Someone said an amazing thing today that I wanted to write down and keep in my own little corner of GYE. Of course this is something I knew, but inside I was fighting it...
We have to set limits for ourselves that are way behind our trigger points. Because once we get triggered, there is no hope and it's all down hill from there.
For example, we need to make fences, put in filters, avoid movies that will trigger us, etc. Integrity is about drawing the battle lines back as far as we can. Because if we draw the battle lines where our struggle is (for example, if I say, "as long as I don't masturbate it's Ok), then we will be way past that "first drink" by the time we get to our struggle. And as we all know, it's the first drink that causes the fall, not the last.
The conflict I always experience is, "I want to just be able to 'relax', be like anyone else who can do x,y,z and not get sent on a rollercoaster of acting out".... But I can't. I am an addict. The things that might give a regular guy fantasies that he has a hard time getting out of his head, may send me to the parking lot of a 'massage parlor' or strip bar... and then I would be in real trouble. So - I gotta stick with the fences that are going to work for me, even if they make me feel like I am living in a prison.