Details of a slip

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I’m going to write in some detail about a slip I experienced yesterday. I hope this will help me process it, and by ‘making a big deal’ out of it (as I should), this should hopefully help me avoid minimising the consequences and the act, and therefore maintain focus on the motivations for staying sober and reduce my chance of further acting out. I also think blogging about some of the thought processes that I go through in the midst of acting out might be useful or interesting for others to read about.

Yesterday was day 8. That was a good achievement – I made it through the weekend. Pat on the back. But yesterday I was really triggered – lots of thoughts and images of porn. The morning was harder than the afternoon, then I went to SAA and had a good meeting. I knew last night was a danger zone though as my wife is usually in bed by the time I get home, and so I am on my own downstairs as I need to make some dinner at least before bed. This violates our primary routine which is that I must go to bed with her every night so I’m not alone in the evening – prime acting out territory. So I had planned ahead – I called her to tell her I was triggered and that we need to be careful.

Fortunately, she was still up, so we hung out and went to bed together. Everything was fine. I read my book in bed and she fell asleep. Then the inevitable thoughts started appearing in my brain. Thoughts of acting out. I then remembered the Kindle was on my bedside table, and that I can find erotica on it. This isn’t a good enough fix for me, but the addict brain doesn’t think that far ahead and it was, simply, ‘better than nothing’. I reached for it and downloaded some free samples, started touching myself, then realised my mistake, deleted the samples and put the Kindle down. My mind wandered about how else I could act out. I would hope that the next step would be to accept defeat and go to sleep, but then I realised my iPad was in a box by my bed. It is never usually in the bedroom (that’s one of our rules) but was there due to being unpacked from a recent trip and I hadn’t thought to take it downstairs. This was seriously unfortunate. Without even giving it a second thought, I reached for it and started watching porn. In bed, next to my sleeping wife. All the progress I made and positivity I had found unravelled in seconds.

Soon my wife stirred, realised I was on my iPad and rightly demanded I give it to her. She probably knew I was looking at porn but that wasn’t the point – the point is I was breaking an agreed rule of no devices in bed. I tried to avoid handing it over but she was insistent so I did. This is when things got even worse. I was left in a very agitated state as I had already been watching porn, and all I could think about was how to carry on. I knew I had to either get my iPad back or go downstairs to use the laptop, but simultaneously my recovery voice was telling me I mustn’t. This conflict resulted in some weird behaviours where I would try and manipulate the situation to get my wife to pro-actively suggest I go downstairs, so that it wasn’t my idea, and maybe that would make me less responsible for the resulting, inevitable acting out. I started deliberately fidgeting, picking my nails and moving about, to make her want me to leave the room. Then when she finally did suggest I went downstairs, I would then resist, saying I didn’t want to! This was my way of vocalising my desire not to act out. I.e. “Don’t make me go downstairs because if you do I will act out”. I’m simultaneously appearing to be in control of my addiction, while giving myself permission to act out if my hand is forced, despite the fact it is me creating this situation in the first place. It is actually quite impressively clever. It felt like two brains working against each other – one wanting to act out, the other trying to prevent it, and put together they create some really confusing, manipulative and destructive actions.

And all the time, my brain did not even consider it an option that I could just lie there and go to bed and that the urges would subside. It hardly crossed my mind.

After a long period of deliberately annoying my wife to the point where should essentially ‘give me permission’ to put myself in a situation where I could act out, I eventually went downstairs and did exactly that. Even then, I wouldn’t go all the way, holding on to some hope that perhaps I could still walk away. At one point I stood up and tried to, but quickly sat back down again. An hour or so later I gave in. I then went upstairs and slept terribly.

In the morning, I was far from out of the woods. I had had only a few hours sleep and my addict wasn’t satisfied. After my first acting out after a period of sobriety I always tend to act out for a few days in a row before I get clean again (this is a common thing in addicts I think, sometimes known as the chaser effect), and this morning I was compelled to carry on. I went downstairs while my wife was still in bed (she was lying in and going to work late because she was so tired, because of me) and quickly watched and finished to porn again. Then the day, and the resulting mental collapse, began.

I immediately felt terrible. I wrote a long explanation on the WhatsApp group I am part of for my SAA group. I explained what had happened with honesty. I was quite emotional, and quickly felt demoralised that I didn’t really get any acknowledgements or sympathy in response. It brought up loads of feelings of insecurity that are part of my addict brain – “do they not care?”, “did they expect this?”, “did I say something I shouldn’t have?”. These thoughts are part of a trend of insecurity and lack of self-esteem that has been part of my addiction, so it was interesting to feel these feelings arise again in my post-acting out weakened state.

