CASTIMONIA

Sexual Purity Support & Recovery Group

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Awkward Lack of Recent Practice

Awkward Lack of Recent Practice

Sex is not love, but where love is true and real, sexual intimacy can be a deeply moving expression of what is in one’s heart. American culture tries to push men into stereotypical roles that tend to gratify being sexually promiscuous. Sex or the hint of it is frequently shown to be the cure for just about anything that might trouble an American male, at least according to Madison Avenue advertising agencies. A “real man” is often advertised to be one who can attract and bed women easily. What bulls#it! I swallowed the “Playboy” lifestyle as being cool when I was young and my relationships suffered dearly because of it. Choosing to keep sex out of my life for a long time was one of the best things I could have done. The awkward lack of recent practice will add innocence and a newness last felt in my twenties.

“So that’s what I thought love was: Savage as a bull prodded with a spike; Brutal, smelly, sweaty. Like a brawl in which man and woman Wrestled pleasure from each other, Fighting, incapable of thought, Half stunned, wheezing, Less than human.” – Unknown

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Co-addicted Relationships Part III: A Love Addict and a Love Avoidant

Co-addicted Relationships Part III: A Love Addict and a Love Avoidant
A Love Addict and a Love Avoidant form a relationship marked by cycles of positive and negative intensity (which they call love, passion, or romance), until they can’t stand it with that partner – and then they leave that person and repeat the cycles with somebody else. Each partner is both attracted and repelled by the other. This paradox is often expressed as, “I can’t live with him (or her), but I can’t live without him (or her). The addictive priority for the Love Addict is the partner and the fantasy the Love Addict has developed about that partner. Love Addicts are obsessed with the partner and seek to create intensity inside the relationship – actually to relate too closely to the point of enmeshment rather than establishing healthy intimacy. The addictive priority in the Love Avoidant’s life is an addiction outside the relationship; alcohol, drugs, sex, work, religion, gambling, spending, being busy. Love Avoidants are interested in creating intensity outside the relationship rather than establishing healthy intimacy within the relationship. Any other addiction will do the job of causing a Love Avoidant to evade intimacy within the relationship by focusing on the outside addiction. “From “Facing Love Addiction” by Pia Mellody

“I hate you, then I love you. It’s like I want to throw you off a cliff, then rush to the bottom and catch you.” – Unknown

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Finding Light in the Darkness of Pornography Addiction

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/141091137/the-heart-of-the-matter-a-documentary-feature-film

Finding light in the darkness of pornography addiction

We are back online again to raise funds for our film! Hopefully, many of you seeing this new campaign are our fans and strong supporters who’ve been rooting for us to get this film made for many months. And we pray that there are many more of you who are discovering (and donating) to our project for the first time.

Watch this additional video from behind the scenes on our first shoot to get a glimpse of why so many amazing people volunteered to be a part of the film.

We began work on this film in January of 2012, under the name Shamed. Here is a link to that original Kickstarter campaign so you can see where we started.

With the funds raised there, we started production by shooting 24 awesome, beautiful, and powerful interviews (which you can see a glimpse of in our teaser video above).

Now, we want to clarify the full budget of this film has always been $200K+. Understand there was no miss management of funds resulting in the request for more funds. We’ve always had a vision to create a film that will be the most engaging visually for viewers, and that takes a certain amount of spending!

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Co-addicted Relationships Part II: Two Love Avoidants

Co-addicted Relationships Part II: Two Love Avoidants
A Love Avoidant and another Love Avoidant form a very low-intensity relationship. They agree to keep intensity low because each of them finds this comfortable; however, they each create intensity, obsession, and compulsion outside the relationship, which quite often does not include the other partner. For example it could be that one is a work addict in business and the other is intensely involved in church work or another form of volunteer activity. Or perhaps one is an alcoholic and the other a compulsive spender, or compulsive gardener, or compulsively redecorates and remodels their home. Or perhaps one of them avoids the spouse by being a Love Addict when relating to one of the children. Another possibility is that these two participate in some form of intensity outside their relationship, thinking they are having a relationship because they are together so much of the time. Actually they use the intensity outside to avoid intimacy within the relationship. For example, a couple can become involved together in compulsive gambling, tournament bridge, square dancing, sailboat racing, and so on. I’m not trying to say that gambling, bridge, dancing or boat racing are undesirable activities for a couple to share. But such activities may become an obstacle to their relationship when the partners create intensity with those activities to avoid intimacy. “From “Facing Love Addiction” by Pia Mellody – tomorrow Part III: “A Love Addict and a Love Avoidant”

“Among men, sex sometimes results in intimacy; among women, intimacy sometimes results in sex.” –  Barbara Cartland

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Co-addicted Relationships Part I: Two Love Addicts

Co-addicted Relationships Part I: Two Love Addicts
A Love Addict and another Love Addict form a very intense relationship. They enmesh with each other, get very dependent on each other, and often exclude other people from their partnership. Many times they even exclude their children, and these children feel very abandoned by the parents addiction to each other. The intensity, obsession, and compulsion is focused by each partner on the other partner and on the relationship itself. In some relationships between Love Addicts, one Love Addict’s intense drive toward enmeshment is more forceful than the others. These forceful attempts to remake the other part to fit his or her fantasy overwhelm this less forceful partner. The less forceful Love Addict, who similar attempts to remake the forceful partner to fit him or her own fantasy, fail, may feel in danger of being engulfed and drained and may therefore shift roles by adopting the characteristics of a Love Avoidant in the relationship. “From “Facing Love Addiction” by Pia Mellody – tomorrow Part II: “Two Love Avoidants”

“Addiction is just a way of trying to get at something else. Something bigger. Call it transcendence if you want, but it’s a f ‘ed-up way, like a rat in a maze. We all want the same thing. We all have this hole. The thing you want offers relief, but it’s a trap.” – Tess Callahan