The last week has been full of ups and downs. I found myself grieving the absence of a friend who will be walking a different path. The bond we addicts form in our shared quest towards redemption is a strong one, we know the shame, the regret and the consequence but we also know it’s important to our journey and making amends that we face it head-on. I threw myself into my step work for step eight so as not to dwell on feeling sad.

As I looked at my list of people I have harmed, I was aware that so much of my life has been spent in isolation and fantasy, I was living in an illusion.

It was tough for me to say that I had harmed a load of girls who didn’t even know the imaginative violation I acted out in my mind. I know I had wronged them, and whether I could ever make a direct  amends or not, I felt it important to name them.

I may not have harmed them directly, but I became aware that my porn consumption meant there are so many faces and real lives that I have wronged by blindly consuming content. I could never name them all, so where I can name someone that I feel I have wronged, I will. It’s also a part of making amends to myself.

I felt a great sense of relief completing this step, I will spend the rest of my days paying the debts of my amends to those directly affected by my addiction and it’s recently dawned on me that the 12 steps isn’t just some self help program to me, it’s now a part of my identity and DNA, given the numerous identities I had tried to wear in the past to find acceptance, this is the one that works and helps me to truly survive and show up in my life.

After a meeting with my home group, I grabbed a coffee and we chatted. It was the first time I experienced a new fellow semmingly saw me as a font of recovery knowledge. I guess thats how it works, when we share, we put our experience, strength and hope out there for others to model and carry on their own journeys.

This lad asked me how I get away from the powerful pull of obsession and our acting out rituals. It was a good question and one that I will spend my life trying to answer as that pull will always be there.

I normally explain that the three circles covers this perfectly as our core behaviours are the black hole in the centre of the galaxy that is our life, if we focus so much on living in our middle circle and closely orbit our inner core then the pull remains a constant.

The trick is to spend life in your outer circle as much as possible, that way its gravity loses some of its captivating power over us.

This time though, the medium of film came to mind, my step work left such an imprint on my mind, the realisation of how I had spent life isolating in fantasy. I was lonely on my little island with my imaginary friend. I was like Chuck Nolan in Castaway and my friend that kept me alive or so I thought was my addiction.

I just said, for us to escape our island, we can’t take Wilson with us. He grasped what I was trying to say,

Reaching a place in recovery where you know you have to get off your island is a place where you know you can’t take the illusion with you. Wilson may have kept you alive for a time but it is a one sided conversation, it’s void of real connection. As long as I lived on that island, I didnt show up for life, I wasnt present.

It’s not easy though, because when you have spent so long without real connection and intimacy you often grieve the availability, familiarity and reliability of that one sided imaginary friend. The illusion was real in the bubble but it is so destructive and leads only to more doom.

The power of real connection though is worth waiting for and working to be part of. Intimacy is a two way thing and not really a medicine on tap but rather a moment of intense experience, presence and connection that surpasses anything that fantasy has to offer. You carry the deep love every day with gratitude and contentment in life.

Life will always be about seeing the real question I am trying to answer in those moments of difficulty. Identifying my true needs means I can find the healthy solution and not fall into the warn paths of old thinking.

I will give you an example, I passed an attractive girl as I returned to my car, my brain started the age of trope saying of “what I wouldn’t give for” I stopped mid-thought, this is the stinking thinking I hate and sadly it’s for many just a normal part of being a bloke. For an addict though, that train runs all the way to doom if I choose to board it.

I disrupt my thinking, I get my phone out as I get into my car and I hit record, what’s the correct pattern of thinking here? I mean, what I really wouldn’t give for, is to be more present with my own partner, to find deeper levels of intimacy and experience each other more, I want to get back what years of isolation in my addiction have robbed me of.

That’s the train I chose to board, as I dont ride it alone and drowning in shame.

As trainspotting says “choose your future, choose life”