Day 1 Letters are letters written by clients to their younger selves on their very first day of recovery.
Share in their wisdom and knowledge gained.
If you are on Day 1 of your recovery, embrace the hope for a brighter future. These letters are posted with client approval and have been anonymized.
“Dear Self,
You’ve just told your wife about your sex addiction and affair thus beginning what will be the most difficult period of your life. Over the coming months you will learn a lot about the key players in your life, specifically your wife, your kids, your mother, and your siblings, but mostly yourself.
The first thing you should know is that you must tell your wife everything. Don’t hold back as painful as you think it will be. I know you will think that as long as she has the main points, that that will suffice, but know this, you will only do her and yourself more damage by trickle truthing. Engage with a CSAT as quickly as possible to assist with this disclosure process. Otherwise, she will never believe that you’re telling the whole truth, even when you have.
You will do a good job of learning about the defense mechanisms you have a habit of using such as gaslighting, stonewalling, and being defensive, but you should try to learn about these even sooner. Your conversations with her will go so much better once you stop using these tactics.
Start reading 'Help Her Heal' by Carol Jurgensen Sheets right away. The lessons in that book on how to be more empathetic to your wife will be vital. The sooner you learn these and employ them the better. She will notice the impact that book has had on your interactions.
Work with your CSAT to build a repeatable process that you can use when you’re feeling dysregulated. Don’t trust your tried and true methods of going to sleep or playing games on your phone. Learn to manage your feelings in a healthier way. Start jogging again.
In addition to your CSAT, you’ll find other forms of therapy helpful as well. Join SAA, hearing other men talk about their problems will help you. You’ll get a sponsor from SAA which will be helpful.
Shame is going to be your biggest adversary. You will come to recognize how it’s always been a comfortable disposition for you to sit in. Fight this with everything you have. Don’t focus on yourself, don’t be self-centered as you must focus on your wife and her hurt and what she needs. Shame will prevent you from doing this. Learn to engage with people again. Become a volunteer. Join a men’s therapy group. These efforts will help you feel less shameful.
You will be betrayed by your mother who will tell your siblings about the affair and that will force you to tell your kids. This will be devastating to your wife and for the kids. You will manage the discussions with them as best as you can, but don’t go silent. Continue checking in with them and talking with them about your recovery. This is really important. Silence is not your friend.
Lastly, recognize that through all of this your wife will need an abundance of reassurance and regular connection with you. When you feel emotionally spent or shameful, you will seek out solitude. Don’t do this. It will send her the wrong message. Don’t wait until it feels ‘safe’ to speak with her. Show her compassion by checking in with her even when she’s angry and hurt.”
L.M.
B.P.
“Dear Self,
It’s September of 2022 and you’re not sure you want to see your 61st birthday. You’ve been obsessed about ways to end your life, convinced that no one would care and that this is the only way you could resolve the hole you’ve dug for yourself over the last 48 years.
You don’t realize that all the “hard work” that you do to keep going is due to a lifetime of abandonment and isolation. Your overwhelming desire to be perfect and lie about it, so people will think you’re worthy, is unnecessary. The truth is, so many people love and care about you and want you to be happy.
You’ve spent your life trying to find ways to numb / avoid / drink away the pain – when the last Therapist 18 years ago said just stop porn and acting out, you tried (unsuccessfully in the long term) for years by isolating and overworking. You were successful earlier in life just quitting alcohol, why not porn. It did not work – your rage was building until it exploded when your paranoia and anger kept you isolated in your office for almost 3 years.
After you reached out to the 1st therapist, you will spend the next 7 months trying to stop but still deceiving and denying until you are outed. That will be the most painful and in retrospect wonderful experience you’ve had in your life.
All your life you’ve had a love/hate relationship with being alone. Being discovered will result in you leaving your family for 6 weeks -living in a hotel -and realizing that they are the most important thing in the world to you.
You will find a trio of amazing therapists that will dig – upset – hurt – educate and give you the tools to live.
You will learn that self-medicating with porn/acting out or working all the time were just ways to avoid dealing with the life you were given at a young age.
No one should be “taking care of themselves” from age 13 on. The people in your life left you. The connections you made disappointed and left you too. Porn wasn’t your only friend from age 13 forward, it was just a way to avoid the feelings.
Keep getting help and using your tools to be grounded and to become a self-expert in your feelings.
The love of your family will lift you up, motivate you and yes…scare you… and also let you know YOU GOT THIS.”
L.R.
“L.R., I know you are in a bad space right now and while you may not want to listen, I have techniques that helped me when I was there. Back then I was looking for anything to take the pain away and any suggestion people offered I tried it. So, with that:
I know you feel horrible. I know your guts are churning and your mind is racing, and you can’t eat nor sleep. You feel alone and unloved. Lost. Depressed. Suicidal. I lived it. Trust me. A few times.
Hey man…. It will get better. Each day it will get better. You may not be dancing with daisies soon but the horrible pit you are in will end. And it will probably end quicker than you think. Probably two weeks. I look at the dark times like having the flu or norovirus. You want to die when you are in it but in time you feel better. Sure, you may feel fatigue or have a cough for a while, but the absolute low will pass. Again, this initial feeling will pass.
That low is also a biological function of the body missing the feel-good hormones and chemicals. Stressor chemicals are taking over. So, if you can get separate your mind from your body that will help. It’s not the easiest but I have learned to look at myself as two people. The physical and the mental need to be compartmentalized independent of each other. Hard to do at times. LOL. But beneficial
Now with knowing what’s happing and why, there are some steps to take that will help you move through pain.
