Chris - Monday Speaker Series

0:00Hello and welcome to the Daily Reprieve, where we provide essay speaker meetings, workshops, and conferences and podcast format. We are an ad-free podcast, if you enjoy listening, please help us be self-supporting by going to Donate.TheD DailyReprieve.com and drop a dollar or two into the virtual basket. Please consider donating monthly by clicking the Donate monthly button. However, one-time donations are always welcome. Just click the Donate now, but now, without further ado, this episode of The Daily Reprieve. Thank you so much, Reno. Hello everyone. My name is Chris from Rhode Island. I am 25 years old, and I am a sexeaholic sobriety date February 16th of this year. The past couple of years, I have taken to giving a label to the year ahead.

1:03So, the new year will roll around, and I'll give a label to the year. I have no idea what this label is going to mean, but that's just what I like doing. 2017, this is when I started it, it was a year of change. 2018 was evolution, which is just fancy or change, but you know, it had worked out. 2019 was prosperity. 2020 was infinite possibilities, and I'm still kind of kicking myself, I'm provisizing that one, but 2021, I told myself, was going to be a year of new horizons. I had just got accepted to grad school, just bought myself a brand new car, just started a brand new job, and you know, everything just seemed to be really falling into place, but I didn't realize how much was going to be changing in my life. From my early childhood, fantasy has controlled my life creatively, romantically, and sexually. That was a creative writing major in school, and I'm currently writing a manuscript right now, and you know, I found out my loss actually really began to get in the way of my creativity,

2:04and I'll get into more of that later. But as an only child, I grew up with very few friends, and you know, I made myself imaginary friends, and so I was quite content with that. That's where my isolationism really began to start. My parents would, you know, had given me a Game Boy for Christmas one year, and I would just be glued to that screen through family gatherings and whatnot, because you know, my parents didn't really want me to be hearing all the rabble of my very Italian family, and I didn't blame them once, I was like, I was older, I'm finally understood what they were talking about. But I would be immersing myself in video games and cartoon worlds, and I would befriend the fictional characters in these worlds, and basically I'd become the hero in every scenario I could think of, and I was admired by all of them, and just that was my fantasy, that was my world. And I guess that's really where my false pride began to start. I was about eight years old when I had my first romantic fantasy of a girl in my class,

3:09and I remember it was from a dream that I had. The 17 years later, I still think it's like one of the best years I've ever had, and at the end of it, I fell in love, and that's, I think, the first time where I want to begin to find romance as a solace in life. Unfortunately, so when I was around, I want to say, nine and a half, ten. I had to neighbors across the street, a brother and a sister. The sister was a little less than a year older than me, so she was around ten and a half, eleven, and the brother was close to fifteen years old. The sister, she and I, we grew up together for a while, and then she began to act bizarrely. I'd be in a room with her, she would close the door, turn her back to me and change her clothes in front of me, or she would go to her dresser, pull her underwear out of her dresser, throw them at me, shove them in my mouth, so she would just be, you know, play fighting, but I had no idea what was going on. At some point, she even pulled her pants down and shoved me her butt, and I was like, well, I don't understand what's going on here.

4:11And unfortunately, a short time later, I was alone with her brother, and while he actually abused me, and the trauma of that event, honestly, I didn't even realize what happened until about ten years later. I honestly thought that, oh, okay, this doesn't feel right. I feel like I did something bad. I didn't even Santa at this point, and I'm like, okay, I feel like I'm going to be on Santa's naughty list, and I'm going to get cold for Christmas. And, you know, Christmas came around, I got some pretty awesome gifts, no cold in sight. I'm like, oh, okay, I get some fun. And I just swept that memory under the rug, but it wasn't until I was talking to one of my co-workers about four or five years ago, and she was confiding in me about her sexual abuse that it began to click in my mind, oh, that happened to me. And, you know, even now, I'm still trying to figure out where I am with that, because that my abuser ended up dying at a car accident about six years later. So, yeah, it's still working on that.

