise, it is downright dangerous. Continuing to
compartmentalize and hide from others the worst of ourselves creates
anxiety, depression, remorse, and more, all of which are emotions that can
drive us right back to active addiction.

Task for Today

See if your desire to recover is stronger than your shame.

MAY 16

Recognizing Sex and Porn Addiction

Sobriety costs nothing. Addiction taxes the soul.

The core signs and symptoms of sex and porn addiction are the same
regardless of age, race, gender, social history, and psychological
underpinnings. For starters, nearly all sex and porn addicts are excessively
preoccupied with sex. We obsess about it. We spend hours, sometimes even
days, fantasizing about it, planning for it, pursuing it, and engaging in it.
The majority of our decisions revolve around it, including what we wear,
which gym we go to, the cars we drive, and perhaps even the career path we
choose.

Task for Today

List three important decisions you made during your active addiction that
were based, either consciously or subconsciously, on supporting your
addiction.

MAY 17

Anonymity and 12-Step Meetings

The fears we don’t face become our limits.

Sometimes, especially when we are new to recovery, we resist the idea of

participating in 12-step sexual recovery groups. Usually, we’re worried
about a loss of privacy. This is somewhat ironic after our many years of
acting out sexually—often in very public ways like putting nude pics on
dating sites and hookup apps, hiring prostitutes, having affairs, using credit
cards on porn sites, etc. And now we’re suddenly worried about what other
people will think of our behavior? That’s a bit hypocritical, at best.
Moreover, the odds of being talked about after attending a 12-step meeting
are actually rather slim. Admittedly, 12-step groups are not as confidential
as a therapist’s office, but the word ‘anonymous’ is part of the title of every
12-step group, and anonymity is heavily talked about and encouraged in
meetings. And let’s be honest, if anyone sees us at one of these groups, it’s
because they’re there for the same reasons we are.

Task for Today

Go to a 12-step meeting. Don’t worry what others will think. Focus instead
on what you might gain from the experience.

MAY 18

Learning to Disagree in Healthy and Productive Ways

Honest disagreement is a sign of relationship progress.

Disagreements are inevitable in any relationship. And that’s a good thing.

Believe it or not, differing opinions can evolve into deeper relationship
intimacy. Plus, the desire to argue is a strong indication that a relationship is
worth saving. Think about it: Do you argue with people you don’t care
about, over topics you don’t care about? Probably not. The trick, of course,
is learning to resolve conflicts healthfully, in ways that strengthen rather
than diminish a relationship. If you are listening to and hearing the other
person’s side of an argument, that’s a very good sign. When that happens,
you are not fighting each other, you’re fighting the problem—as members
of the same team.

Task for Today

If you disagree with someone, ask them to explain their opinion and really
listen to what they say.

MAY 19

Exercise Can Rejuvenate Your Damaged Brain

The human body is the best possible picture of the human soul.

Addictions are a way to manipulate your brain chemistry so you don’t feel
stress, anxiety, depression, loneliness, and other forms of emotional
discomfort. Unfortunately, over time, addictions damage and rewire our
brains. If we stay sober, our brains tend to recover of their own accord, but
it can be a slow process. One way to speed things up is to exercise.
Research tells us that regular exercise boosts the size and function of the
hippocampus, the portion of the brain that controls verbal memory and
learning. It also fuels the development and growth of new brain cells and
blood vessels in the brain, especially in the prefrontal cortex and the medial
temporal cortex, the regions of the brain that control thinking and memory.
Exercise is so beneficial that Dr. John Ratey of Harvard Medical School
calls it ‘Miracle-Gro for the brain.’

Task for Today

Engage in at least 30 minutes of exercise and pay attention to how this
clears your mind.

MAY 20

Is Addiction Inevitable?

Things work out best for those who make the best of how things work out.

Some people are inherently vulnerable to addiction and some people aren’t.
Consider alcohol. Nearly everyone tries alcohol at some point in his or her
life, but only a small percentage become alcoholic. The same is true with
other potentially addictive drugs and behaviors. Many partake, but few
become addicted. So why can some people try certain things and walk away
unscathed when others cannot? Surely there must be some obvious, easily
spotted difference between healthy people and potential addicts, some tell-
tale sign that’s hard to miss? Well, there isn’t. There are factors that make
certain people susceptible (like childhood trauma and a history of addiction
within the family), but even these factors are not guarantees of addiction.
Nor is the lack of these factors a guarantee that a person won’t become
addicted.

Task for Today

Forget about the ‘why’ of your addiction. Focus instead on the basic fact
that you’re addicted and need to deal with that fact.

MAY 21

Cravings

The behavior of addicts is wholly irrational until you understand that

without help, we are completely powerless over our actions.

Addiction cravings are not the same as a non-addicted person craving a bag
of potato chips or a scoop of ice cream after a hard day at work. Addiction
cravings are more like the need for air after holding your breath for a
minute or more. Once triggered, addiction cravings are beyond conscious
control. They escape reason and logic. They are so powerful that they
simply overwhelm and take control of an addict’s thought process. As such,
incredibly smart people can make unbelievably irrational decisions about
the use and abuse of an addictive substance or behavior.

Task for Today

Remember a time when your craving for addictive sex caused you to
behave in ways you now regret. Ask yourself: “What could I have done
differently?”

MAY 22

Working Step 5
To have real conversations with people may seem like such a simple,
obvious suggestion, but it involves courage and risk.

To get started with Step 5, you must first select the person (or people) with
whom you will share your Step 4 inventories. As you do this, remember that
some of the information you divulge, for various reasons, should not
become public knowledge. Thus, the person you choose should be someone
you trust. Usually, this person is going to be your 12-step sponsor, which
makes a lot of sense since this is the individual most directly involved in
your recovery and your journey toward long-term sexual sobriety and
happiness. Your sponsor is also a person who understands what the steps are
about and values the confidential nature of a Step 5 disclosure. If you want
to work Step 5 with a person other than your sponsor, then a clergy
member, a therapist, or even a trusted friend will do just fine.

Task for Today

Make a list of at least five people you trust to always look out for you.

MAY 23

Carry Your Sexual Sobriety Plan With You

The path of recovery has many twists. It is wise to carry a map.

Sexual sobriety plans are created for three primary reasons:

1. To help us understand the nature of our addiction and to define

our personal version of sexually. addictive behaviors (inner
circle/boundary)
 2. To help us identify ‘slippery’ areas to watch out for (middle
circle/boundary).

3. To provide us with guidance when we are triggered and unsure

about what to do next (outer circle/boundary).
Knowing this, many of us choose to carry printed or digitized versions of
our sexual sobriety plan at all times. That way, when we are triggered, we
can look at our inner circle/boundary to see which behaviors are prohibited,
our middle circle/boundary to see where we are being slippery, and our
outer circle/boundary for a handy list of healthy alternative behaviors.

Task for Today

Create a portable version of your sexual sobriety plan and carry it with you.
Refer to it at least three times.

MAY 24

Addiction Consequences Build Over Time

Acceptance of addiction is the first step toward overcoming its

consequences.

Usually, sex and porn addiction build slowly over time. This makes it
difficult to clearly see the ways in which our lives have changed for the
worse. Consequences that even a casual outside observer could readily
identify as catastrophic can, for many of us, gradually become the norm.
Because of this, the insanity of our addiction can look perfectly normal to
us . It’s like placing a frog in a pot of warm water that is then set to boil.
Because the temperature rises only incrementally, the frog never even
realizes it’s being cooked.
Task for Today
Think about how your consequences started small and then escalated
without you really noticing.

MAY 25

Motivation and Long-Term Recovery

I survived because the fire inside me burned brighter than the fire around
me.

For long-term success in recovery, we must want change for ourselves,

rather than to mollify others or get out of trouble. Without an internal sense
of ‘I am doing this because I no longer wish to live this way,’ lasting
behavior change is unlikely. Trying to save a relationship, keep a job, and
stay out of jail are all great reasons to seek help, but the pain of a short-term
crisis inevitably lessens over time, while the desire to act out typically does
not. In other words, an in-the-moment crisis is useful motivation for
entering treatment and recovery, but it is not enough to keep us sexually
sober over time. Those of us who develop lasting recovery are generally
motivated to do so because we realize how empty and unfulfilling our lives
have become, and we decide that we want to live differently. If we appease
others in the process, that’s great, but that’s not what keeps us in recovery.

Task for Today

Think about why you want to recover. Are your motivations internal,
external, or both?
 MAY 26

Your Sexual Sobriety Plan: Consideration for Others

Sex and porn addicts don’t recover in a vacuum.

If we’re creating our sexual sobriety plan while single, we should do so

knowing that we may feel a need to revise our plan (or at least to explain
our plan) if and when we start dating—especially if the relationship seems
serious. If we are already in a relationship when we create our sexual
sobriety plan, we must consider how our new sexual and romantic
boundaries might affect our partner. Usually, simply explaining the
reasoning behind our new limitations tends to soften the impact.

Task for Today

Think about the ways in which your new sexual boundaries might affect
another person.

MAY 27

The Price of Shame

Left unchecked, shame will eat your soul.

Research shows that shame—the inherent belief that one is defective and
unworthy of love—neither encourages nor motives positive change.
Instead, it corrodes the hope and belief that one can change and live a better
life. Over time, as festering shame leaves its victims feeling isolated and
unlovable, those individuals begin to behave in ways that create that exact
situation. For these people, shame leads not to positive change, but to
behaviors that reinforce the shame. In cases of addiction, this shame cycle
feeds the addictive cycle, and both must be broken if we hope to recover.

Task for Today

Look for feelings of shame. When they occur, notice if you feel triggered to
act out.

MAY 28

Sex and Porn Addiction Do Not Discriminate

Right discipline consists, not in external compulsion, but in the habits of

mind which lead to desirable rather than undesirable activities.

For active sex and porn addicts, addictive behavior takes place no matter
what, regardless of outward success, intelligence, physical attractiveness,
existing intimate relationships, or anything else. Very often, feeling
shameful or fearful, we tell ourselves, “This is the last time that I am going
to behave in this way,” yet we are compelled to return to the same or a
similar sexual situation. And we do this regardless of past, current, or
continued consequences, including things like ruined relationships, trouble
at work or in school, loss of self-esteem, depression, anxiety, emotional and
physical isolation, financial issues, arrests, and more.

Task for Today

Think of three times you acted out in your addiction after telling yourself
you wouldn’t.
 MAY 29

Working Step 5

The truth will set you free.

If you’re like most recovering sex and porn addicts, you’ll find that as you
work Step 5 a sense of relief sets in. Grudges, resentments, fears, and shame
that have contaminated your soul for years miraculously vanish as soon as
the underlying events are exposed. Many recovering sex and porn addicts
state that completing the fifth step was the turning point in their recovery.
They say that sharing their deepest, darkest secrets not only with
themselves and God, but with another human being, caused them to feel as
if they were finally ‘a member’ of their 12-step fellowship.

Task for Today

Accept that the truth, ugly as it may be, is a vital part of your recovery.

MAY 30

Are You Addicted to Porn?

The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time
we fall.

Porn addiction occurs when a person loses control over whether he or she
views and uses pornography, the amount of time he or she spends with
pornography, and the types of pornography that he or she uses. Research
suggests that in today’s world most porn addicts spend at least 11 or 12
hours per week looking at (and usually masturbating to) porn—most often
digital imagery accessed via computer, laptop, tablet, smartphone, or some
other internet enabled device. And this 11 or 12 hours per week number can
be the low end of the spectrum. Many porn addicts devote double or even
triple that amount of time to their addiction.

Task for Today

Think about how much time each week you spent on porn in your active
addiction. Share about this with your therapist, sponsor, or in a meeting.

MAY 31

Willpower Alone Is Not Enough

Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.

Sex and porn addicts nearly always require outside assistance to recover. If
we could change things on our own, we would, but we can’t, so we don’t.
This need for outside assistance is present with all forms of addiction, not
just sex and porn addiction. And this is not surprising when we understand
the factors that drive the problem—primarily an unbroken cycle of triggers,
acting out, and denial. To overcome these dynamics, we need the insight
and the accountability that only an objective outsider can provide. Shame
and remorse about compulsive sexual behaviors and related consequences
are not enough to keep us from backsliding when challenged by emotional
and psychological discomfort. Willpower alone doesn’t cut it, and our
promises to change—made to ourselves and others—almost inevitably fall
by the wayside without therapy, 12-step recovery, or some other form of
external assistance.
Task for Today
Ask someone for help with an aspect of your recovery.

JUNE 1

Justification

Addicts are experts at creating ‘justifiable reasons’ for their actions.

Rudyard Kipling once (jokingly) wrote, “I never made a mistake in my life;

at least, never one that I couldn’t explain away afterward.” Active sex and
porn addicts seem to feel the same way, except we’re not tongue-in-cheek
as Kipling was. In fact, sometimes we’re busy creating justifications for our
bad behavior even as we’re engaging in that behavior. Before, during, and
after we act out, we tell ourselves lies like, “This is what all single people
do,” or, “I’m not damaging my relationship because my spouse will never
find out,” or, “If I was in a relationship I’d be having sex every day, so I
might as well have lots of sex while I’m not in a relationship,” or whatever.
The list of justifications is endless.

Task for Today

Identify a justification you’ve used to enable your addiction. Share it with
another person. Ask for feedback.

JUNE 2

Addiction Impacts Our Ability to Enjoy Life

Early recovery can feel hollow. The space we previously filled with
addictive substances and behaviors, once emptied, is just empty. And it
takes a long time to refill it with healthy stuff.

Sex and porn addicts share certain characteristics. One of these common
traits is that we try to use sex to bring intensity and excitement into our
lives. Unfortunately, as we continually and compulsively chase sexual
intensity, it becomes more difficult to experience the ‘high’ that we seek.
This is because our brains adjust, over time, to the excessive levels of
dopamine and adrenaline generated by our addictive sexual behaviors. Less
of these neurochemicals are produced, and it becomes more difficult for our
brains to receive those neurochemicals when they are produced. Essentially,
our brains adjust in ways that dim our ability to feel intensity the same way
we might dim the light in our dining room. So we need more sex or more
intense versions of sex to feel the excitement that we once enjoyed. This is
how sex and porn addiction (and all other forms of addiction) escalate.

Task for Today

Accept that your addiction caused your brain to adjust, and it will take time
(perhaps a year or more) for your brain to return to baseline.

JUNE 3

Working Step 6

If you do what you always do, you will get what you always get.

With Step 6, we become entirely ready to have our Higher Power remove
our defects of character. So, rather obviously, the first part of working Step
6 is figuring out what our character defects are. To this end, it is helpful to
re-read our Step 4 inventories with our sponsor, looking for patterns of fear,
dishonesty, greed, lust, jealousy, grandiosity, willfulness, sideways anger,
etc. As we go along, we can write down each individual character defect
that we spot. Once we have compiled our list, we can write, next to each
character defect, a corresponding trait that we’d like to replace it with. For
instance, if we identify ‘lust’ as a character defect, we could choose
‘relationship fidelity’ as something we aspire to. There is no set number of
character defects that we should be trying to identify. Our list will be as
long as it needs to be.

Task for Today

Pay attention to your character defects, and work to reduce their power.

JUNE 4

Is There a Right Way to Work the 12 Steps?

The correct path is the path that gets you where you want to go.

There are as many ways to work the 12 steps as there are people working
them. Rather than pretending there is one right way, or a best way, or even a
better way to work the steps, we will simply restate the advice we have
heard over and over in 12-step meetings: “Take what you like and leave the
rest.” If a suggestion makes sense to you, use it. If a suggestion does not
make sense to you, that doesn’t mean it is flawed, it just means it’s not the
right suggestion for you .

Task for Today

Ask at least one person in your 12-step recovery program for advice on
working the steps—either general advice about the steps or specific advice
about the step you’re currently working.

JUNE 5

Love is a Verb

There is only one happiness in this life, to love and be loved.

Most of us seem to think about love as a feeling. Love makes us feel dizzy,
silly, gooey, and just plain smitten. All at the same time. But ultimately,
longer-term, that’s not what love is. Long-term love is less of a feeling and
more of a verb. When you love someone, your actions reflect that love. You
are grateful for the relationship, you try your best to understand what the
person you love is feeling, you figure out ways the two of you can disagree
without creating rancor, and most of all you are honest and trustworthy with
that person. The best part about expressing love in this way—as a verb—is
that doing so tends to not only build lasting intimacy but to re-create that
wonderfully intense and enjoyable feeling of love.

Task for Today

Express your love as a verb. Put your love into action.

JUNE 6

Feeling Guilt, Remorse, and Regret

Guilt and remorse tell us that we should do things differently next time.
After we act out sexually, we often feel guilt, remorse, and regret about our
behaviors. We also recognize that we are powerless to stop the cycle of our
addiction, which causes further feelings of shame. Plus, whatever feelings
we were trying to escape by engaging in our addiction return, bringing with
them the self-loathing, anxiety, and depression sent us spinning into the
cycle of our addiction in the first place. And with that, our addiction is
triggered anew. Is it any wonder that we can’t seem to get sober without
help?

Task for Today

Think about what you feel like after you act out. Then ask yourself, “Is the
temporary emotional escape of acting out worth the aftermath?”

JUNE 7

Can a Behavior (Like Sex) Really Be an Addiction?

Sex and porn addiction are just as real and just as devastating as every
other addiction.

Today, most people readily understand the concept of substance addiction.

If they are not addicted to a substance themselves (to cigarettes, alcohol,
prescription medications, illicit drugs, etc.), they probably know someone
who is. At the very least, they’ve seen relatively accurate portrayals of
alcoholism and drug addiction on television and in the movies. Behavioral
addictions, however, are usually more difficult to fathom. Nevertheless,
people can and do become addicted to highly pleasurable, self-soothing,
dissociative behaviors just as often and just as easily as they become
addicted to highly pleasurable, self-soothing, dissociative substances—and
with similarly problematic results.

Task for Today

Compare your sexual behavior to a drug. What similarities do you see?

JUNE 8

The Shock of Betrayal

Trust can take years to build, but only a moment to break.

When our partners first learn about our infidelity and addiction, they are
nearly always emotionally traumatized. Even if they suspected that
something was amiss in the relationship prior to discovery, they are blown
away when they officially learn the truth. In fact, research shows that
betrayed partners who learn about their significant other’s cheating
typically experience stress and anxiety symptoms characteristic of
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). If you’re unfamiliar with PTSD, it is
a very serious, potentially life-threatening problem. Symptoms include
flashbacks, nightmares, severe anxiety, hyper-vigilance, and powerful mood
swings (including flashes of extreme anger, insecurity, and fear). So, if we
notice any of these behaviors in our partners, it’s our fault, not theirs. They
are simply responding in a very normal way to the pain and hurt that we
have caused.

Task for Today

Instead of reacting when a loved one gets angry, think about how you (and
your betrayal) may have caused that anger. And then respond with empathy
instead of rancor.

JUNE 9

Can an Atheist Still Recover?

There is an island of opportunity in the middle of every difficulty.

One long-recovering sex addict says, “As a devout atheist, I got hung up on
Step 3. But my sponsor just laughed and said to not worry about it. Then he
told me to read ahead to the first portion of Step 12. So I did that: ‘Having
had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps....’ Then my sponsor
said, ‘When you get to Step 12, if you feel like you’ve still not had a
spiritual awakening, we can talk about your atheism.’” As it turns out, the
addict and his sponsor never needed to have that conversation. Did the
addict find religion? No. Did he develop an understanding of God that
matches any of the popular views? Not really. Did he learn to stop worrying
about himself all the time and to start caring about others? Absolutely. That
was his spiritual awakening, and today it is the gift of recovery for which he
is most grateful.

Task for Today

Think about the fact that ‘spirituality’ and ‘religion’ are not necessarily the
same thing.

JUNE 10
Working Step 6

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time.
We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.

Step 6 reads: “We were entirely ready to have God remove our defects of
character.” At this point, many of us find ourselves wondering how we are
supposed to become entirely ready to have our Higher Power (however we
define that) remove our character defects? The answer is that we probably
can’t and won’t. The best we can really hope for is to try to become entirely
ready. If we make an honest effort in this regard and continue that effort on
a regular basis, the process gets easier. But no one has ever worked Step 6
to perfection, and no one ever will.

Task for Today

Try to become willing to relinquish a troubling character defect.

JUNE 11

What Is Sex/Porn Addiction Treatment?

Sometimes, accepting help is harder than offering it.

Generally speaking, treatment for sex and porn addiction relies on the same
basic strategies and techniques that work with drug and alcohol addiction.
Early treatment focuses on breaking through the addict’s denial, managing
the crisis or crises that drove the addict into recovery, and relapse
prevention. Techniques utilized typically include individual and group
therapy—most often a highly directive, behaviorally focused form of
psychotherapy like cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and/or dialectical
behavior therapy (DBT)—coupled with education, socialization, 12-step or
other addiction-focused social support, and various alternative therapeutic
modalities like art therapy, psychodrama, etc. Some addicts may also begin
a trial run of an antidepressant or antianxiety medication, as these
medications sometimes help to reduce not only depression and anxiety, but
cravings to act out sexually.

Task for Today

Ask yourself if you need help with your addiction. If so, what kind of help
are you willing to accept?

JUNE 12

The Challenge of Self-Defeating Behaviors

Why do we resist pursuit of the very things we say we want?

When other people procrastinate on important tasks, avoid pursuing goals
they repeatedly say they want, or slip back into addictive behaviors after a
period of sobriety, it’s easy for us to see how their good intentions and
commitments unraveled. But how aware are we of self-defeating habits in
our own lives? Usually not very. And it’s not an easy task to figure out why
we profess to value something so highly (like sobriety) but resist, ignore, or
distract ourselves from the work we need to do to achieve that goal. That
said, the process of truly understanding our motivations (and the roadblocks
we face) leads us to greater growth and healing. To that end, we may want
to seek feedback, guidance, and suggestions about our self-defeating
paradoxes from people who support us in our recovery (therapists,
sponsors, fellow recovering addicts).

Task for Today

Ask the people in your support network if they notice any self-defeating
patterns in your recovery. Listen respectfully and see if new ideas emerge.

JUNE 13

Acknowledging Feelings

Doing one very simple thing—validating your feelings—will change your

life in powerful ways.

Before choosing how to deal with intense feelings, a basic first step is to
acknowledge their presence, name them, and simply sit with them for a
moment. This validation of what we are feeling is a necessary first step
towards greater self-care. Rather than ignoring, avoiding, or invalidating a
feeling, we should greet it with kindness and tenderness, even striving to
have a sense of curiosity about what it is telling us. Allowing our feelings to
be real and present and giving ourselves permission to feel them and learn
from them can be a helpful, and perhaps necessary, step in our recovery.

Task for Today

Be open about what your feelings really are. Acknowledge and name them.
Share your insights with a therapist, sponsor, or close friend.

