Think about:

• The people you love

• The activities you enjoy

• The work you do

• The possessions you prize.

I'll bet none of them came to you overnight.

• If you have solid relationships, you worked hard for them.

• If you have a hobby, you worked hard to achieve your skill level.

• You couldn't have developed a career without hard work.

• You saved and worked hard to buy many of your most important possessions.

From these experiences you've learned that the best things in life are not given to you. You earn them through hard work. Overcoming addiction, or any other personal problem, is not given to you either. It's achieved through hard work.

There are no shortcuts to self-respect, self-esteem, and self-confidence.

Read biographies of outstanding people and you will see one common trait: they persisted. They didn't expect it to be easy; they didn't expect anyone to do it for them; they knew that to achieve an important goal, you work hard and fail many times along the way.

Nature shows us that the stairway to success is built by the failures you learn from.

Notice how an infant learns to walk. The child fails many times, yet nature drives the infant to get up and try again, and again, and again.

As adults, nature does not think for us. We need to think for ourselves. But nature gave us the lead. It showed us that by learning from every fall, by keeping our eyes on the goal, and our minds directed toward achievement, we could succeed.

Everything you accomplished in life required going through the learning curve of setback and persistence.

Here's what to expect in the ups and downs of overcoming addiction.

• Confusion.

  The concepts you'll learn are not easy to grasp. You will make mistakes applying them and need to learn from your mistakes.

• Despair.

  Feeling hopeless is not uncommon when dealing with addiction. Don't beat yourself up about it. Instead, remember that you do have choices and you can make your life better, even if you are still acting addictively.

• Fear.

  You feel afraid that you won't make it. That's fine. It's expected.

  You're better off admitting your fears and learning from them.

  I've overcome four addictions. None of them were easy to overcome and I was worried every step of the way. I'm still afraid of the destruction I can bring on myself and my loved ones if I start to believe "I've got it whipped."

  I overcame them correctly; so, I don't live in fear of them. What I live in fear of is my own potential stupidity. I feel sorry for anyone who doesn't.

• Emotional exhaustion.

  Sex addiction is the most personal addiction. In order to deal with it, you need to face your feelings, work through them, learn from them and then make new choices and take your life in a new, healthy direction. It's exhausting - and worth every second of it.

  Don't expect yourself to be a Happy Face about it. You're going to feel drained and tired. That's fine. It's part of overcoming sex addiction.

Learn from every failure. Keep your mind on your goal. Don't expect it to be easy. Remember how hard you worked for everything else in your life and apply that same effort to overcoming sexual addiction.

Through honesty, persistence and advice that works, your chances of success are excellent.

Copyright 2002 by Joe Zychik

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