5:15But because of that event, I discovered masturbation shortly after, began masturbating all that two or three times a day, and I found myself sexualizing the cartoon characters that I had befriended and become immersed in their worlds. Of course, like these characters were around my age, 10, 11, 12, and I definitely began to have a curiosity, a heightened curiosity, a female anatomy. And, as I answered in the middle school, I reached a fever pitch, and I went home one day. I was on my mom's laptop playing a game. She took the dogs out for a walk. I still remember the day. It was extremely dark, down poor, thunder, and I typed naked girls into Google, and just clicked on the first link that popped up. And my curiosity was definitely associated, but I was not prepared for everything that I saw on that site. And, like, after a few minutes, I closed it out, cleared the history, went back to what I was doing, and the next day after school,

6:16I went right back to the computer, and I wanted to go back to that site again, and from then on, I was hooked. So, I began fully sexualizing the cartoons that I watched, finding porn, artistic representations of these cartoon characters. And, once I began to realize that I was attracted to my peers as well, I began sexualizing them too. That girl that I had my first romantic fantasy about, which was about five years prior, I still remember the first fantasy I had of her when we were 13 years old, and that's still that bulb is made greatly. That's, like, burned into my skull. And, though I had a lot of friends throughout middle school, I was bullied a lot, and that drove me far more towards isolation. My parents had given me an iPod touch for Christmas, and this thing had access to the internet, and I had a computer in my pocket, and it didn't take long for me to realize that I could use it to watch porn. And, it wasn't long before I found... At this point, I'd only been using images and gifts,

7:16but it wasn't long before I found my first explicit porn videos, and that just accelerated my addiction greatly. So, by the time I started the highest school, I was using porn every single night. And, my freshman year, you know, there was a big pressure to make a name for myself, and that only made my isolation worse. I was watching a lot of web shows on YouTube that had a ton of adult humor, and just worked extremely immature and crass, and I began to emulate the jokes from those shows, and I would be repeating them constantly, and, you know, a lot of sexually inappropriate jokes, that I'm honestly surprised I still had friends by the end of that year. I began to develop a pseudo-god complex, and I like to imagine myself as this alpha male whom all women wanted, and I was really beginning to create this perfect harem in my mind, of classmates, peers, teammates, and sports, whatever. You know, anywhere I could get that left hit, anyone who I knew that I was attracted to, they were a fair game.

8:16And I began to crave sex from everyone, but I had no confidence to pursue it. My confidence, my, what was just absolutely in the toilet, I had social anxiety, and just complete general anxiety, and I never knew why until, really, I got into recovery. I was, I'm six foot two, and I hit that height pretty quickly, so I used my advantage in crowded hallways of a high school of 1600 students. And like Sardines, and, you know, my, I had long arms, and I would just kind of bump into people just to try to get a quick touch. And I began to feel exhausted every day. You know, I mean, of course, it didn't help that I was, I was up late, midnight one a.m. watching porn, before I had to be up, be up at quarter seven for school the next morning. But because of that exhaustion, I was isolating even more from friends, from family, from social events. And if I even did this, if I even was social at any point,

9:17I would go home with my social battery drain and reward myself with porn to recharge. I began to really lose my connection with my family, and, you know, my dad does so much work around the house, and every time he asked me for help, I would just mowing grown, because I was exhausted, I just wanted to play video games all day, and, you know, I just, I was a brat. That was a major brat. So I really, and I really began to find solace in my romantic fantasies as the years went on. I had a huge crush on this one girl, and I pictured the picture-perfect relationship with her. We were so happy. We had an amazing family, just, you know, absolutely happily ever after fantasy story. And I finally gained the courage to ask her out. And she said, yes. And so I went home, I bragged to my friends that I got a date, and then I would constantly talk to her over Facebook or something, and just try to strike a conversation and talk to her more. And, you know, I had this picture-perfect relationship in my mind

