Chastity Office 51
“Control of the palate is very closely connected with the observance of celibacy.
I have found from experience that the observance of celibacy becomes comparatively easy if one acquires mastery over the palate.
This does not figure among the observances of time-honored recognition.
Could it be because even the great sages found it difficult to achieve?”
Gandhi is saying that even for the most spiritually gifted sages of all time controlling what, and how much, food, goes in your belly is hard to do.
It was absolutely pivotal for my recovery.
I was just stuck in third gear for a long, long time.
Conquering the food kicked my recovery into overdrive.
And now I am free...
Chastity Office 52
Today completes my 17th, 60 day (or more) chastity period in the last 31.5 years.
It was not the longest. That was 4 years.
Or even second longest. That was 19 months.
It was not the cleanest, as the many ones when I was alone and when I was considering doing the Gandhi thing by staying chaste, jumping out of planes, day trading and being a living foodist the rest of my life.
It was not the stupidist one. That was the one in 94 when I was having non-orgasmic sex five times a day, thought I might have impregnated my partner, and as she was driving away to the clinic to see if we were having a baby I realized I was going to have a hard time explaining to the boys in SLAA how I was being chaste and got my new girlfriend pregnant.
It was not the hardest 60 days to get. That was the first one in 1990. It took me 23 months of really, really trying to get those 60 days. That one was the most transformative. It was the one that really convinced me of the power of chastity.
It wasn’t the most revealing one. That was my third one when I gladly went into chastity (leaving my first partner in sexual sobriety after 2 1/2 years) expecting to be as close to God as I was in the first two...and God took a cab on me...and made me grow up and learn to love myself.
It wasn’t the most salvaging one. That was my 7th one that helped me leave my beloved borderline-personality-disordered-sexually-addicted-red-headed-psychic who was ruining my life with her ultra-craziness.
It wasn’t even my wife and I’s first one. We did our first one while touring Southeast Asia two years ago.
But it was the first one where I believed I was recovered, not recovering, which felt as strange and lonely as I imagine that the first fish that reached the shore to become the first amphibian felt.
It was the one that launched the new Strength Offices. The Mercy Offices being designed, initially, to help develop chastity. The Strength Office aimed at what life is like recovered...and laughing more.
Each chastity period is radically unique, in my experience.
I will never stop practicing “finite chastity periods” as long as I live. I love the power...
I want to thank my wife for participating in an activity which must seem uselessly difficult for apparently no good reason whatsoever. Thanks, really thanks.
Chastity Office 53
Grieving is appropriate for the end of a chastity period.
While there is great physical joy and emotional love (hopefully) with a loving, passionate and playful wife, there are also the feelings of grief that accompany loss of clarity, power and strength that Gandhi, Pythagorus, The Book of Proverbs and Plato so eloquently speak.
As with all things, it’s a matter of attitude. A positive attitude is part of mental health.
I am grateful to have written over 100 Strength Offices, to have kept immune system strong during this world health challenge, to have maintained my “recovered-ness”, to have learned new musical techniques, to have read many books and picked up a new hobby with my wife...hiking during this chastity period.