Saturday, July 12, 2025
Tuesday, July 8, 2025
Monday, July 7, 2025
Sunday, July 6, 2025
Monday, June 30, 2025
Sunday, June 29, 2025
Tuesday, June 24, 2025
Flynn's Recovery Journal (Entry #10)
Struggling
I am struggling right now. Last night, my first night in a new apartment, I gave into temptation and lust and used pornography. This morning I am feeling shame, guilt, and a deep sense of inadequacy. Tomorrow, I start a new job. Feeling like this is not the ideal to go into something so important. It is not how I “should” feel or am supposed to.
Today, I admit this reality to myself and others – instead of trying to compensate for or coverup the shame by focusing on other areas or tasks in my life. By deflecting. I need to lay this down at the Lord’s feet, accept where I am, and ask Him to help me do what I cannot do for myself.
I’m now headed out for the day. It has been a challenge to even find the right words for this entry. Facing people seems daunting right now.
Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Monday, June 23, 2025
Sunday, June 22, 2025
Tuesday, June 17, 2025
Flynn's Recovery Journal (Entry 8 & 9)
(Entry #8)
Numbness – Apathy – Perseverance
Last night I relapsed, yet again. I acknowledge the steps I have taken up to this point to cut off access to explicit material, but in the back of my head, whether true or false, I believe I have known I would always find a way to get to porn. Today I am discouraged and feel defeated. As the title of this entry reads, my headspace is a mixture of numbness and apathy. With conviction, I feel what I am doing is wrong during and after self-pleasuring to porn, but at the same time, I feel like I cannot manage to live without it.
This is where I am at today. Long ago I heard the analogy that life is like a major highway with many lanes. Sometimes some lanes will be clogged and progress will be slow, and at the same time other lanes might have traffic humming along. I think this is an apt description of where I at least feel I am at. I am making progress and being diligent in regard to my new job and the move to a new place. But my recovery seems like it is at a standstill. In this circumstance, perseverance seems to me to be not losing faith that this lane will eventually open up.
(Entry #9)
Frustration and Anger
This post on the surface does not seem to me to be recovery related. But, in giving it some more thought, really everything in life is recovery related in at least some tangential way.
Today I have ran into some bumps with onboarding for my new job and securing a new place to live. I genuinely feel both were not the result of a mistake on my end, but I believe I have responded poorly to their popping up. I quickly grew frustrated, even angry, at what I perceived to be someone’s error causing me an issue or annoyance. A response from me was time-sensitive, and multi-tasking has never been my strong suit. I did not heed the wise words of the great basketball (and life) coach John Wooden: “Be quick, but don’t hurry.”
In these moments in the future, I hope I can remember that the grace God displays towards me for my faults is infinitely more than any I can share with another person in one given instance.
The issues are not fully resolved as of now, so I might get the opportunity to put this principle into practice. I pray I do if that is the case.
Monday, June 16, 2025
Saturday, June 14, 2025
Wednesday, June 11, 2025
Flynn's Recovery Journal (Entry #7)
Restlessness
As long as I can remember, I have been a person with an abundance of nervous energy. It manifests in various ways depending on the circumstances. During conversation with someone I don’t know very well, I might smile and nod excessively. When I’m anticipating a call or an important meeting/task, I likely will go to town on making sure my immediate surroundings are neat and orderly. I do not view this trait as a character defect but rather as a personality trait that I try to be aware of and address when overly activated. (At one point in my life, I was crippled by OCD. While interrelated, these anxious “ticks” I view as distinct.)
I have never been one to be able to sit still, and the advent of the smart phone and the intertwining of our lives with technology has only exacerbated this in my life. This is well and good when there are things to get done and as a preventative measure against laziness, but what about when I have put in a long day’s work and need to allow my body and mind to rest and recharge?
For so long, I have passed up these opportunities for true rest because of my craving of stimulation. In addition to the physiological aspect of my struggle with porn (the belief I have cultivated that I need it to temper my sex drive at a given time), I think this part of me is also a significant contributor.
A newspaper headline I saw months ago read, “When You’re Bored, Pay Attention,” and too often I haven’t been able to sit with myself and my thoughts. My automatic action in such moments (when I am alone, and especially just before going to sleep) is to retreat to the bathroom and self-pleasure. In these next weeks of high volume and quick turnaround as I move to Washington, DC for work, I hope to further recognize that my relationship with and dependence on porn is a lot more than sexual. That may be the primary driver of my initial attraction to it, but like most things, following through and making a habit does not have a singular cause.
