It’s just over 10 months ago since the walls came down and my problem was exposed to the light of day, I think back to the early days and said I would never go back to this, porn is gone and I won’t be doing this again, I have discovered since that this was naive on my part despite the well-meaning and sentiment at the time.

A few months ago I was working at my day job and this involved being switched on and alert to groups of youths who could potentially cause trouble in the store, a few lads and a few girls around 15 years old, typically they headed over to some of the more expensive lines, I had to observe, but couldn’t ask them to leave until they gave cause to justify the request. This proved to be challenging as one of the girls was acting in a way that was more reminiscent of a girl at 1 am in a high street kebab shop. Being carried by piggyback around the store she also had minimal attire to match.

The rigorous honesty of recovery isn’t just about owning stuff from the past, it is almost as much being honest about the present and the day-to-day challenges of recovery, so in the spirit of honesty, I was triggered by this brief event, I asked the group to leave and was hurled the usual abuse retail staff endure as they go about their business.

What triggered me was the genuine fact that I found this young and immature girl attractive, I hate that I can say that, I hate that I feel that, this realisation began to eat away at me. The only way I knew to deal with all negative emotions was to act out, I didn’t, but that’s only because I made a couple of calls and got it off my chest. I felt that even though I was triggered I had done the right thing. Surely this was the progress we mention in our programme.

This moment steered the course for my therapy for a few weeks. We discussed how deeply uncomfortable I was with my attraction to some girls that are far too young for me and in this case not of legal age, we established that I was carrying a lot of shame surrounding this.

My therapist put things this way, just because there is a particular shade of paint on my pallet, it doesn’t mean I have to use it, nor does it mean that’s all I have. I am not sure if I do or not, but having spoken to a few people about this, I can say that society has a real problem with fetishising school girls, it’s a common genre of porn and is a well warn fantasy and trope in television and pop culture.

Fight the new drug as an organisation challenges some of the toxic ways the pornography industry glamorises things like racism, and promotes things like teen, rape, and rough sex genres. When I think back to the early days of the internet, half the stuff that’s readily available now was taboo and not something that you would see or find.

As time passes by the ominous fear of people finding out about my addiction and the shame that comes with it is like a hurricane, while I survived the first part, I have used the time in the eye of the storm to reinforce the building that is my life, I have the friendship and brotherhood of my fellowship and the ongoing love and support of my partner and family and friends.

After using accountability software and working on the programme I started to resent the steps I had taken, the laying down of my privacy, the lack of ability to go my own way, the feeling of this is too strict, this isn’t healthy as I cannot live in celibacy.

Before I knew it I thought I needed to cut that chord, I deleted my sponsor and the app that acted as protection. In its place I then set up a new Instagram, I then started to add some of the girls I remembered, and the next thing I knew had been on there for 5 hours and followed nearly 700 accounts. I mean sure this wasn’t porn, but it was a definite dopamine binge, and even if I finished myself off with a zen style empty-minded effort, but I had got there by textbook compulsive behavior. This was acting out!

It took me a couple of days to come clean and check in about this, after a daily reading which focused on honesty, I immediately got in touch with my sponsor and shared that night at the meeting. It was a weight off the chest but a reminder that being derailed was too easy, after a chat with my therapist I realised something had changed, even though I had done what I had done, I was not staying there. I couldn’t call this place home any more.

I am far from perfect or walking the recovery I wish to see, but it is true when it is said that the opposite of addiction isn’t sobriety, it’s connection.

In my addiction, life was about self, survival. Me against the world, now? I am a part of the world and I only want to be the best version of myself and make it through this storm.

My life is not that of a lone wolf, I am not alone, I never was! That is just the lie addicts believe.

Maybe it’s time to focus on a better type of storm.