Chastity Office #62
We stand ready to do anything that will lift the merciless obsession from us.”
P.24 AA 12x12
What if you are not masturbating, objectifying, intriguing or fantasizing…but, the obsession is still on you?
Gandhi says to eat less.
Chastity Office #63
The AA Promises interpreted for Chastity:
“If we are painstaking about this phase of our development we will be amazed before we are halfway through.”
No ancillary addictions….Watching our food and exercising.
“We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness:”
Freedom from feeling shame around masturbating, the guilt of cheating on our wives and the knawing lust of fantasy, objectification and intrigue.
“We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.”
Forgiveness from divorces, custody cases, lost girlfriends, heartbreaking breakups.
“We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace.”
Being okay whether I get what I want or not and knowing my soul, after all my addictions are stopped.
“No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others.”
Failures are what newcomers can identify with.
“That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear.”
I become useful through service.
“We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows.”
Serving others brings joy.
“Self-seeking will slip away.”
No more hustling men for money or sex from women.
“Our whole attitude and outlook on life will change.”
An attitude of gratitude and acceptance replaces merciless self-demandingness.
“Fear of people and economic insecurity will leave us.”
I have enough.
“We will intuitively know how to handle
situations which used to baffle us.”
God guides me through each and every day
“We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.”
God is real.
“Are these unrealistic promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will materialize if we work for them.”
I do my 1%. God does the rest…
Chastity Office #64
Chastity makes every other type of recovery look easy
It’s nice to experience what some of our hero’s experienced: Saint Augustine, Joan of Arc and Gandhi…
You don’t have that kind of spiritual talent to share a simple tool with them…Chastity, for just three hours at a time.
Chastity Office #65
What can I do to make Chastity more comfortable on top of the normal 12 step stuff: meetings, sponsorship, step-work, reading literature, prayer and meditation?
Exercise very hard, super clean food…have fun
Chastity Office #66
In May of 1990 after doing my first celibacy period (7 1/2 months) and starting a very active committed monogamous relationship for 4 months, I suddenly realized that sexual sobriety and chastity were not the exact same states of being.
One required more sacrifice…but, gave more gifts.
I felt so cheated, so let down, almost betrayed.
Why didn’t anyone tell me that?
Back then, no one really knew…Now we do.
Active, healthy sexuality is lovely. It is “God given” according to the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous.
But, luckily for me, my S-Anon sponsor also told me, “Chastity is a special state of Grace”.
Chastity Office #67
Why do people get fat when they get old?
When you don’t have sex the most sensual thing you do is eat…
Maybe old fat people…just miss sex
Chastity Office #68
Boundaries, boundaries, boundaries!
Even if I am perfectly chaste that doesn’t mean that other people are sober in their respective diseases.
I need the social resilience that comes from chastity when I am around someone who is flaming in their addiction…
Chastity Office #69
When I choose chastity, just for today, I have attained my highest goal of self-love.
I am as close to myself as I can be.
I have a gift I can give God that brings me closer to Him, personally.
I am fully realized, self-actualized, enlightened and mighty.
My whole life, up to this point, makes sense.
Then...I can wear my recovery "Like a loose garment".
Chastity Office #70
It is my experience that the part of me that esteems myself is also the same part that intrigues, objectifies and fantasizes…and I can't do both things with that same part.
Therefore, lust (through intrigue, objectification, and fantasy) destroys my high self-esteem.
Chastity Office #71
Masturbation feels violent, vicious, ripping and tearing through my boundaries, extinguishing my self-esteem, self-drop-kicking myself into two days of depression...every single time.
Chastity Office #72
While in conflict, my need for safety, my need for love-and-belonging and my need for esteem-of-others is not met by the other person, because they are too busy protecting themselves.
To make up for that deficit of love from the other person, I can love myself...by choosing finite chastity.
Chastity Office #73
What would I do differently if I accepted a vow of chastity, just for today, starting today?
I would:
Practice breath prayer
Discipline my mind to choose a positive attitude
Do more exercise
Make sure my food was as clean as I could make it
Create art as a creative "outer circle"
Transmute all the energy of intrigue, objectification and fantasy...to prayer.
And go to PrayerCall a lot
Chastity Office #74
When I start to reach for 'sex, love, romance, or relationship', unhealthily...help me feel my soul within me.
"The kingdom of God is within" says the gospel of Luke.
If my soul is not the kingdom of God…Then what is?
Lord, help me, just for today to feel my soul.
Chastity Office #75
Chastity is my personal highest spiritual goal today.
I have an attitude of gratitude around chastity.
I am humbly grateful to have received this gift.
I am grateful I no longer feel lonely or needy around being alone.
I am grateful to have developed the skills of being with myself.
I believe I am the very best I can be when I choose chastity.
Chastity Office #76
Intrigue is any conversation, look, or body language that would convey sexual interest in another person.
There is a time for that: When dating an appropriate person or starting to engage romantically with a committed partner.
Women always sense intrigue, instantly, as describe it as “It feels weird around him”, otherwise.
