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