It’s almost surreal to me. Just two weeks ago I’m walking along the street in Vegas at night.
Sin city.
All around me are the signs and indicators of sex on display.
Everywhere.
Girls standing on top of casino counters gyrating and otherwise doing their thing.
Scantily clad females walking the street, some dressed only in nipple stickers for a top. Others wearing thongs leaving their basically naked bottoms on display…Yet I’m unaffected.
Put me there 10 years ago and I would have been agitated by everything I saw. Wanting to run into a bathroom somewhere so I could jerk off. My sexual addiction in full throttle.
But not now. Everything is changed.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying I’ve neutered myself.
What I saw still turned me on. I am still a normal, red blooded male who nature has programmed to find the female body aluring and desireable. And I do.
None of that has changed.
Even so, everything HAS changed.
Why?
Because now I have self-control.
I’m no longer the pawn of my body and its desires. I’m no longer led about by every titillating experience of sexual stimulation I encounter.
I now have choice.
One of the most important lessons I’ve learned about overcoming sexual addiction is you don’t overcome it by running away from it. You don’t get over your compulsions by trying not to experience them.
I’ve often told the story of how one day at a friend’s place I walked into the room and he asked me if I would please move a box from the middle of the floor over to the wall so it was out of our way.
I said “Sure!.” Then I bent down to grasp the box by the handles in its side and tried to lift it.
It wouldn’t budge. Sheepishly I grinned at my friend and tried again.
Still no luck! Try as I may I just couldn’t begin to lift it.
Embarrassed I apologized and said to him I couldn’t make it budge. A little annoyed he walked over to the box, grasped it by the handles, and easily lifted it from its place and set it down at the wall.
Talk about embarrasing!
So what do you think I did after that experience of not being able to lift a box that my friend so easily lifted?
I’ll tell you what I did.
I began changing my life. I evaluated every situation where I might encounter an experience that required me to lift things and started trying to avoid these situations.
When friends were moving homes, I would make sure I was conveniently unavailable to help.
If I was at an event and the meeting room needed to be rearranged, I would just conveniently need to use the restroom at that moment.
Having experienced my weakness lifting things, I realized the answer was to structure my life so I would never have to lift anything ever again. That way I wouldn’t succumb to my weakness.
I hope you realize by now I’m joking and that the experience I just described about my physical weakness is fictitious.
Of course it would be ridiculous to try to spend your life avoiding lifting things because you’re weak right? But you know what the sad thing is? When it comes to sexual addiction you are told to do exactly that.
You are told to try to avoid your triggers. To avoid situations where you will be tempted to “act out.”
In other words when seeking help with sexual addiction you are told just to remain weak and accommodate that weakness in your life forever. That the only way to overcome sexual addiction is to try to arrange things so you’ll never be tempted again.
At least as best you can…
I’m here to tell you I never found that worked.
This whole “I’m powerless to change” thing just never did it for me. It just left me powerless.
It was only when I came to see that I was not powerless, but simply weak, that I was able to begin building the strength I needed to experience my “temptations” without callapsing in their presence.
It is how I was able to walk through Las Vegas, a den of sexual temptation, and not be affected at all.
Are you struggling with sexual addiction and feel powerless in the face of it?
I know how you feel. I was there.
You can change. I know you can because I changed. I’d like to help you change too.
Please.
Don’t stay stuck where you are. Let’s talk.
So what do you think? Can what happens in Vegas really can stay in Vegas so you don’t need to bring it home any more?
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