Archive for the ‘fighting’ Category:
The Chemistry of Sex Addiction
One of the most interesting and most misunderstood aspects of sexual addiction is that its addictive qualities come partly from a chemical reaction in your brain. This might not be a news flash to many reading this post because we all know how much we crave that feeling we get from an orgasm. What might come as a surprise though is just how strong the chemical signal really is. Some studies suggest that an orgasm has the equivalent reaction on the brain as ten hits of cocaine. Unfortunately these studies were conducted only on men because men were easier to monitor BUT it would be safe to say that it is at least plausible that women have a similarly strong reaction.
How does this help in the battle for purity? It helps the addict know what he/she is fighting against. For the most part, many people fighting sexual addiction are told to just stop masturbating or having sex. Abstinence alone does little to fight off the withdrawal symptoms that most addicts face at the beginning. Many of the addiction groups out there (AA, NA, SA, etc) understand that support is needed to fight the cravings that come soon after stopping. AA is well known for its 90 meetings in 90 days theme. They understand that the first three months will be the hardest withdrawal period and having a group to go to helps tremendously.
It should be interesting to note that drugs only alter the brains natural chemistry by increasing or decreasing certain chemicals. Most drugs affect the big three, serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine (this is a VERY simplistic example… the brain is extremely complex and the effects of drugs on it is equally complex). So don’t be surprised to learn that an orgasm uses those same brain chemicals… if not more efficiently than some drugs. If you learn one thing from this blog I hope it is this. That your recovery is more than just a change in behavior it is also a change in brain chemistry which takes different measures some times. We don’t expect an alcoholic or drug addict to get better alone, so don’t expect the same from yourself. Most people agree that after the first 90 days the power of the cravings go down. They do not disappear but they do lessen in strength. So be on guard at the beginning and be ready to fight.
The Battlefield Changes
It’s been a while since I have posted and I apologize, going back to school has been kicking my butt. Coming up on five years of sobriety has taught me even more about what it takes to remain sober. The beginning of the battle for purity usually consists of targeting those behaviors we want to stop and the good ones we want to start. However, one of the things every person should understand when starting their fight for purity is that it will look like an uphill battle at first, but as time goes on the battlefield changes.
This is an important little saying that has so much to tell. First, your battle for purity will not be over anytime soon. The battlefield will change, but you will always be fighting it. Many people ask “how long before I’m fixed” or “When will I be able to stop going to groups”. To say that someone can’t be permanently changed in a day would be false, but I haven’t met anyone who had an instant or quick healing yet. I do believe God can take things out of our life but have found, at least in my life, that the battle for purity is more often than not used to helped us become a better person. For me, the battle has helped me to become stronger in many areas of my life. Some of the areas would have never been addressed had I not been forced to stand and fight.
The second part of that saying should be an encouragement. It explains that the battle will not always be as hard as it was in the beginning. When I first started, all I could do was use behavioral techniques (the rubber band technique, calling a sponsor, going to groups, etc…) in an attempt to stop acting out. Those techniques worked but as time went on emotions that I usually avoided started to come to the surface. They could not be pushed aside anymore and I had to learn how to deal with them. Because I had starved myself of my normal coping mechanism (masturbation) the battle then became how to deal with these emotions. New coping skills such as talking about my feelings with friends and in my groups helped me to understand them better. Seeking shelter in my relationship with God and in prayer helped me to endure when the pain of them seemed overwhelming. Once I stopped running from them, I found that my emotions were not as hard to feel as I once believed. Emotions like rejection once felt like the hand of death; but now it is only a passing cold chill. Feeling not good enough used to keep me isolated and alone; but now it stirs me to step out and appreciate myself. Feelings of being a failure kept me from trying; now they remind me that I was brave enough to have tried.
If I have learned one thing in my battle for purity it is this. The battle was always there, what changed was that I begin to fight instead of hiding in a fantasy land of porn and masturbation. As I grew stronger I found new ways of fighting and even new enemies that had to be faced. I have had my share of injuries and will no doubt continue to stumble and fall. My fight has become a training ground that gives me strength to never give up, never stay down, and the will to continue to push forward to newer battlegrounds.