10:17that I'd been playing over for over a year. She didn't have that. And eventually she just ghosted me, and I lost a friend. And I don't blame her for doing that. But, you know, it still hurts. It still really hurts. And that kind of triggered a theory in my mind as the years went on where if I had any sexual fantasy about a girl, I lost any hope of a botanical or romantic relationship with them because the way I viewed them was just completely corrupted. By the time I started, by the time I finished high school, I started at my first job. And it was a retail position that I was in for almost eight years. I actually only just left this past March. And I began casually flirting with my classmates and my coworkers. I gave massages whenever possible, and I was really good at it. So, you know, I'd give a massage to girl one, and you know, she would say, oh, this feels so great. And then girl two would be like, oh, hey, I want one. And girl three would get in line. And I'd just be, you know, relishing this connectaholic inside me

11:18that was, you know, able to have this physical touch. And I really began to have this false pride of believing that I could get a girlfriend whenever I wanted to, but I just chose not to. By the time I entered into college, I, you know, a lot of my fantasies began to decline because I didn't have as many objects of my lust. So I began to focus on smaller pockets of girls in class. And more so on my coworkers. And as I've been there for quite a few years at that point. And I had four prospective relationships throughout high school, upstart college. And every single one of these women said yes to my advances. Every single one. So I had the chance to have a relationship. But my addiction prevented me from doing that every step of the way. I got the yes. That was the hardest part. But I was never able to follow through. And as around the time I turned 19 that I really began to feel that awareness wanted to stop. As I said, I was a creative writing major. I'm working on, I'm working out a novel. And porn began to get in the way of my writing.

12:20I would take my laptop up to my room before I went to bed. And I would plan on doing some writing. And I would do that for a while. Yeah, you know what? I'll do a little writing, watch some porn, and then do some more writing. But then eventually that turned into, all right, I'll watch some porn then write. And then it turned into, oh wait, I watched too much porn. I need to go to bed. And that just got completely in the way of my creativity. I began journaling. And I'm almost like, all right, you know, I need to figure out what's going on here. I need to get to the bottom of this. And I refused to believe that I was an addict. I just, like, no, I'm not a porn addict. It's just a bad habit. And I can kick this. I can do this. And in my journal, I referred to the addiction as lust. And I'm laughing at myself some six years ago because I had the problem right there, right in front of me. It was lust. But I was just using that as a cover because I didn't want to be an addict. So around this time, I had a god moment.

13:21And it was, I had this calling that, like, you know what, it's time to tell my parents. I had, I had hid this addiction from them for over a decade. It was time to come clean. And I told them. And they were very accepting you know, and they were, of course, they were incredibly distraught. I heard my mom sobbing later that night. And I just felt like it, my heart broke. But I felt like I just let, let them down. But I started counseling. And, you know, at first, it was good. But I wasn't being honest with my counselor because I wasn't being honest with myself. And it wasn't until, you know, this past year that I was finally able to be honest with him. And, of course, it turned into, instead of from talking about my porn addiction, it turned into talking about this one girl that I was chasing after for about a year and a half. And she was just stressing me out in every way because I made her my higher power. My romantic fantasy of this girl just consumed me. And I was thinking about her every single day.

14:23And it was just the absolute worst thing I could have done. I put her on a pedestal. I was worshipping her. And when everything fell apart between us, I felt like my life had just completely cracked in half. This is when I really began to hit my, hit my downfall. There's a very popular fantasy role-playing game that's been out for about a decade now. And I just got into it around this time. And there's a big community around this game that will put in mods or modifications to the game. And these mods can, you know, involve quests and weapons and, you know, whatever else. You want whatever you want to add, you can probably add it. And I knew that a lot of people in this community would over sexualize their characters. And I'm like, oh, I don't want to do that. But the lust always wins in the end. And after a lot of research, I stumbled across another community that focused entirely on injecting explicit hardcore pornographic mods into this game.

