The Daily Check-In

Engagement is the secret sobriety sauce. This daily check-in is an integral part of maintaining engagement with your sobriety from compulsive sexual behavior, sex addiction, or porn addiction. It can be completed in 5-30 minutes.

1-10 Scale: Every evening ask yourself, in general, how are you doing on a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being the best day of your life and 1 being the worst, 5 is average). Whatever your score is, let’s say you’re at a seven, I want you to think about what it would take for that to be an eight or what it would take for that to be a nine… Understanding what it takes to elevate yourself by one or two levels is the information that we are really looking for in this exercise. Now, ask yourself what’s preventing you from being at a 6? These are minor differences, and that’s exactly what we need to start understanding about ourselves to see growth.

On the other end of the scale, when you are down, let’s say a score of three, ask yourself what is stopping you from plummeting to a 1?

These minor differences are the information we’re looking for as it will help you to experience better, better days and bad days that are not as bad.

Lastly, I want you to think back to your last five '10' days and try to identify any common threads across them.

Moving clockwise, let's move on to the Gratitude List. This is simple there is no such thing as a grateful addict. So take a moment and write down five things you are grateful for. It can be whatever you want, it can be the exact same five every day or it could be different, but simply we want to set our mind on what we are grateful for. If you were having trouble with this, consider the basics (a roof, breath, food).

Transparent Percentage. Think back over the last 24 hours… What percent of the last 24 hours would you say you lived in a fully transparent way, keeping no secrets, not deceiving others and not compartmentalizing your compulsive sexual behavior? Only count your waking hours.

Process Tweak. Process eats outcome for breakfast lunch and dinner. We never want to be caught looking at the scoreboard, instead approach your compulsive sexual behavior one play at a time, one pitch at a time. To do this, whether you realize it or not, you have developed your own process of handling your life, your self and your addiction. Now, there is no perfect process, so each day take a moment and think back over the last 24 hours. Think back to any moments of frustration or trigger or craving or acting out. What happened there? What part of your process broke down? Maybe it's a part of your process that works great on Tuesdays at 3 PM but not so great on Friday night at 2 AM. Stay engaged in learning more about the feelings of your current process, because there is no failure there is only learning. So take a moment every day and try to identify if there is any need, any pain point, in your process that could be shifted and improved.

Affirmations. Often times our past is filled with shame, regret, disappointment and perceived failure. These emotions can be devastating in their impact on the self. Try having three affirmations that you say to yourself out loud as a part of your daily check-in. Examples could be:

1. “I have value.”

2. “I’m not who I want to be, but I’m not who I used to be.”

3. “All anyone has is today, so today I will do the things (my process) that I know are healthiest for me.”

Your affirmations will be specific to you, you could have a list of 50 affirmations that you like to read through which is great! Always do what works for you. Allow these affirmations to help retrain your brain after years of self-deprecating thoughts.

Break Isolation. Sex addiction and porn addiction, compulsive sexual behavior thrive in isolation. Break the isolation and often times you break the compulsive behavior. This could be joining a support group, going to the grocery store, going to the gym, go for a run, joining your town’s chess club, calling a friend or going and drinking coffee at your local coffee shop. Get up, get dressed and get out. Simply ask yourself what are you going to do today to ensure that you do not feed isolation in your life. Focus on community, focus on relationships, focus on helping others. Sex addiction and porn addiction are often times a trauma response from having been hurt, and to prevent any further pain since we have determined that others in the world can hurt us, the addict turns inward. This is a protective dissociative self who's only goal is to never get hurt again. This is where the desire for isolation comes from for many, and if that is where part or all of your isolation comes from it's good to understand that. Now let's turn and look at the healthy response which is moving towards a place of vulnerability where we are safe with our feelings, allowed to feel our feelings - all of them. A place where we understand that yes we will absolutely be hurt again and we also understand that there are bad people in the world, but our minds have grown to understand that the world can also be a beautiful place and there are many beautiful people in it and most importantly that I can be one of those beautiful people.

Fantasy Percentage. The first stage of the addiction cycle is preoccupation or fantasizing. This means that you have been triggered, or have experienced a craving that you want relief or satisfaction from. You have reached the choice point at the gate of the addictive cycle and you have either made no choice Internet attempt for a healthy relief or satisfaction from the craving or trigger, or you have decided to enter into the addiction cycle which initially lands you at the first stage which is preoccupation or fantasizing. Now that you are in the addiction cycle, the chemicals in your brain have begun their work to help you numb, escape, avoid the feelings that have triggered you. So if we want to avoid this preoccupation state, we want to stay present and aware so that we can identify triggers and cravings as they are happening and choose to leverage our prioritized interventions to achieve a healthy outcome. So it is worth looking back at the last 24 hours and asking yourself what percent of the last 24 waking hours did you spend preoccupied or fantasizing?

Practicing Presence. Now as you round out your daily check-in, take a moment to be present. Move away from unwanted compulsive sexual behavior and move toward healthy choices and healthier life. Be present. Ultimately, this present moment is all we have, as Eckhart Tolle says in ‘The Power of Now’ book, life is simply a series of “nows” constantly presented in front of us. We no longer have the past and for all intents and purposes, the past has become a fantasy in our mind, often incorrectly remembered. The future of course is unknown and in that way imaginary as well. The present moment is all that exists. Practicing presence is a muscle that you will begin to flex and understand within yourself. For some this can be drinking their morning coffee and setting an intention for the day. For others this could be taking their dog for a walk. For others it could be a guided meditation, I am including my favorite, the mountain meditation by John Kabat Zinn, down below. Many people enjoy journaling, which can be your effort to practice presence.