Next time I am presented with time to myself, my goal is to use it to deepen my understanding of myself through journaling here rather than languish in shame in God knows where.
Tuesday, June 10, 2025
Recommended reading (Ego Involvement)
The fastest way to kill motivation is to make your identity depend on the outcome. It’s called ego involvement.
When failing becomes failing as a person, your brain starts avoiding the whole thing. Not because you don’t care, but because you care too much.The work gets easier when it’s not about proving who you are.
-lina (The Science of Being)
Friday, June 6, 2025
Tuesday, June 3, 2025
Flynn's Recovery Journal (Entry #4)
Sunday, June 1, 2025 (Entry #4)
Trust the process, keep moving forward
Last night I again delved into the sewer of pornography. This is the first time in a long time I have used this material on consecutive nights. A positive to take away from that: I did not binge the first night and neither the second night. A negative: I still feel the shame and sting of my choices despite not feeling as repulsed by the thought of porn as I usually would after getting off to it.
Speaking of that, I need to do a better job of describing what I am thinking, feeling, and doing during these instances of relapse. Here is my attempt.
- Before (dark night of the soul): It is almost second nature for my mind to go to the opportunity I have to watch porn and masturbate when I find myself home by myself. After dinner and a movie with my parents (which I did to prevent such an opportunity from arising), I got home and my brother was not back from his friend’s graduation party yet. Watching TV and even getting in bed to fall asleep proved futile. I kept checking his location on my laptop, and with the idea that last night might be my best chance for a few days, I took the plunge into the ditch.
- During (giving in & letting go): Deactivating my laptop’s Covenant Eyes blocking software, and with an image of the performer I was lusting after in my head, I went to Google. Dirty blonde/brownish hair, “normal” body features (breasts, buttocks, etc.), but very attractive, this woman fit perfectly my arousal archetype. Important for me as well though is the male performer she is acting with. For me to achieve the level of pleasure my loosed sexuality desires, I have to be able to feel comparable to the man. Whether I look like him in his current state or he is in a shape that would be my ideal, my intention is always to be living vicariously through him.
I would describe the material I am looking at while self-pleasuring to be “realistic,” relative to pornography. There is usually a level of physical attraction between the two actors that manifests in kissing/foreplay before they engage in intercourse. When they do so, I seem to be particularly stimulated by sex acts that are as visually pleasurable as possible for me. This means “positions” and angles that provide the most visibility of the performers’, specifically the woman’s, buttocks and/or breasts.
Often times, when I am in search of porn and a scene that I find pleasurable enough, the webpages I am visiting are inundated with ads that depict hardcore and deviant sexual acts. Despite my relative aversion to such depictions (I have not intentionally clicked one of the links in hopes of further exploring their content to date), this has obviously not stopped me from seeking out porn. And it has not stopped the progression of the porn I seek out from being more and more explicit: scenes with three people, scenes in different environments than the bedroom, scenes involving anal sex, scenes that are just degrading in general. To be honest, it at times scares me, what I am watching or unintentionally see. I sometimes wonder if my porn use has left me with trauma or lack of empathy for individuals I interact with in real life.
The fear, I believe strongly, is only worsened by my OCD and brain’s overall intolerance of uncertainty. I want to know for sure I will never behave improperly, say, during sex with my wife, or worse, ultimately engage in some of the acts in these scenes. The truth is, I don’t know for sure. But my hope is by continuing to show up and keep fighting, in the vein of journaling, reaching out for help with my family and friends, attending meetings, confessing to and confiding in my accountability, I can grow in confidence of my self-control and ability to experience pleasure, whether self- or sexual, in a healthy, non-lustful manner.
- Aloneness: After orgasm, I am invariably left in a state of shame, tiredness, and even times despair. I always shower and go to bed – or take a nap if during the day. It is almost impossible, I feel in the moment, to face people and my loved ones after doing something that I know and believe is very wrong. The next day, I ensure my devices are secured again and try to do something productive or charitable, whether it be completing a school assignment or donating a few dollars to a non-profit I receive email from. This practice puts me on the path to feeling better about myself, before the vicious cycle starts again in a day or so.