15:24And I could not help myself. I began to cross a lot of boundaries within this fantasy because finally I could play God. I had, I could literally control everything that happens. And I fell into these cycles of researching, downloading, optimizing and playing this game. And then once I had my spill, once I had my fun, I would delete everything. Only to come back a couple of days to a week later and do it all over again. I went through that cycle about a dozen times over the course of, I want to say two and a half to three years. And I really, I hit my rock bottom with that. I crossed some boundaries that I never in my life wanted to cross. And but the fantasy, the unreal, the sheer rationale losing sight of what is right and wrong.

16:24I just couldn't, couldn't see through it. I spent the entirety of my last spring breaking college playing this game. I almost failed my undergraduate thesis because I was just so focused on the fantasy. And thankfully I was able to begin to wing myself off of it, but it was a very, very dark time for me. To speed things up here, I, that, that fall 2018, I, I have, I got into my first relationship with a brand new co-worker. She and I, you know, kind of hit it off pretty quickly and, you know, I asked her out. And but from the moment I met her, so about halfway through our, our very incompatible relationship, I was fantasizing about her every single day. At first, it was like, oh, oh, yeah, I finally have a girlfriend now. This is awesome. But then it turned into, why don't we having sex? And that, that thought just consumed me. I, and at this time, my definition of relapse was masturbating to porn on a screen.

17:24If I was on my computer and say I was looking at sexual content, or I was looking at pornography, if I didn't masturbate, I was fine. But if I were to, you know, turn off my computer and then hour later masturbate to, like, my thoughts, then that didn't count as a relapse. That was my rationale. And at work, because I now had a girlfriend, my confidence went through the roof, and my flirtation increased tenfold. I began to label myself as a casual flirt to my female co-workers. I just said, oh, yeah, I just like flirting. That's what I do. And they were fine with it. They actually reciprocated immensely, because I was, you know, I was making them feel good. You know, they would walk in the door and I was like, oh, hey, you look great today. And then they would just be, you know, they would just glow and they would love it. And I would get all that validation from them as well. So my first girlfriend and I, we broke up, we were compatible. But we're still friends now, which is great. And I quickly, a couple months later, I met my current girlfriends. And for the context of the meeting, I'm going to call her Joy.

18:24And, you know, Joy and I, we fell in love very quickly. Within a month and a half, we were having conversations about sex, and just like, you know, what it means to us and the relationship. And I couldn't really tell her my true, my, my truth about sex, unless I did, that I've always had porn addiction, which I did. And at that point, I was, I think like 90 days, quote unquote, sober. But I really wasn't. And, you know, she, she was very impressed that I was honest with her about that. And we being able to grow together. Our initial intimacy, well, basically, I couldn't really perform that well. And that led to me fantasizing while we were together. I was beginning to think about my co-workers while we were together. Because for me, that worked. You know, if I'm fantasizing with someone else, so I'll hang. And that's, that's good. And that's what we need to be. Yeah, that's fine. That's, that's no big deal. And she ended up asking me at one point if I was still fantasizing about other woman. And I said, yes. And I was crying into her shoulders and just like, in this day, you know, feeling so guilty.

19:24And, you know, her defect, she was like, oh, no, it's okay. It's, you know, it's fine. I get it. And then that was it. And then all the subsequent times she asked me if I was still fantasizing about other woman, I lied. I just completely lied to cover up my guilt, cover up my shame. And her rationale was to give me sexual satisfaction as often as possible. Because in her mind, I'm a porn addict. I need that. I need that satisfaction. So if I got it through her, I wouldn't be seeking it elsewhere. But unfortunately, my addiction is one of novelty. And I needed more. So I began to fantasize so much more. My flirting with my co-workers increased immensely. And, you know, my rationale was, you know, even though I was in my 20s at this point, my rationale was, oh, I was in high school once. So I can flirt with the high school girls who are, you know, seven, eight years younger than me. And there was this one girl who, who, you could clearly tell she had a huge crush on me. And my girlfriend met her.

