Measuring Progress In Recovery

avatarBy Frank Honess

This past week, I read a very interesting thought that someone had regarding the subject of progress. Here’s what they said:

“I wish progress was a straight line. It seems so simple: work hard and see tangible progress as a result. But, as we have all learned at some point in our lives, progress is a line that is so far from straight, it even doubles back on itself sometimes.” (Faith Simmons @thesunalsoreads on Instagram)

I have to admit, each time I read that statement this week, I had to laugh because of the sheer truth behind it. That’s just how progress is. It’s rarely something that’s easy to see, something black and white, something we can even put our hands on. Especially as it relates to progress in recovery. I would even suggest that the greatest “progress” we could ever make in our recovery journeys is completely unseen.

In one of my weekly group meetings I lead, I asked the guys in the group what they would consider to be progress in their own lives. There were many different responses and they were all great. Because you see progress looks different for every person. For one person it may be the goal of getting rid of pornography from their lives, killing the habit of masturbation, & fantasizing sexually about other people. For another it could include all of that, but maybe go a bit deeper: The transformation of deep-rooted pain in their hearts. Or what about the way they view other women or men in their lives?

The reality is that progress can only truly be defined by you. So is there really a way to quantify progress? How do you measure progress? I think you would have to ask each and every person for their own definition. As for me, when I look back at the last 13 years of my life, I can truthfully say I’ve made a TON of progress in terms of becoming free of pornography and the way it controlled by life. I no longer look at porn or struggle with masturbation and lust anymore. But there is still an immense about of progress taking place inside of me. Here’s what I’m still learning:

  • How to deal with stress in a healthy way
  • Combatting fear & anxiety with joy & peace
  • Loving others unconditionally

To name JUST a few. There are many, many more things that are very much still in process. I’ve often shared with men I work with how quitting pornography really isn’t that hard. Any man can do it really. But what is hard is digging below the surface. Excavating the deep places within the heart where pain, trauma, and the really hard stuff lives. If we can just get to that stuff, then we’ll really begin to make progress.

Specific to recovery, what are some reasons we are perhaps not seeing as much progress as we would like in our life? I think there could be many reasons for this, but here are just a couple:

First, the fundamentals aren’t in place. What does that mean? There are specific things every man or woman in recovery needs in order to see long-lasting freedom and healing for their life. Take community for example. How can someone grow in isolation? For me (and every man I know), isolation is a prison. We need to be meeting with and around people who will care for our hearts and ask us the tough questions. Community is a fundamental for success in recovery. As is honesty, accountability, transparency, and vulnerability.

Secondly is the failure to celebrate victories of all sizes. So many men I’ve worked with love to keep a track of their sobriety. And for all the right reasons. But when there is a slip or some kind of setback, there is disappointment. The reality is that slips are going to happen. We can’t escape that. But what about all the ways your mind and heart are changing and transforming? You’re literally building new neural pathways in your brain as you seek what is healthy. Even our slips can be opportunities for growth if we allow them to be.

One last note: I think there is a misperception that progress means perfection. That in order to advance means that there’s no room to be left for mistakes along the way. This couldn’t be further from the truth! Some of the greatest progress in my life came through the bumps and bruises in recovery. The moments where I should have gone left and I went right. The times I didn’t tell the whole truth when I should have. Or tried to hide something when I should have just come clean. These are all seemingly negative things and nothing to be proud of and yet there are huge opportunities for growth in these moments.

One day progress may feel like you’re taking five steps forward. Then, the next day you’re taking six steps backward. Take heart! It’s all apart of the learning process. Don’t give up!

One of the greatest ways you can build some great momentum in your recovery is by joining Small Groups Online! SGO makes it incredibly easy to become apart of a healthy community of men or women who share similar struggles as you. Through a weekly Zoom meeting at a time that is convenient for you, you will receive encouragement and support for the journey that you’re on.

The Greatest Recovery Lessons From 2021

avatarBy Frank Honess

Happy New Year!!!

I (Frank) and everyone at Small Groups Online pray that you’ve had a wonderful start to 2022. I’m really excited for all God has for us in this new year! There will be so much more great content coming on the blog this year and we’re thankful to have the opportunity to encourage you and equip you on your journey.

