Throughout my addiction, I did not know what color the world was. Seriously. I was seeing the world through a twisted monochromatic view. Yes, my eyes interpreted light wavelengths as different colors the same way most folks’ did, but I did not SEE the color and the beauty in our world.
By analogy, imagine a worker in a bacon factory. Bacon is the single most delicious smell ever envisioned by humanity. All day, this worker basks in the glorious aroma of bacon. However, he can no longer smell the bacon. Even if he could, it would not appetize him the way it does for us.
When this worker goes home, he feasts on bacon, right? WRONG! Bacon is the last thing that brings this worker pleasure. He is so saturated with bacon that he no longer recognizes its flavor and smell, and in fact, cannot recognize other flavors or smells either.
You see, this worker still eats every day, but most dishes taste very bland without the overpowering aroma of bacon. He might add bacon to the dish just to get a glimpse of the flavor, but he does not enjoy it the way others do. On a very good day, a normal dish (without bacon, that is) will taste bland to him, prompting him to add salt. On a normal day, he will add a lot of bacon, bringing the dish to an “average” level of flavor (which would be overwhelming to the rest of us).
I hope the metaphor is obvious. Bacon is sex, and both are the most amazing sensual experience in their realm. The person who saturates himself with sex (including porn and masturbation) will slowly cease to enjoy the pure carnal pleasure that sex provides within the context of a relationship—he will slowly lose the taste of bacon. On the other hand, he who saves his palette for the porcine delicacy (relational sex) will have such great enjoyment that he will not even remember the lesser methods to sample a cheap brand of the same flavor.
We sex addicts have become accustomed to eating artificially-flavored bacon-bits. I will challenge you to save your appetite, and your palette, for legitimate hickory-smoked center-cut bacon. Your mouth will thank me later.
If you are in the midst of your addiction, you are probably used to artificial bacon. The whole world tastes bland and looks somewhat gray. I would encourage you to take a break for a bit. Try 30 days. If this is easy, then go for 60 days. If this is still too easy, I challenge you to 90 days. Do this, and tell us how the world’s color changes. Tell us how the flavor of food changes.
Go find 90 days of sobriety and tell us that the whole world did not become more colorful and delicious. I will bet that you will never look at bacon bits the same way again.