20:24She's like, wow, she's got a crush on you. And I said to her, I'm a young, yeah, I see it, but I'm not going to do anything about it. And that wasn't, that was a boldface lie. Because subconsciously, I was doing, I was still doing things about it. And flirting with her constantly, because I loved that validation she was giving me. It's what I craved all through high school, but I never got it. And finally, I was getting it. But it was never enough. That God hunger was insatiable. And it got to a point where I had a sex dream about this particular co-worker. And I accidentally blurted her name out in a casual conversation with my girlfriend and her sister. And, you know, I had to, I had a lie to get myself out of that one. And, man, the shame that I felt was just horrible. But I got through it. And I'm like, all right, it's never going to come up again. And, well, it came up again. By the time I was ready to disclose, I had just so much guilt on my heart. Because my girlfriend was nowhere in my fantasy at all. It was just these other women that I fantasized about my whole life.

21:27In my recovery, I did an inventory of all the women I had ever fantasized about. And from my memory and from just trying to figure out who it was over the years, I fantasized about over 230 women in my life. And I lied to my girlfriend about all that. And it eventually just all came out. So I just had the teller. I'm like, I said to her face that I don't fantasize about you. I fantasize about all these other people. And I can't remember what much else will happen after I said that. But the floodgates opened. And I told her far more than I was intending on telling her. And that guilt just flooded out. She was an absolute shock. And I don't blame her for that. And the next couple of weeks were very, very difficult. You know, the couple days later, she had said to me, I refused to be in a relationship with someone who was not using their tools to recover. She had just joined Essinon. And she was like, you need to join a program or we're done.

22:30And so I found myself in a porn addict's anonymous meeting. And you know, it was great. The community there was awesome. And I was able to share for the first time. And I'm like, all right, this is nice. This is good. But it wasn't until I found myself into an essay meeting that I truly found that I was home. And when they were talking about lust for the first time, everything clicked together. And I'm like, oh my god, this, this is the issue. This is the issue that's been weighing me down my whole life. And I see I'm been in a bit short of time here, but you know, where I am in recovery today, it's just so much better than what it was over the last seven and a half months. I've found that I have so much more energy than I've ever had in my life. I've got motivation that I've never had in my life. I'm rediscovering passions of music and writing that I began to lose over the years, just because my addiction had taken over. I had, I've been fish keeping since I was six years old.

23:32I've had a fish tank for many, many years. And I've rediscovered my passion for that. And I've just been, you know, I can't shut up about the hobby and how. And for my girlfriends, she just gave away her step ten in Essinon. She and I are growing so much more. We have grown so much more together in the last seven months than we have had. In almost two and a half years of our relationship. And we're still going strong. But however, one of the biggest things that was happening was my addiction was telling me to run away after my disclosure. The guilt, the fear, the shame, all of that was just crippling. And my mind was telling me, you need to go. It's time. Just break up with her. Forget this ever happened. Just go. And I refused to, I refused to listen to that voice. But I knew there was some truth in it. And that truth led me to asking my girlfriend for a temporary separation. And, you know, she and I talked about it for a couple of weeks before we really climbed anything.

24:36We met with my counselor together to talk about it. And the end of July, early August, we said our goodbyes for the month of August. And at this point, I had finished my first two steps of temporary sponsor. And I had my third step started, but I couldn't finish it. I just couldn't find my, I didn't have the will to turn my life over to the care of God. And I couldn't figure out why until I said goodbye to my girlfriends. And I said goodbye to her. And that night I finished my step three. Because I realized that she was my higher power. Ever since my disclosure, I was thinking to myself when I was in a lustful situation, I'm like, okay, what is she thinking right now? Even if she wasn't even with me, what would she think about this? And it was never, how is it affecting me? What can I do about this? And once I was finally able to let that go and look to God, I was finally able to set myself free.