JUNE 14

Love Addiction Can Look a Lot Like Sex and Porn Addiction

Our greatest fear should not be of failure but of succeeding at things that
don't really matter.

Love addicts sometimes look and act quite a bit like sex addicts—engaging
in lots of sex with lots of people. However, love addicts use sex as a tool for
hooking and/or holding on to a romantic partner, whereas sex addicts tend
to do the opposite, using the lure of romance to obtain a sexual partner. In a
nutshell, love addicts are chasing escape and dissociation via romantic
fantasy and activity, while sex addicts are chasing escape and dissociation
via sexual fantasy and activity.

Task for Today

Journal about the goals of your sexual and romantic behaviors. How are
your actions at cross-purposes with your goals?
 JUNE 15

What Have You Missed?

A primary difference between addicts and non-addicts is non-addicts

change their behavior to meet their goals, while addicts change their goals
to meet their behaviors.

As active sex and porn addicts, we ignored the life we might have lived had
we focused on our true goals instead of our addiction. It is only when we
establish and maintain a year or two of sobriety that we begin to see and
understand how we were living and what it did to our outlook on life. When
we start recovery, we see the obvious consequences—ruined relationships,
reprimands at work, financial problems, legal woes, and the like. As we get
deeper into recovery, we begin to think about hobbies we used to enjoy,
things we wanted to accomplish, how we altered our values to stay in our
addiction, and all the hopes and dreams we had for ourselves and our lives
before our addiction ran us off the rails. The good news is that these things
are not forever lost. With long-term recovery, we regain our missing selves,
we reinstate previously discarded goals, and we start to live in ways that
just weren’t possible in active addiction.

Task for Today

Identify a goal you once had that you discarded in your addiction. Then
create a plan for accomplishing this goal.

JUNE 16

The Goal of Working the 12 Steps

Perfection is exhausting. Progress is invigorating.

We all have goals for recovery, and we all will inevitably fall short of those
goals. This is just fine. It’s not only acceptable, it’s expected. We are not
saints when we arrive, and we do not miraculously become saints just
because we’re working a program of recovery. Sometimes it helps to
understand that as recovering addicts, our real goal is to live sober lives one
day at a time and to do that a little bit better today than we did it yesterday.
In this way, we see that true recovery is more about progress than
perfection.

Task for Today

Think of ways in which you’ve fallen short of your goals even though you
tried. Then pat yourself on the back for trying. And then try again.

JUNE 17

Working Step 6

I can't change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always
reach my destination.

When working Step 6, it helps to realize that in letting go of our character

defects we are not ‘giving something up.’ Rather, we are learning to behave
differently and in ways that better serve us. Compiling a list of affirmations
can be useful in this regard. A good exercise for this is taking each of our
character defects and writing three to five positive statements about living
differently. These affirmations should be worded as if we’ve already
conquered the defect. As an example, with ‘dishonesty’ we might write:
 I tell the truth in all matters no matter what.

I no longer keep secrets.

I feel good about myself when I tell the truth.

Repeating these affirmations aloud at the start and close of each day is a
great way to realize that letting go of character defects really does result in
gain rather than loss.

Task for Today

Create three to five positive affirmations for overcoming your most pressing
character defect.

JUNE 18

Denial

It’s difficult to find truth within ourselves. It’s impossible to find it

elsewhere.

Nearly all sex and porn addicts engage in denial. Denial keeps us out of
touch with the process, costs, and reality of our addiction. We routinely
ignore the kinds of warning signs that would be obvious to a non-addicted
person. Often, we blame others for the consequences of our sexual acting
out. Basically, we are either unable or unwilling to look at and accept
responsibility for the destructive effects of our sexual behavior.

Task for Today

Stop blaming other people for your problems. Take responsibility.
 JUNE 19

Sex and Porn Addiction in the Digital Age

There is no chance, no destiny, no fate, that can hinder or control the firm
resolve of a determined soul.

Dr. Robert Weiss says he initially noticed tech-related sexual issues in the
early 1990s when online bulletin boards and porn sites first hit the web.
Prior to that, his clients were mostly hooked on real-world sexuality—serial
affairs, prostitutes, sex clubs and adult movie theaters, plus the occasional
guy hooked on phone sex. Then, when home computers and ubiquitous
internet connections came along, his clients were suddenly and primarily
engaging in tech-driven sexuality. And this tech-sex trend continues
unabated today, with digital-age addicts hooked on webcam sex, hookup
apps, digital pornography, virtual reality sex play, and whatever else R&D
departments can dream up. So, if we hope to establish lasting sobriety and
recovery, we must set and maintain healthy boundaries around our use of
technology.

Task for Today

Think about the ways in which technology is part of your addiction.

JUNE 20

The Value of a Daily Spiritual Practice

We should meditate for twenty minutes each day. Unless we are too busy.
Then we should meditate for an hour.
We might chuckle when we first hear the Chinese proverb quoted above,
but on second glance the thought it conveys has profound implications for
us. In fact, the practice of starting our day with some period (however brief)
of solitude, centering, meditation, prayer, and gratitude is routinely used
and recommended by almost all long-sober addicts. This type of morning
practice helps us to break habitual unproductive thought patterns, to set a
vision and mindset for the day, and to start our day with a sense of purpose.

Task for Today

If you haven’t attempted a daily spiritual practice, try a simple morning
routine on a trial basis to see if you find it useful.

JUNE 21

Asking for Help

Without external support, promises to change (made to self or others)

almost inevitably fall by the wayside.

If we could change our problematic sexual behaviors on our own, we

would, but we can’t, so we don’t. Generally, to begin the process of long-
term healing we must enter a sex and porn addiction treatment program, a
12-step sex and porn addiction recovery group, or both. This need for
outside assistance is not unique to sex and porn addiction. Addicts of all
types recover in the same basic way: by asking for help from
knowledgeable people who will guide them without judging them.

Task for Today

Ask someone in your sexual recovery support community for advice about
something (anything) that is bothering you.

JUNE 22

The Catch 22 of Sex and Porn Addiction

He was going to live forever or die in the attempt.

Sex and porn addicts share certain characteristics. One of these common
traits is that we fear intimate relationships but we continually search for
them. When we’re in a relationship, we feel enmeshed and burdened. When
we’re not in a relationship, we feel unwanted, unworthy, unlovable, and
incomplete. This ‘Catch 22’ keeps us mired in our addiction. We seek
validation and intimacy through sex, but then, when the other person gives
us what we want, we head for the hills. For this reason, many of us find it
difficult to have sex with the same person more than once. Sex is so
compartmentalized for us that even a tiny amount of connection or intimacy
is too much to handle. The good news is that part of recovery from sex and
porn addiction is learning how to slowly integrate healthy, enjoyable,
intimately connected sexual activity into our lives.

Task for Today

Think about the ways in which you’ve disconnected sex and emotional
intimacy, and how you might go about reconnecting them.

JUNE 23
Using the Meetings Between the Meetings

The most powerful tool of sobriety is talking to another recovering addict.

To establish and maintain long-term sexual sobriety, we need safe spaces in

which we can talk openly and honestly about our sex or porn addiction,
without fear or judgment. This is especially true after we’ve struggled with
a potential or actual relapse. The most logical place for this is before,
during, after, and between 12-step sexual recovery meetings. If no meeting
is taking place at the exact moment that we need support, we can reach out
to fellow group members via telephone or text for a quick (or longer) chat.
Usually, even the slightest contact with another recovering addict is helpful.

Task for Today

Get to your usual 12-step meeting at least 15 minutes early and stick around
for at least 15 minutes afterward.

JUNE 24

Working Step 6

God, grant me the serenity to accept the people I cannot change, the
courage to change the one I can, and the wisdom to know it’s me.

When working Step 6, many recovering sex and porn addicts ask: “If and
when I become entirely ready to have God remove my defects of character,
will he do it?” The answer to this question is a resounding “Yes!” Any
addict who’s achieved lasting sobriety is proof of this fact. However, those
same addicts will also tell you that God is not exactly in the business of
rendering us pure as freshly fallen snow and keeping us that way without
our active and relatively constant participation in the process. This means
that overcoming our character defects is an ongoing affair. Our Higher
Power will happily take away our shortcomings, and he will just as happily
return them whenever we’d like.

Task for Today

Focus on a character defect and work to change that behavior.

JUNE 25

None of Us Is Like the Rest of Us

Becoming whole means knowing where we come from, how we make

mistakes, and how we overcome things to make ourselves stronger.

Every sex and porn addict is different. Each of us has a unique life history,
specific problematic sexual behaviors, and singular goals for recovery.
Because of this, every sexual sobriety plan is different. Behaviors that are
deeply troubling for one sex or porn addict may be perfectly acceptable for
another, and vice versa. As such, there is no set formula for defining and
living in sexual sobriety. The key is for each of us to be totally, completely,
and brutally honest when formulating our sexual sobriety plan.

Task for Today

Stop comparing your sexual sobriety plan to the plans of others. Nobody
benefits from that type of judgment.

JUNE 26
What Does ‘Winning’ Mean to You?

I have failed over and over in my life. That is why I succeed.

Winning can mean different things to different people. For recovering

addicts, part of winning is staying sober. But usually there’s more to it than
that. Addicts in recovery also want to live better, happier lives. That might
look different for you than for your friends in recovery, and that’s perfectly
OK. But please don’t define winning as sitting on the couch eating bonbons.
Living an easy life is not winning. It’s not even trying. It’s sitting life out
and sinking into a very deep rut. Wait and want. Want and wait. It’s boring.
Finding a challenge, attacking it, and overcoming it is the way to think
about winning. It is also the key to living a better, happier life.

Task for Today

Overcome a challenge you’ve been avoiding. When you’re done, pay
attention to the sense of accomplishment this gives you.

JUNE 27

Shame as an Underlying Issue

Shame is like quicksand. It sucks us in and tries to kill us.

Nearly all sex and porn addicts are shame-based to one degree or another.
As such, we tend to enter recovery feeling as if we are not good enough to
recover and we don’t deserve to heal. And we continually point to our many
negative life experiences as proof of these ‘facts.’ Unsurprisingly, this
negative self-image is generally what created our addiction in the first
place, serving as the underlying driver of our desire to escape and numb out
through sexual fantasy and behavior.

Task for Today

Pick one thing you feel shame about and debunk that self-belief. If you
struggle with this task, ask a friend to help you.

JUNE 28

Sex Addiction is Not a Symptom of Bipolar Disorder, ADHD, OCD, or

Any Other Disorder

Addictions are not defined by behaviors; they’re defined by what those

behaviors do to your life.

Before a sex or porn addiction diagnosis can accurately be made,

professionals must first consider any number of major mental health
disorders that sometimes include compulsive or impulsive sexual behavior
as a symptom. Some of these include the manic stage of bipolar disorder,
obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and attention-deficit/hyperactivity
disorder (ADHD). This means that not every compulsively sexual person is
sexually addicted; hypersexual behaviors are legitimate symptoms of many
other disorders. That said, it is certainly possible to have one or more of the
aforementioned psychiatric conditions and to also be sexually addicted.

Task for Today

Consider the ways in which your sexual addiction interacts with and
impacts your psychological well-being (depression, anxiety, lack of focus,
etc.)

JUNE 29

Windows vs. Walls

It's discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how
few by deceit.

Sometimes therapists specializing in infidelity and couple’s work suggest

using the concept of ‘walls vs. windows’ as an analogy when helping
unfaithful partners understand what their betrayed spouses are thinking and
feeling. Dr. Shirley Glass explains this as well as anyone, writing, “You can
have intimacy in your relationship only when you are honest and open
about the significant things in your life. When you withhold information
and keep secrets, you create walls that act as barriers to the free flow of
thoughts and feelings that invigorate your relationship. But when you open
up to each other, the window between you allows you to know each other in
unfiltered, intimate ways.”

Task for Today

Do at least one thing that will help turn a wall into a window.

JUNE 30

Sexual Integrity

With integrity, you have nothing to fear since you have nothing to hide.
A primary goal for most recovering sex and porn addicts is developing what
Dr. Rob Weiss refers to as sexual integrity . Having sexual integrity does
not mean that our sexual behaviors must conform with some societal norm,
like only having sex in the missionary position with our legally married
spouse. Instead, sexual integrity is unique to each of us, based on our
background, values, and life situation. And nobody—not a therapist, not a
12-step sponsor, not a priest, not our mother—can or should dictate what
our personal version of sexual integrity should look like. That said, part of
having sexual integrity is understanding that others, most notably a loving
partner (if we have one), can and often will be affected by our sexual
choices. As we develop our sense of sexual integrity, we should keep that
tenet in mind.

Task for Today

Consider what sexual integrity might mean for you, including how your
definition of sexual integrity might impact others.

JULY 1

Connecting with Nature

How can you travel to the ends of the world and not pause to enjoy the
views?

Feeling isolated, separated, and disconnected are hallmarks of sex and porn
addiction. As recovering sex and porn addicts, many of us say we’ve felt
alone for as long as we can remember. A powerful way for us to realize we
are not alone and that we are in fact part of a vast interwoven universe is to
spend time in nature. Whether it’s something as simple as a walk in the
woods or as major as a trip to the Grand Canyon, nature shows us that
we’re all in this together. Birds need trees for their nests, trees need soil to
grow in, soil needs worms to churn it and nourish it, etc. Any look at nature,
no matter how simple, shows us that interdependence rather than isolation
is the natural state of being. This can be a helpful lesson for us to learn and
implement as part of our recovery.

Task for Today

Step outside for at least 15 minutes. Look at and appreciate the natural
wonders that you see.

JULY 2

Sex and Porn Addiction Mask Our Need for Intimacy

It is an absolute human certainty that no one can know his own beauty or
perceive a sense of his own worth until it has been reflected back to him in
the mirror of another loving, caring human being.

For most sex and porn addicts, sexual acting out masks not only day-to-day
stress and emotional discomfort but underlying issues related to a longing
for intimacy. Without the constant distraction of sexual fantasy and activity,
this longer-term condition can rise to the surface and cause intense feelings
of loneliness, fear, isolation, and unhappiness. These feelings are perfectly
normal and to be expected. After all, in recovery we inevitably find
ourselves grieving the loss of our primary relationship (our addiction), and
we naturally feel a need to replace it.
Task for Today
Think about what your addiction kept you from feeling. Was it an
unfulfilled longing for intimate connection? Talk about this in therapy or in
a meeting.

JULY 3

Sex Is…

“It was a mistake," you said. But the cruel thing was, it felt like the mistake
was mine, for trusting you.

Many sex and porn addicts believe that full-on penetration is required
before an activity qualifies as sex and, in turn, as infidelity. We say things
like, “If there is no penetration, it’s not sex, and if it’s not sex, it’s not
cheating.” Regardless of our thoughts on the matter, we know in our hearts
that our loving partner sees things differently. As far as our significant other
is concerned, hand-jobs, oral sex (both giving and receiving), heavy petting,
making out, and even just flirting can and do qualify as sexual/romantic
activity and cheating. We need to ask ourselves: “If my significant other
could watch all of my behavior, are there parts that he or she would object
to?” If the answer to this question is yes, then what we are doing almost
certainly qualifies as infidelity, even if we’d like to think it doesn’t.

Task for Today

Debunk at least one lie you told yourself to justify your addictive behavior.

JULY 4
Step 7 as a Mantra

The most necessary element of change is awareness of the need for change.

Step 7 reads: “Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings.” Usually

this is done as part of a prayer—either the seventh step prayer or a more
general prayer. However, the ‘God’ language of this step can be a sticking
point for many recovering sex and porn addicts. One useful suggestion if
we run into this roadblock is that instead of praying to a Higher Power, we
can simply state aloud—as a mantra—our desire to have our character
defects removed. Usually, the mere realization that our character defects
exist, coupled with the contrary action of saying aloud that we would like to
be rid of them, results in significant progress.

Task for Today

Use Step 7 as a mantra rather than a prayer. Pay attention to whether and
how that works for you.

JULY 5

Porn Addiction, With or Without Real-World Sex

The process of discovering who you are begins with knowing who you don't
want to be.

Nearly every digital-age sex addict has looked at porn, and most of us
would likely (if we were completely honest) self-identify as using it
compulsively. Often, we couple our porn use with compulsive masturbation
and various forms of non-intimate partner sex such as webcam sex, sexting,
anonymous sex, casual sex, affairs, prostitution, exhibitionism, voyeurism,
etc. That said, porn addiction can be a standalone form of compulsive
sexuality. In fact, in today’s world many of the people new to sex and porn
addiction recovery have never been sexual in the real world with another
person. Their sex life and sexual compulsivity have, from day one, been
exclusively linked to porn.

Task for Today

Stop judging the sexual behaviors that brought you into recovery against the
sexual behaviors that brought others into recovery.

JULY 6

Porn-Induced Erectile Dysfunction: A Common Consequence of Porn

Addiction

When you stop chasing the wrong things, you give the right things a chance
to catch you.

Porn-Induced Erectile Dysfunction (PIED) is a common consequence of

porn addiction in males. Often, male porn addicts can achieve erections and
orgasms with porn, but they struggle when they’re with a real-world
partner. Many such men say they can only maintain an erection and achieve
orgasm with a real-world partner, even someone to whom they feel deeply
attracted, by replaying porn clips in their mind during the sexual act.
Moreover, a significant percentage of male porn addicts say they prefer
pornography to real-world sex, finding it more intense and more engaging.
For these men, real-world romantic and sexual relationships can be difficult,
even when such relationships are deeply desired.

Task for Today

Consider your relationship with porn versus your relationship with an actual
partner. Talk about this in therapy, with your sponsor, or in a 12-step
meeting.

JULY 7

Why Do So Many Sex and Porn Addicts Have Cross and Co-Occurring
Addictions?

Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortune; great minds rise above
it.

Sex and porn addicts aren’t the only addicts prone to cross and co-occurring
addictions. The simple fact is that whatever the addiction—sex, drugs,
alcohol, gambling, eating, spending, or anything else—the motivation is the
same. We want to feel better, which actually means we want to feel less
(i.e., to control what we are feeling). And addictive substances and
behaviors all happily oblige by altering brain chemistry in ways that
temporarily distract us from stress, emotional discomfort, and the pain of
underlying psychological conditions like anxiety, depression, attachment
deficit disorders, and unresolved early-life or severe adult-life trauma.
Anything that gets us numb is potentially addictive.

Task for Today

Take a look at not just your sexual behavior, but your use of alcohol, drugs,
food, gambling, spending, etc. Do you use any/all of the above for purposes
of escape?

JULY 8

Minimization

Pretending that a problem is not a problem will not make it go away.

Sex and porn addicts are masters of denial. We blame, we justify, we

rationalize, and we minimize. Essentially, we look at our problematic
actions and unilaterally decide that no, they’re not really so problematic. We
tell ourselves lies like:

I’m no different than any other single person in today’s world. All
of us are logged on to hookup apps 24/7, waiting for our iPhones
to buzz and let us know that somebody wants to have sex.

Being sexual with multiple people in a single day is normal, or

maybe I’m just better at hooking up than other people are.

What I’m doing with porn is not a big deal, and the people who
think it is are just being prudes.

Task for Today

Identify at least one way in which you’ve denied the nature and
consequences of your sexual acting out. Then share that with someone in
your support network and ask for feedback.
 JULY 9

Are You Grateful?

It is impossible to be grateful and unhappy at the same time.

Dr. Brené Brown, a research professor at the University of Houston,

conducted thousands of in-depth interviews examining the causes and
underlying factors of happiness, and she found one primary difference
between happy people and unhappy people. That difference? Happy people
are grateful for what they have, and unhappy people aren’t. Dr. Brown
further found that people who are grateful for what they have tend to focus
on their strengths rather than their weaknesses, are more hopeful, are less
stressed out, are less likely to wallow in shame and depression, and are
more likely to recover from serious life issues (such as addiction and
serious illness).

Task for Today

Find a person with long-term sobriety and ask that person to share his or her
most recent gratitude list. Are you grateful for some of the same things?

JULY 10

Enjoy the Small Victories

Aim for the sky but move slowly, enjoying every step along the way.

As anyone in recovery knows, the big wins—the massive moments of

success—don’t happen overnight. The process of recovery and healing
occurs one day at a time. Sometimes one minute at a time. We don’t just
decide to get sober and live a better life and repair broken relationships and
suddenly our lives are wonderful. We have to do the work. And the work
can be a bit of a grind sometimes. That’s why it’s important for us to pause
and recognize our small victories. Small wins help us see our progress,
however minute, and to stay motivated for the next challenge. Small wins
build confidence. Small wins help to rebuild the addiction-damaged
circuitry in our brains. When we celebrate a small victory, we’re on our way
to another one, and that is the constant progress that pushes us forward to
the big breakthroughs.

Task for Today

Identify a recent small victory and celebrate it. Then identify your next
small victory and begin to work toward it.

JULY 11

Step 7: Progress Not Perfection

Perfection has one grave defect; it is apt to be dull.

Many long-recovering addicts say their Higher Power can and does remove
their character defects when asked. The problem is that their Higher Power
will also return those defects, without charge, any time they want to re-
engage with them. In this way, Step 7 is a prime example of the much-used
12-step adage: progress not perfection. Sometimes our progress occurs in
leaps and bounds; other times it is so incremental as to hardly be noticeable.
Either way, the primary goal of Step 7 is that our character defects will
become less of a problem over time.

Task for Today

Accept that your imperfections are a part of you, but they don’t have to rule
you.

JULY 12

Becoming Vulnerable

Real people experience both pain and joy. That’s how they know they’re
real.

Vulnerable people are authentic people. Rather than pretending to be

someone they are not, they are sincere. They know who they really are,
warts and all, and they are not afraid to show that to others. They walk
away from situations in which they cannot authentically be themselves.
Becoming vulnerable and authentic is a worthy goal for every person,
especially recovering sex and porn addicts, because it is the opposite of
what we do in our addiction. Addiction leads us to isolation. Vulnerability
and authenticity lead us to intimate connection.

Task for Today

Be your authentic self. In public. Consequences be damned.

JULY 13
Setting Healthy Boundaries

You get what you tolerate.

As part of recovery, we must set healthy boundaries with anyone who was
part of our active addiction. Unfortunately, we often think that setting
boundaries is about putting limits on other people’s behavior. For those of
us who tried to do that (i.e., all of us), we quickly learned that it doesn’t
work. Other people don’t want to be controlled by us any more than we
want to be controlled by them. Healthy boundaries are actually about our
own behavior , not the behavior of others. Healthy boundaries recognize
that the only behavior we can control is our own.

Task for Today

Think of at least one recent occasion where you wish you’d said, “You are
not my problem to fix,” and then minded your own business.