As this is technically the “last” post for 2021, I wanted to highlight some of my favorite posts from this last year and the lessons contained within them. A lot of words have been written and you have may not caught each month’s post. So we wanted to share what I believe to be the best of the best from 2021. It’s that time of year where everyone shares their “best of the best” content, so I figured, why not do it here too? 🙂

You’ll notice in this post I’ve listed my top 6 favorite posts with the main point of the article and some extra commentary as well. I would encourage you to read all of the articles in full as time allows.

Here are six of my favorite recovery posts from 2021:

  1. What Do You Want From Your Recovery In 2021?— I love starting every new year with having a conversation about the importance of vision in a person’s life. Charting out where you want to go in the coming months and most importantly WHO you want to become is so crucial and critical in recovery. So in this post, I asked the question that if there were an area you could get better in or become strengthened in, what would it be? I give four very important areas to look at in recovery. Don’t worry, I won’t spoil them here. But here is the main point: Once you stop learning, you stop growing. It’s so important to never forget that truth. The day I decide to kick back and think to myself that I know all there is to know about my recovery, I’ve harmed myself in a way like none other. Never stop hungering for growth your life, for improvement, and for health. There’s always some way we can get better. Thankfully, you don’t have to do it on your own. Which leads us to the next best recovery lesson from 2021…
  1. 4 Vital Sources of Community You Can Find Today — Hopefully you’ve come to this realization by now, but recovery cannot be done alone. In order to find long-term success on your journey, there’s much work to be done! But here’s what you need to know: You are not alone in your recovery. There are so many sources of support and community available to you. But YOU must be the one to want it and find it. In this article, I share four vital sources of community that you can find today. Community is literally one phone call, one email, one message away. It’s not hard to find. Small Groups Online offers incredible opportunities for you to meet with other men and women who share the struggles that you do. I’ve said this many times, but I’ve counted my months and years in a support group to be one of the greatest things I could have done to find freedom and healing.
  1. 2 Reasons Why Freedom (Not Sobriety) Should Be Your Goal In Recovery— Sobriety is a very popular term in recovery circles. It’s a popular indicator of the amount of time someone has gone without acting out or expressing compulsive behavior. At the heart of the word there’s nothing inherently wrong, but I believe it’s how it’s been used that has possibly gotten us off track. Experiencing freedom in recovery is the real goal, not just sobriety. If we don’t eventually make it our goal to understand the WHYS behind our behavior, we’ll never truly be free. In this post, I share 2 reasons why freedom should be the goal in recovery, just racking up more days without using porn (or whatever the addiction is).
  1. How Do I Talk To My Spouse About Addiction & Recovery?— Quote possibly one of the hardest things to do in recovery is learning how to communicate with your spouse about your addiction (if you’re married). I remember how difficult the conversations were when I was coming out of my addiction because of my history of lying to my fiancé at the time. The first year of our marriage was incredibly challenging because we hadn’t learned how to talk about the things I struggled with. We needed help. And one of the greatest tools someone gave us was an acronym: F.A.N.O.S. You’ll have to read the post to find out what each letter means but believe me when I tell you, FANOS is a really helpful tool to aid you in the conversations between you and your husband or wife. It will help you learn how to talk with your spouse about your addiction without things getting weird, awkward, or combative.
  1. BLAST: A Guide To Understanding Your Triggers—  One of the greatest skills you can learn in recovery is being able to understand what your triggers are. Why do you act out the way that you do? B.L.A.S.T. is a guide for beginning to understand some of the most fundamental reasons for why we act out. Unless we understand what kind of feelings and emotions lead us to viewing pornography or masturbating, we’ll repeat the same behavior over and over again. You must become a student of your heart — learning what your heart is craving and and it’s need to be healthy. Very similar to FANOS, use this acronym frequently to try and understand what is really going inside.
  1. How Practicing Gratitude Can Change Your Brain Pt.1— The last post I would highly recommend reading is one of the most recent ones on the SGO blog: Learning how cultivating gratitude can literally transform your brain to help you think differently. Before you think I’m crazy, there’s actual science to back this up. Within this article, I share some very interesting findings about the brain, but here’s the point: The very chemicals in your brain that were released through repeated exposures to pornography can also be delivered through simple acts of giving thanks. Practicing gratitude. And it can CHANGE your brain.

I believe this is some of the best content posted on SGO from 2021. There’s so much more you could go back and read, but I hope that you’ll consider taking some of these recovery lessons and implementing them in your life in this new year. You won’t regret it.

