When the Weekend Goes Sideways: Radical Acceptance

Today, you were going to get a short pitch for how proud I was of my newest book. I worked on it mainly in secret for about six weeks and between all of my social media, this blog, my website and general goodwill, this weekend was going to be glorious. Nope. The universe decided it was a good time to test my radical acceptance.

I’m Reading This Book About Pornography Addiction For a Friend is unlike any of the other books I’ve written. This is the first self-help, how-to for the person who is just recognizing they have a problem, but not quite ready to do the deep dive in recovery. I tried to include the three things I’m always asked about: 1) symptoms of porn addiction, 2) stories of real-life porn addiction and 3) ways to begin to understand and deal.

This is my first self-published book and I’m so proud of it. But self-published also means promotion is all up to the author. I knew that I could put the book on pre-sale last Thursday, and get four days to goose the stats for it’s official release today. Please check it out on Amazon.

It’s a pretty solid plan.

I Think I’ve Got the Sniffles

Last Wednesday night, I started feeling kinda rough. My wife tested posted for COVID the previous weekend, but with keeping our distance and five days of feeling OK, I thought I escaped the plague. Late Thursday morning, I could feel something coming on and by the time I was doing a live broadcast on TikTok I gave in. You could see a minute-to-minute fading. By Thursday night I was in bed, by Friday morning I’d tested positive.

OK… so radical acceptance time. I preach it to clients and anyone who will listen. In learning this Dialetical Behavior Therapy (DBT) technique, I made some of my greatest strides in recovery, and life. I’ve always had a giant sense of justice vs. injustice and that justice wins in the end. Good defeats evil. The underdog gets his day.

But that’s not always true. Sometimes, bad shit just happens. Good people lose, bad people win, and Mother Nature does what she wants. History is written by the victors, not the people who should have won. And you can either wallow and flail around in the injustice, you can devote yourself to fighting it, or you can just move on. I’ve learned to move on. I told myself there would be other days to promote the book. I’m guessing porn addiction will stick around at least a few more months. Radical acceptance. It ain’t fun, but it’s necessary.

Gracie Takes Her Final Bow

I joke all the time about my experience with felines in the last year. We went from having three cats to having 10. Yeah, I know. It’s ridiculous. It was just a very random series of events. But our oldest kitty, Gracie, barely noticed them. At 15 or 16, she gave off a vibe that she ran the roost and was not to be bothered, kind of like Marlon Brando in The Godfather.

I won’t run through her entire medical history, but she really enjoyed all nine of her lives and in the last three months, there were three other trips to the vet where I thought she was not coming home. On Saturday, he back half stopped working. The tumor-on-the-spine theory was making more sense. We consulted with a vet and then made the decision to bring her to the emergency pet hospital.

I had to stay in the car because of COVID, but my wife went in with a cat in her arms and came back without. I could say it’s not fair — but what does my opinion really matter in this? It doesn’t. And that’s OK. That’s radical acceptance.

It Isn’t Right or Wrong, It Just Is What It Is

Yeah, it sucks I couldn’t promote my book because I felt too weak. It sucks I wanted to write this all weekend but had to wait till I had a window of feeling OK on Monday. And it sucks that it won’t be No. 1 on the new releases in the sexual health categories as it goes live today. But what can you do? Nobody was out to get me. It’s not like another author planted something in a drink. I got the illness I successfully dodged two years. That’s not a bad run.

I really loved that cat. She joined my life even before my addictions got terrible. She’s been a constant during recovery and as she aged, she became less of a hunter and more of a snuggler. I won’t miss waking up to dead (or mostly-dead) animals on my back porch. But I’ll miss her purr and her nuzzling that wet nose intoI ho my neck. She was a good cat. But she’s gone and I am grateful for the time I had.

Radical acceptance is tough, but it’s necessary. I’ve had other weekends, other weeks, other months that have not gone according to plan in my life. Ten years ago, I soothed with alcohol and porn. Twenty years ago, I soothed with alcohol and porn. Thirty years ago, I soothed with alcohol and porn.

Today? Radical acceptance.

It’s easier to accept if you go buy my book. I’ll keep the price low a few more days.