EXERCISE. Ideally something aerobic and outside. If you get your respiration and heart rate up your body will forget the other stuff going on and give your mid a rest. It will not be interested in what is going on if it’s just trying to get enough oxygen. Exercise as often as you need. Anytime you are getting in a bad place. We humans are also designed to be outside. Your body will respond in a positive manner.
JOURNAL. Get your thoughts out of your head and put them on paper. Your brain is going to race and be jumbled. No one wants to hear your crap and if they do listen there is a good chance, they will keep you in the mud longer. Empty all the stuff in your mind on paper. And in time you can look back and read what’s was going on and you will say. "Man, I was crazy and in a bad place”
You won’t even recognize the person that wrote in the journal
GROUP/ THERAPY. Find a good therapist to help you get through your stuff and join peer group of people going through the same thing. Your will get tips, practices, and skills that you should use.
RESPECT THE PROCESS. Don’t try a quick fix to end the discomfort. Sit with it. Understand what’s happening. Use the tools you will learn in therapy or group. Build new relationships with yourself and others. You will hear the word PROCESS a lot. Follow the process. Just drink the Kool-aide
VOLUNTEER / NEW HOBBY Once the initial crisis has passed and you are feeling better fill your time with something positive. So many others have it worse off than you. Give back
DISCOVER. You are going to be different on the other end. Take the opportunity to try new things. Keep evolving. Who you are today isn’t who you were nor who is it who you will be.
Be better you will like yourself more. Time is precious
LIFE IS A RIVER. IT WILL TAKE YOU WHERE YOU NEED TO GO. YOUR RESPONSIBILITY IS NOT GET HUNG UP ON SNAGS AND TO TAKE CARE WHILE RIDING THE RAPIDS.”
P.S.
“Hey self,
It’s day 1 of realizing that you have a real problem that you can’t passively fix. You are scared, you are alone, you don’t want to believe that you have a problem, you don’t want to believe that porn/sex addiction is real, let alone something that could hook its claws into you and not let go. Most of all you do not want a single soul to find out what is going on with you.
The cold truth is, you’ve had an unhealthy relationship with sex since 6th grade. It started as a blend of finding porn sites on your laptop you got for christmas, and engaging in sexual virtual chats with girls in your school on facebook. You compartmentalized these online encounters with random girls in your school, never making actual eye contact with them in the hallways or in class & never acknowledging the encounter that you had just the night before.
This compartmentalization bled into your first real relationship with a girl that you loved. You could not stop these chats, and eventually that led to physically cheating on her. This became a massive source of drama during your high school career, leading you to dissociate for what now feels like 5 years.
Now that you understand that you have had this problem since way before today, I’d like to give you a few tips from what I have learned 2-3 years into recovery.
Unsubscribe from BrainBuddy and any other blocker, app or service that you are currently paying for. You are way too smart to let a piece of software get in your way when you want to act out, you are simply wasting money. The ‘communities’ on the app are either full of misinformation or ghost towns. Plus, do you really want to build more soulless online connections? Your addiction has gifted you millions of those. The daily ‘tasks’ on the app just become some mindless checklist to complete after a relapse, they themselves become a part of the addiction cycle - they do nothing to actually take you out of a dissociative state and into the present moment. Also, do not purchase a phone lockbox. Your ideal ‘sober life’ does not include locking your phone in a box for 10 hours a day, so why use it as a part of recovery.
You need to break isolation. Pick up the phone and call a friend or a family member, addiction feeds on isolation. Your family and friends love you and they also need someone to talk to. Do not feel anxious to go meet new people, trust me - I felt exactly how you felt but I pushed through and have formed some new friendships that I cannot imagine my life without. Get out there.
Tell someone what is going on with you, it can be anyone you trust. They will not oust you, and it feels good to unpack this addiction and move it out of your own head.
Get a journal with good paper and a nice pen, and write ‘check-ins’ daily. This will help you to start the day off present and gives you a real chance to analyze your behavior the day before. If it was a positive outcome, review what activities led to that outcome and incorporate them into your overall process. If a negative outcome, do the same except work on ways to cut back on the activities that led to it. I believe writing it down on pen and paper is a million times better than using some app on your phone. It helps you to break free from your reliance on the phone. I also feel that using the phone activates something in your brain related to acting out, similar to a drug addict looking at a plastic baggie or an empty needle.
Get professional, 1:1 help. You don’t know what you don’t know, there are professionals out there with years of experience that will help you shape a recovery process for you.
Keep going.”
R.M.
“Hey man —
Your worst fears will come true. And, believe it or not, it will be the best thing that ever happened to you.
You’re going to learn who your friends are and who will never, ever give up on you. It’s almost everyone you know! You’ll learn how to love yourself again and you’ll shed that sense of shame and guilt that has followed you around for 35 years. You’ll learn that you hate the feeling of loneliness but you — only you — have the power to stop it by doing nothing more than connecting with people in an honest, transparent way. There are so many people who want to see you thrive and you have the ability to let them be a part of it.
You’re also going to learn that there are people and situations you can’t control and feelings you can’t avoid — and why you won’t want to avoid them. Feel them all. Identify them all. Think about where those feelings come from and know that you don’t have to run from them or create a secret space to hide from them. They won’t kill you. And none of them are as permanent as the love of your friends and family.
Go find what makes you happy, and not just what makes you numb the hurt.”