25:382021 is a year of new horizons. And my motto this year has been Per Ardua Ad Austria, which is Latin for through adversity to the stars. And that motto has been carrying me through my, through my recovery. Thank you all so much for allowing me to talk today. And I will, I will turn it back over to the chair. Thank you so much. That was Chris in Road Island. Thank you so much for your service today. And now we're going to go right into some Q&A. But first Chris, how much time will you have for Q&A only up until 1 p.m. or a little bit after? I can go up until 1 and I can give like maybe another 15 minutes, maybe 20 minutes. Okay, after that. Alright, so we'll, we'll try to make it count with everyone having brief questions. Here are a few rules of the road for the Q&A. In participation, we avoid topics that can lead to dissension or distraction. We also avoid explicit, sexual descriptions and sexually abusive language.

26:41The emphasis is on honesty, recovery, and healing. How to apply to cross-step traditions in our daily lives. No cross-top please, which means interrupting, giving advice, or criticizing someone else's share. If you feel someone's getting to explicit, you may feel signified by saying my hand is raised, at which point I will consult a group conscience. Alright, so folks, that's just to unmute and ask our speaker a brief question. We'll try to take as many questions as possible before we do it out. Who'd like to be first? This is Hank, I have a question. Go ahead, Hank. Hi Chris, thanks for sharing with us. That's quite a story and especially only being 25 you presented it very well. So thank you very much. My question to you is, it sounds like your present girlfriend is very supportive of you and helping you recover from this addiction. Has that always been the case since you first revealed it to her?

27:42I don't remember what you said about that, so if you did, I'm sorry, but could you go over that again for me? Yeah, thanks Hank, no worries. I don't think I did go into it, but yeah, so she has always been very supportive of me. Of course, it's very hard for her to because we have some very deferring viewpoints because I've been immersed in the porn industry and just like the sexualization of women my whole life, and she's very adverse to it. But in our first couple of years of our relationship, especially when I had a lot of guilt on my mind and I did these mini disclosures to her throughout our relationship, and she was always very supportive. I mean, she would be upset, of course, that I didn't tell her immediately, but she would always be there right at my side throughout it all. And when actually after our separation, when we got back together, I forgot to mention this, but it felt like no time had passed at all. And especially now, we're still growing together, and she is just unbelievably supportive in my recovery,

28:42and I don't think I'd be here without her support. Thank you, Hank, and Ohio, for your question. Who'd like to be next? You need to press start six on your line. I have a question. Sure, name and location please. Sure. Hey, I'm Tom, sexaholic, and my question is, you know, first of all, thank you so much for your share. I noticed you were very rigorously honest about your condition, and I wanted to ask you specifically, you mentioned struggling with dishonesty, especially with yourself, and that's something I think I struggle with as well, or at least people have told me that, how did you specifically get through that? I remember you mentioned it during your, when you were talking about going to a council or not being honest with during your chair. Thank you. Thanks, Tom.

29:42So, I mean, I'm still learning how to be honest with myself, and I pray to God every day for the willingness to be honest with myself, so I can be honest with others. And when I first started seeking counseling, you know, I was just saying, oh, I've got a foreign addiction, and I keep watching foreign. I don't know what to do about it. And I wasn't really, I wasn't doing the work that I needed to do to look deep into myself, and like, okay, well, is my masturbation not tied with this? Is the lust not tied with this? Like, you know, I was so blind that I couldn't be honest with myself, and I found that through recovery as a band working the steps, as a reading literature, and you know, just hearing other people shares, you know, it began to piece by piece, unlock all these doors that have been sealed in my mind for so many years, and that really began to lift the veil, and I was able to see like, wow, I've been lying to myself about this or that, and I was able to, you know, of course, realize in that hurt in the beginning, but once I can realize it, and share it, let it out,

30:45it loses power over me, and I can finally, you know, let that weight go. That's been, you know, just taking up so much space in my mind. I hope that answers your question. No, it does. Thank you. All right. Thanks, Tom, and Massachusetts. Who'd like to be next? I have a question. You mentioned how your mother was sobbing when you disclosed how much you were fighting and struggling, and a lot of people say that it's a, it's a family to these. So, do you know of anyone else in your family who struggled like that, or you don't know because your parents are the only ones you, you told about this? Thanks, Rina. As far as I'm aware, I am the only set of halls in the family. I mean, I do know, I mean, my cousin, my aunts, and my grandfather were all horrible alcoholics, unfortunately. My grandfather was a dry drunk for many years of his life. My aunts shows alcohol over her marriage of 30 years at my uncle, and my cousin, by the grace of God, is 10 years sober in AA.

