Family Times Journalist Liam M. Shares His Personal Experience With a Life of Sexual Excess
By Liam M.
Young people tap into a whole new world of personal power when they discover their ability to think and act sexually. It is something completely new and exciting in contrast to the reality they have known. This new realm is like a giant safety blanket for teenage insecurities. Eventually, with the help of media and peer influence, sex becomes completely open and normal to the young person. To a lot of young people, however, sex eventually makes the move from open and normal, to essential.
In my experience, irresponsible sex affected my life in ways I have yet to understand. In middle-school, my sole social motivation was towards sex. I craved and thrived on attention from girls. I was so obsessed that I completely negated who I was as a person, and shaped my entire being into what I thought was what girls wanted. I saw female approval as the only and ultimate measure of a man. This created for me an infinite escape into fantasy, which always left me on the outside looking in. I was in awe of how freely and naturally everyone else acted — something I could never do because of my fears — and I tore myself up with jealousy, self-pity, and anger.
Eventually, I got what I had been working for. Entering high school I was mature physically and had a chip on my shoulder towards every female. All the years of studying how everyone else interacted materialized, and I became the whore that I had always wanted to be. I felt I had complete control, and that every girl in the world was at my fingertips. I went at the female population of my school with fierce determination to be craved by all of them, and with that I received all the respect and self-satisfaction of which I had been longing for years. I felt like “the man,” and lived under the illusion that what I did made me happy, refusing to acknowledge the fact that underneath it all I felt the same as I did in the 6th grade.
This persona I had created, named Liam, was never challenged at home. It was completely rocked, however, when I was sent to rehab my junior year. I had woken up next to one of my usual girls, blew some lines, and packed for what I thought was nothing but a new adventure. I remember packing all my favorite clothes, determined to look cool and to impress whatever girls might be there. My image took the first blow when I collapsed on the detox-room floor and puked all over myself. Before this I was talking to a 20-year-old girl that I was sure I could procure. I was dragged into the doctor’s room, and while I was being sedated with bentyl and subutex, someone stole my expensive winter jacket, which was also holding the I-pod that I had snuck in. When confronting the group of people in the room about my stolen things, a large, tattooed man, who had taken over the conversation with my previous prospect, looked me right in the eyes and said, “Get over it, kid; you’re a sheep amongst wolves in here.”
When you lose the thing that you base your self-worth on, you are forced to either sit in self-pity or reevaluate your priorities. I came to The Family Foundation School right after rehab and haven’t been with a girl since. After about a month of pointlessly hitting on girls, I knew I had to make a change. I shut my mouth whenever I wanted to flirt, and I tuned my mind out of fantasy. The initial result was an incredible sense of loneliness. I felt like one of my greatest fears, which was of being average, was coming true, and I hated it. How could I feel good about myself if I wasn’t “the man” like I used to be? How could anyone else like me? I happened to be lucky and was surrounded by guys who had similar experiences. All of them said the same thing: just be yourself.
I haven’t had much practice living uninhibited by sexual desires, and so just “being myself” hasn’t been that easy. There are still tons of situations during the day in which I have no idea how to act. Learning to live without sex for me is a day-by-day process. Today I feel as if I am gaining all the things that I was trying too hard to get through my womanizing. People look up to me not for who I slept with the night before, but for how much I have helped them. I can relate to people on a real level, not feeling above or below them. I handle each thing put before me without being distracted by my fear of other people’s thoughts. More importantly I have gained a level of self-respect, which I can’t now imagine living without. Abstinence, among other things, has taught me that there is a huge difference between being a man and “the” man. I am fully aware now of which one I want to become.
