Wednesday

Nothing to really says about today. I took a temporary job doing landscaping until my "real" job starts in two weeks. This will get me out of the house more, plus a few extra buck never hurts. Nothing else to really note. No lying today. I basically hung out with the kids all day. Watched porn for about an hour after they went to bed.

Pleased to Find More Recovery Blogs

I was very surpirsed and very pleased when I did a search for Recovery related blogs.

Here are the results of my Blog Catalog search.

Here are the results on my BlogFlux search.

I'm grateful that there is a community out there.

Tuesday and Playing Hookie

The good news is that I didn't watch porn yesterday, and I won't today either. I'm too tired.

The bad news is that tonight was supposed to be a meeting night, but instead I went to McDonalds ordered a milkshake and hungout at Barnes and Nobles reading books. This wouldn't necessarily be that bad of a thing, but I told my wife that I was going to a meeting, and when I got home she asked how the meeting was....to which I replied, "eh, it was OK."

I don't normally skip meetings, but I've had so little time to myself recently that I just wanted to spend sometime alone. That isn't a bad thing but lying to my wife is. It isn't as though I went and did anything wrong, so I should have just been able to say that I played hookie.

This is one of my defects that is still with me; the little white lie. I am an honest person when it comes to signficant things. But when I think that its harmless I have no problem telling what I think the other person wants to hear. I don't know why that is still an issue with me.

Monday

I can't wait to get back to work.

I was laid off from my job at a major company last week. Since then I've already secured a job and I'm just waiting on paperwork and a startdate. In the meantime I've been spending time with my family, doing extra work around the house, etc. I love my wife...I love my kids, but I can't wait to get back to work. You don't realize how important work is to you until you don't have it for over a week. This isn't like being on vacation.

I am grateful to have the extra time with my family and my wife, but I am used to having much more time to myself. I'm not used to sitting around the house, and by sitting around the house I mean changing diapers, hanging curtains, getting up when the kids cry in the middle of the night, scrubbing toilets, etc.

I have much more respect for my wife now that I already did.

I just joined a church worship team. The group was in need of some other musicians, but I didn't bring up that I play music because we only recently started going to the church. I knew another member of the church and they mentioned that I played an instrument. So, now I am playing with the worship team. Yesterday was my first time playing in church with them. Tonight was supposed to be the practice for next week, only the leader didn't show up. So, I drove to Dairy Queen and bought a sundae and ate it in the car....that was my rebellion for the day.

Now, I'm going to sign off and I'm probably going to look at porn. Maybe not. We will see. It is one of my biggest struggles at this point.

Sundays

I love Sundays during football season, but I can get pretty wrapped up in the game....too wrapped up in it. Especially, if my team loses like they did today. They are losing in the third quarter and my daughter walks in the room just as I'm yelling, "FUCK!" That's a way to feel like a real loser for a dad. There really isn't any reason to get that upset.

Some other things:

Was laid off a few days ago. I've already accepted another position and I've been trying to use the few days between job to spend time with my family.

Porn - Still watching too much of it. I would rather not watch porn at all, but I don't seem to be able to stop. I go through spurts where I won't look at porn at all for two weeks. But then it will be everyday for three or four days. Usually, after my wife has gone to bed and I should be sleeping. Instead at 2:30am I'm jerking off to porn.

Have been short tempered with my kids. I love my kids. I think that I'm usually a pretty god dad, but recently I haven't had much patience. Don't know if its because I'm home more now that I usually would be, or because I'm tired from staying up late watching porn?

Thats it for today. I'm going to try to do a better job at posting here consistently.

Needing to be committed to the tenth step

I need to be more committed to this tenth step. I've been sober for nearly six years and my step work in general has laxed up. Thats not a way to stay sober longterm. I have nothing that is going on right now that is causing me to want to drink, but you can't wait until the bullets are flying to start to prepare.

1st Post

I was at a meeting tonight and the topic of the tenth step came up. I was called on to share early and spoke about how I used to do a consistent and thorough tenth step, but over time I've become lazy about it and I'm not as vigilant as I used to be. A few other people shared and then a gentleman who was fresh out of rehab shared. He stated that he had been sober for over ten years then stopped doing the maintenance steps. Then he stopped going to meetings. Then five years later he started drinking. Then a couple of years after that he was doing crack, heroin, etc. His wife was in recovery and they relapsed together. Earlier this year after partying he woke up to his wife dead in the bed beside him. The story started with his no longer working the steps.

I don't want that to happen to me. I've worked too hard and now had too many successes to want to give that up. My wife and I are both in the program. We both are coming up on our sixth anniversary. We have two small kids together.

In recent years I've been maintaining my sobriety....but thats about it. I haven't been passionate for the program. I have become lax on step work committments, service, etc. I don't really feel as passionate about AA and NA as I once did. I simply do the minimum to get by.

So, this is part of my effort to get back to doing step work. To get back to trying to live this program. It is private, anonymous, and not intended to be read by anyone that I know in my "real" life.

We'll see how it goes.