JULY 14

Understanding Covert Incest

An important difference between overt and covert incest is that while the
overt victim feels abused, the covert victim feels idealized and privileged.
Yet underneath the thin mask of feeling special and privileged rests the
same trauma and the same rage, anger, shame, and guilt.

Covert incest, also known as emotional incest, is the surreptitious, indirect,

sexualized emotional use and abuse of a child by a parent, stepparent, or
caregiver. In contrast to overt sexual abuse, which involves hands-on sexual
contact, covert abuse involves less direct forms of sexuality—sexuality that
is emotionally implied or suggested rather than overtly acted out. Though
there may be little to no direct sexual activity, these overly enmeshed
relationships have a sexualized undertone, with the parent expressing overly
graphic verbal interest in the child’s physical development and sexual
characteristics or betraying the child’s boundaries through voyeurism,
exhibitionism, sexualized conversations, inappropriate sharing of intimate
stories or images, and similar behaviors.

Task for Today

Think about the familial relationships in your life. Were you covertly
sexualized as a child? Have you covertly sexualized a child in your adult
life?

JULY 15

Know Your Goals

What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you
become by achieving your goals.

If you don’t know where you want to go, you’ll never get there. This is true
in all aspects of life, including addiction recovery. Many successful people
choose to treat all aspects of their lives like a journey, where they want to
reach the finish line and they’ve got a clear plan for getting there.
Sometimes they describe this as finding their ‘true north’ and using that as
their guide. They program their true north destination into their internal
GPS, and that keeps them on a productive path. And true north is about
more than getting sober. Sure, getting sober is a great goal, but the true
north destination to program into your internal GPS should be something
like ‘living a healthier and happier life.’ That is a much larger and more
meaningful goal than simple sobriety.

Task for Today

Find and define your true north. Program that into your internal GPS.

JULY 16

Playing the Victim

If you continually view yourself as a victim, you continually ignore the

blessings of the day.

Many sex and porn addicts, even though our sexual behaviors are clearly
harming not just ourselves but our loved ones (and possibly others),
somehow see ourselves as the victim. This is a form of denial. We insist that
we feel overwhelmed by and at the mercy of others in our lives, and that
sexual fantasy and activity gives us a sense of control that we don’t
otherwise feel. We see ourselves as overburdened by the demands of others
—especially those close to us—for support, validation, attention, etc.
Unfortunately, feeling like a victim leads to feeling entitled to act out,
which leads to the behavior itself.

Task for Today

View yourself as an active participant in your life and your addiction, rather
than as a victim.
 JULY 17

Sex Addiction is Not About the Sex

We all have pain. And we all look for ways to make the pain go away.

Most non-sex addicts think that having sex is the ultimate goal of sexual
addiction. But it’s not. Our real goal is the fantasy-fueled escape and
dissociation we experience when we’re in ‘the bubble.’ As such, most of us
try to put off actual sex and orgasm for as long as we possibly can because
orgasm ends our escapist high and pushes us back into the real world with
all of its issues and problems. The simple truth is that in our addiction we
are looking to escape emotional discomfort, not to experience the pleasure
of orgasm. Stated another way, sex addiction is not about the sex.

Task for Today

Think about what you are usually feeling before you act out. Most likely,
it’s some form of emotional discomfort rather than a desire for pleasure.

JULY 18

Step 7 and Humility

Let us not look back in anger or forward in fear, but around in awareness.

Humility is often conflated with humiliation, but they are not the same
thing. Humiliation does sometimes lead to humility, but it is certainly not
necessary. Humility occurs when we see the truth of our life and our place
in the world. Humility is the art of being ‘right sized,’ neither too big (self-
entitled, grandiose, etc.) nor too small (ashamed, unworthy, defective, etc.)
Working Step 7 is an act of humility. Often, this is the first time we realize
humility is not the same as humiliation and groveling despair. Instead, it is a
state of peace, grace, and acceptance of life on life’s terms.

Task for Today

Consider the ways in which humility leads to serenity.

JULY 19

How Do We Get to Carnegie Hall?

Nothing in your life will work unless you do.

Once upon a time, a sportswriter called baseball star Joe DiMaggio ‘a

natural.’ DiMaggio was annoyed. The next time he saw the reporter, he
walked him to his practice space, where he kept a log of his arduous
practice routine. Like other famous athletes, musicians, writers, comedians,
etc., DiMaggio was great not because he was a natural, but because he
practiced relentlessly. This is also how lasting sobriety and recovery works.
We learn skills in therapy and 12-step recovery, and we continually and
relentlessly practice those skills. Eventually, as the twelfth step promises,
we are able to maintain sobriety and to practice the principles of recovery
and healing in all aspects of life.

Task for Today

Pick a tool of recovery and practice it.
 JULY 20

Triggers

Addiction is not rational. It is culture, habit, and craving.

Triggers are the thoughts and feelings that induce the strong desire—the
craving —to engage in an addictive behavior. When addiction cravings set
in, it is very difficult to stop the addictive cycle. This is why we sometimes
find it so hard to remain sober, despite our best efforts. Unfortunately,
almost anything can be a trigger—stress, anxiety, boredom, loneliness,
depression, seeing an attractive person, a whiff of perfume, a sexy
billboard, a scene in a movie, driving through an area where we once acted
out, running into an old affair partner, the noise our phone makes when we
get a text message, etc. Triggers are everywhere. In recovery, we must learn
not only to identify them, but to combat them.

Task for Today

Identify your three biggest triggers and develop a plan for dealing with
them in a healthy way. Make sure that your plan includes talking about your
triggers with your recovery support network.

JULY 21

Why We Lash Out

It is clear that we make our own misery.

In our addiction and as recovering people, we sometimes hurt the people we
love by trying to ‘help them’ when we’re really trying to punish them or
upset them. Usually, we do this when we feel ashamed, anxious, or
depressed. What we want is attention and understanding for how we’re
feeling, but instead of asking for a loved one to meet this need, we lash out,
hoping to make the other person feel as terrible as we do. This odd and
somewhat perverse tendency is not the sole purview of addicts and
recovering addicts, but we do tend to engage in this behavior more often
than ‘normies.’ And when we do, it pushes people away from us rather than
bringing them closer, which is what we actually want from them. The more
we are aware of this tendency, the more actions we can take to stop
ourselves from doing it. Usually, the best possible action we can take is to
tell our friends and family members what we’re thinking and feeling so they
can respond with the love and empathy we want and need.

Task for Today

Tell the truth about what you are thinking and feeling. Notice how people
respond when you do this.

JULY 22

Make 12-Step Meetings Non-Negotiable

The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, it’s to schedule your
priorities.

One recovering sex addict with a demanding job, a spouse, and three kids
says that he still manages to make it to a 12-step meeting every day. For
him, meetings are non-negotiable. No matter what else is going on in his
life, he finds a meeting and gets there. This doesn’t mean life doesn’t
occasionally happen in unexpected ways. A kid gets sick, a tire goes flat,
the power goes out, etc. When faced with situations like these, the addict
reminds himself that if he is not sober, he is no good to himself or anyone
else. He says, “I have to fix myself before I can fix the world.”

Task for Today

Go to a meeting no matter what. And while you’re there, participate.

JULY 23

The ‘Need’ to Escape

Addicts are people who are trying to escape from a reality in which they are
not.

Addiction is often referred to as a disease of perception. Even when the

people around us are loving and supportive, we struggle to see it that way.
Instead, we choose to feel abused and put-upon by others. In this way, we
blame our desire to escape and dissociate (by using an addictive substance
or an addictive behavior, such as sex or porn) on the attitudes and actions of
other people, thereby using (and often exaggerating) external experiences
and connections as a way to justify and validate our addictive behavior.

Task for Today

Think about the ways in which you perceive the world and other people.
Are your perceptions accurate?
 JULY 24

Setting Clear and Concise Sexual Boundaries

If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.

In sexual recovery, we create clear and concise sexual sobriety plans to

define what sexual sobriety means for us and to provide ourselves with
guidelines for living a healthier, happier life. These plans are written and
signed as contracts to help us hold ourselves accountable to our
commitments, particularly in the face of challenging circumstances. When
we lack clearly written sexual boundaries, we are vulnerable to deciding in
the moment that certain activities are OK for now even if they’ve been
wildly problematic in the past. We need to remember that impulsive sexual
decisions made without clear guidelines are what dragged us down in the
first place, so it’s best not to leave any wiggle room in our sobriety plans.

Task for Today

Identify the loopholes and gray areas in your sexual sobriety plan and ask
your therapist or sponsor to help you pin down more precise language.

JULY 25

Working Step 7

You can’t change what you refuse to confront.

In Step 6, you identified your character defects and became willing to live
without them. Step 7 is the logical continuation of that effort. With Step 7,
you begin the process of getting rid of those shortcomings. In most respects
this is a relatively straightforward procedure. You simply incorporate into
your daily spiritual practice (prayer, affirmations, and whatever else it is
that seems to work for you) a request that your Higher Power remove your
character defects. If there are shortcomings that are particularly irksome to
you at any given time, it is helpful to mention them specifically.

Task for Today

Pick a character defect you’d like to be rid of and ask your Higher Power to
help you with that.

JULY 26

Sex/Porn Addiction Treatment is Not an Attempt to Enforce Morality

Your opinions are your windows to the world. Scrub them off every once in
awhile, or the light won't come in.

In some quarters, there is a fear that sex and porn addiction therapists are
trying to be the ‘sex police,’ imposing moral, cultural, or religious values on
sexuality. Sadly, this fear is not entirely ungrounded; there are indeed some
moralistic or highly religious therapists who misuse and misapply the sex
addiction diagnosis, using it to marginalize and pathologize sexual
behaviors that don’t mesh with their personal or religious belief systems.
Homosexuality, bisexuality, transgenderism, recreational porn use, casual
sex, polyamory, and fetishes—all of which fall well within the spectrum of
‘normal’ and ‘healthy’ adult sexuality—have at times been misdiagnosed as
sex or porn addiction. In reality, however, the things that turn a person on
are completely unrelated to a sex or porn addiction diagnosis.
Task for Today
Think about your personal beliefs about the types of sex that are and are not
healthy. Do your beliefs exactly match the beliefs of others in your life?

JULY 27

It’s OK to Have Fun

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

It is easy for recovering sex and porn addicts to become so focused on 12-
step meetings and therapy that we forget that life is meant to be enjoyed. As
many of us eventually learn, forgetting about things other than recovery
eventually becomes problematic. Recovery begins to feel like a chore rather
than a privilege. To avoid this pitfall, we must spend quality time with
family, enjoy a hobby, play games, exercise, enjoy sports, travel, and
engage in all sorts of other enjoyable activities. Doing this is an essential
part of the long-term healing process. Sure, sometimes we feel like we don’t
deserve to have fun. When these feelings crop up, it is important to
remember that having fun is part of the daily medicine of sobriety. So,
regardless of whether we feel that fun is deserved, we must accept that it’s
necessary—if for no other reason than it recharges our batteries in ways that
allow us to do the less enjoyable work of recovery.

Task for Today

Do something fun. Just because you want to. Pay attention to how this re-
energizes you.

JULY 28
The Etiology (Formation) of Addiction

We are not addicted to a substance or a behavior. We’re addicted to

escaping reality.

When our early-life caregivers are absent, impaired, anxious, neglectful,

inconsistent, intrusive, overbearing, or similarly unreliable in terms of
creating a consistent sense of safety, we orient during our formative years
not to security but to threat and danger. This experience (more about
surviving than thriving) stunts our ability to confidently explore the world
and to grow in healthy ways. Moreover, we tend to feel anxious about self,
others, and the world. We consistently feel insecure, and as we grow into
adulthood, we learn unhealthy, maladaptive ways to cope with that
insecurity—including the use of addictive substances and behaviors as a
way to ‘numb out’ and not feel our emotional discomfort.

Task for Today

Share about an episode of childhood trauma in therapy or a 12-step
meeting.

JULY 29

The Pink Cloud

Let your joy scream across the pain.

Some sex and porn addicts experience the opposite of withdrawal in early
recovery. This is known as the honeymoon or the pink cloud . These lucky
individuals find that when they embark on the path of healing, they
suddenly lose all desire to act out. They are fascinated by the insight they
are developing and thrilled to have finally found a solution to their deepest
problem. This temporary phase of early recovery is great while it lasts.
However, sex and porn addicts who are ‘riding the pink cloud’ should be
aware that their desire to act out will return, and it may be stronger than
ever when it does. If this eventuality is not anticipated and prepared for, it is
easy to either relapse or to think that something has gone wrong in the
healing process. In reality, there is no need for relapse, and nothing is amiss
with recovery. This is a normal part of the process; the addict is simply
experiencing a delayed form of withdrawal.

Task for Today

Create a plan for handling emotional adversity while staying sober. Discuss
this plan with your therapist or sponsor, asking for suggestions.

JULY 30

Sex and Porn Addiction are Not the Same Thing as Sexual Offending

There is not a crime, there is not a dodge, there is not a trick, there is not a
swindle, there is not a vice which does not live by secrecy.

Sexual offending involves non-consensual or illegal sexual behavior. This is

not the same thing as sex or porn addiction. Yes, the behavior of some sex
and porn addicts does escalate into sexual offending—usually lower-level
offenses like exhibitionism, voyeurism, viewing illegal pornography, and
prostitution. Nevertheless, sexual offending is not indicative of sex or porn
addiction, and sex and porn addiction are not indicative of sexual offending.
Task for Today
Think about the ways your addiction has escalated and whether you’ve
engaged in any offending behaviors.

JULY 31

Focusing on What Really Matters

Action expresses priorities.

When asked how life is going, people sometimes say they are
overwhelmed, or that there are not enough hours in the day, or that their
plate is overly full. This is understandable. Sometimes life comes at us all at
once. These times of stress are unavoidable. It’s also possible that we have
unintentionally taken on too much responsibility by not judiciously saying,
“No, thank you.” So, just as we need to occasionally clear away the clutter
on our computer desktops and the physical clutter in our offices and homes,
we need to clear away time-eating clutter by saying no to things we don’t
want to do or that we don’t have time to do. Clearing away what is not
essential reveals our deeper priorities and frees us to act on them.

Task for Today

Think about how many ‘browser tabs’ are open in your life right now. Is
some judicious pruning in order?

AUGUST 1

Step 8
The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.

Step 8 reads: “Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing
to make amends to them all.” Thus, there are two parts to working Step 8:
(1) making a list of who we’ve harmed and how we’ve harmed them; and
(2) becoming willing to make amends when the time is right. Please note:
Step 8 is not where we actually make our amends. That’s Step 9. And we
should never embark on Step 9 without first discussing our Step 8 list and
readiness with our sponsor, therapist, or spiritual advisor. Jumping the gun
and making amends before the time is right often causes problems—
problems that require even more amends. So we need to be patient, making
our list and discussing it at length before proceeding.

Task for Today

Whatever you are facing or desiring, be willing to wait until the time is
right.

AUGUST 2

Developing Non-Sexual Friendships

Friends are the people you can think out loud in front of.

As active sex and porn addicts, we typically have very little going on in our
personal lives other than our addictive behaviors and maybe a badly
damaged primary romantic relationship. But we rarely realize this until
we’re sexually sober for a few months. Twelve-step support groups and
other healing-based communities can help remedy this. But we must do
more than just go to meetings. We need to reach out to other group
members and form friendships. This means arriving early, staying late, and,
most importantly, going to fellowship (usually by getting coffee or
something to eat after the meeting ends). When this happens, we can talk
about recovery, and we can also talk about other things we may have in
common—movies, sports, gardening, theater, raising kids, politics, or
anything else of interest. In short, we develop much needed non-sexual
friendships that help us heal and recover.

Task for Today

Spend at least a few minutes of purely social time with your fellows in
recovery.

AUGUST 3

The Desperation of Sex and Porn Addiction

Addiction is a half-suicide where you slowly kill your soul with a poisonous
substance or behavior.

Sex and porn addicts share certain characteristics. One of these common
traits is that the desperate quality of our need (to feel wanted, needed,
validated, worthwhile, etc.) makes true intimacy—the one thing that can
actually meet these needs—impossible. Rather than searching for and
working to develop emotional connection and intimacy with another
person, we compulsively seek the quick fix we get with sex or porn. Then,
as soon as the sexual action is over, because our needs have not truly been
met, we’re back where we started. It’s like trying to fix physical hunger
with a bag of potato chips. It may satisfy our craving for food in the
moment, but we get very little in the way of lasting nourishment, so we’re
hungry again a short while later.

Task for Today

Find a way to nourish your soul, rather than relying on the quick fix.

AUGUST 4

Finding the Right 12-Step Meetings

Decisions are easy when you know what you value.

Not every sexual recovery meeting is the same. Yes, most meetings are
based on the same basic literature and follow the same basic format. But
some meetings are either mostly or entirely attended by men (or women).
Some meetings are speaker meetings, where only one person talks, while
others are discussion meetings, where anyone can share. Some meetings
allow crosstalk (feedback between members) while others strongly
discourage it. Some meetings read and discuss the 12 steps or specific
literature; other meetings encourage people to talk about whatever is on
their mind. Knowing this, sex and porn addicts new to recovery should
attend a variety of meetings to see which ones work best for them , keeping
in mind the fact that their needs may change over time.

Task for Today

Attend an unfamiliar meeting, just to see if you like it.

AUGUST 5
Understanding the Treatment Process

Adopt the pace of nature. Her secret is patience.

It is not unusual for sex and porn addicts, when we start treatment, to expect
that much of the work we do in therapy or rehab will focus on the
identification and resolution of childhood issues. That is not in fact the case.
Even though addressing early-life trauma is often an aspect of sex and porn
addiction treatment, it’s just one among many, and it’s typically not an
initial priority. Other concerns, like stopping problem behaviors, breaking
through denial, and developing a basic understanding of addiction, are far
more important in the early stages of recovery. Once we’ve established and
learned to implement the concrete tools and life-skills we need to stay
sober, our therapist may, if we so desire it, explore the issues that typically
underlie addictions, such as childhood neglect, abuse, and trauma. But that
should not happen in-depth until we’re on solid ground with our sexual
sobriety.

Task for Today

Stop worrying about why you’re addicted and focus on what you’re going
to do about it.

AUGUST 6

Living Life Right Here, Right Now, With Just What We Have

We gain power and control by accepting reality.

It may be an enduring aspect of human nature to always want a better

situation for ourselves and our loved ones. We hope for more money to
suddenly come our way. We wonder if an irritating coworker will call in
sick today. We wish that traffic would miraculously clear up. Etcetera.
Addicts who’ve been in recovery a while often smile when a newcomer
shares such wishful thoughts. Then the old-timers will gently refocus the
discussion to a deeper, more profound truth: that sobriety is about living life
on life’s terms. While it’s tempting to wish we had some advantage in a
situation that stumps us, the best we can do is to reach out to trusted
advisors for advice and then give it our best effort. Accepting our situation
exactly as it is immediately gives us more power—power that is wasted by
endlessly wishing we magically had more of some resource.

Task for Today

When you feel overwhelmed and find yourself thinking, If only… , find a
way to accept and face the situation as it is.

AUGUST 7

The Neurobiology of Addiction

The only significant difference between substance addiction and sex/porn

addiction is that substance addicts ingest alcohol or drugs to create an
emotionally escapist neurochemical reaction, whereas sex/porn addicts rely
on an intensely pleasurable fantasy or activity.

Addictive substances and behaviors trigger the same basic neurochemical

pleasure response—primarily the release of dopamine, along with
adrenaline, oxytocin, serotonin, and a variety of endorphins—resulting in
feelings of pleasure, excitement, control, and, most importantly, distraction
and emotional escape. Over time, some of us learn that the easiest way to
avoid feelings of stress and emotional discomfort is to ingest an addictive
substance or engage in a highly pleasurable (and therefore potentially
addictive) behavior. Eventually, we begin to use these substances or
behaviors not to feel better, but to feel less (i.e., to control what we feel).
This is a sure sign of addiction.

Task for Today

Think about the real reason you compulsively turned to sex or porn: to
‘numb out’ emotionally.

AUGUST 8

Step 8: Making Your List, Checking it Twice…

We must develop the capacity to forgive, especially the ability to forgive

ourselves.

The first part of Step 8 is compiling a list of the people we have harmed, not
forgetting to include ourselves on the list. Reviewing our Step 4 inventory
is a great place to start when compiling this list. Most of the names on that
list will also appear on our Step 8 list, but some may not, and new ones will
likely be added. Our list should include more than just the injured person’s
(or institution’s) name. We should also write the specifics of the harm done,
along with how the aggrieved party reacted to the situation (anger, fear,
distrust, depression, etc.)

Task for Today

Think about why you belong on your Step 8 amends list.
 AUGUST 9

Spirituality: The Unexpected Gift of Recovery

First of all, we had to quit playing God. It didn't work.

As one long-sober sex addict recounts: “When I came into sexual recovery,
all I wanted was to minimize the consequences of my behavior. I wanted all
my problems to go away so I could go back to my normal life (including
my addiction). I was not looking to change my behavior, and I certainly
wasn’t interested in the ‘spiritual awakening’ that Step 12 promises. Well,
things didn’t work out as planned. I got flattened by consequences. At the
same time, because I stuck with recovery, I had a gradual spiritual
awakening. Today, I’m grateful for the consequences I experienced because
they kept me in the program, without which I wouldn’t have the one thing I
now value most in life: a spiritual connection.”

Task for Today

Think about your recovery as a spiritual journey, rather than a means to an
end.

AUGUST 10

Sexual Sobriety Plans: The Need for Honesty

Sometimes, it takes incredible strength and courage to admit the truth.

Creating an effective sexual sobriety plan, sometimes referred to as a circle
or boundary plan, requires brutal honesty on the part of not just the addict
but the addict’s advisors. Unfortunately, if we want to continue with a
particular behavior, no matter how problematic, we can usually convince
someone to agree that it’s not such a big deal and to sign off on it. If we and
our advisors cannot (or will not) see the truth of our situation, our
problematic behaviors will continue and our life will not get better. So, as
we craft our sexual sobriety plan, we need to remember that the purpose of
that plan is to bring an end to the incomprehensible demoralization wrought
by our addiction, not to justify its continuation.

Task for Today

Take an honest look at whether you’re keeping any secrets about your
addiction as a way to create leeway for acting out.

AUGUST 11

Addiction Destroys Daily Life

The cycle of addiction is a downward spiral. It’s like flushing our lives
down the toilet.

Sex and porn addicts share certain characteristics. One of these common
traits is that we tend to become immobilized by sexual and romantic
obsessions. As a result, we neglect important aspects of our lives. We lose
interest in family ties and friendships. We separate ourselves from
previously enjoyable hobbies and activities. We ignore basic aspects of self-
care, like eating healthy food, going to the gym, or getting enough sleep.
Work loses its importance and we get reprimanded, not promoted, or fired.
We become socially and emotionally isolated. We lose touch with reality.
And we do not act on these blatantly obvious problems, so our lives
continue to spiral downward.