You also won’t regret checking out Small Groups Online. SGO offers a very unique and intimate opportunity for community with other men and women who struggle with pornography and other forms of sexually compulsive behaviors. Imagine finding a group of men or women just like yourself who want more than what they’re currently experiencing. They want their lives back. They want hope. They want freedom. Community is one of the greatest ways to find these things so check out Small Groups Online today to get started on your journey!

2 Reasons Why Freedom (Not Sobriety) Should Be Your Goal In Recovery

avatarBy Frank Honess

One of the most popular terms a person coming out of addiction will use to share their success or failure in recovery is the word “sobriety”. In the mainline culture, it’s probably most widely used in Alcoholics Anonymous and has been for several decades. It’s a widely accepted term in recovery and has spanned to former addicts with other sorts of compulsive behaviors. Nothing about the use of the word or it’s implications is wrong. I just have one question:

Could it be that there’s more to your recovery than JUST sobriety? Is it possible that even when you’ve made considerable progress in your journey to avoid a certain behavior, there’s more healing that could be taking place in your life? More lessons you could be learning about your heart? Deeper levels of wholeness available to you as a person in recovery?

It might just be a personal gripe I have with the word. At the end of the day, it’s probably just semantics. But rarely, if ever, have I used the word “sobriety” as I talk with men about my recovery story. Because I think there’s more to recovery than just sobriety; this picture of just getting by and ticking off the number of days I haven’t had alcohol or used porn.

I believe we can experience FREEDOM. The person who is free from sexual addiction is one who has/is experiencing healing on a much deeper level than just abstinence. And so I believe there are at least a couple specific reasons why freedom matters more than sobriety. If I haven’t lost you at this point, please consider the following reasons:

  1. FREEDOM is about healing your heart while SOBRIETY is about managing your behavior.

In my experience working with men, the ones who do the best are the ones who focus on healing their hearts. This includes their mental health, emotional health, and relational health. They’re revisiting their childhood, their adolescent years, the relationship they had with their parents in search of possible traumas or abuse they may have suffered. They’re learning new ways to process feelings of pain and discomfort instead of retreating into isolation. They’re spending time with counselors &/or a support group of other men who can help them process the damage addiction has done. Recovery is about so much more than managing behavior. Freedom cannot be achieved merely by managing your behavior or abstaining from using porn. In SGO, we call this “white-knuckle” change: The attempt to get better externally by simply gritting your teeth and trying to avoid porn or the feelings that could potentially be triggering. In order for the healing process to begin taking place in your life, you must look inward. You must embrace pain, acknowledge why it’s there, and act on it in a productive way that leads to life.

  1. FREEDOM counts the lessons you’re learning in recovery while SOBRIETY counts the days without using porn.

Close your eyes for 20 seconds and reflect on what you’ve learned since coming out of addiction. If you weren’t able to think of 5-10 lessons in the span of 20 seconds, it begs the question: What is your real goal in recovery? Is it to merely tick off on your calendar all the days that you haven’t acted out? Or is it to become the person that God intends for you to be? They are two vastly different goals. If you’re a financial guy, think about it like this: Just because you don’t file for bankruptcy each year doesn’t mean you have financial freedom. Likewise, you might have racked up 30 days or 60 days without looking at something triggering, but through the process have you considered WHY you act out and what your specific triggers are? Sobriety in itself without the real investigation into one’s heart will not take you very far. Unfortunately, I’ve seen men who have been more prone to slips and relapses because they were unwilling to do the real heart work that recovery requires.

Again, at the end of the day, perhaps it’s just a matter of word play. Freedom and sobriety could very well mean the same thing. I just think we have to be intentional in our recovery and know what our end goal is. Otherwise, we’ll coast along not understanding what we’re suppose to be doing.

Make sure you know what you want out of your recovery. Are you simply in a competition with yourself to see how long you can go without using porn? Or are you entering into community with others who are struggling the same way you are? This is where freedom and healing begin!

Small Groups Online makes it really easy to find community where other men will be waiting to meet with you. Through a weekly Zoom meeting and the Live Free community, you will be given the tools you need to help you find the freedom we’ve been talking about. It’s as easy as going to the website, finding the specific group and time you’re looking for and signing up. Go check out Small Groups Online today!