Treading Water

So since my wife found out about my relapses and the secrets I've been hiding from her, I've set a few helpful boundaries for myself as I aim to keep sober.

1. No Porn (of course).
2. No Masturbation.
3. Stay off the phone unless I have a specific, worded purpose in mind.  "I am opening my phone to..."
4. Start reading recovery material
5. Start attending recovery groups
6. Find friends
7. Find a sponsor or an accountability partner.
8. Get off Reddit.

I sort of break the last boundary from time to time as I need to keep up with sports chatter and I've found a few recovery subreddits that I go directly to.  I do think it is still a danger to my recovery so I will need to deal with fencing off Reddit in the near future.

I have started to realize that with the boundaries I have a lot more mindspace and time in my brain. Right now my mind has the urge to just go and do things. So I've started a few projects that I probably won't finish, chatted with old friends who are very surprised to hear from me, applied for a few new jobs, am about 10 pages in for about 6 books and am trying to keep up with this daily journal.  I'm thrashing. I'm treading water trying to reach out for something to cling to.  My mind is trying to keep occupied as it tries to avoid getting triggered or trying its best to stay distracted when triggered.

For now, I'm not sure if me getting involved with so much busy-work is good for my recovery.  It's distracting, sure, but at the same time I'm tired, mentally exhausted and at the same time having a lot of trouble sleeping.  I'm unfocused at work, and I feel like for some reason I'm forcing my mind to suffocate.

I wonder if there's any peace in recovery.  One of the lines in the Serenity Prayer is to "accept hardship as a pathway to peace."  That doesn't sound like peace to me. I hear in SA meetings of people that struggle every day like me, and they've been at it for years. That doesn't sound like peace either.  I'm working hard on my recovery right now, and I haven't tasted any piece of peace.  It's just work, will and walking daily towards a goal of sobriety that moves away the same distance every day. 

Maybe I'm just equating peace with nothingness.  In the midst of all of this craziness I would love to taste a nice juicy nothing-burger right now.  But I think I had a lot of that while in my addiction. Acting out could erase all those stresses in my life temporarily and it would be easy to sleep, easy to rest and easy to ignore all the things I had to, or wanted to, do.

Maybe I should try yoga or meditation.  Let me add that to the list.