Later in the morning I started making calls to SAA members to try and talk to someone as I was really struggling to focus on my day as I was still reeling from the night before. Unfortunately I didn’t get through to anyone which only emphasised the feelings of insecurity and doubt. Are they not answering me deliberately? Did I say something wrong?

But I did eventually get a call back from two people, a a text back in the evening. I had a good chat with one, and a WhatsApp chat with another. It was all really helpful. They told me that I’ve done well to increase my length of sobriety, and that reaching out making calls, and being honest with my wife, are both really important things to be doing. Themes surrounding powerlessness and higher powers came up, to which I have varying degrees of comprehension of (I don’t do the 12 steps… yet?) and everyone was sympathetic, un-judgemental and supportive. It is really great to have such a warm and welcoming support network to call upon.

On the way home I bought my wife some flowers and profusely apologised. I explained the steps I had taken during the day, and reminded ourselves of the rules about devices in the bedroom. She is pleased I am taking it so seriously, and I think we can move on.

There are a few blocks I can apply on certain devices I haven’t done yet so I will do that (I can get round them so not having access in the first place is the priority, the blocks just make acting out a bit more annoying). I am also going to retire my kindle and stick to paper books. And of course, ensure no devices end up in the bedroom!

Well there we go. Its the end of the day, I’m knackered and deflated, but I’m really grateful that my wife continues to support me, as do those in the fellowship. I’m confident I’m on the right path, and I just need to keep at it. My new goal is 10 days. I did 8 before, time to increase it.

As they say, “you’ve only failed when you’ve stopped trying”.

Thanks for listening 🙂

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September Retrospective: Goal Accountability

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A new month means a new monthly retrospective to see how the last month went.

Here’s the trusty chart:

screen-shot-2016-10-02-at-21-22-13

A slight dip in September compared to August, but both months still above 70%, unlike June and July which were below 70%. I think very slowly there is an improvement taking place, even if that is just the achievement of some sort of rhythm or stability.

From looking at my acting out, there were two obvious pitfalls:

  1. Weekends.  I acted out 3 out of 4 weekends in September, mostly just on the Sunday. There’s something about Sundays/weekends that gets me. Perhaps I have increased desires to have some ‘me time’ after being with the family all weekend (I get that escape, I suppose, at work during the week)? Perhaps there is some resentment that the week (and therefore work) is upon me again and so staying up late is a great way to postpone that. Probably a bit of both.
  2. Chaser. The “chaser effect” is the increased desire to act out the days following the initial acting out. This got me three different times in September, often acting out for two more days following the initial one, before getting my head back in the game and getting sober again. Of the 9 days I watched porn in September, 4 of them were chaser days – nearly 50%.

So what have I done in September to address the above and try and obtain more sobriety? Well, quite a bit actually. In no particular order:

  • Re-instated a non-negotiable rule that I go to bed with my wife when she does. No staying up on my own, ever. Staying up late was almost 100% of the times I acted out, as the rule would keep slipping. My wife has agreed not to let me try and talk my way out of going to bed!
  • Re-committed to my routines:
    • Read my personal motivational statement twice a day (morning and evening)
    • Read the daily affirmation from Answers In The Heart every morning
    • Write in my journal every evening
    • Go to bed with my wife when she does, without fail
  • Asked my wife to write a short statement about why she thinks sobriety/recovery is a good thing, which I have added to my daily reading (she wrote something really touching I will include in a post at some point)
  • Set myself a sobriety target of 90 days. This effectively ties in to when my second daughter is due to be born. I suppose I always have a target of “never again”, but there’s something different about having a specific target to work towards. I also told this target to my wife, therapist and SAA group, out loud, so lots of people know it now. I found that made it more real and made me feel more accountable. I actually didn’t want to tell people about it initially because I knew it would make it harder if I did act out – which is the whole point!
  • Being more acting in the WhatsApp group for my weekly SAA meeting. Everyone is great, friendly and supportive and so keeping some communication going on a daily basis keeps my head in the game.
  • I also told two new friends about my addiction. One is my old housemate who I see occassionally now I’m living back in that town again, and the other is a new friend I’ve made at my new job. Both women (as are everyone I’ve told, interestingly). I find telling people reduces the secrecy and shame of the addiction, and very subtly adds to my accountability (if I’m tired at work, my workmate might now suspect why). I also quite like the sort of people I feel like when I tell people – I’m being honest, with no secrets, and no ego. It is showing vulnerability and being proud of it, and I like that.

So all in all, despite September not being quite as good as I’d hoped, I’m happy with the progress I am making. I’m still working hard at it, learning more about it and engaging with people. The aim of the game now is just to keep staying sober and build up my sobriety, to give my brain a chance to adjust.