31:48So, we do have addiction in the family, but as far as I'm aware, I'm the only set of alcoholic. Thank you. Let's have some more questions for our speaker today, Chris, in Rhode Island. Yeah, this is Bruce Massachusetts. Thanks for the share. And just wondering if I was in an on-off call, just wondering if you have done the steps and or any experience with the steps, and if so, through the white book or however. Thanks, Bruce. So, I've only finished the first three steps. I'm currently in the middle of step four, and I'm speaking with someone right now to looking for sponsorship. I had a temporary sponsor for a couple of months, and he was able to guide me through the basics of all 12 steps, which was really, really helpful for me. But right now, I'm still in the middle of my step four, and it is spiritual, open heart surgery. So, it's tough to get through, but I hope that answers your question. Thank you, Bruce.

32:50Yeah, it does. Thank you. Keep working. Thank you, Bruce. Who else would like to ask a question? Is Alex in Moscow? Alex, please come in. Hi, Rina. Thanks, Chris, for your share. What it resonated in me. I never really thought how I could even do an inventory of all the people that I fantasized over. I mean, that thought never even occurred to me until your share actually. So, that's something to consider. And so, I'd like to ask you, with regard to the first step, I honestly struggled for some time on step one, because I was stuck in the idea that it's wrong choices that I made in this area of my life, and it's a morality issue, and it's a lack of willpower. So, I was just wondering how that thought process worked for you in a step one, and how you came to realize powerlessness from the bottom of your heart.

33:52Yeah, that's my question. Thanks, Alex. Well, for starters, so, in regards to my fantasy inventory, it really helped me, you know, kind of dive into the program, because I was able to lay out all these names, and then I was able to just pray for all of them, and just kind of ask God for forgiveness, for sexualizing them for so many years. And, you know, I would just say, each and every single one of their names as part of this prayer, and it really, really, really helped. As far as finding my fantasy in step one, you know, it was definitely a process. You know, going through the questions with the step into action book, I was just, just tried to be as honest with myself as I possibly could, and I can definitely answer your question through the lens of working on my step four, because I found myself really shaming my teenage self,

34:52that lost child that's in my mind right now, that I'm trying to rescue, especially in regards to my potential relationships and what not. Like, I'm realizing all the mistakes that I made, and I was shaming myself for not having the tools, and not having the maturity at that time to recognize what was going on. And, you know, I had to surrender that to another fellow to kind of open my eyes, and like, okay, well, hold on, I'm being way too hard on myself. But once I was able to do that, I was able to see, you know, I'm being insane right now, because, you know, the present of the present past, the past can't change it. There was one moment of insanity that I felt after I finished my step two, and I had seen a soft core pornographic image online, and like, it was enough to send me spiraling, and I quickly took a step away from my computer, and like, I was just, once I go make myself a snack or something,

35:52and my entire body was like, you need to go and see that image again, you need to go look for more if you don't, you're going to die, or something that's going to happen. And I'm like, holy crap, this is the insanity that I have felt my whole life. Like, this feeling right now, like, what is this? This is what's been controlling me, and I was able to, I was able to contact a fellow, I was able to tell them what's going on, and that insanity immediately left, and I was free from it. And I think that's really the best part, best thing with step one, honesty with yourself and others, and that's how you get through it. All right, thank you so much Chris, and thank you, Alex and Mako for that question. We're going to take you very quick pause for announcements, and then we'll come right back to the question. So thank you again for... I would like to thank you for listening to this episode of the Daily Reprieve, the best source for experience, strength and hope for essay members.

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