I look in the mirror and see a hunched over, naked man. For the life of me I can’t see myself. I see a man with a frantic, obsessed look on his sweaty face, his body contorted as he masturbates in front of a screen, trying to find what ?

I don’t even know anymore. What is the man in the mirror looking for: pleasure, numbness, control, or some twisted version of revenge. Trying to find love in hate ? The man sits there manufacturing a state of insanity where the pictures make a pseudo life that he can move into for awhile.

The sad reality is that he is looking to save me. He is desperately trying to keep me afloat, because there is something missing. Is this broken, angry, fearful and yearning man my addiction ? Looking in the mirror I see me. I am that addiction. I am so much more. I am the man who went a far way to get better, came back for  sober years and let it slip back into that dark morass of acting out. I used to see the light everywhere and I still see it today, but it is harder to get myself to look.

I am going to hold that man in the mirror and tell him that he doesn’t have to do that anymore. I hope he believes me. Just a little. I don’t have much time left.