Mind Body Spirit part 2
Body
The battle for the body deals with changing behavioral habits that have led to your addiction. This is often the first area that people start fighting so it shouldn’t be a total surprise to anyone. However, there is much more to this battle then just “not touching yourself”. It’s a start for sure but only a start. Behaviors can be unlearned with time. In my groups we use a rubber band to help train our minds to change behaviors. We wear this rubber band on our wrists, and every time we look at a woman in a way we know is wrong, we snap it. It trains your body that it will not get pleasure from looking at women any more. [Some studies suggest that the pleasure our brain feels from an orgasm is equal to ten hits of cocaine] It may seem silly but many people (myself included) have seen it work. Some say that it takes 30 days to make something a habit or to break a habit. Try it for 30 days and see how much you look lustfully at women after that. (Yes… at first you’ll be snapping it a lot, but snap and look away for 30 days). There are many other tools like this that can help. I’m not going to tell you which one to use because every person is different and some may work and some may not. (I encourage you to share your tools with others in your comments). Beyond behavioral changes there are some habits of being healthy that need to change. When I was dealing with my addiction I was overweight and out of shape. I had no physical outlet for my energy except to act out. It was totally by accident, but about the same time I started to deal with my addiction, I started to get my body in shape, too. I lost about 20 pounds and found a great way to get rid of stress. I work out on weights and do cardio regularly now. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been frustrated (sexually or otherwise) and after I worked out, I felt amazingly better. Just like the tools, I’m not going to tell you which one is best. You find something that you enjoy doing and do that. I like weight training and bicycling… what do you like?
Spirit
In my opinion this is the most overlooked part of recovery from addiction. It’s the one area that we don’t recognize as even being part of the battle. I’ve seen churches pray over addicts once, and then wonder why they continue to fail. Some addiction groups suggest finding a spiritual center but don’t help you to explore and grow spiritually. Let’s face it, for many of us the only reason we feel it’s wrong to look at pornography, masturbate, and have affairs, etc… is because somewhere inside us we believe it is wrong. For me, it is my belief in God and his views on sexuality. If I fight on the other fronts but forget to strengthen my belief in God and His commandments, then I will soon lose my desire to fight my addiction at all. With TV, magazines, radio and every other form of media out there saying that it’s OK to look at a woman’s body as an object, you will need to refocus on the reason you believed it was wrong. When I took a philosophy class in college, it challenged my faith in God. That was one class, two hours a week… how much more will thousands of ads every day challenge your beliefs that it’s wrong to act out? Just like before, the way you do it is up to you, but you need to stay connected to the source of your desire to stop your behavior. I choose to read the bible nightly and spend time in prayer to strengthen and grow in my relationship with God. If you don’t believe in God, I would ask you to stay connected to the reason you desire to change. The battle of the spirit is the battle for your desire to fight. Ever see a fight when one of the fighters just didn’t want to be there? I know this… I’ve never seen a fighter who didn’t want to be there win a fight.
Mind Body Spirit part 1
My fight with sexual addiction has made me realize that this battle is not fought on one battleground, but on three separate fronts. Like many others, I have stories of countless attempts to stop acting out that resulted in little or no lasting success. I started having victories only when I realized I was battling on just one of these fronts instead of all three. I fully believe that unless you take steps to engage your addiction in EVERY part of your life, you will never gain any lasting victory over it.
