Sexual Addiction Recovery - LifeSTAR Network

The STAR Gauge

How to use the STAR Gauge for Addicts

The STAR Gauge builds upon the Relapse Prevention Sheet and the behavior lists and can serve as a self-monitoring tool for you—a constant internal reminder of where you are in your recovery.

Imagine a weighted arrow attached to a pivot point, hanging down pendulum- style. To keep the arrow pointing down, no energy is required. However, when you begin to push the arrow up, it takes increasing amounts of energy.

At the 90° angle, the arrow feels the heaviest. As you continue to lift the arrow past the 90° angle, it feels lighter and lighter until you reach the 180° mark. At 180° (pointing straight up), the full weight is on the pivot point, and all that is required to keep the arrow in the “up” position is for you to hold it in check.

If the arrow goes past 180° (or starts to point to the side in either direction) you begin to feel the weight again. If you stop resisting the weight altogether at any point, the arrow will fall all the way back to 0°, or the down position. That is the nature of physics.

The STAR Gauge can serve as a metaphor for your recovery, with 0° representing your acting-out behaviors and 180° representing healthy-living behaviors. If you are at 180° and allow yourself to slip a little—to 135° for instance—it takes a little bit of work to push back up to 180°. If you stay at 135°, you can feel the extra weight; then if you loosen your hold just a little bit more, soon the arrow will slip to 90°. At 90° the weight is the heaviest —and this is a critical decision-making point. If you stop working or don’t make the effort to push back up, the arrow can quickly fall to 0°. Conversely, if you choose to work hard to move back into the healthy-living range, the weight will get lighter as you go up. At the top, when the arrow points straight up, the weight is light—like the sense of freedom that comes with healthy living—but it requires a constant hold to keep it in check. In recovery and in life you must always be attentive.

We have designed the STAR Gauge to help you monitor your behaviors. Some people are number-oriented and prefer to track their behaviors by the numbered degrees on the gauge. Others are more visually inclined and like to use colors for reference, so we have assigned a color to each section of the STAR Gauge as an alternate means of tracking. Blue represents the healthy-living zone. Green represents those preceding behaviors that would still be above 90° but signify a lack of attentiveness and focus (these might include behaviors like lack of exercise, checkbook not balanced, chores not done, and the like). Yellow represents the preceding behaviors that would fall below 90°—these are the preceding behaviors that are closer to the acting-out stage (possible behaviors might be surfing the Internet alone, dwelling on seductive thoughts, all-or-nothing mentality, failing to plan out free days, etc.). Red is at the bottom (0°), representing the acting-out behaviors.

We encourage you to put a lot of thought into the placement of each behavior. For instance, you might have noticed that you tend to fall into certain behaviors when you get just a little bit lazy about your healthy-living routines. Place those behaviors at the top of the green section. Other preceding behaviors on your list will be ones you tend to demonstrate just on the verge of acting out. Put those at the bottom of the yellow section, right before the red. Many more will be in between, and only you can decide where they fit on the gauge. The more specific you are about where you place the behaviors, the more effective the gauge can be for you.

Please keep in mind that every addict's preceding behaviors-and where those behaviors fall on the gauge-will be different. Click here to see an example of a completed STAR Gauge.