After stopping drinking at 28, I had more problems with resentments than guilt regarding the past, and the thing I felt most guilty about were the thoughts still going around in my head. I figured that, if they were projected onto a screen, not only would I get hauled off to a nuthouse, but anyone who sat down to watch it as well. I did my fifth step when I was about a year sober with a priest, and he sometimes attended meetings at his church even though he wasn't a member and was the most comfortable person for me to do it with. But I couldn't bring myself to tell him about my sexual fantasies(those thoughts that go through a person's head while having sex or masturbating) as I taught at a Catholic boys' high school at the time and wasn't willing, and too embarrassed, to tell him about some of the things I imagined doing to some of my students, which was both pretty kinky and sadistic. In some ways a bit of sadism was an asset there as the standard form of discipline was to hit a kid on the hand with a long bamboo cane. My fantasies now are not as kinky or sadistic, and involve girls rather than boys, but I still wouldn't be willing to put them on a screen for you. I have never wanted to act them out, and that probably adds to their appeal. But I have thought of them as being sort defects of character that I should be willing to have God remove, but never have been, as they offer me comfort, escape and pleasure. My experience with sexual intercourse was limited to sex with two prostitutes in each of three cities, Singapore, Taiwan and Bangkok while on R&R( also known as I&I for intercourse and intoxication) from Vietnam during the war. There was also one experience with a man a few years later, something I never wanted to repeat. One reason for this is that I joined a religion when I was three years sober that strongly disapproves of sex outside of marriage. While I was engaged once, I can't really picture myself as happily married and didn't feel it would be right to experiment with someone else's life. I once told someone that I would like to get married but wouldn't want to live with anyone. I am now happy and content living by myself, but have sometimes felt like I might have missed something in life. As a member of both fellowships, it has sometimes seemed to me that one of the main differences between AA and NA is that in AA members like myself, who find fantasies more rewarding than what we can get in reality, and find sexual relationships not worth the hassle, are not unusual. In NA it seems that many, if not most, seem able to float relatively effortlessly from one to another, perhaps because they learned how to score. I like the story I read about someone who announced, "If you are looking for sex here, I can tell you that the odds are good. But, unfortunately, the goods are odd." I recently read a book review in the Economist about a book called Who's Been Sleeping in Your Head? by a psychiatrist named Brett Kahr and ordered it through Amazon as I would be too shy to get it from a book shop, even though I do find myself able to write this as I think there might be someone who reads this who might find it of benefit too. The book is nearly 500 pages long but quite readable even for those who have never taken a psychology course. I used to think that psychiatry was a pathological condition in which people think they have insight into other people'sproblems, but this guy does seem to have that and be able to simply explain that insight. I would have liked to read something like this 30 years ago. He says there is really no such thing as a normal sexual fantasy. In fact, picturing yourself having "normal" sex with a spouse while masturbating would be rather abnormal, or at least relatively unusual. It would appear that those who don't have fantasies might tend to be less mentally healthy than those that do. He shows that these are not really harmful and serve a number of purposes. In most cases, they can be interpreted like dreams, although few understand what their own fantasies mean or where they come from, usually childhood traumas or unfullfilled desires. Anyway, I have found a lot of relief in trying to understand this stuff instead of just feeling guilty about it. There used to be a saying, having more to do with thoughts of drinking, that I can't stop the birds from flying over my head, but I can keep them from building a nest in my hair (a challenge for them now that I'm bald). I guess there is still a nest there, but at least I understand why I have been unwilling go at it with a comb. |