HP,
Keep me perfectly pure, in both my words and my thoughts.
Chastity Office #77
I surrender sex, love, romance and relationship, just for today.
I will use my sexual energy to serve others and take care of myself in an "enlightened self-interest" sort of way.
I will meditate and try to ascertain God's will for me.
I will not take myself too damned seriously.
Chastity Office #78
I will be grateful that my sexual energy is so strong and that I can channel it in positive, creative and useful ways.
I will work on my cardio, strength, endurance and flexibility today. As Gandhi says "As with the body, so with the Universe".
I will be grateful for the things I have.
I will pray often throughout the day.
I will practice mercy and forgiveness, with myself and others.
I will practice being content with my soul
Chastity Office #79
A man dissipates his physical strength through ordinary incontinence”.
_Gandhi
Incontinence in this sense means “Failure to restrain sexual appetite”.
Is that really true? Does sex make you weak? Do you really lose your strength?
Pythagorus, Plato, Gandhi and that great philosopher Rocky Balboa thought so.
There are two kinds of loss.
The first accompanies doing something I know full well is wrong, like cheating on my wife or masturbating. I then feel “Pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization”. That is the stuff sex addiction programs deal with.
But that is not what Gandhi is talking about.
He is saying that there is some energy inside a man’s body that, when I employ my body for sexual activity, is not available for other activities.
It’s just physics...nothing personal.
Chastity Office #80
Chastity is happiness”.
If chosen, finite, chastity raises self-esteem in a sex addict more efficaciously than any other action, and it does...then chastity paves the way for the freedom of happiness.
Chastity Office #81
Keep a path far from her, lest you give your best strength to others”.
_Proverbs 5:8
When I am doing a 60 day celibacy period, it may be a good idea to keep some distance from my beloved...if I am feeling vulnerable.
As Gandhi would say, “Renunciation without aversion is not lasting”.
AA would say, “If you keep hanging around a barbershop...you are going to end up getting a haircut”.
Chastity Office #82
For me, there are three things that I can do to increase the probability that I will feel God in my life:
1. Practice celibacy: This means no genital contact with myself or others. “Chastity”, also includes no objectification, no fantasy and no intrigue.
2. Service: This has to be addiction-specific to work. That is, if I’m a sex addict I have to help sex addicts get sober. If I am an alcoholic I have to help alcoholics not to drink. It can’t be that I help an old lady across the street or that I find a stray puppy and take him home. That’s nice…But it won’t stop addiction, because there’s no humility involved with that.
3. Laughter: There is an expression in 12 step, “If you haven’t got joy…you haven’t got anything I want”.
Chastity Office #83
Sister may no harm come to you from me”.
This prayer is my first line of defense against objectifying if I see a beautiful woman in person, in a magazine, a movie, online or on a billboard.
It’s also my first defense against fantasy. If an image of a former partner pops up from my subconscious I can defeat it with this prayer.
Thirdly, if I want to intrigue-sexualize conversations with women-I can stop myself with this prayer.
Chastity Office #84
There is something completely unique about surrendering all sex. You cross a line when you do that.
That line crosses into the realm, not of health (which is what all 12 Step programs address)...but of holiness and you get to try out something that some interesting people tried like:
Mohammed Ali (for six weeks before a title fight)
Saint Augustine
Gandhi
Jesus
Pythagoras
Joan of Arc
Leonardo da Vinci
Pythia...The Oracle of Delphi
Chastity Office #85
What a blessing it is to be chaste.
I “recreate” myself, which means to:
refreshen
recharge
revive
regenerate
rejuvenate
renew
repair
restore
resuscitate
revitalise
Chastity Office #86
All by himself, and in the light of his own circumstances, he needs to develop the quality of willingness”
(AA 12x12, Page 40)
For me, this is probably the most spiritually enlightening sentence in the entire AA 12x12.
Everyone needs to try to stop addiction by themselves at first. It’s the most natural thing in the world. If I have a problem I want to solve it. So I try, and I try, and I try.
But, at some point, I have to be honest with myself, “I am failing at trying to stop”.
A failure is the most terrible thing you can be in the American consciousness, as a man...That word strikes shame at the very core of self-esteem.
But it is absolutely necessary, critically necessary, to “Develop the quality of willingness“.
I have to “hit bottom”, as the AA first step says.
It may take months. It may take years to accept powerlessness.
But, at last...with that self-honesty, I have an opportunity to develop something I have known very little about in my life...humility.
“I admit that I am powerless over masturbation-that my life has become unmanageable”.
Without this willingness there will never be success.
The crucial point is...am I willing to try something different and to let go of my old ideas?
Chastity Office #87
Objectification is the single most hinderance to a sex addict’s Chastity
It is aided and abetted by the fact that every woman is trying, through picking “ cute” clothes, manicures, pedicures, mascara, lipstick, foundation, blush, eyeliner and sexy shoes to be attractive as humanly possible. (If you don’t think this is true…try to get your wife out the door when she is putting on her make-up).
But, this is our problem…not theirs.