Task for Today

Find one consequence of your addiction that you’ve previously ignored and
deal with it in a healthy way.

AUGUST 12

Willful Ignorance

We’re not in denial. We’re just selective about the reality we accept.

For some of us, denial is so deep and so powerful that we somehow manage
to stay blissfully unaware of the nature and extent of our problematic sexual
behaviors—even when those behaviors escalate to the point of ruining our
relationships and our lives. Basically, we find ways to ignore the
seriousness of our actions so we can continue with those actions. And this
willful ignorance can go on for years. In fact, when confronted in the early
stages of treatment and recovery with something as elemental as an adult-
life sex and relationship history, many of us are shocked to finally
‘discover’ the extent and depth of our addictive behaviors.

Task for Today

Think of at least three ways you ignored the seriousness of your addiction.
Share these in therapy or a 12-step meeting.
 AUGUST 13

Early Sobriety Can Be Uncomfortable

Every flower must grow through dirt.

Most sex and porn addicts experience extreme emotional discomfort in

early sobriety. And why would we not? After all, addictive sexuality has
been our primary way of coping with any and all discomfort—including
feelings as seemingly benign as boredom—for years on end. When our
addiction is taken away, we no longer have this easy means of numbing out
and escaping. And without that, we must face our emotions head-on. For
people like us, people who’ve been trying to ‘not feel’ for years or maybe
even decades, this can be an incredibly uncomfortable experience.

Task for Today

Pay attention to your emotional discomfort. Be willing to sit with it while
staying sober.

AUGUST 14

Love Addiction Does Not Lead to Love

All true progress takes place outside the comfort zone.

Love addicts, like sex and porn addicts, are largely in denial about the
problematic nature of what they are doing. Rather than recognizing that
they are the common denominator in their endless failed relationships, love
addicts place the blame on their dates, lovers, partners, spouses, and anyone
else with whom they’ve ever become entangled. Sometimes they become
intensely controlling and demanding, trying to get their partner to love them
the way they want to be loved, regardless of whether the other person is
actually capable of doing that (and almost nobody ever is). Then, when that
person inevitably fails them, they act out romantically once again,
beginning anew their obsessive search for ‘the one.’ Over time, their willful
blindness to personal experience traps them in a downwardly spiraling
cycle of behaviors that both causes and increases their unhappiness.

Task for Today

Write down three ways your addiction has pushed you away from lasting
love and intimacy. Share your list in therapy or a 12-step meeting.

AUGUST 15

Step Eight: Examining Your Feelings

Genuine kindness does not have ulterior motives.

After we’ve created our Step 8 amends list, writing down who we’ve
harmed and how, we must examine our current feelings about each situation
on our list, acknowledging emotions like guilt and shame, along with any
lingering anger or resentments we may have. Next, we must examine our
motives for making each specific amends. If our goal is simply looking
good in the eyes of others, then we are not yet willing (the second part of
Step 8) to make that amends.

Task for Today

Consider your motives in all that you do.
 AUGUST 16

Using the Three-Second Rule

A man is but the product of his thoughts. What he thinks, he becomes.

As recovering sex and porn addicts, we are not in control of the thoughts
that pop into our minds. What we can control is what we do with those
thoughts once we become aware of them. After recognizing an unwanted,
objectifying thought or sexual fantasy, we can allow ourselves a maximum
of three seconds to turn away from it and focus on something else.
Typically, as soon as we become aware of the triggering thought, we ‘turn it
over’ to our Higher Power, asking for the thought to be removed. This
process works, and works well, even for those of us who struggle with the
concept of God or Higher Power. The simple act of doing something
(anything at all) to get rid of the unwanted thought or fantasy nearly always
does the trick.

Task for Today

Pay attention to your thoughts, especially your sexual thoughts, and how
long you allow them to stick around.

AUGUST 17

Why We Use Sex and Porn Addictively

Addiction helps us imagine that we have some kind of mastery over life’s
difficulties.
Sex and porn addicts share certain characteristics. One of these common
traits is that we seek oblivion through compulsive porn use and sexual
behaviors. We use sex and porn as distractions and time-killers—as an
escape from living life on life’s terms. And we’re not alone with this.
Alcoholics don’t drink to socialize and have fun; they drink to numb out.
Drug addicts don’t use to enjoy time with friends; they use to turn off the
negative chatter in their heads. Similar statements could be made about
compulsive gambling, compulsive spending, and eating disorders. All
addictive behaviors are driven by a desire for emotional escape, not
pleasure. Sex and porn addiction are no different in this regard.

Task for Today

Choose to live in reality, whatever reality looks like and feels like.

AUGUST 18

Climb the Mountain

The greater the obstacle, the more glory there is in overcoming it.

In a lot of ways, life is a mountain. It’s big, it’s beautiful, and it’s got all
sorts of wonderful hidden surprises. It can also be treacherous. There are
rocks, ravines, mud, weather, and all sorts of other completely unexpected
obstacles to overcome. The trick to succeeding in life and in recovery is not
just appreciating the mountain but mastering it. But how do we master the
mountain? The answer is simple: We develop new skills and we learn to use
those skills in ways that help us not only survive but thrive. That is the crux
of recovery. We learn a skill for staying sober, we practice it, we master it,
and then we learn another skill for staying sober. Before we know it, we’ve
got a great big set of skills we can turn to whenever we feel challenged.

Task for Today

Accept and implement a recovery focused suggestion you have heard
repeatedly but resisted. In so doing, you will learn a new skill for staying
sober.

AUGUST 19

Sexual Attraction in a Recovery Setting

To overcome, one must stay focused on the goal and outcome, not the
momentary distractions.

Unsurprisingly, many sex and porn addicts new to treatment and recovery
find themselves sexually or romantically attracted to people in their therapy
group or their 12-step recovery group. This is the addiction fighting back,
trying to take control once again. It is important for recovering addicts to
not act on these feelings. A much better option is to discuss the attraction
with someone who is not involved, usually the therapy group facilitator or a
12-step sponsor, though anyone who is actively involved in sexual recovery
will do. Eventually, these feelings of attraction pass, and we are always glad
we did not act on them.

Task for Today

Be honest with your therapist and sponsor about your current sexual and
romantic attraction(s).
 AUGUST 20

Does Technology Fuel Your Addiction?

Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.

As both scientific research and anyone who’s been in 12-step sexual

recovery meetings for more than a few years can attest, with every advance
in digital technology, more and more people are challenged by sex and porn
addiction. Consider that studies conducted in the 1980s suggest that 3 to 5%
of the adult male population was sexually addicted. By 1999, that
percentage had approximately doubled, to 8.5%. Today, though we don’t
have an updated percentage from researchers, it is clear that sex and porn
addictions continue to escalate. Stated simply, as digital technology has
increased our highly affordable, mostly anonymous, nearly instant access to
potentially addictive sexual imagery, activity, and partners, sex and porn
addiction have become more problematic and widespread. Today, it would
be difficult to find even one sex or porn addict who hasn’t been involved in
some way with online sexuality.

Task for Today

Consider installing ‘parental control software’ on your digital devices. Ask
your therapist and sponsor if they think this might be helpful.

AUGUST 21

Broken Picker Syndrome

A good relationship is about finding the right person, and also being the
right person.
Sex and porn addicts share certain characteristics. One of these common
traits is that we are often drawn to people who are not available to us, or
who would reject or abuse us. It may be that we’ve compartmentalized sex
to the degree that we cannot allow it to mix with emotional intimacy or
other forms of healthy connection. It may be that our self-esteem is so
damaged that we search out only the people we think we deserve. It may be
that we are subconsciously repeating patterns of neglect and abuse that we
learned in childhood as a way to take control of them (even though they’re
long in the past and therefore can’t be controlled). Whatever the reason, our
‘pickers’ are broken, and we’ll need to do quite a bit of work in therapy and
with our 12-step sponsor to overcome this deficit. The good news is this
type of healing and recovery is possible if we put in the effort. We really
can find the mutually loving, prodependent relationship we’ve been hoping
for.

Task for Today

Put your romantic life on hold while you figure out and correct the flaws in
your approach.

AUGUST 22

Step 8: It’s for You, Not Them

The first step in forgiveness is the willingness to forgive.

For many recovering sex and porn addicts the second half of Step 8—
becoming willing to make amends—is incredibly difficult. And when we
think about it, this is perfectly natural. After all, most of the people who
show up on our amends list have, at some point, behaved badly toward us,
making it very easy for us to seize upon their wrongdoings as a way to
excuse our own poor behavior. If we find ourselves doing that, we needn’t
beat ourselves up over it. Instead, we can simply recognize our feelings and
remind ourselves that Step 8 is not about them, it’s about us . We are
working the 12 steps for our recovery, not theirs.

Task for Today

Ask yourself if you are making changes in life to further your recovery or to
get on the ‘good side’ of others.

AUGUST 23

Misdiagnosing Sex Addiction

God doesn’t call the qualified. He qualifies the called.

Unfortunately for sex and porn addicts, the process of locating a qualified
treatment specialist is not always easy. For starters, a basic understanding of
sex and porn addiction is not a standard part of the training for most
psychotherapists. As such, sex and porn addicts sometimes encounter
therapists who are unfamiliar with compulsive sexual behavior but
knowledgeable about various related and co-occurring issues, most notably
depression and anxiety. These clinicians often correctly diagnose and treat
these secondary issues while never quite touching on the addict’s primary
problem—the addiction—simply because they don’t know how to diagnose
or address it. It is actually relatively easy for therapists who are not trained
to deal with compulsive sexual behavior to misidentify the issue as a mood
disorder or an early-life trauma reaction.
Task for Today
Ask a therapist (yours or just someone you know) what he or she knows
about sex and porn addiction. Has that therapist received
training/certification for treating compulsive sexual behaviors?

AUGUST 24

Recovery Is Not a Solo Sport

Love is not the icing on the cake of life. It is a basic primary need, like
oxygen or water.

We enter the world completely reliant on other people for shelter, nutrition,
and emotional support (love), and these core requirements to do not change
as we grow older. What keeps us healthy as children also keeps us healthy
as adults. Even during adolescence, when we tend to individuate from our
families, we don’t move toward isolation. Instead, our dependence needs
shift from parents and family to peers and eventually to lovers. Yet
somehow, as we move into adulthood, our intrinsic need for emotional
connection gets discounted, especially if we have an addiction that we can
use to replace that need. This is to our detriment. In fact, research has
shown time and time again that isolated/separated individuals suffer both
emotionally and physically.

Task for Today

Let at least one other person help you with your recovery.

AUGUST 25
If We Want to Heal, We Must Do the Work of Healing

It’s not what you say to everyone else that determines your life; it’s what
you whisper to yourself that has the greatest power.

Sex and porn addicts share certain characteristics. One of these common
traits is we somehow think that other people can make us feel worthwhile
and complete. We endow them with some magical ability to fix us and
make us happy. Often, that magical quality disappears immediately after we
have sex with them. Either way, as part of recovery we need to accept that
other people can’t fix us or make us happy. Sobriety and happiness are both
an internal job. We establish sobriety and find happiness by accepting who
we are, being grateful for the life we have (no matter how messed up our
life happens to be at any given moment), and being a better person today
than yesterday.

Task for Today

Think of a time when you hoped someone else could fix you. Share in a
meeting how that worked out.

AUGUST 26

Nontraditional Sexual Interests

Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart.
Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.

Lots of sex and porn addicts have an interest in kink, fetishes, same-sex
activity, etc. And many of us would prefer that our partner not know these
‘dirty little secrets,’ worried we might be rejected because of it. So we
secretly act out our desires. We tell ourselves lies like, “Getting a spanking
from a sex worker isn’t cheating because the sex worker never actually
touches me. So what if I masturbate immediately afterward?” If we find
ourselves justifying infidelity with thoughts like these, we should think
about honesty with our partner. If it’s a fetish we’re into, our partner might
surprise us by agreeing to indulge it. If it’s same-sex behavior (and our
primary partner is of the opposite sex), our partner is likely to at least
appreciate our honesty. It’s possible that he or she will even allow it within
certain limits, though it’s more likely that he or she will view it the same as
any other form of cheating. What we know for sure is that our partner won’t
support continued lying and secret keeping.

Task for Today

Share a secret sexual desire with your partner, in therapy, or in a 12-step
sexual recovery meeting.

AUGUST 27

Shame Resilience

We are only as sick as our secrets.

In her book Daring Greatly , Brené Brown writes, “Shame resilience is

about moving from shame to empathy—the real antidote to shame. If we
can share our story with someone who responds with empathy and
understanding, shame cannot survive. Self-compassion is also critically
important, but because shame is a social concept—it happens between
people—it also heals best between people.” This is why sex and porn
addicts have so much trouble healing on their own. Without the empathetic
support provided in group therapy, 12-step sexual recovering meetings, and
the like, shame will continue to fester and to drive the addiction.

Task for Today

In therapy or a support group, share about one of your worst sexual
moments.

AUGUST 28

Developing Empathy for Your Partner

Beautiful souls do not just happen.

As sex and porn addicts, we tend to hurt the people we love. The single
biggest step we can take toward repairing our broken relationships involves
empathy. Empathy, in case you are wondering, is the ability to understand
and share the feelings of another sentient being. This is something that most
addicts are naturally bad at. The good news is that even though emotional
empathy does not come easily to most of us, it can be developed with
practice. The bad news is that learning to decipher another person’s
thoughts and feelings is not easy, and it doesn’t happen overnight. Our
betrayed loved ones will know we’re working on empathy when they can
tell we’re really listening to them, and when they hear us say things like, “I
sense that you’re feeling some anxiety right now. Is that correct? And if it
is, can you explain what you’re anxious about? I really want to understand
what you’re feeling.”
Task for Today
Pay attention to what your loved ones are feeling and saying. If you are
unsure of their feelings, ask.

AUGUST 29

Step 8: Finding the Willingness to Make Amends

The willingness to do creates the ability to do.

For many recovering addicts, the second half of Step 8—becoming willing
to make amends—is incredibly difficult. Sometimes we struggle for days,
weeks, months, or even years before we find the requisite willingness. If we
find ourselves battling old anger and resentments in this way, we might try
praying (as sincerely as possible) for the other person’s health and well-
being every morning and night for two weeks. Most of us find that doing
this greatly diminishes lingering resentments. Positive affirmations like, “I
am willing to make amends for my behavior, regardless of the actions of
others,” can also be helpful. Usually, if we say this enough, we start to
believe it.

Task for Today

Think of a long-held resentment and take at least one step toward releasing
it.

AUGUST 30

Young People and Porn Addiction

Internet Rule 34: If it exists, there is porn of it. Corollary rule: Children will
find it.

Once upon a time, porn addiction in kids was much less likely, mostly
thanks to a lack of accessibility. Prior to the internet, finding and looking at
porn took work. A kid had to surreptitiously raid his (or her) dad’s stash of
dirty magazines or grab something off the rack at the local gas station when
the attendant wasn’t looking. The options were extremely limited, and kids
mostly played sneak-a-peek with whatever porn they could find. So, pre-
internet, the odds of a child getting hooked on porn were close to zero. The
lack of access to sexual content prevented potential problems. Today? Not
so much. Sexual content of every ilk imaginable can be easily and instantly
accessed by anyone who’s interested, regardless of age.

Task for Today

Consider using an internet filtering software to protect not just yourself but
your family.

AUGUST 31

Misguided Thinking

Addiction is the cause of, not the solution to, our unhappiness.

As active sex and porn addicts, we rarely viewed our escapist sexual
fantasies and behaviors as the cause of our unhappiness and life challenges.
Even when we were neck deep in consequences, we somehow didn’t let
ourselves think about our sexual acting out as a contributing factor. In fact,
we typically saw our behavior as the solution to rather than the cause of our
emotional discomfort and various life problems. When life went wrong for
us, our addiction seemed to us to be the one sure way to escape it. And we
continued with this unhelpful pattern until a crisis hit—and sometimes we
stuck with our addiction even after a crisis.

Task for Today

Think of three ways to cope with your problems that don’t involve sex or
porn.

SEPTEMBER 1

Sex and Porn Addiction: The Perfect Storm

Just when the caterpillar thought the world was ending, he turned into a
butterfly.

Addictions (of all types) are typically caused by a combination of genetic

and environmental risk factors. For instance, a mixture of genetic
predisposition, addicted parents, childhood trauma, and early exposure to an
addictive substance or behavior occurs relatively often, creating a witch’s
brew of ongoing life problems—not just addiction, but numerous other
emotional and psychological issues. If early-life sexual trauma (either overt
or covert) is part of the mix, the odds of sexual addiction vs. another
addiction are greatly increased. Unfortunately, knowing what has caused
our addiction does not in any way help us to establish and maintain
sobriety. Longer-term, dealing with these issues is certainly helpful, but
early in recovery the ‘why’ of addiction is mostly irrelevant.

Task for Today

Stop worrying about why you are addicted. Focus instead on what you’re
going to do about that fact.

SEPTEMBER 2

Incremental Improvement

A river cuts through a rock not because of its power, but because of its
persistence.

As Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu says, “The journey of a thousand miles

begins with one step.” This is a principle that recovering addicts must live
by. But it’s not an easy principle for most of us to accept and follow. As
active sex and porn addicts, we got very used to instant gratification,
preferably on a large and intense scale. As recovering addicts, we need to
learn patience. On days when this is difficult, we simply need to focus on
the next right step. Taking the next right step, whatever it might be, gets us
one step closer to our goals. It also gives us a sense of accomplishment that
recharges our batteries enough to take the next next right step. Eventually,
step-by-step becomes mile-by-mile, and before we know it, we’ve reached
a milestone.

Task for Today

Stop trying to get well all at once. Choose to be happy with the incremental
progress you’re making.

SEPTEMBER 3
Step 9: Proceed with Caution

A word, once uttered, cannot be whistled back in.

Step 9 says that as part of our recovery we should make direct amends to
people we have harmed whenever possible, except when to do so would
injure them or others. The last portion of that statement, urging caution with
this step, is incredibly important. It may be that the harm you have done to
someone is so severe that simply seeing you again would cause that person
more harm. It may be that the person you have harmed is unaware of your
behavior and making them aware will cause them significant pain. It is also
possible that approaching someone and admitting your behavior could stir
up the proverbial hornets’ nest, putting your job, your family, or your
freedom in jeopardy. In such cases, direct amends should only be
undertaken after much careful consideration by you and your sponsor, plus
consultation with anyone else (especially family members) who might be
affected.

Task for Today

Think about the people you have harmed and how making an amends might
affect them, your family, yourself, and others.

SEPTEMBER 4

Purposeful Recovery

Sex and porn addicts, like everyone else, were put on this earth to live their
greatest self.
The way in which sexual sobriety is defined is not set in stone. Rather, it
varies depending on the addict and his or her unique goals and life
circumstances. As such, the content of sexual sobriety plans also varies
depending on the person. Whatever the definition of sobriety and whatever
the boundaries in a sex or porn addict’s plan, the purpose is to hold that
addict accountable to his or her commitments to recovery and healing—
particularly when faced with challenging life circumstances, emotional
pain, and other powerful triggers.

Task for Today

Reflect on your goals for sexual recovery—the real reasons you want to
change.

SEPTEMBER 5

Going to 12-Step Sexual Recovery Meetings

I build today the road that I travel tomorrow.

Active sex and porn addiction are all about living in the problem. Recovery
is all about living in the solution. And 12-step sexual recovery meetings,
more than any other venue, are where we are most likely to hear about and
learn about the solution. These meetings keep us focused on healing,
dealing with life one day at a time, developing continued sobriety, and other
aspects of lasting recovery. Even when meetings digress and focus more on
the problems than the solutions to addiction, they are helpful as reminders
of the misery we’ve experienced and why recovery is so important.
Task for Today
Focus on the solution, not the problem.

SEPTEMBER 6

Did You Gaslight a Loved One?

Gaslighting is used to shift the blame for bad behavior onto the person who
is being victimized.

Gaslighting is a form of psychological abuse that involves the presentation

of false information followed by dogged insistence that the information is
true. Over time, gaslighters cause their loved ones to feel crazy and to
question their perception of reality. As recovering sex and porn addicts,
most of us think we couldn’t have pulled that off because our partners are
way too smart to fall for it. But in reality, that’s not the case. Mostly this is
because our lies start slowly and believably, such as, “I’m sorry, honey, but
I have to work late tonight and won’t be home until midnight.” Over time,
as our lies escalate, our partners grow accustomed to more outrageous
stories, such as, “I told you during breakfast on Friday I was going away for
work for the weekend. You must have still been half asleep when I told
you.”

Task for Today

Consider the lies you told your partner and how those lies escalated over
time.

SEPTEMBER 7
LGBTQ Shame and Sexual Addiction

If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.

Some (though certainly not all) gay and lesbian sex and porn addicts
present in treatment with ego-dystonic (self-loathing) feelings related to
their sexual orientation. Sometimes they openly wish that they were not
attracted to members of the same sex. In such cases, therapists must let
these individuals know that sexual orientation is fixed and any attempts to
change it are pointless. Gay men are sexually and romantically attracted to
other men, lesbians are sexually and romantically attracted to other women,
bisexuals are sexually and romantically attracted to both genders, and
heterosexuals are attracted to the opposite sex. Period. And no amount of
aversion therapy, talk therapy, social pressure, or prayer is going to change
that. Certainly a person can choose to not act on his or her same sex
attractions, but choosing to not indulge such an attraction does not mean it
will go away.

Just for Today

Work on accepting (and maybe even celebrating) your own or another
person’s sexual orientation.

SEPTEMBER 8

Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life

Life is 10% what happens to us, and 90% how we choose to think about it.

Gandhi once said, “A man is but the product of his thoughts. What he
thinks, he becomes.” This is as true with sex and porn addicts as with
anyone else. The perspective we have about the world and our place in it
determines who we are and how we live our lives. If we think positively
about our recovery, we will take action and be sober. If we focus on failure,
we will stagnate and fail. When we transform our thinking patterns from
negative to positive, we turn ourselves into people who are no longer
controlled by external factors. We live the way we think. We take our power
back.

Task for Today

Face your challenges with a smile, expecting to overcome them.

SEPTEMBER 9

Do You Struggle with Gratitude?

Even the worst parts of your life have contributed to your growth, so you
can be grateful even for those moments.

When we first embark on the process of recovery and healing, our lives are
typically in shambles. Our relationships, finances, work life, and even our
freedom may be in jeopardy. So it is unsurprising that when we are asked to
embrace an attitude of gratitude, we sometimes struggle. We simply can’t
find anything to be grateful for. In such cases, we should start out with one
thought: I am grateful to be sober at this moment. Then we can add little
things that seem silly—the sun is shining, there is food in my pantry, I have
a roof over my head, etc. Over time, with practice, finding things to be
grateful for gets easier, and so does staying sober.
Task for Today
Ask yourself if you are grateful to be sober at this moment.