Hope everyone else is doing well, whether you are in recovery or not!

 

A Powerful Meeting

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I’m getting settled in to the weekly SAA meeting I go to now in my new home town. It has a nice vibe to it, everyone is really friendly, open, honest and supportive. I even met up with some of the members beforehand for a coffee.

Tonight’s meeting was powerful, and has given me some things to think about. It reminded me of the damage that addiction can have on individuals, couples and families. It reminded me how the addiction can drive otherwise caring and well-meaning people to do selfish and harmful acts, and not even realise it until its too late. It reminded me how so many different aspects of our lives, beyond those we anticipate, become affected by addiction. It reminded me how destructive this addiction is, and how intensely difficult it is to beat. And it reminded me that no matter how long your sobriety, you can still slip up any day.

Hearing others talk about their experiences also helped me realise the reality of my latest acting out, where I was deliberately manipulative of events at home in order to leave me alone in the house so I could act out, while my wife was left to look after our daughter elsewhere. I should have been there with her, sharing the parenting and savouring every minute of my daughter’s life, but instead I was upstairs watching porn in the bedroom, counting the minutes I would have before her return.

I explained in detail the above process in the meeting, and saying it out loud made the reality of my actions hit home. When left only in my own head, it is possible to rationalise even the most extreme addictive behaviours, as the addict in me is able to dilute the perceived impact of my actions and convince me there’s nothing serious going on.

In fact, yesterday’s acting out was not only a relapse from sobriety, but a relapse from being a better person. I have prided myself in the last year or two of eradicating the outwardly harmful results of my acting out – such as how I would manipulate situations or behave nastily – so that all that is left is some occasion porn watching, and this has been an ‘acceptable’ level of addiction between my wife and I, so long as I continue to seek help and fight to get even better. Yet yesterday I reverted back to a type of behaviour that I thought I had banished, and not only that but I didn’t even realise how bad it was until today.

It is a never-ending, constantly evolving struggle. There is no room for complacency. I still feel I am yet to uncover the key to longer periods of sobriety, but it is possible as so many others have succeeded. I’ll keep fighting, for me, my family, and my future, and I’ll figure it out.

Thoughts on Keith Vaz, by a sex addict

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This week UK politician Keith Vaz was outed by a tabloid newspaper for paying two men for sex, and offering to pay for their drugs and take some as well. The paper had met the escorts in advance and encouraged them to film the meeting, and gave them advice on how to do it, obviously in return for the tapes (and in exchange for a financial reward no doubt). It was entrapment pure and simple, although the paper denies that on some legal technicalities. A few days later Vaz resigned amid the usual media carnage.

My initial reaction was of sadness. The man has a wife and kids who will now have to go through hell understanding what he did and why. I just felt sad for him and his family. Their lives have been upended because an individual ‘journalist’ wanted to make a name for himself. I really don’t understand how some people sleep at night.

Glancing at the various articles about this on the web and from the news sources, I was actually encouraged by the amount of articles that took the stance that what a politician does in their private lives should remain private (after all, paying for sex is not actually a criminal offence in the UK so he broke no laws).

On the other hand though, there are the usual suspects exclaiming how shameful this is – “shame MP”… “sex shame politician”… etc. I thought that was an unnecessarily cruel (if predictable) portrayal, utterly lacking in empathy for another human being’s wellbeing, and propagates a judgemental and unsympathetic approach to the topic of private sexual activity. What on earth about what Vaz did was shameful? He had sex with sex workers… so what? Is that a shameful activity? As an addict, I obviously know too well how the feelings of shame can rule one’s sense of self-esteem and motivation, and much of the dialogue around recovery revolves around the abolishing of this sense of shame. It is therefore a pity that media outlets continue to throw this phrase around with no sense of understanding of, or care about, what it really means.

Then, regardless of opinion about his actions, there’s the topic of conflict of interest. By engaging in prostitution, is Vaz able to maintain his political position in charge of a committee who were conducting a review of prostitution and drug laws? Most people are saying that his position was untenable and he was right to step down. But his actions were legal… so so what if he has a bias? Everyone has a bias, and all that can be asked is that when representing a company or public body, they make their decisions publicly to be accounted for. We surely do not know the bias of all public officials who are responsible for law-making, and I’m sure plenty out there have done far worse than Vaz in their private lives. If a politician cycled to work instead of driving, should he be prevented from being involved in any decisions regarding transport because of his ‘bias’? Of course not.