The prayer “Sister, May no harm come to you from me”, if applied frequently enough, will neutralize anything Dior, L’Oreal or Chanel can throw our way.
The purity and freedom of chastity is worth it.
Chastity Office #88
How do you become an instant Narcissist?
…disagree with a woman
Lighten up guys…
Chastity Office #89
Let’s say that you’re deep in an addiction and you feel the need to control everything around you because you don’t see that you’re the problem.
You can control people with one simple rule:
“No one is allowed to feel better…than the most miserable person in the room”.
Then, you go around being the most miserable person in the room… Until you’re finished punishing whoever you’re mad at.
Everyone suffers. Of course, you don’t care, because they’re the problem…not you.
Lighten up, boys…
Chastity Office #90
One of the great reliefs of Chastity is you don’t have to lie…as much.
Wife: Do I look fat in this dress?
Husband: Do I look stupid?
Chastity Office #91
It is not good for the man to be alone”
No…He needs someone who will cut off the sexual supply when he doesn’t like his mate’s mother, her cat, her hairstyle, favorite Tik-Tok artist, new shoes, investment plans, political views, food choices, exercise plan, career trajectory, childcare opinions , work friends or drinking habits.
Chastity Office #92
All women have two eyes, two ears , a mouth and a nose….and yet each one has completely unique look and are infinitely interesting for a sex addict to look at.
But…the problem is that sex addicts have a “core belief”, as Patrick Carnes PhD the founder of sex addiction states, that renders them sex addicts and that belief is that nothing feels better than sex and nothing feels better than the romantic love that surrounds it.
Because of that belief, sex addicts have an obsession with looking at women, or “objectifying”.
Obsession, by definition, is mental illness.
It's hard for a sex addict to accept that this is in fact a mental illness, but that is what the AA 12x12 states on the last page of Step #2.
12 step teaches about “Service” or helping others “for fun and for free”.
That is something that is not only more powerful than the obsession, but is also more interesting than the infinitely varied women's body parts.
Chastity Office #93
There are 168 hours in the week.
If you masturbate 30 minutes a day, seven days a week that’s less than 2% of the week.
AA says we drink because “ We don’t live life on life’s terms”.
How does that translate sexually?
98% of the time, if we are intriguing with someone online, at work or at the gym, objectifying as we walk down the street, watching movies or noticing ads, or fantasizing, then we are not “ Living life on life’s terms”, and we will eventually reach for the 2% of physically “ acting out” caused by our 98% of mentally acting out that we have allowed to roll around in our heads.
Being sexually sober is not masturbating and not cheating on your partner, but if you want to be sober, and stay sober, you have to deal with the stuff when nobody else is watching: fantasy, intrigue and especially…objectification.
Chastity Office #94
HP,
I believe it is your will for us to be free of objectification (looking at women sexually), because it makes them feel “ weird”.
As we are sexually addicted, and thereby obsessed with sex, we cannot stop or control this behavior anymore than we can stop masturbating or cheating on our partners.
Your will, more than anything else, is for us to be honest.
But you want us, after being honest, to be humble, and the simplest way to do that is to go to meetings and announce our day count.
Chastity Office #95
Fantasy is as instantaneous as objectification, but is more pernicious.
Why? Because every thought, image, feeling or memory of any female you have encountered is stored in your brain and can come to consciousness, unbidden, at any moment.
This is particularly tricky, because it appears sequentially, as though it was in the natural course of the human thought process.
Recent, conservative estimates are that men think about sex 19 times a day.
Chastity Office #96
Her are some signs that your life may unmanageable:
“You are never sure of your life”.
“The sights you see drive you mad.”
“You have an anxious mind, eyes weary with longing, and a despairing heart.”
Even if you can endure unsureness, anxiousness, weariness, despair and the madness associated with Intrigue,
Objectification and Fantasy how many of us could live with:
“You are unsuccessful in everything you do”.?
The only way to be rid of that, is to find God’s will…and do it.
Chastity Office #97
Objectification and fantasy take people out of the world of shrieking toddlers, the fierce competition for money, the disappointments in love, the frustrations at work, and the self-dissipation of the body.
But, it also takes us out of the glory of our children's smiles, the warmth of our safe friends, the love flowing from service, and the knowable presence of God.
It’s a two edged sword.
Help keep us chaste, Higher Power, please.
Chastity Office #98
Objectification, Intrigue and Fantasy are not your will for me.
Masturbation and affairs are never your will for me.
Sex, love, romance and relationship are not your will for me…today.
Your will for me, today, is to be happy, joyous and free.
Objectification, Intrigue, Fantasy, Masturbation and Affairs always make me suffer.
Sex, love, romance and relationship, if it is your will, and if I do it your way, are just fine.
But calling addicts, going to meetings and writing literature makes me happy, joyous and free…always, everyday.
Chastity Office #99
I must fight for my chastity, when necessary:
Strive for absolute honesty
Strive for absolute purity
Strive for absolute love
Strive for absolute unselfishness
And be merciful and forgiving when I fall short of absolute perfection