SEPTEMBER 10

Step 9: More Than Just Saying “I’m Sorry”

To make a mistake is an error in judgment. To adhere to it when it’s

discovered is a flaw of character.

Step 9 says that as part of our recovery we should make direct amends to
people we have harmed whenever possible, except when to do so would
injure them or others. But what exactly is an amends? Sometimes
recovering addicts think that simply saying, “I’m sorry,” is sufficient. It
isn’t. That’s an apology, not an amends. At the very least, we need to say,
“I’m sorry, and I’m working hard to not behave that way again in the
future.” Other times, we may need to repay, or promise to repay, money that
is owed, in addition to giving an apology and asserting that we are changing
our behavior. In all cases, an amends is more than just an apology. The most
important part of any amends is the follow up of not making the same
mistake again.

Task for Today

Think about the longer-term behavior changes that are part of making a
proper Step 9 amends.

SEPTEMBER 11
Understanding the ‘Anticipatory High’

Emotional escape, however it’s induced, is the goal with all addictions.

The high of sex and porn addiction comes from fantasy and anticipation
more than actual sex. For an analogy, consider a cocaine addict on payday.
After receiving his check, he runs to the bank to exchange it for cash, then
dashes off to his dealer’s house to buy drugs with money that he actually
needs for food, rent, childcare, and the like. As he approaches the dealer’s
house, his heart races, he’s sweating, and he is so obsessed and preoccupied
with using that he doesn’t even notice the police car parked a block away.
He is so completely focused on cocaine that the day-to-day world, with all
of its problems and obligations, has temporarily receded. Is he not high
already, even with no drugs in his system? Think about it. He has escaped
from his life, his decision making is distorted, and he has lost touch with
reality. It doesn’t matter that there are no actual drugs in his system because
his brain is pumping out dopamine, adrenaline, and other pleasure related
neurochemicals as if there are. This is the exact same anticipatory high that
sex and porn addicts experience.

Task for Today

Pay attention to your desire for emotional escape. Does that feel like the
real goal of your addiction?

SEPTEMBER 12

Consequences

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to
what lies within us.
The core signs and symptoms of sexual addiction are generally the same
regardless of age, race, gender, social history, and psychological
underpinnings. For instance, nearly all sex and porn addicts eventually
experience negative life consequences (just like alcoholics, drug addicts,
compulsive gamblers, compulsive spenders, and all other addicts). These
consequences may include job loss, trouble in school, financial woes,
ruined relationships, declining physical and/or emotional health, loss of
interest in previously enjoyable activities, loss of time, emotional and/or
physical isolation, arrest, etc.

Task for Today

Think about the consequences of your addiction and what your life could be
like as those consequences dissipate with continued sobriety.

SEPTEMBER 13

HALT: A Tool for Sobriety

If you don’t have self-awareness, then no matter how smart you are, you
aren’t going to get very far.

HALT is an acronym for Hungry, Angry (or Anxious), Lonely, and Tired.
Any of these conditions can leave a recovering sex or porn addict
vulnerable to relapse. Unfortunately, as recovering sex and porn addicts, we
have often lumped these ‘necessities’ in with every other form of
discomfort we’ve not wanted to feel (and previously avoided through
escapist sexual fantasies and behaviors). Now we must learn that more
often than not when we feel triggered, a catnap, a candy bar, or a five-
minute phone conversation will bring us back to earth.

Task for Today

Pay attention to when you last ate, rested, interacted with a friend or loved
one, and whether you are feeling angry or resentful about something.

SEPTEMBER 14

How Do We Define Our Relationship Boundaries?

We change our behavior when the pain of staying the same outweighs the
pain of changing.

Dr. Rob Weiss defines cheating as “the breaking of trust that occurs when
you keep intimate, meaningful secrets from your primary romantic partner.”
He uses this definition because it encompasses both online and real-world
sexual activity, as well as sexual and romantic activities that stop short of
vaginal/anal/oral penetration—everything from looking at porn to kissing to
something as simple as flirting. Moreover, the definition is flexible
depending on the couple. It lets each couple define a personalized version
of sexual fidelity based on honest discussions and mutual decision making.
This means that it might be fine for one or both partners to look at porn or
to engage in some other form of extramarital sexual activity, so long as the
other partner knows about this behavior and is OK with it. If, however, one
partner is looking at porn (or whatever) and keeping this a secret, or the
other partner knows about it and doesn’t find this behavior acceptable
within the mutually agreed upon boundaries of the relationship, then the
behavior qualifies as cheating.

Task for Today

Discuss your relationship boundaries with your partner.

SEPTEMBER 15

Becoming Vulnerable

To grow up is to accept vulnerability.

Happiness expert Brené Brown once wrote, “Embracing our vulnerabilities

is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and
joy—the experiences that make us the most vulnerable.” In other words, to
develop a truly and joyfully intimate relationship, recovering sex and porn
addicts must overcome fear, shame, and distorted self-image, allowing
others to see them as they really are. Only after this occurs can a
meaningful connection begin.

Task for Today

Take a risk by sharing your true self.

SEPTEMBER 16

Love Addiction: It’s Not About Love

Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears.
The irony of love addiction is that love addicts are not actually seeking
love. What they’re really chasing, over and over, is the emotional escape
provided by the rush of first romance, technically referred to as limerence .
Limerence is the relationship stage when intensity and infatuation rule the
day. Limerence is when the heart races because you’re together and aches
because you’re separated. It’s that brief period when literally everything
about the other person seems fascinating and exciting—even the stuff that
will eventually become annoying. Love addicts use the neurochemical rush
of limerence to escape from stress, anxiety, depression, and other
uncomfortable feelings the same way sex and porn addicts use the
neurochemical rush of porn or an affair or a hookup.

Task for Today

Instead of lapsing into romantic pursuit or fantasy, be willing to feel your
feelings, however uncomfortable that might be.

SEPTEMBER 17

Step 9: Scary but Necessary

It is the highest form of self-respect to admit our errors and make amends
for them.

Step 9 says we should make direct amends to people we have harmed

whenever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. Not
surprisingly, Step 9 is among the scariest steps in recovery. The prospect of
approaching people we have wronged, admitting what we’ve done,
apologizing and making restitution when appropriate, and then living
differently in the future is, at best, daunting. However, making amends is
rarely difficult. Nearly everyone is receptive to a genuinely sincere effort.
Sometimes a person we’ve long held resentments against will use the
opportunity to make their own amends to us. Occasionally, a person to
whom we are making amends is not receptive (for any number of reasons).
So be it. That is their prerogative. We make our amends anyway because
this is our recovery, not theirs.

Task for Today

Think about making amends selfishly—as something you do for yourself
and your long-term recovery, rather than for the other person.

SEPTEMBER 18

Sex and Porn Addiction and Secrecy

If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.

As active sex and porn addicts, we organized our entire lives around sexual
fantasy and the behaviors that follow. We spent inordinate amounts of time
thinking about, planning for, pursuing, and engaging in sexual activity (with
ourselves or others). Sex became an obsession to the point where important
relationships (spouses, kids, parents, friends, etc.), interests (exercise,
hobbies, creativity, etc.), and responsibilities (work, finances, childcare,
etc.) were ignored. Over time, our behaviors escalated to the point where
we violated our personal values and moral code, which both created and
intensified the feelings of shame that fueled our addiction. And because we
felt so much shame about what we were doing, we found ourselves leading
a double life, keeping our sexual compulsivity hidden from family, friends,
and everyone else.

Task for Today

Identify three secrets you kept about your sexual life. Share these secrets in
therapy or a 12-step meeting.

SEPTEMBER 19

Exercise as a Tool of Sobriety

Movement is the song of the body.

Exercise nurtures not just the body but the brain and soul. And that really
shouldn’t surprise us. Just watch a group of kids and you’ll see how
important it is for them to get up and move—to play, to compete, and to just
plain challenge themselves to see what their bodies (and therefore their
minds and spirits) can accomplish. With children, physical fitness is visibly
connected to mental fitness and spiritual well-being. If you take away
physical activity, a child suffers on every level. Well, the same is true with
adults. Research shows that for adults, regular exercise not only improves
our physical health, it reduces our susceptibility to stress, anxiety, and
depression—which happen to be three of the biggest triggers for addiction
relapse. So, exercise helps us stay sober.

Task for Today

Engage in at least 30 minutes of exercise, even if it’s just going for a walk.
 SEPTEMBER 20

Sexual Orientation: Not a Factor in Sex and Porn Addiction Diagnoses

If Harry Potter taught us anything, it’s that no one should live in a closet.

Sex and porn addiction are unrelated to who or what it is that turns a person
on. Instead, these addictions are based on the same three factors as every
other form of addiction:

1. Preoccupation to the point of obsession with the drug or behavior

of choice.

2. Loss of control over use of the drug or behavior.

3. Directly related negative life consequences.

This means that gay, lesbian, and bisexual sex and porn addicts are not
compulsively sexual because of their sexual orientation. Rather, they are
compulsively sexual as a way to self-soothe stress, emotional discomfort,
and the pain of underlying psychological issues like anxiety, depression,
low self-esteem, shame, unresolved trauma, etc. In this respect, gay, lesbian,
and bisexual sex and porn addicts are exactly like heterosexual sex and porn
addicts.

Task for Today

Look for the similarities between yourself and other recovering addicts, not
the differences.

SEPTEMBER 21
Triggers

Feelings load the gun; addiction pulls the trigger.

Almost anything can be a trigger for sex and porn addiction. Even
memories of past traumas can be present day triggers. For instance, if your
boss looks at one of your coworkers crossly, this might remind you of your
alcoholic father, which creates emotional discomfort (fear, anger, shame,
etc.) and you therefore feel triggered, even though your boss’s expression
has nothing at all to do with you in the present moment. This is just life, and
as addicts we must learn to deal with this sort of thing by accepting the fact
that we’re going to be triggered and we need to respond when we’re
triggered by implementing healthy coping mechanisms instead of acting
out.

Task for Today

Think about the last time you were triggered. What set you off? Was it
something major, or just normal, everyday life?

SEPTEMBER 22

Working the 12 Steps

You didn’t come this far to only come this far.

There is no right or wrong way to work the 12 steps. There are as many
ways to work the steps as there are people working them. The important
thing is not how you work them, but that you do work them. It is also
important to remember that working the steps is not something that you do
alone. Rather, it is a collective effort—recovering addicts helping other
recovering addicts to achieve and maintain sobriety. You may not enjoy the
process of working the steps, but ultimately you will realize they're helping
you stay sober, connect with others, and live a happier life.

Task for Today

Think of an objection you have to working the steps and debunk it. If you
need help with this task, ask for it.

SEPTEMBER 23

Why Is My Partner So Angry?

It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.

As recovering sex and porn addicts, we often wonder why our partner is so
angry and so unable to just ‘get over it’ after we stop with the cheating and
lying. We want to know why he or she seems so angry that the good things
we’re doing for our recovery, our relationship, and our lives seem to go
unnoticed and unappreciated. We need to understand that because we lied
and kept important secrets from our partner, and we did that for a very long
time, he or she is not going to immediately trust us the way that he or she
once did. For our partner, all of the good things we’ve done and are
currently doing pale in comparison to our violation of relationship trust.
Our partners, when they find out we’ve cheated, lied, and kept important
secrets, are not going to get over that until we rebuild relationship trust—
and rebuilding relationship trust is an arduous process that typically takes a
year or more.
Task for Today
Be patient with your partner, understanding that he or she is struggling to
trust you because you betrayed the relationship.

SEPTEMBER 24

Sex and Porn Addiction Are Not Fun

If you need an analogy for addiction, imagine living without air. Then
imagine something worse.

When we say the words sex addiction to non-addicted people, the kneejerk
response is often something like: “Hey, sounds fun. Sign me up.” In truth,
sex and porn addiction are the opposite of fun. They are filled with
desperation and loneliness, and they lead to shame, depression, anxiety, and
a wide variety of negative consequences, just like every other form of
addiction. Sex and porn addiction are not about having a good time any
more than alcoholism and drug addiction are about having a good time.

Task for Today

List three ways your addiction has steered you away from rather than
toward fun and enjoyment.

SEPTEMBER 25

Step 9: The Promises of Recovery

Your past cannot be changed, but your future can.

For many recovering addicts, Step 9 is a key step on the road to lasting
recovery and a life changed for the better. This change for the better occurs
so often that the book Alcoholics Anonymous lists what are commonly
called ‘The Promises’ at the conclusion of Step 9. The Promises, as
delineated by AA, read as follows:

If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be

amazed before we are halfway through. We are going to know a new
freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to
shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will
know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will
see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness
and self-pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and
gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole
attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and of
economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to
handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that
God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.

These promises are equally applicable to Step 9 with other addictions,

including sex and porn addiction. If we want them, they are there for the
taking.

Task for Today

Think about the ninth step promises. Which are you most looking forward
to? Have any of the promises come true for you already?

SEPTEMBER 26
Get Gritty

Grittiness is what separates fruitful lives from aimlessness.

Research shows that when kids are praised for being hard workers, they do
better than kids who are praised just for winning, or being smart, or
whatever. So, with kids, the positive message should be more about hard
work than success. Learning the value of hard works helps kids develop the
kind of grit that will serve them well throughout their lives. The same is
true with addicts. As recovering addicts, we need to understand that the key
to lasting sobriety is putting in the effort—working the 12 steps, addressing
painful underlying issues, and surrounding ourselves with others who are
also putting in the effort.

Task for Today

Be gritty in recovery. Deal with a step, a memory, or a feeling that is
difficult for you.

SEPTEMBER 27

Overcoming the Shame of Porn Addiction

A moment of self-compassion can change your day. A string of such

moments can change your life.

Porn addicts are often reluctant to seek help. Sometimes this is because they
don’t view their solo sexual behaviors as an underlying source of their
unhappiness. Other times it’s because they’re too ashamed to admit they’re
struggling with something that feels (to them) incredibly shameful. If they
do seek assistance, it’s often for their addiction’s related symptoms—
depression, loneliness, and relationship woes—rather than the porn problem
itself. Many have attended psychotherapy for extended periods without ever
discussing (or even being asked about) pornography. Unfortunately, until
porn addicts talk about their porn use and the problems they’re having as a
result, the behavior and its consequences will continue.

Task for Today

Tell your therapist, sponsor, or a friend in recovery one secret you are
keeping about your porn use (or some other sexual behavior).

SEPTEMBER 28

Sexual Sobriety vs. Sexual Abstinence

The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely.

Sex and porn addicts in the early stages of recovery typically have little to
no idea what the term ‘sexual sobriety’ means. Sometimes we worry that
sexual sobriety mirrors chemical sobriety, where permanent abstinence is
the goal. Many of us ask our therapist or sponsor some form of the
following question: “Will I ever have a healthy, enjoyable sex life, or do I
have to give up sex forever?” This question is usually followed by a
statement like: “If I have to give up sex forever, you can forget about me
staying in recovery.” The good news is that unlike sobriety for substance
addiction, sexual sobriety is not defined by long-term abstinence. Instead,
recovering sex and porn addicts view sobriety much as it is handled with
eating disorders—another area in which long-term abstinence is simply not
feasible. Instead of permanently abstaining from all sexual activity, we learn
to be sexual in non-compulsive, non-problematic, life affirming ways. For
us, that is sobriety.

Task for Today

Make a list of sexual activities you enjoy (or might enjoy) that do not cause
problems in your life and are therefore not part of your addiction.

SEPTEMBER 29

Sexual Integrity

Try not to become a person of success, but a person of integrity.

A primary goal for most recovering sex and porn addicts is developing
sexual integrity. When developing a plan for sexual integrity, it is important
to remember that your sexual desires and choices may be perfectly OK in
your mind but a source of consternation for others in your life—your
religious parents, for example, or your spouse who didn’t sign up for all of
your philandering, or that person you’ve been fooling around with who is
deeply in love with you even though you’ve not in any way returned that
sentiment. Other sexual integrity questions arise around things like porn
use, what and how much you should reveal about yourself and your sexual
desires to someone you’ve just started dating, same-sex attractions,
bisexuality, kink and fetish interests, etc.

Task for Today

Think about the ways in which your sexual behaviors have impacted the
people around you.
 SEPTEMBER 30

Liar, Liar

I could conceive death, but I could not conceive betrayal.

For many sex and porn addicts, the immediate and best solution to a loss of
relationship trust is to continue lying but to do so more effectively. If our
partners either cannot or will not allow themselves to see us as
untrustworthy, this tactic can work quite well. For a while, anyway. And if
we choose this path, as we get away with our increasing lies and secrets, we
tend to think, Great, problem solved . Except our real problems are very
definitely not solved. Even when our partners choose to believe our ever-
increasing lies, usually because they don’t want to experience the pain of
not believing us, they still feel our emotional distancing and unavailability,
which is not good for our relationship. Plus, we are likely to cheat again and
get caught again, and when that happens, our relationship will deteriorate
even further. So, if we value our relationship, it is imperative that we stop
lying, stop keeping secrets, and start living our lives openly and honestly.

Task for Today

Try to understand the ways in which your secrets and lies are damaging
your relationship and causing your partner pain.

OCTOBER 1

Quiet Participation in Meetings

You can listen to silence and learn from it.

The easiest way for a recovering sex or porn addict to be of service in a 12-
step meeting is to speak, sharing his or her experience, strength, and hope
with others who are present. On days when we are not up for this, there are
other ways to be of service. Setting up chairs, making coffee, putting out the
literature, and other simple tasks are the backbone of every meeting. But
those tasks are not nearly as important as a smile that helps another
recovering addict feel welcomed and appreciated.

Task for Today

Find a way to silently be of service.

OCTOBER 2

It’s OK to Say No

No is a complete sentence, and it does not require an explanation.

For some of us, the hardest word to pronounce in the entire English
language is no. We just can’t seem to say it, even when we really want to.
Someone asks us to do something and our brain screams, “Dear God, no!
That sounds awful.” At the same time, our stomach and our neck muscles
tie themselves in knots because we know that we don’t want to do whatever
it is we’ve been asked to do. And then we open our mouths and out comes,
“Sure, I’d love to.” Saying yes when we’d rather say no creates stress and
anxiety and even depression, all of which can drive us right back into our
addiction. In recovery, if our brains and our bodies and our hearts are saying
no, it’s OK for our mouth to follow suit.
Task for Today
Pay attention to your gut reactions and say no when your gut tells you that
you should.

OCTOBER 3

Addiction and Compartmentalization

Danger lurks when we try to divide ourselves with phrases such as ‘my
private life.’

Sex and porn addicts share certain characteristics. One of the common traits
is that sex is compartmentalized in our lives rather than integrated as a
healthy element. For most of us, addictive sex is one thing, the rest of our
lives are another thing, and never the twain shall meet. This is part of our
denial. We keep our addictive sexual behaviors (and the shame we feel
about those behaviors) locked away in a hidden part of our mind so we
don’t have to think about what we’re doing and the impact it might have on
ourselves and the people around us. We live a double life: We have our
addiction, and then we have everything else. And because we do such a
good job of locking the truth of our addiction in a dark corner where even
we can’t see it, we’re often a little bit shocked when our world finally and
inevitably comes crashing down around us.

Task for Today

Find the compartment in your mind where you store your addiction and
open it. Expose your addiction to the light of day.
 OCTOBER 4

Step 10: Ongoing Maintenance

When you are at your lowest, look to your highest.

With Step 10, we continue to take personal inventory, and when we are
wrong, we promptly admit it. Unlike most of the previous steps, Step 10 is
worked on an ongoing basis, usually every day, sometimes more than once
per day. In fact, steps 10, 11, and 12 are all considered to be ‘daily practice’
activities. For this reason, these steps are sometimes referred to as
‘maintenance steps.’ The basic idea is that Steps 1 through 9 will get us
sober and spiritually fit, and Steps 10 through 12 will keep us that way. Yes,
lots of us do go back and rework earlier steps (especially Steps 4 and 5), but
usually that is done on an annual basis or some other quite spread out
schedule. Steps 10, 11, and 12 are meant to be worked regularly, on an
ongoing, day-to-day (sometimes even moment-to-moment) basis.

Task for Today

Think about how working Step 10 regularly will help you stay spiritually
fit.

OCTOBER 5

Addiction is a Lonely Business

Turn your face to the sun and the shadows fall behind you.
As active addicts, we tend to choose addictive substances and behaviors
rather than other people as a coping mechanism because, for us, unresolved
childhood trauma has poisoned the well of attachment. Other people can
(and often have) hurt us, let us down, and left us feeling abandoned,
unloved, or intruded upon. Thus, we fear and don’t feel secure with
emotional intimacy, and we refuse to turn to others, even loved ones, for
help when we’re struggling or feeling down. Instead, we self-soothe by
numbing out with an addictive substance or behavior. For this reason, many
clinicians and long-recovering addicts state that the antidote for addiction
lies not in willpower or sobriety, but in connection to empathetic,
supportive others.

Task for Today

Ask yourself if your addiction friends were true friends or just fellow
addicts.

OCTOBER 6

Building Your Support Network

When is the last time someone gave you the peace of their heart rather than
a piece of their mind?

Having a knowledgeable and empathetic support network is a key to long-

term recovery. But healthy friendships are not something sex and porn
addicts are typically good at. This leaves many of us asking, “How do I
know who to invite into my inner circle?” Happily, there are some easily
identifiable qualities. Safe friends are people who:
 Respect and maintain our and their boundaries.

Do not gossip or share information they have been entrusted with.

Understand that we are in a process of healing and recovery and

are willing to be in that process with us.

Do not collude with us in pretending that things are perfectly OK

when they’re not.

Do not stoke our fear by telling us horror stories that cause us to

imagine worst case scenarios.

Have wisdom to share and offer sound, useful advice when we

ask for it.

Are available and willing when we need support.

If we can find even one or two people who are able and willing to support
us in these ways, we’ve got the beginnings of a terrific support network.

Task for Today

Make a list of people you might want in your support network, looking for
qualities that appear in the preceding list.

OCTOBER 7

When Sexual Behaviors and Substance Abuse are Fused

If you want to make a permanent change, stop focusing on the size of your
problems and start focusing on the size of you.

When substance abuse is consistently fused with the hunt for and
experience of intensely arousing sex or pornography, these paired
behavioral patterns can become mutually reinforcing. Over time, even
simple sexual fantasies or memories can become a psychological trigger for
substance use, and vice versa. Eventually, substances and sexual activity
can become so tightly paired that engaging in one behavior inevitably leads
to the other. For this type of dually addicted individual, getting drunk/high
and seeking/finding/engaging in sexual behavior becomes a single
coexisting addiction.

Task for Today

Consider the possibility that you may have a fused substance/sex addiction,
and you might need to recover from both issues simultaneously.