Mind
I always thought that in order to stop acting out you just had to stop. I used to think, “If I just kept my hands off myself I will eventually win”. I learned later that this kind of sobriety is called “white knuckling”, where a person stops acting out physically only through sheer will-power, but never actually changes his desire to act out. However, if you can get control of your thoughts, you will not have to white knuckle it (at least as often… sometimes you will just have to will-power your way through bad days). So what does the battle of your mind look like? It wasn’t until I started looking at my thought life that I realized how messed up it really was. I spent large amounts of time thinking about sex, women or a multitude of other things that would eventually get me sexually excited to the point where I wanted to act out. I didn’t realize I was doing this; it was just a mental habit that often happened automatically. If I talked or looked at a pretty woman, my mind would wander off to fantasy land where I could have what I wanted now. And better than that, I didn’t have to do any work to get it (life takes work… my fantasies were easy). I soon realized that it wasn’t always sexual thoughts that triggered me. I could have been dreaming about a new car, a new job or anything that would make my life seem better. But when I snapped back to reality and realized I didn’t have these things, I would become unhappy with my real life to the point that I didn’t want to live in that life anymore. So I’d dive into my fantasy land and get some satisfaction there. I honestly believe that I spent more time in my fantasy life than in real life during my addiction (how I survived driving, school and jobs is a mystery). It’s this running from reality that is the mind battle. Keeping those fantasy thoughts out and dealing with the life you have is what helps keep you grounded and sober. How do you expect to stop looking at women if you’re thinking about their bodies all day long? If you have a fantasy of how your wife is supposed to be, how are you going to be happy with the reality of who she is (guess what… woman are not perfect and we all have some baggage and issues that will require work)? I remember being in love with women until I got to know them. They seemed perfect from afar but I got closer and found them to be human, with flaws and imperfections just like everyone. I challenge you to take time this week to keep track of your thought life. If it’s filled with sex, you shouldn’t be surprised if you feel sexual all the time. If it’s filled with fantasies of a perfect life, you shouldn’t be surprised if you feel disappointed with reality. [Let me take a moment to say that I’m not saying you shouldn’t have dreams or desires. But your dreams and desires should be supportive of your reality, not a substitute for it]. In 2 Corinthians 10:5, Paul tells the Corinthians to keep every thought captive. He understood how much the mind affects the body and that were your mind goes, your body will follow.
Do you really want it?
The first question everyone must ask themselves is, “Do I really want to beat my addiction?”. I have been involved in recovery groups for over three years now and the number one factor that predicts success the best, is a real desire to battle the addiction. Some people come because their wife/husband made them or their jobs were on the line if they didn’t get it under control. Others come because they are tired of feeling guilt over their actions. All these are great motivational factors but unfortunately they all eventually fail to motivate. A wife/husband stops being upset with you (or you become upset with them), a job is lost, no consequences are ever given, and a person learns to live with the guilt or ignore it. No matter what your motivation is it will eventually weaken, if its not based on your desire to get better for yourself.
I am a Christian and I believe that my addiction is wrong for me. My beliefs are based on the morals, standards and examples covered within the bible. My fight for sexual sobriety (not masturbating or viewing porn) was a miserable failure for 18 years, because I was always trying to stop the guilt that came after acting out. I never really wanted to stop acting out, I just didn’t want to feel bad afterward. It wasn’t until I actually desired to be pro active that I started to see success. For me, the biblical morals and standards were always just words I spoke, but in reality I didn’t accept. When I accepted them and made them my own, that’s when I started to hate my addiction instead of hating the pain that resulted from it.
It doesn’t matter if you are a Christian, Buddhist, Islamic or Atheist. What matters is that you want to change because you are done being the person that lets pornography and sexual addiction rule your life. A sure sign of this real desire is the willingness to do whatever it takes to defeat your addiction. If need be, will you get rid of your TV? Will you stop driving by the adult book stores (even if it adds 10 min to your daily drive)? Will you tell your spouse the truth? Will you go to an addictions group once a week? Twice a week or more? I have seen addicts go to extreme lengths just to get a fix. From surfing the net for hours just to see a naked picture, to planning a month in advance how they were going to act out. So there is no excuse about not having the ability to put a recovery plan in action. Addicts are masters at planing and are dogged in their pursuit of their objectives. Once you decide your objective is sobriety and not pain avoidance, it can be achieved.
So the first question I ask everyone who comes to a group is “Do you Really want it?”… Do you?