OCTOBER 8

Understanding the Bubble/Trance

It is simple to forget, easy to believe nothing happened.

Addictions are about the manipulation of neurochemistry, and this can

happen with or without an addictive substance or behavior. Sex and porn
addicts in particular ‘get high’ based more on fantasies and ritualistic
preparations than anything else. In fact, we experience more pleasure and
escape through anticipating, chasing, and preparing for sex than from the
sex act itself. We even have a name for this condition, referring to it as
either the bubble or the trance . For us, engaging in a sexual act and
reaching orgasm actually ends the high and throws us back into the real
world, where we must once again face life and all its problems, which is
what we were trying to avoid and escape in the first place.

Task for Today

Pay attention to your sexual thoughts so you can intervene before you find
yourself in the bubble/trance.

OCTOBER 9

The ‘God’ Issue in 12-Step Recovery

Belief in a specific religion is not a requirement for sobriety.

Many sex and porn addicts new to 12-step recovery (and even some who’ve
been around for awhile) struggle to accept the use of the word ‘God’ in the
12 steps. They needn’t. Twelve-step groups do not espouse any specific
religion or deity. They are not churches or cults. Instead, they are spiritual
programs that accept and embrace whatever it is that any member believes
(or doesn’t believe). Yes, many recovering sex and porn addicts do find a
particular religion or spiritual practice both comforting and helpful, but
specific religious beliefs are by no means a prerequisite for membership in
any 12-step group.

Task for Today

Think about your spiritual beliefs and non-beliefs. Share about this in a
meeting and notice how your thoughts are accepted without judgment.
 OCTOBER 10

Bookending

When you call another addict to ask for help, you’re helping that person
too.

As recovering sex and porn addicts, we are triggered almost constantly—

when we are walking down the street, at the mall, at work, at our kid’s
soccer game, you name it. Usually this happens unexpectedly, but
sometimes we can spot trouble coming a mile away (family gatherings,
work parties, etc.) If we know that potential triggers are looming on the
horizon, we can bookend the situation with phone calls to a sponsor or
friend in recovery. During the ‘before’ call, we agree to not act out and we
discuss, with input from the other person, ways to avoid relapse. The ‘after’
call provides an opportunity to discuss what happened, the feelings that
came up, and what we might want to do differently the next time.

Task for Today

Look for a potential trigger that you might wish to bookend.

OCTOBER 11

Step 10: Wash, Rinse, Repeat

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet.

Step 10 is the logical culmination of the previous nine steps. The first nine
steps are about stopping the bleeding of addiction and then identifying and
cleaning up the wreckage of our pasts. Step 10 begins the process of living
differently in the present. Essentially, it is an ongoing version of Steps 4
through 9, where we take inventory of a situation, identify our part in it,
and, when necessary, either self-correct or make an amends. Happily,
having worked Steps 4 through 9 already, we are familiar with this process.
The difference here is that Step 10 inventories deal with the present rather
than the past, and the schedule for self-correcting and making an amends is
‘as soon as possible’ rather than waiting until we are spiritually fit and the
time is right.

Task for Today

Think about your actions in the moment, considering your role in the events
of your life.

OCTOBER 12

Sharpening the Saw

Self-care is vital for recovery.

Listening to our bodies, engaging in healthful habits, and maintaining

realistic interpersonal and time boundaries are important aspects of healthy,
sober living. Stephen Covey popularized this principle of self-care in his
book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People , writing about a
lumberjack who worked tirelessly all day to cut a tree, expending much
more time and effort than his colleague who stopped from time to time to
sharpen his saw. Nowhere is this story more needed than with addiction
recovery. As recovering addicts, we often think we must constantly battle
our addiction to the exclusion of all else. Socializing and having fun seems
like letting our guard down and begging for relapse. However, it’s exactly
the opposite. When battling an addiction, taking a few minutes to meditate,
exercise, socialize, and just plain have some fun isn’t wasting time. We’re
simply sharpening our tools of recovery.

Task for Today

Engage in at least 30 minutes of ‘frivolous’ self-care. Share about this in
therapy or a 12-step meeting.

OCTOBER 13

Personal Transformation Starts with Self-Awareness

When I discover who I am, I’ll be free.

Personal transformation, such as we see with sex and porn addiction

recovery, begins with self-awareness. This does not, however, mean
paralysis through analysis, where we spend so much time looking inward
that we get stuck there and never make any changes. Instead, it means,
when we are feeling down, asking ourselves, “What are my feelings right
now? What are my thoughts right now? Why am I having these feelings and
thoughts? And what am I doing with these feelings and thoughts?” When
we pause in our difficult moments to assess what’s going on, we become
self-aware, we start to see patterns in our thinking, and we recognize how
those thought patterns lead to behavior patterns that make us unhappy (like
our addiction).

Task for Today

Pause and examine your feelings and thoughts and consider how they affect
your behavior.

OCTOBER 14

Understanding Covert Incest

The boundary between caring and incestuous love is crossed when the
relationship with a child exists to meet the needs of the parent rather than
those of the child.

Covert incest (also known as emotional incest) typically occurs when

parents have distanced themselves from one another physically and
emotionally, or when one (or both) of the parents is addicted to a substance
or behavior. When dysfunctional parents distance themselves from each
other (for whatever reason), one of the parents may focus on a child,
seeking adult emotional fulfillment by using the child as a surrogate partner.
Or the parent may tie his or her self-esteem to the success of the child.
Either way, the child’s developmental needs tend to be ignored, and
emotional growth (especially in the area of healthy sexual and romantic
attachment) can be profoundly stunted. Amazingly, the adult is usually
completely unaware of the emotional damage he or she is perpetrating.

Task for Today

Think about the possibility of covert incest in your life. If you sense that it
was or is present, speak about this with your therapist or a supportive friend
in recovery.

OCTOBER 15
Porn Addiction and Sexual Dysfunction

Bitter trials are often blessings in disguise.

Male porn addicts sometimes experience sexual dysfunction related to their

porn use. In fact, erectile dysfunction (ED), delayed ejaculation (DE), and
inability to reach orgasm (anorgasmia) are increasingly well-documented
consequences of heavy porn use. Growing numbers of physically healthy
men, including younger men in their sexual prime, are suffering from
sexual dysfunction—typically with real-world partners but not with porn—
and it’s clear that their sexual dysfunction is directly related to their use and
abuse of online pornography.

Task for Today

Think about how porn use has affected your real-world sexual life and how
you might use that as motivation for recovery.

OCTOBER 16

Why Do We Need 12-Step Sexual Recovery Meetings?

The last thing I say on most phone calls is not goodbye but thank you.

To maintain long-term sex and porn addiction recovery, we need places

where we can talk openly and honestly, without fear of judgment, about our
addiction, including when, where, why, and how we are triggered. This is
doubly true after we’ve been triggered and then struggled to halt the
addictive cycle. By far, the most readily available safe (empathetic, non-
judgmental, and relatively private) place to do this is before, during, and
after a 12-step sexual recovery meeting. If no meeting is taking place at a
moment when we need one, we can turn to our group’s phone list and call
anyone on it. Having this handy list of supportive friends in recovery is
essential when we have an urge to act out, when we need immediate help in
a crisis, and when we simply want support and guidance from an individual
who ‘speaks our language.’

Task for Today

Call someone in your 12-step recovery fellowship. If you’re not currently
struggling, think about this call as practice for a time when you are
struggling.

OCTOBER 17

Saying “So What?”

The first step toward change is awareness. The second step is acceptance.

Life happens. No matter how well we plan and prepare, we constantly

encounter challenges and obstacles. Sometimes it seems like one darn thing
after another after another until we feel like we’ve reached a dead end with
no way to move forward. When that happens, it’s time to ask ourselves a
very simple question: “So what?” We don’t do ask this question to be
dismissive of the situation. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. What we’re really
asking is, “In the face of this challenge, what am I going to do next? How
am I going to deal with this? What can I do to make the situation better?”
Rather than wallowing in self-pity, we can figure out what went wrong,
learn from it, decide what’s next, and move on.
Task for Today
Accept your life exactly as it is, learning from it and moving forward
without resentments or moping.

OCTOBER 18

Step 10: The Spot-Check Version

Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.

Step 10 is usually done at the end of each day and on an as needed basis.
The as needed spot-check version can be incredibly useful. This type of
tenth step recognizes that if we are disturbed or upset, there is something
wrong with either us or the situation around us and the issue is best looked
at right away, before things escalate. If we are at work and become angry
with our boss, a fellow employee, or a client, we can work a quick tenth
step, pausing to look at the situation, making note of any part that we have
played in it. Once we have a better understanding of what is happening and
our role in it, we can more easily deal with it in an appropriate fashion.
When we pause before acting to perform a quick Step 10 inventory, it
typically prevents the sort of regrettable behaviors that later require a
formal amends. In this way (and many others), Step 10 makes our lives
much less troublesome and significantly more serene.

Task for Today

Think about the short-term and long-term benefits of spot-check Step 10
inventories.
 OCTOBER 19

Treatment Won’t Cure Me?

There is no cure for addiction, but it can be put into remission.

Newly recovering sex and porn addicts sometimes wonder why everyone
(rehabs, therapists, fellow recovering addicts) seems so adamant about
going to and participating in 12-step meetings. Well, the reason is that there
is no cure for addiction . It doesn’t matter how good a treatment center is, it
won’t permanently fix our addiction. We don’t spend 30 days in rehab and
walk out the door perfectly OK. At best, we depart with an understanding of
our basic issues, some useful coping skills that can help us avoid relapse,
and a plan for carrying our newfound sobriety forward into the rest of our
lives. And invariably that plan involves ongoing participation in 12-step
recovery. Because this is what works. Experience proves it.

Task for Today

Accept that you will always be an addict but you don’t always have to
behave like one.

OCTOBER 20

Has Technology Changed Sex and Porn Addiction?

Technology is a useful servant but a dangerous master.

The basics of sex and porn addiction are the same with or without the
involvement of technology. As sex and porn addicts, we engage in our
problematic sexual behaviors repeatedly and compulsively, despite clearly
related negative life consequences, and we do this with or without the
assistance of technology. Sure, some of us prefer ‘pixel sex’ to real-world
sex, or vice versa, but the lack of availability of one or the other doesn’t
stop us. With the advent of digital technology, the primary thing that has
changed for us is the manner and speed with which we can locate and
access the sexual content and partners that fuel our addiction.

Task for Today

Recognize that you can use technology to aid your recovery, much as you
used it to fuel your addiction.

OCTOBER 21

The ‘Loss of Control’

The easiest way to find Heaven is to slowly back away from Hell.

As active sex and porn addicts, we lose control over our ability to not
engage in sexual fantasies and behaviors. We try to quit or cut back, making
promises to ourselves and others, but we repeatedly fail in these efforts. We
say we won’t look at porn today, but then we do. We say we won’t log in to
our hookup apps tonight, but then we do. We say we won’t cheat on our
spouse again, but then we do. This is our loss of control. And it is the same
loss of control that occurs with alcoholism, drug addiction, compulsive
gambling, and other addictions.

Task for Today

Look at your life realistically and honestly and admit that in your active
addiction you cannot control your sex life.

OCTOBER 22

Connection in Recovery

Addiction is a disease of isolation.

Novelist Dean Koontz once wrote, “A fine line separates the weary recluse
from the fearful hermit. Finer still is the line between hermit and bitter
misanthrope.” Addiction is a disease that wants to cross those lines.
Addiction wants us alone and isolated, so it can both nurture and prey upon
our shame. When there is nobody in our life to provide emotional comfort
and to point out that our life is not as bad as it seems (or maybe that it’s
worse than it seems), our addiction has free reign.

Task for Today

Reach out to three different people in your sexual recovery support
network, if only to say hello and let them know you care about them.

OCTOBER 23

The Importance of Friends in Recovery

All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them.

Managing the aftermath of sex and porn addiction is a difficult task, and we
do much better in this work when we have external support. In the
beginning, our primary support is often a therapist because that is the only
person we’re willing to trust with our shameful behavior and secrets. Over
time, however, we must expand our support network. We need at least a few
safe, empathetic friends who understand the nature of sex and porn
addiction as well as the thought process steps of recovery. This is why
group therapy and 12-step recovery groups are so important. This is where
we meet the people who help us feel a sense of belonging, security, and
healthy connection. The more secure we feel with these friends, the more
able we are to confidently carry our recovering selves into the wider world.

Task for Today

Think of three people in recovery that you would like to be friends with and
ask at least one of them to have coffee or lunch with you.

OCTOBER 24

The Role of Denial

A core issue of active addiction is the avoidance of reality.

Science fiction author Douglas Adams once wrote, “There is no point in

using the word impossible to describe something that has clearly
happened.” Most sex and porn addicts could really use this advice. Instead
of facing the truth about our behavior, we engage in denial. We create
elaborate lies to make our actions seem OK (in our own mind). Sometimes,
we admit that if someone else was engaging in the same behaviors, that
person would be crazy and in desperate need of help, but for us it’s OK
because…
Task for Today
Write down five lies you’ve used to make your behavior acceptable (in your
own mind). Now share that list with someone else. Do your lies sound
crazy? Are you embarrassed by them?

OCTOBER 25

Step 10: The Day in Review

We are the engineers of our own souls.

Most recovering addicts work the tenth step on an as needed basis and also
at the end of each day. With the day in review version of Step 10, we look
back upon the events of the day and assess how we did. We look at
situations where we handled ourselves with class and dignity, and situations
where we might do better in the future. Occasionally, we realize that we
owe someone an amends. In such cases, we should make that amends as
soon as possible—either right away, if it’s not too late in the evening, or
early the following morning. This end-of-day inventory is a way to keep our
side of the street clean on an ongoing basis, and to uncover character
defects we weren’t yet aware of.

Task for Today

Think about the ‘ease of mind’ that comes with keeping your side of the
street clean.

OCTOBER 26
Recover Like an Elephant Eats

The only impossible journey is the one you never begin.

An African bull elephant eats 660 pounds of food every single day. And he
does it the same way you and I eat our food: one bite at a time. Because
there’s no other way to go about it. The elephant needs that nourishment to
survive, so he must do it. For him, it’s life or death. But he can’t just jam
660 pounds of vegetation into his mouth and swallow it in a single gulp.
That won’t work. So he grabs a single bite of food, swings it into his mouth,
chews, and swallows. And then he does it again. And again and again and
again until he’s eaten his fill. That’s a great lesson for recovering addicts.
We can’t get well all at once. Instead, we must chip away at success. Instead
of seeing ourselves where we are now and expecting to suddenly, magically
be at our goal, we must simply take the next right step. And then we must
take the next next right step.

Task for Today

Stop trying to be well all at once.

OCTOBER 27

Combatting Shame

Shame is an antisocial emotion. Talking about shame is the social solution.

As active sex and porn addicts, we spent our days trying very hard to not
feel our shame. We did this by escaping into sexual fantasy and behavior.
Other shame avoidance coping mechanisms we may have turned to include
isolating, keeping secrets, people-pleasing, and being aggressive, along
with drinking, drugging, gambling, spending, etc. Unfortunately, all the
mechanisms that we used to avoid our feelings of shame simultaneously
prevented meaningful interpersonal connection, which happens to be the
only proven way to abolish and destroy shame.

Task for Today

Identify three shameful beliefs that you have about yourself. Share these
with a friend and ask for feedback.

OCTOBER 28

Open Relationships

Time will inevitably uncover dishonesty and lies. History has no place for
them.

The simple truth is that if we want an open relationship, even in sexual

recovery, it’s not necessarily an unobtainable goal. But it’s important to
approach that goal with integrity, meaning we have to discuss it with our
partner first. Why? Because being in a healthy relationship means each
partner has an equal right to know about anything important. If we shudder
at the mere thought of this approach, it’s probably because we’re fairly
certain our mate won’t like and won’t agree to an open relationship. Or
maybe we want the right to sleep around but we’d prefer that our partner
stay home, blissful in his or her ignorance and completely faithful to us.

Task for Today

When you have a sexual thought or desire, examine your motivations and
consider how your behavior might impact others.

OCTOBER 29

The Cycle of Sex and Porn Addiction

It is the habit of having habits, of turning a trail into a rut, that must be
incessantly fought.

All addictions are cyclical in nature, with no clear beginning or end and one
stage leading to the next (and then the next, and the next, and the next),
leaving the addict stuck in an endless, downwardly spiraling loop. With sex
and porn addiction there are six distinct stages in this cycle:

1. Triggers

2. Fantasy

3. Ritualization (moving fantasy toward reality)

4. Acting out

5. Numbing (emotional distancing)

6. Despair (shame and remorse)

As every sex and porn addict is aware, the despair stage morphs into the
trigger stage, renewing the endless cycle.

Task for Today

Draw a diagram of your addictive cycle, listing specific thoughts and
behaviors for each of the six stages.

OCTOBER 30

Lonely in a Room Full of Loved Ones

Addiction is the only prison where the locks are on the inside.

Despite the American ethos that constantly tells us we must make it on our
own, being alone has long been viewed as a terrible thing. Even American
transcendentalists espousing the virtues of solitude seemed to understand
this. Consider Henry David Thoreau. Despite what Thoreau’s writings
might suggest, in the two years he spent at Walden Pond he was hardly
isolated. His cabin, sitting on land owned by his closest friend, Ralph
Waldo Emerson, was a 30-minute walk to the town of Concord, and he
traveled there frequently, usually to spend time at the local inn. Addicts
don’t seem to get this need for intimacy. We choose to live in emotional
exile, and we do not break this exile even if we visit the local inn like
Thoreau. Many of us say we actually feel most alone when we’re in the
company of other people. And yes, ‘other people’ includes spouses and
other loved ones.

Task for Today

Ask yourself: When is the last time I felt truly comfortable with and
accepted by others?

OCTOBER 31
The Damage Done

Shame, blame, disrespect, betrayal, and the withholding of affection

damage the roots from which love grows.

Typically, it’s not any specific sexual or romantic act that causes the most
pain for our significant others and damage to our relationships. The worst of
the pain and damage is caused by our ongoing deception, emotional
distancing, secrets, and the resulting loss of relationship trust . For our
partners, the emotional pain and loss associated with broken trust are
significantly more agonizing and longer lasting than any actual physical or
emotional straying we have done. The consequences of our betrayal begin
and end with broken trust. And those consequences abate only when trust is
restored. Only when we have re-earned our partner’s trust will we find our
way out of the doghouse.

Task for Today

Don’t tell any new lies or keep any new secrets from your partner or anyone
else. Pay attention to how good it feels to be honest.

NOVEMBER 1

Using Your Sponsor

A sponsor is someone who knows all about you and still wants to help you.

Sponsors provide guidance and much needed support to recovering sex and
porn addicts as they experience withdrawal, work the 12 steps of sexual
recovery, and deal with being triggered toward addictive sexual behaviors.
The sponsee’s job is to be honest, open-minded, and willing to both ask for
and accept advice from the sponsor. Any time a recovering sex or porn
addict feels triggered to act out, the addict should contact his or her sponsor.
Sometimes, the mere act of picking up the phone to ask for help alleviates
the desire to act out.

Task for Today

If you don’t yet have a 12-step sexual recovery sponsor, get one.

NOVEMBER 2

Do Sex and Porn Addicts Experience Withdrawal?

When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.

It is common knowledge that alcoholics and drug addicts, when they

suddenly go ‘cold turkey,’ sometimes experience withdrawal—delirium
tremens, chills, fevers, insomnia, night sweats, headaches, nausea, diarrhea,
tachycardia (elevated heart-rate), hypertension, hallucinations, irritability,
anxiety, depression, agitation, and the like. But what about sex and porn
addicts? Do we get the DTs and hallucinate the same as alcoholics and
heroin addicts? Typically, we do not. This does not, however, mean that a
sudden stoppage of addictive sexual fantasy and behavior does not produce
withdrawal. For us, however, withdrawal tends to be more psychological
than physical, resulting in anxiety, depression, irritability, and similar
feelings.

Task for Today

Think about your emotional and psychological response to going cold
turkey with your addiction. Share about this with your therapist, sponsor, or
in a 12-step recovery meeting.

NOVEMBER 3

Step 11: A Daily Spiritual Practice

You create a path of your own by looking within yourself and listening to
your soul.

Step 11, like Step 10, is not a step that is worked once and then forgotten.
Instead, it is part of an ongoing (usually daily) ritual of recovery. That said,
recovering addicts often find prayer and meditation to be somewhat baffling
concepts. And some, especially those who of us began the recovery process
as agnostics or atheists, may struggle with the concept of having a Higher
Power at all. For these reasons (and many others), Step 11 can be a difficult
one to work. If you find yourself struggling with this step, take heart in the
fact that you are very far from alone. In fact, even the most devoutly
religious members of 12-step recovery groups sometimes temporarily lose
their way here.

Task for Today

Consider multiple meanings of ‘Higher Power’ and how each of these
might impact your life.

NOVEMBER 4
Hookup Apps Are Crack Cocaine for Sex Addicts

The satisfaction of instincts cannot be the sole aim of our lives.

Hookup apps can be incredibly problematic for sex addicts. For many of us,
they’re like crack cocaine, especially if we’re seeking in-the-flesh sexual
encounters as part of our addiction. The primary appeal of hookup apps is
that they present us with an entire universe of readily available potential
sexual partners—helpfully arranged, thanks to geolocating software, from
nearest to furthest away. And a person’s marital status, hobbies, job,
religion, goals, and worldview don’t matter on these apps because they’re
all about the quick encounter. No muss, no fuss, just the sex, thank you very
much. In our addiction, many of us posted profiles on multiple apps
simultaneously, staying logged in to all of them 24/7 and checking them
compulsively. We may also have found ourselves looking for the next
sexual encounter before we were done with the current sexual encounter.
That is the power of apps.

Task for Today

Think about your use of hookup apps. Are apps a bottom-line behavior for
you? Why or why not?

NOVEMBER 5

The Rollercoaster of Sexual Recovery

The process of healing from sexual addiction is both scary and exciting,
filled with ups and downs.
Many recovering sex and porn addicts find that in the early days of sobriety
even the smallest annoyances can feel like massive problems. This is
because we’ve been compulsively ‘self-medicating’ every single feeling
we’ve encountered, often for years on end, with escapist sexual fantasies
and behaviors. Now, suddenly deprived of this go-to coping mechanism, we
must feel every little bump in the road and we are just not used to that. As
such, we sometimes tend to overreact and blow up, getting angry with
ourselves and others. We may even break into tears for no apparent reason.
This is perfectly normal. It is part of the growth process, and it’s expected.

Task for Today

View life as a rollercoaster and try to enjoy the ride.

NOVEMBER 6

Using Recovery Literature

We read to know we’re not alone.

Reading literature about sex and porn addiction is like having a portable
program. Books and pamphlets written to help us in our process of healing
both complement and reinforce the information and good ideas heard in
therapy sessions and 12-step meetings. If we can’t get to a therapy session
or our normal support group for some reason, reading literature is usually a
suitable alternative. It is especially valuable when traveling. Many sex and
porn addicts make short readings (such as this one) a part of their daily
regimen, finding that even a few minutes dedicated to healing can make a
huge difference.
Task for Today
Read something new about sex and porn addiction.

NOVEMBER 7

Trying (and Failing) to Quit

If a man can control his mind, he can find the way to enlightenment, and all
wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him.

As sex and porn addicts, we have lost control over our sexual fantasies and
behaviors. Most often, this is evidenced by failed attempts to quit or cut
back. Even consequences don’t motivate us. After getting in trouble at work
for misusing our laptop, we swear off porn forever. But the next day we’re
right back at it. After our spouse borrows our phone and discovers the
hookup apps we’ve been using and the sexts we’ve been sending and
receiving, we scrub our phones and swear that it will never happen again. A
few days later, we’ve reinstalled the apps and we’re acting out yet again.
This sort of thing is indisputable evidence that we are powerless over our
addiction.

Task for Today

Try to count the number of times you tried (and failed) to control your
addiction.

NOVEMBER 8
The Aftermath of Acting Out

As addicts, we’re not in denial. We’re just selective about the reality we
accept.

After we sexually act out, we attempt to distance ourselves emotionally

from what we’ve just done. We justify our behaviors, telling ourselves, “If
my spouse was nicer to me, I wouldn’t need to do this.” We minimize our
behaviors, telling ourselves, “Nobody knows that I just spent six hours
looking at and masturbating to pornography, and nobody got hurt by what I
did, so it’s no big deal.” We rationalize our behaviors, telling ourselves,
“Hooking up with people online for mutual masturbation isn’t really
cheating because I don’t actually touch anyone and I don’t even use my real
name.” This denial is the selective reality in which addictions thrive. To
overcome this, we must examine and debunk the lies we tell ourselves (and
others) to explain our sexual behaviors.

Task for Today

List five things you tell yourself after you act out. Then ask, “Are these
things true, or merely lies I tell to justify my addiction?”

NOVEMBER 9

Find Something for Which You Are Grateful

There are 86,400 seconds in every day. Use at least one to say thank you.

Roman philosopher Seneca once said, “A wise man is content with his lot,
whatever it may be, without wishing for what he has not.” In other words,
true happiness occurs when we are able to enjoy and be grateful for the
present moment, rather than ruing the wreckage of our pasts or dreading the
potential wreckage of our future. When we can feel satisfied with what we
have, which is always sufficient, we can experience joy. This is as true for
recovering sex and porn addicts as it is for anyone else.

Task for Today

Be grateful for the blessings that you have in this moment.

NOVEMBER 10

Step 11: Finding Your Spiritual Path

The universe has shaken you to awaken you.

If you’ve diligently worked the first ten steps and find yourself still at odds
with the spiritual nature of recovery, especially in Step 11, that’s OK.
Instead of fretting, try thinking about Step 11 as part of an ongoing spiritual
practice , and think of practice as a learning process. Thus, you are not
expected to work this step perfectly. In fact, most recovering addicts find
that the mere effort of working Step 11 is more important in terms of lasting
positive effects than any other factor. So, however it is that you understand
(or don’t understand) your Higher Power, that’s just peachy. You don’t have
to be a devout Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, or anything else to work
Step 11 because Step 11 isn’t about religion. Instead, it’s about finding your
personal spiritual center, whatever that might be.

Task for Today

Think about a Higher Power that works for you , rather than trying to force
yourself into someone else’s version of a Higher Power.

NOVEMBER 11

The Stuckness of Addiction

Before you can break out of prison, you must realize you are locked up.

Addictions are not about pleasure. Instead, they’re about the secondary gain
of escape. Non-addicts drink, use drugs, and engage in potentially addictive
behaviors (sex, porn, gambling, etc.) because these things are, first and
foremost, pleasurable. For non-addicts, pleasure is the primary gain. Not so
for addicts. We are more interested in the secondary gain of escape . For
instance, a normal, non-addicted person looks at porn to experience a bit of
sexual pleasure and release. We, however, look at porn for hours on end to
escape the world and everything in it. And we go back for more of the
same, day after day, seeking and finding this same secondary gain,
eventually getting stuck in an endless loop of feeling bad, using porn to
escape that feeling, and then feeling bad again—possibly worse than before
because of the regrettable things we did while acting out. Which leads to
more porn (or whatever else it is we’re doing). This stuckness is the crux of
our addiction.

Task for Today

Think about the number of times you told yourself, I’ll only go online for a
few minutes , only to lose yourself in sexual behavior for hours on end.

NOVEMBER 12
Vulnerability: High-Risk, High Reward

To overcome our fears about attachment, we must face our fears and
become attached.

Sex and porn addicts share certain characteristics. One of these common
traits is that we don’t want others to see our neediness, vulnerability, and
desire for emotional intimacy. So we continually chase an external, non-
intimate, temporary fix. Ironically, this isolates us from ourselves, from our
Higher Power, and from the people we long to be close to. As part of
recovery, we must learn and accept what our true needs are, and then we
must take a risk and share those needs with others. In other words, we must
become vulnerable and risk rejection, the thing we most fear, to achieve
intimacy, the thing we most desire.

Task for Today

Share an emotional secret with someone who cares about you. Notice how
that person responds. Notice how you feel after sharing the secret.

NOVEMBER 13

Healthy Boundaries Are Not Always Easy to Identify, Set, and

Maintain

Sometimes it’s OK to say, “Not my circus, not my monkeys.”

Healthy boundaries are not a one-size-fits-all proposition. Boundaries that

are helpful in some relationships could be very unhelpful in others.
Recognizing this, it is generally suggested that recovering addicts answer
the following questions before attempting to define and implement a
boundary: “Does this issue (whatever it is) need to be fixed?” and “Does
this issue need to be fixed by me , or does it belong to someone else?”
Nearly always, the answer to the first question is yes, and the answer to the
second question is no. So, very often, pulling back on our desire (and
attempts) to control the behavior of others is the best boundary we can set.
If the other person is out-of-control and unable to make rational decisions,
of course, it might be our place to step in and help. Before we do so,
however, we should run our ‘good intentions’ past our therapist, our 12-step
sponsor, and our friends in recovery.

Task for Today

Think of at least three times you overstepped your boundaries and ask your
support team for advice on how to avoid that in the future.

NOVEMBER 14

Love Addiction: It’s Not Just for Women

It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.

In general, there are more self-identified female love addicts than male love
addicts. Nevertheless, males are perfectly capable of becoming love
addicted, just as females are perfectly capable of becoming sex and porn
addicted. One primary difference between male and female love addicts is
the way in which they tend to view and talk about their issues. Women are
more likely than men to identify what they are doing as relationship-related,
whereas men typically classify their behavior as sexual, even when their
activities are as connection driven as those of their female counterparts.
Task for Today
Think about your sexual and romantic behaviors and how you tend to
describe them. Do your descriptions of your behavior match the reality of
your behavior?

NOVEMBER 15

My Sobriety is Not Your Sobriety

Don’t be different just to be different. Do it to be the most authentic version

of yourself.

Long-term monogamy may be the goal for some (maybe even most)
recovering sex and porn addicts, but it is not by any stretch a necessity. In
today’s world, healing from sex and porn addiction can encompass almost
any sort of sexual or romantic connection—as long as it’s not secretive,
abusive to self or others, used to avoid feelings, or causing problems to
ourselves or our loved ones. Sexual recovery is less about cultural norms
like monogamy and more about the elimination of problematic sexual
activity and the development of sexual integrity. Each of us has a unique
background and unique goals, so it’s OK (even expected) that we will each
have a highly individualized definition of and plan for sexual sobriety.

Task for Today

Stop comparing your sexual sobriety plan to everyone else’s.

NOVEMBER 16
Sex and Porn Addiction Are Not an Excuse for Bad Behavior

Under no circumstances are sex and porn addicts absolved of responsibility

for the problems their choices have caused.

Sometimes people who get caught in an embarrassing, objectionable, or

even illegal sexual situation try to use sex or porn addiction as a catch-all
excuse, hoping to avoid or at least minimize the judgment and punishment
they experience. Sometimes these individuals really are sex or porn
addicted, but just as often they are not. Either way, a diagnosis of sex or
porn addiction never justifies bad behavior. Rather than providing an
excuse, a diagnosis of sex or porn addiction provides an obligation to
recognize the issue and to behave differently in the future. In fact, part of
healing from sex and porn addiction is admitting what we’ve done,
accepting any consequences, and making amends as best we can.

Task for Today

Think about your addiction as a reason to make amends rather than an
excuse for bad behavior.

NOVEMBER 17

Step 11

There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth: not
going all the way, and not starting.

For many recovering sex and porn addicts, Step 11 is relatively easy,
especially if they arrived in recovery with an existing spiritual practice. In
such cases, a renewed effort in that discipline is usually the way to go. The
exception to this occurs when a person no longer trusts or believes in that
discipline. This sometimes happens when the ‘religion of one’s childhood’
has a scary, judgmental, punishing form of God, or when the people
associated with that religion did not practice what they preached. Others
arrive in recovery with no sense of spiritual connection. Either way, if you
find yourself searching for a Higher Power of some sort with no idea where
to look, Step 11 can feel daunting. But it needn’t. The only things required
for success are open-mindedness and willingness, and by the time most of
us reach Step 11 we are more than a little bit familiar with these tenets.

Task for Today

Open your mind to the idea of a Higher Power, even if you have no idea
what that might look like.

NOVEMBER 18

Compulsion or Addiction?

The anticipation of pleasure drives sex and porn addiction. Pleasure is the
‘carrot on a stick’ that keeps us trudging forward.

Sometimes it seems like absolutely anything, be it a substance or a

behavior, can be addictive. That is not in fact the case. For a substance or a
behavior to be addictive, it needs to trigger the neurobiological experience
of pleasure, which over time leads to anticipatory fantasies of similar
pleasure (what sex and porn addicts call the bubble or the trance ). Without
this, a behavior may be compulsive, but it does not qualify as an addiction.
For instance, compulsive hand washing causes neither pleasure nor
anticipatory fantasy. As such, it is not an addiction. It is instead classified as
an Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD).

Task for Today

Watch all of your behaviors, not just your sexual behaviors, to see if
anything else seems addictive or compulsive.

NOVEMBER 19

Overcoming Life’s Difficulties

Challenges are what make life interesting. Overcoming them is what makes
life meaningful.

If we can take life’s obstacles and say, “OK, it is what it is. Now how am I
going to deal with this? What am I going to do next? What can I do to make
the situation better?” we can reframe these obstacles in a positive way. We
can view these obstacles as an opportunity to learn and grow and get
stronger. This is a significant shift in the way that most of us tend to think
(where we try to shift blame and hope that someone else will step in and
clean up the mess). With this different and infinitely more upbeat way of
thinking, instead of throwing in the towel, we stick our nose into the
situation and find a way to push through it. In so doing, we learn valuable
lessons that help us live our lives differently moving forward.

Task for Today

Look for an obstacle to overcome and embrace the opportunity that
provides.
 NOVEMBER 20

Triggers

If we can learn to identify our triggers and stop them in their tracks—before
they induce craving—then we have a much better chance to stay sober.

Unfortunately, triggers are unavoidable, regardless of the addiction. Think

about alcoholics driving past billboard ads for beer, scotch, and vodka.
Think about drug addicts watching television crime dramas where the
‘perps’ are selling or using drugs. Think about all of the attractive people
(i.e., potential sexual partners) that a sex or porn addict sees on a daily
basis. Then think about any addict at all dealing with the rollercoaster of life
and the emotions it induces. Triggers are everywhere, and, as addicts, there
is nothing we can do about that beyond learning to recognize them and to
deal with them in healthy ways when they occur.

Task for Today

Think of three healthy ways you can deal with triggers. Then ask, “When is
the last time I relied on one of these healthy coping mechanisms?”

NOVEMBER 21

‘Sexploration’ Counts as Cheating

Do you stop loving someone just because they betray you? I don't think so.
That's what makes the betrayal hurt so much.
When asked to describe our sexually addictive behaviors, most of us talk
about various forms of sexploration—purely sexual activities lacking any
sort of emotional component or connection, like watching porn, hiring
prostitutes, webcam masturbation, and similar behaviors. Sexploration, so
to speak. And we often think that because it doesn’t mean anything on an
emotional level (to us), it’s not cheating and our significant other really
shouldn’t care about it. However, our partners tend to view the situation
differently. For them, cheating is more about the loss of relationship trust
that any particular sexual activity. So, if we’re being sexual in any way and
keeping this a secret from our partner, we’re violating relationship trust. In
other words, we’re cheating.

Task for Today

Think of three ‘reasons’ you thought (and maybe still think) your sexually
addictive behaviors are OK and won’t bother your significant other. Share
these reasons in therapy or a 12-step meeting and ask for feedback.

NOVEMBER 22

The Benefits of Caring for the Body

Love yourself enough to live a healthy lifestyle.

The body, mind, and spirit are interconnected. Each has the power to affect
the others, both positively and negatively. In our addiction, we abused our
body, and because of this our mind and our spirit suffered. As part of our
recovery, we need to take care of our body by eating right and exercising.
When we do this, we simultaneously enhance our mind and nurture our
spirit. Being in recovery is not just a matter of staying sober, it’s about
living a healthier, happier, more integrated life.

Task for Today

Eat healthy foods and devote at least 30 minutes to physical movement.

NOVEMBER 23

Surviving the Holidays: Take a Time Out

If a man insisted always on being serious and never allowed himself to rest
and relax, he would go mad without knowing it.

We all seem to think that the holiday season should be non-stop dinners,
events, parties, shopping sprees, and decorating jags. And those activities
can certainly be a lot of fun for everyone who participates. But we still need
some downtime. We need to get enough sleep, to exercise, to eat healthy
foods (while still enjoying the cookies and pies), and to generally take good
physical and emotional care of ourselves. Reading, meditation, support
groups, yoga, going to the movies, watching fun TV shows, and just plain
napping are highly recommended during the holiday season. When we do
this, we recharge our batteries, and we are therefore more likely to stay
sober and enjoy the holiday season.

Task for Today

Forget about the holidays and just relax for at least an hour.
 NOVEMBER 24

Step 11 is a Unique and Personal Journey

Search, no matter what situation you are in.

There is no right or wrong way to work Step 11. In fact, there are as many
ways to work Step 11 as there are people who’ve done it. With spirituality,
no two journeys are the same. That said, a few general tips can help you
find your pathway toward enlightenment.

Make your spiritual quest a regular part of your daily routine. Set
aside a specific time each day where you will not be disturbed by
family, work, or other outside distractions.

Create a ‘sacred space’ in which to conduct your daily spiritual

practice. This may be something formal and elaborate such as a
meditation garden, or something quite simple, such as your
favorite easy chair (with the television, stereo, phone, and other
potential distractions either removed or turned off).

Develop a spiritual routine. This could include a guided

meditation, a series of affirmations, a specific or nonspecific
prayer, writing out a gratitude list, etc.

If all else fails, find a spiritual mentor. Pick someone who has
what you want in terms of his or her spiritual connection and do
what he or she does. Eventually you will be able to adapt
elements of that person’s spiritual practice into your own.
Don’t be afraid to experiment with new ideas and to alter your spiritual
practice as time passes. As you continue to work Step 11, it is likely that
your concept of a Higher Power will change, as will your ability to connect
with that entity. Thus, your daily routine is also likely to vary over time.

Task for Today

Become willing to believe in and trust a Higher Power, even if you can’t
define that power.

NOVEMBER 25

Going to Therapy Isn’t Enough

Accepting help does not mean you’ve failed; it means you’re no longer in it
alone.

Typically, healing from sex and porn addiction presents challenges that
can’t be dealt with solely in individual, one-on-one therapy. In fact, we
nearly always require external reinforcement and support if we want to
permanently change our deeply rooted patterns of behavior. Twelve-step
groups can be extremely helpful in this regard. In these meetings, we learn
that our problems are not unique, which goes a long way toward reducing
the shame associated with our behaviors. Twelve-step meetings are also an
ideal place to confront and overcome denial. When we share, our fellows in
recovery let us know through their reactions whether we’re grounded in
reality or still living in denial. We can also learn which interventions and
coping mechanisms work best based on others’ experiences. Most
importantly, we learn that helpful support and direction are available from
many caring people, not just a primary therapist or an accountability
partner.

Task for Today

If you haven’t been to a 12-step meeting lately, go. And when you’re there,
share.

NOVEMBER 26

Sex and Porn Addiction and Denial

Delay is the deadliest form of denial.

As sex and porn addicts, we rationalize, minimize, and justify our sexual
adventures, blaming everyone and everything but ourselves for our actions
and the pickle in which we eventually find ourselves. In recovery, we have
a name for this type of reasoning: denial. Denial is a series of internal lies
and deceits that we tell ourselves to make our questionable behaviors seem
OK (to us, if no one else). Typically, each self-deception is supported by
one or more rationalizations, and each of our rationalization is bolstered by
still more falsehoods. And so it goes. Without doubt, an impartial observer
could easily see through our smokescreen, but we either cannot or will not,
choosing instead to ignore the seriousness and potential consequences of
our actions so we can comfortably carry on with our sexual acting out. And
this willful ignorance can go on for years—usually continuing until our
addiction is discovered by others, and sometimes beyond that.

Task for Today

Write a list of ten ways you justified your addiction. Share this list in
therapy or a meeting.

NOVEMBER 27

Shame: The Wisdom of Sirius Black

Shame thrives in darkness, but withers in sunlight.

In Harry Potter: The Order of the Phoenix , Harry fears the darkness with
himself. When he shares this with his godfather, Sirius Black, Sirius tells
him to listen very carefully, and then he says, “You’re not a bad person.
You’re a very good person who bad things have happened to. Besides, the
world isn’t split into good people and Death Eaters. We’ve all got both light
and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That’s who
we really are.” Sex and porn addicts, especially those new to recovery, often
face a dilemma similar to Harry’s. We think we are bad people, permanently
ruined. When this occurs, it is important to understand that although we
cannot change the past, we can choose to act differently in the future. And if
we do, that is who we truly are.

Task for Today

Stop living in the wreckage of your past. Stay in the moment. Be a good
person right here, right now.

NOVEMBER 28

Sexual Integrity
Every life crisis presents an opportunity, however painful, for personal
growth.

A primary goal for most recovering sex and porn addicts is developing
sexual integrity. When defining what sexual integrity looks like for you,
there are several things to consider, including what you learned about sex
from your family, what doctrines are espoused by your religion and how
important it is for you to live within those doctrines, what your community
believes about sex and sexuality, whether certain behaviors are physically
and emotionally safe for you and others, and whether you are harming
yourself or anyone else with your behavior. Based on these considerations,
your version of sexual integrity will probably not look like anyone else’s.
What works for your best friend might be totally wrong for you, and vice
versa. The trick, when developing your personal version of sexual integrity,
is figuring out what works and makes sense for you (and, to a lesser extent,
the people around you).

Task for Today

Consider how your life history impacts your definition of sexual integrity.

NOVEMBER 29

Taking the Next Right Step

At this moment, I am the right person, in the right place, at the right time.

Some days we wake up on the wrong side of the bed. For whatever reason,
we just don’t want to face the day. The world seems too big and too
difficult, and the solution feels like crawling back into bed or re-engaging
with our addiction. At that point, we must ask ourselves what sort of day we
would like to have. If we want to be miserable, we’re off to a good start. If
we want to have a decent day, we need to make a break with what we’re
feeling. And that break always requires some sort of action on our part. We
need to take the proverbial next right step. This may mean getting out of
bed and thanking our Higher Power for our sobriety. It may mean compiling
a gratitude list. Or it may be as simple as dragging ourselves into the
bathroom to brush our teeth, shower, and get dressed. As we continually do
the next right thing over and over, we start to accomplish things and our day
inevitably gets better.

Task for Today

When you feel stuck, ask yourself, “What is the next right step?” And then
take that step.

NOVEMBER 30

Masturbation as a Healthy Behavior?

For some sex and porn addicts, masturbation is the only sex they ever have
with a person they care about.

Comedienne Lily Tomlin famously said, “We have reason to believe that
man first walked upright to free his hands for masturbation.” And she may
be right. That said, for many people there is more to masturbation than just
self-pleasure. For some recovering sex and porn addicts, masturbation can
be a healthy, outer circle/boundary activity, helping them create healthy,
non-compulsive sexual and romantic attachments. For instance, being held
while masturbating can be a deeply intimate act that helps to build
connection. That said, plenty of sex and porn addicts tend to struggle with
compulsive masturbation, and generally it should be placed in either the
inner or middle circle/boundary. When there is confusion about
masturbation, it is best to err on the side of caution.

Task for Today

Think about whether masturbation could be a healthy part of your recovery,
and, if so, how that might happen.

DECEMBER 1

Dealing With Slips/Relapses

Falling down is how we learn and grow. Staying down is how we die.

In sex and porn addiction recovery, slips and relapse are relatively common,
and they are usually not the end of the world. So, rather than looking at
these events as disasters with no solution, we can view them as learning
opportunities. In other words, setbacks should be treated as problems to be
explored and solved rather than personal failures. After a slip or relapse, we
can explore the ‘stinking thinking’ that led to our backslide, identify the
trigger or triggers that pushed us over the edge, and devise ways in which
we can handle ourselves differently in the future if the same or a similar
situation arises. We can also explore other situations in which we might
relapse, planning for ways to cope there as well. If necessary, we can
tighten our sexual sobriety plan.

Task for Today

Examine the slippery slope that led up to your last episode of sexual acting
out. Share about this with your therapist, 12-step sponsor, or a friend in
recovery.
 DECEMBER 2

We Need a Pack to Recover

There is an undeniable strength in numbers.

Human beings are meant to work together, not to go it alone. For evidence,
think back to prehistoric times when people lived in tribes. If we went
hunting, we went in a group; otherwise, we were as likely to be eaten as to
eat. And hunting trips could take a very long time, so other members of the
tribe stayed behind in the cave and tanned hides to keep the group warm,
gathered nuts and berries to eat, collected sticks for the fire, and did some
rudimentary farming. For thousands of years, this type of communal living
was the standard for survival. Because of this, our brains evolved in ways
that encourage interpersonal bonding, and now we are wired to be
dependent upon others. Yet somehow, in modern society, our intrinsic need
for connection gets discounted. This despite the fact that endless amounts of
research tell us that people who spend their lives ‘apart from’ rather than ‘a
part of’ do not function as well as those who feel emotionally connected.

Task for Today

Ask yourself, “Who is in my pack?” If you don’t have a pack, ask another
recovering person to have coffee with you.

DECEMBER 3

How to Handle the Holidays

When I stopped living in the problem and began living in the answer, the
problem went away.
The holiday season is, for most people, a joyful time filled with family,
friends, and celebrations. For recovering sex and porn addicts, however, the
holidays can be the most stressful time of the year. Being or at least
pretending to be happy, celebratory, and emotionally present feels both
unnatural and uncomfortable. If we’re not careful, we can become
overwhelmed by this pressure, and in response we might revert to old,
unhealthy behaviors. As such, it is incredibly important to recognize the
danger zone of holidays, and to vigilantly maintain our recovery-oriented
activities. This is not the time to cancel therapy sessions, to postpone a
meeting with a sponsor, or to skip any of our regular 12-step meetings. In
fact, we may want to attend a few extra therapy sessions and meetings and
check in with our sponsor more often.

Task for Today

Devote some extra time and attention to recovery, no matter how pressing
the holidays feel.

DECEMBER 4

Step 12: Assess for the Spiritual Awakening

By doubting, we come to the question. By seeking, we come to the truth.

Step 12 says, “Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps,
we tried to carry this message to other addicts, and to practice these
principles in all our affairs.” The first thing to do when we approach Step
12 is to recognize the first portion of the step’s language, “having had a
spiritual awaking as the result of these steps.” By the time we reach Step
12, we’ve likely had a spiritual awakening of some sort. If you think you
haven’t, take a quick inventory. As yourself:

Have I stopped my addictive behavior?

Am I interacting in healthier ways with family members, bosses,

coworkers, neighbors, others?

Do I feel better about myself and my place in the world?

Am I more accepting of others?

If the answer to these questions is yes, then you have indeed had a spiritual
awakening.

Task for Today

Assess the depth and meaning of your spiritual awakening.

DECEMBER 5

Stopping the Addictive Cycle

Addiction: When you can stop, you don’t want to, and when you want to
stop, you can’t.

There are six stages in the cycle of sex and porn addiction:

1. Triggers

2. Fantasy
 3. Ritualization (moving fantasy toward reality)

4. Acting out

5. Numbing (emotional distancing)

6. Despair (shame and remorse)

Typically, the cycle is best interrupted at the trigger stage. When we learn to
recognize our triggers, we can engage in contrary action, dealing with those
triggers in healthy ways. We can also stop the addictive cycle in the fantasy
and ritual stages but doing so becomes progressively more difficult. As we
move deeper into the cycle, our addiction gathers momentum like a boulder
rolling down a hill.

Task for Today

Identify the tipping point in your addictive cycle—your point of no return.

DECEMBER 6

Our Motivation for Recovery

When everything seems to be going against you, remember that airplanes

take off against the wind, not with it.

Even though we nearly always require outside assistance if we hope to heal,

the first step on our healing journey is an internal one—deciding that we
actually want help with our addiction. Typically, this willingness to enter
into the often-difficult process of recovery arises because we’ve
experienced negative consequences related to our sexual behaviors. Usually,
our relationship, job, standing in the community, or freedom is threatened.
Occasionally, our motivation is internal; we just don’t like the person we’ve
become and we want to change. It doesn’t really matter where the initial
impetus for recovery comes from—even superficial remorse is a good start
—as long as the impetus is there to some degree.

Task for Today

Think about why you want to recover. Talk about your reasons in therapy, a
12-step meeting, or with a friend in recovery.

DECEMBER 7

Mixing Cocaine or Meth with Sex and Porn

Those who live with the greatest intensity often take the least interest in life.

Cocaine and methamphetamine, no matter how they are ingested, rapidly

alter brain chemistry, inducing feelings of euphoria and control. A common
myth about these drugs is that they’re not addictive because sudden
abstinence does not precipitate the physical withdrawal symptoms seen with
certain other drugs (opiates and alcohol, for instance). However, as more
than one user has asked, “If cocaine and meth are not addictive, then why
can’t I stop?” Relapse rates among people attempting to recover from
cocaine and meth addiction are astronomical—as high as 94%. And when
cocaine and meth are paired with sex or porn addiction, those rates are even
higher.

Task for Today

Think about ways in which your substance use pairs with your sexual
behavior.
 DECEMBER 8

Holiday Survival: Daily Check-Ins

Holidays are about spending time with loved ones and tuning into feelings
of connection.

Even for people who don’t get stressed out by the holidays, a daily check-in
can be useful. For those of us who do stress out, daily check-ins are an
absolute necessity. We need to take a few minutes each day to sit down with
ourselves and ask the following questions:

Am I feeling stressed out, sad, angry, or isolated?

Am I keeping any secrets?

Have I told any lies?

Do I have unrealistic expectations of family, friends, or holiday

gatherings?

Honest answers to these questions can help us understand our feelings and
to know if we are vulnerable to relapse.

Task for Today

Do a self-check. If you find that you are struggling, reach out to a friend in
recovery for support and guidance.

DECEMBER 9
Stop Listening to the Noise in Your Head

Shame loses its power when shared with another loving person.

As sex and porn addicts, we can almost universally identify when other
addicts talk about the ‘shitty committee’ that holds uninvited discussions in
their head, or the ‘negative tapes’ that spin relentlessly between their ears,
or the gremlins that live in their skull and scream “You suck!” at the top of
their lungs at all hours of the day and night. Those noises are shame, and
shame is a driving force in the formation and maintenance of sex and porn
addiction (and all other addictions). Learning to recognize, understand, and
overcome feelings of shame is integral to our process of healing and
recovery.

Task for Today

Talk about the shaming messages that you hear in your head with
supportive people in recovery and let them give you a reality check.

DECEMBER 10

Tolerance and Escalation

We can’t discover new lands without losing sight of the shore.

If you’re struggling to understand how sex and porn addiction escalate,

consider heroin addiction as an analogy. Nobody shoots heroin right out of
the gate. Instead, heroin addicts ease into things by smoking marijuana or
abusing a prescription medication. As time passes, their tolerance increases,
and in response their habits escalate. Maybe they start smoking pot around
the clock, or maybe they start popping pills by the handful. Eventually, even
that doesn’t get or keep them high the way they’d like. At some point they
‘discover’ harder drugs like heroin, and they use that to feel high the way
they used to. At first, they might just sprinkle a bit of heroin into a joint or
mix a tiny bit of heroin into the pills they’ve learned to crush and snort (for
faster effect). Then, before they know it, and without ever making a
conscious decision to do so, they’re cooking and injecting their new drug of
choice. As sex and porn addicts, our behavior escalates in the exact same
way.

Task for Today

List three things you did in your addiction that you never expected to do.
How do you feel about these behaviors?

DECEMBER 11

Step 12: Carrying the Message

Those who know, do. Those that understand, teach.

The work of Step 12 can be broken down into two parts: helping others to
recover from addiction, and practicing the 12-step principles in all our
affairs. The first part, helping others, can be done in numerous ways. One
common route is sponsorship of newcomers to recovery. If you’re
wondering, a sponsor’s job is to understand the newcomer’s addiction
issues as thoroughly as possible and to guide that individual through the
process of working the 12 steps. (If you are a new sponsor and suddenly
find that you are unsure about how to proceed, simply consult with your
own sponsor to see how he or she would handle things.)
Task for Today
Ask your sponsor if you are ready to be a sponsor yourself. Discuss the
‘why’ of his or her response.

DECEMBER 12

Porn Addiction May Be the Most Common Form of Sexual Addiction

Our human compassion binds us the one to the other—not in pity or

patronizingly, but as human beings who have learned how to turn our
common suffering into hope for the future.

One thing that almost all digital age sex addicts have in common is
pornography. We’ve all seen it, and many (maybe most) of us have used it
compulsively as part of our active addiction. And why would we expect
otherwise? The barriers to accessing porn that once existed (prior to and in
the early days of the internet) like cost, proof of age, etc., are no longer in
play. Today, all a person who’s interested in porn needs to do is find a porn
site and start clicking. The amount of porn that’s currently available is so
large and increasing so quickly (mostly thanks to user-generated imagery)
that it has actually become unmeasurable.

Task for Today

Consider how porn use plays into your addiction. Is it a bottom-line
behavior or a slippery behavior that leads you into bottom-line behaviors?

DECEMBER 13
Create Space for Your Feelings

The best way out is through.

We live in a culture that does not always approve of big feelings, especially
the expression of unpleasant or negative emotions. Our society often
teaches us that when we experience grievous losses and hurts, we should
keep our pain, anger, and sadness to ourselves. Many therapists believe that
this cultural expectation is a recipe for addiction, mental illness, and
physical health problems. So, instead of stuffing our feelings, we need to
express them. Doing so can be an act of profound kindness, tenderness, and
self-care.

Task for Today

Pay attention to what you are feeling. Allow yourself to acknowledge and
express those feelings by sharing them with your therapist, your sponsor, or
a trusted friend or family member.

DECEMBER 14

Sex and Porn Addiction Are Not Related to Fetish Behaviors

Repress the natural and it comes back even stronger.

Fetishes are recurrent, intense, sexually arousing fantasies, urges, and

behaviors involving nonhuman objects, specific body parts, the suffering of
oneself or one’s sexual partner, or nonconsensual sex (in appearance or
actuality). Relatively common fetishes include BDSM, foot worship,
chubby chasing, diapers/infantilism, leather, etc. Fetishes may cause a
person to keep sexual secrets, to feel shame and distress, and even to feel
out of control, but they are not indicators of sexual addiction. Fetishes are
pathologized only if they cause significant distress and impairment of
social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning. And even
when a fetish does qualify as pathological, it is not the same thing as sexual
addiction.

Task for Today

Do you have a fetish? Do you feel comfortable with it? Do you feel you can
healthfully incorporate it into your sexual sobriety?

DECEMBER 15

Surviving the Holiday Season

It is vital that we accept imperfection in ourselves and others.

Holiday expectations can be overwhelming. We all feel like we have to

cook the perfect meal, create the perfect decorations, and give the perfect
gifts. And if we don’t manage those things, we have failed and the holidays
are a disaster. Unfortunately, life is not a Norman Rockwell painting.
Cookies burn, our crazy neighbor hangs 40,000 twinkle lights and our three
measly strings won’t work at all, and the directions for assembling our kids’
new bikes might as well be written in Greek. If we can accept, with good
grace, the holidays as they happen, however they happen, then we have a
much better chance of enjoying ourselves and staying sober. So laugh about
the burnt cookies and eat them anyway, be glad you’re not paying your
neighbor’s electric bill, and take lots of pictures of the unassembled bikes
and post them on social media so everyone can comment about how
mechanically inept you are.

Task for Today

Accept your imperfections, as well as the imperfections of others.

DECEMBER 16

The Trauma That Typically Underlies Addiction

It is impossible to understand addiction without asking what relief the

addict finds, or hopes to find, in the drug or the addictive behavior.

As addicts, we use addictive substances and behaviors not to feel better, but
to distract ourselves from emotional discomfort. And it works, too.
Addictive substances and behaviors trigger a highly distracting
neurochemical response—primarily the release of dopamine (pleasure),
along with adrenaline (excitement), oxytocin (love and connection),
serotonin (emotional well-being), and a variety of endorphins (euphoria).
This response creates sensations of pleasure, excitement, control, and, most
importantly, distraction and emotional/psychological escape . Over time,
we learn to cope with stress, depression, anxiety, loneliness, boredom, and
the like by engaging with our addiction instead of turning to people who
might emotionally support us. As we do this repeatedly, this choice
becomes a pattern, and then an addiction.

Task for Today

Make a list of your most potent emotional triggers. Ask your therapist or
sponsor to help you develop non-addictive ways to cope with them.

DECEMBER 17

Love Addiction: What to Look For

Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.

Common signs of love addiction include:

• Using romantic intensity as a way to escape from stress and

other forms of emotional discomfort.

• Mistaking sexual or romantic intensity for love and genuine,

lasting intimacy.

• Struggling to maintain the sexual/romantic intensity of an

existing relationship.

• Feeling desperate and alone when not in a relationship.

• Using sex, seduction, and manipulation to hook or hold on to a

partner.

• Using anonymous sex or porn to avoid ‘needing’ someone.

• Giving up on relationships forever, and then looking for another

relationship.

• Forgoing personal interests and beliefs to hook or keep a

romantic partner.
 • Skipping commitments to search for a new relationship or fix an
existing relationship.

• Seeking a new relationship while still in a relationship.

• Feigning interest in unenjoyable activities to hook or keep a

romantic partner.

• Choosing partners who are emotionally unavailable, addicted,

verbally abusive, physically abusive, etc.

Task for Today

Examine your sexual and romantic history and look for signs of love
addiction. Share about what you find in therapy or a 12-step meeting.

DECEMBER 18

Step 12: Service Leads to Sobriety

The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in service to others.

The work of Step 12 can be broken down into two parts: helping others to
recover from addiction, and practicing the 12-step principles in all our
affairs. The first part, helping others, can be done in numerous ways. One
way to do this is to attend and participate in 12-step meetings. By simply
attending these meetings you are supporting others on their journey, letting
them know they are not alone and that you care about them. When you talk
in a meeting, which is highly encouraged, you share your experience,
strength, and hope, allowing others to learn and benefit from both your
errors and your successes. Even people who are uncomfortable talking in
meetings can be of service by arriving early to help set up chairs and make
coffee and staying late to clean up. These quiet workers are the people who
make 12-step meetings possible. The trick with this kind of service is
finding a task you’re comfortable with, and then doing it without expecting
recognition or thanks.

Task for Today

Volunteer for a ‘quiet job’ in your 12-step fellowship.

DECEMBER 19

Rationalization

Rationalization is the process of not perceiving reality, instead bending it to

fit one’s desires.

Pulitzer and Nobel Prize winning author William Faulkner once wrote,
“Ingenuity was apparently given man in order that he may supply himself in
crises with shapes and sounds with which to guard himself from truth.”
That’s flowery language, but recovering sex and porn addicts nearly always
get the point, because we’re very, very good at avoiding the truth. To this
end, we tell ourselves (and convince ourselves to believe) all sorts of crazy
lies and rationalizations as a way to justify our addictive behaviors.

Task for Today

Pay attention to your behaviors (all of them) and the rationalizations behind
them.
 DECEMBER 20

Overcome Overwhelmed

Life’s challenges are not supposed to paralyze you; they’re supposed to help
you figure out who you really are.

When we feel scattered and overwhelmed, it’s usually because we’ve got a
50-item to-do list. When this happens, our natural tendency as addicts is to
make an inch of progress in 50 different directions without ever finishing a
single task. And then we feel even more scattered and overwhelmed than
before. In recovery, we can learn the 20/80 rule. We look at our list and ask,
“Which 20 percent of my to-do list creates 80 percent of my payoff.” Then
we can create a new list with a few high reward tasks at the top of it. The
payoff we get when one of these tasks is accomplished, because it’s a task
that gives us a high return on our investment, energizes us and motivates us
for the rest of our list. Basically, we try to find the lead domino, knowing
that if we push it over, the rest of the dominoes will also start to fall.

Task for Today

Search for the lead domino on your to-do list and knock it down.

DECEMBER 21

Sex and Porn Addiction and Withdrawal

We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey.

In early sexual sobriety, even the smallest annoyance can feel like a major
issue. Without our go-to coping mechanism (compulsive sexuality), we tend
to overreact and blow up. We get angry with ourselves and others, we cry,
we’re afraid, we’re lonely, etc. As such, in early recovery we are not always
fun to be around. This is our (mostly emotional rather than physical) form
of withdrawal. If we find that we are experiencing this, we must talk about
our feelings with a supportive person who is knowledgeable about sex and
porn addiction and the process of recovery. Unchecked withdrawal
symptoms can lead not only to sex and porn addiction relapse, but to
depression, anxiety, irritability, and similar issues.

Task for Today

Pay attention to your feelings. Share about them with a supportive friend.

DECEMBER 22

Holiday Survival: Remember What’s Really Important

The holidays are a time of renewal, hope, giving, helping, sharing, and,
most of all, love.

We’ve all seen the holiday specials on TV. And they’re always about
realizing what’s truly important. Whether the hero is Georgy Bailey,
Ralphie Parker, Charlie Brown, Frosty, Virginia, or even the Grinch, the
message is always the same. The holiday season is about love. The holidays
are about celebrating our connections with family and friends. If we make
this our theme for the holidays, the people around us will pick up on that,
and they will make it their theme as well. In this way, we are much more
likely to feel ‘a part of’ rather than ‘apart from’ during the holidays.

Task for Today

Invite a family member or a close friend to engage in a holiday activity with
you.

DECEMBER 23

Sex vs. Food

Sex is a healthful behavior—until it becomes an obsession and spirals out

of control.

Sex and porn addiction and eating disorders are similar in many ways. For
starters, these behaviors are (for most people, most of the time) healthy and
essential to life. In fact, eating and being sexual contribute to survival of
both the individual and the species. (This is why our brains are programmed
to experience pleasure when we engage in these activities.) Unfortunately,
for vulnerable individuals (people at-risk for addiction thanks to genetics,
trauma, or their environment), this inborn pleasure response can become a
go-to coping mechanism utilized to deal with any and all forms of
emotional and psychological discomfort, turned to time and time again until
the individual loses control over it.

Task for Today

Picture a life where you are sexual only in healthy ways, much like a person
with an eating disorder must learn to eat in healthy ways.
 DECEMBER 24

Don’t Just Say I Love You, Show It

Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.

Telling someone that you love them is nice, but actions speak much louder
than words. That said, you needn’t show love with extravagant gestures. In
fact, little things tend to ultimately be more meaningful. So, listen to what
your loved ones say and try to really hear it. Let it sink in. Remember the
dates and events that are important to them. If it’s on their calendar, make
sure it’s on your calendar too. Most importantly, spend time with them. Do
some things they enjoy and help them with tasks they don’t enjoy. And
make sure you invite them to join in activities that you enjoy. It doesn’t
matter what you do together if they understand that your goal is to spend
time together.

Task for Today

Do something nice for a person you care about. Just because.

DECEMBER 25

Holiday Survival: Get Grateful

Gratitude turns what we have into enough.

Researcher Brené Brown has studied happiness for nearly 20 years,

conducting in-depth interviews with thousands of individuals. Over the
years, she has identified one significant difference between happy people
and unhappy people: Happy people are grateful for what they have.
Whatever they have, they are grateful for it. Instead of focusing on what
they don’t have, or what they might not have, or how dreadful their future
might look, they focus on the present moment and the blessings in their
lives. So, anytime we feel stressed or blue, especially during the holiday
season, we can pause and create a short gratitude list. Nothing chases away
the holiday blues faster than gratitude.

Task for Today

Create a ten-item holiday gratitude list.

DECEMBER 26

Sex and Porn Addiction Are Not About Sex. They’re About Escape.

You can’t avoid reality forever.

Sex and porn addicts share certain characteristics. One of these common
traits is that starting in adolescence (and sometimes earlier) we learned to
use sexual fantasy and masturbation to avoid feelings. And we continued
this tendency into our adult lives. In other words, we learned early on that
sex could be used to escape emotional discomfort. Often, it was the easiest
and most reliable form of self-soothing and emotional regulation we could
find, so it became our go-to coping mechanism. Stated another way, we
learned to use sexual fantasy and masturbation for the same reason
alcoholics drink and drug addicts use—to escape fear, stress, depression,
anxiety, boredom, and anything else we didn’t want to feel.

Task for Today

When you experience emotional discomfort, sit with it and experience it
instead of numbing out with your addiction.

DECEMBER 27

Combatting Shame

With sex and porn addiction, shame is the master emotion.

A considerable amount of research makes it clear that not talking about

feelings of shame is usually more damaging than the actual shame-inducing
event. In other words, it’s not any specific shameful event, belief, or feeling
that drags us into our obsessive quest for escape, it’s that our shame has not
been addressed and processed. When shameful events, beliefs, and feelings
are openly discussed, even years after the fact, they lose their power. And
with that, sex and porn addiction also lose their power.

Task for Today

Share a shameful sexual secret in therapy or a 12-step meeting.

DECEMBER 28

Step 12: Living the Principles

With integrity, you do the right thing, so you have no guilt or shame about
your actions.

The work of Step 12 can be broken down into two parts: helping others to
recover from addiction, and practicing the 12-step principles in all our
affairs. The second part, practicing the 12-step principles in all our affairs,
should be relatively easy. After all, we’ve been doing this with our recovery
and most of our day-to-day life already, just by being in recovery and
working the first eleven steps, and we have Step 10 (which we practice on a
regular basis) to keep us on the straight and narrow. In Step 12, we merely
continue implementing the work we’ve already done and are doing on an
ongoing basis, applying the lessons we’ve learned to all aspects of our lives,
not just our addiction.

Task for Today

Think of one way in which you are not living in full integrity. Apply the 12-
step principles to this issue.

DECEMBER 29

Demystify the 12 Steps by Talking to Other Recovering Addicts

Addiction thrives in isolation. Recovery thrives in company.

There are as many ways to work the 12 steps as there are recovering
addicts. How we choose to work the steps is far less important than the fact
that we do it, because ongoing 12-step work is the one and only proven
route to lasting sobriety. As such, it is imperative that we go to and
participate in 12-step sexual recovery meetings, that we get a sponsor, and
that we build a support group. Then we have people to talk to about the
steps—many of whom will be willing to share about their own experience
working the steps, providing input, guidance, and much needed feedback.
Task for Today
Ask at least one friend in recovery how he or she worked the step that you
are currently on. (If you haven’t started the steps, you’re on Step 1.)

DECEMBER 30

The Gifts of Recovery

The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second-best time is now.

As we heal from sex and porn addiction, honesty, integrity, self-knowledge,

and a desire to be vulnerable and known for who we truly are, warts and all,
slowly but steadily replace the double-life we’ve been living. Secrets, lies,
and superficial connections disappear as we begin to feel better about our
behavior and our self-identity. When taken on actively and honestly,
recovery provides unexpected levels of emotional maturity and hope for a
future filled with loving, life affirming friendships and romantic
relationships. Admittedly, working toward change is not easy, especially
when our addiction is deeply rooted, but it pays big dividends over time.

Task for Today

Ask yourself: “Am I starting to feel more comfortable in my own skin?”
Share your answer to this question in therapy, a 12-step meeting, or with a
friend in recovery.

DECEMBER 31
Does Your Life Have Purpose?

Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction.

We all have something we’re good at that we love to do. If we’re lucky (and
smart), we turn that into our purpose. Unfortunately, most of us never
manage to do that. We fall into the trap of ‘just getting by,’ and we forget
about the things that truly inspire us. That holds us back in painful ways
that do not support our recovery. If we ever hope to escape the daily grind
and truly succeed—not just staying sober but also loving life—we need to
overcome this impediment. We need to find and embrace our purpose.

Task for Today

Ask yourself, “What do I love to do, and how can I incorporate that into my
daily life?”