For the sake of a thought experiment, let’s assume he was biased and shouldn’t remain in his job on that basis. Think then, what do we know about addiction? What if he was suffering from a compulsive sexual habit – we know full well that our acting out as addicts often runs completely contrary to our values. We know this but we still do it. When we make decisions with a clear mind, we are true to what we believe; it is only when under the control of the addiction that our values go out of the window. So what if Vaz was struggling like us; would we expect his decisions as a politician be influenced by his private behaviour? Probably the opposite! Not only would I expect him to make decisions according to his true values, unaffected by his private affairs, but it is more than possible that his convictions against his own actions would be even stronger, as he would have the ability to ‘fight’ his addiction through legislation. When of a clear mind, would he not actually try and make his private acting out more difficult, not easier? I know I’ve gone to great lengths, when of clear mind, to make acting out harder for myself.

Of course, we have no idea about the context of Vaz’s indiscretion. Does he have a sexual addiction? Is he struggling with psychological issues that he has found escape from in sex? Is he just a gay man who hasn’t yet found the courage to tell his wife? Who knows – the above is not to impose my own interpretation on him, but more as a thought experiment to apply what we know about addiction to how we treat people whose actions touch on this realm of sexual activity that so many of us struggle with and sympathise with.

I hope Keith finds the right path forward, and I wish his family strength and fortitude as they unravel what will no doubt be a complicated and painful story for them all.

Acknowledging my relationship with porn / saying farewell

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The other night I acted out, but this post isn’t about that. I became aware of something… a feeling… while and after the fact, that I don’t think I had really acknowledged before.

What I felt was, for lack of a better word… friendship. I realised I have feelings for these porn stars. Not in the typical sense that we would use the word when referring to ‘real’ relationships, but there was something there that I have built up over the years, that I think is bringing me back to porn, and I feel I need to acknowledge and understand it in order to deal with it and move on.

Think about it – I’ve been watching these people for almost 20 years. It is impossible that I haven’t built up some form of connection with them. I have watched them do different scenes, with different actors and production companies. I know how some of them have progressed, or retreated, from the industry. I might have opinions about whether they should have got that boob job, or whether that particular production company’s style is flattering for them or not. I’ll know which positions, techniques or other activities they are better or worse at, and I’ll know all of my favourite scenes of theirs. Some will even give the appearance of glimpses into their personality through their ‘acting’, which I slowly have started to become familiar with. Perhaps I even think I understand them, or know them, a little bit.

I started to realise that there is a huge amount of emotions going on when I watch porn that I hadn’t acknowledged. If these sorts of connections exist in my mind, then it makes sense that if these are lacking in my life, I would continue to turn to porn. This further emphasises the theory that the opposite of addiction is human connection.

I wonder if what I’m saying sounds crazy. As an example, imagine your favourite actor, or singer. You’ve never met them, but you have opinions about them. You might even feel some sort of connection to their acting style, or feel that somehow they operate on an emotion level that connects with you and that you relate to. Why would it be any different for me with pornstars? I’d just never though of it that way before. I always knew that watching porn was a comforting activity for me, but I never quite fully understood the extent of why that is. Perhaps I’m getting the sorts of emotional energy from it that most people would get from friendships and relationships; things that have hugely suffered in my life as my addiction has continued. Its like I’m swapping one type of human connection for another, just where the replacement isn’t real.

Which leads me to the second part of this post, which is to somehow try and obtain closure. I need to accept the relationship I have with these porn stars, and I need to accept that it has come to an end. Until I do that, I will no doubt continue to seek them out.

So, here goes…

I acknowledge that I have feelings for these pornstars. Not in the usual sense, but feelings nonetheless, and I acknowledge that these aren’t real and they don’t bring me any real satisfaction or emotional security. Not only that, but continued acting out will only serve to further draw me away from regaining connections with real people in my life.

So I accept I will put an end to this, and I won’t watch them again. I won’t know what scenes they do anymore. I won’t know who they act with. I won’t watch any of my favourite scenes to ‘get back in touch’ with them. I won’t care who is knew to the industry. I am leaving it all behind. I am acknowledging that I am ending my relationship with them, and that is not a bad thing – it is a positive thing. I am moving on with my life. They have served a purpose, but now I am seeking a new purpose. I won’t miss them, and I won’t regret. I am taking positive steps to improve my life, and I am going to have such a brilliant time in the process, despite how hard it may. If I seek comfort in porn, I am forgetting everything I know to be true. I may not even know how to recreate that level of self-soothing yet, but I will in time, if I allow myself the freedom to find out how.

I will allow them to fade into the past, and slowly I will forget them. This will free up space in my mind for new, healthy, enjoyable and rewarding emotions, relationships and memories.

Farewell, porn, and farewell to my old pornstar friends. I wish you all the best, and I hope you life out a healthy life and don’t live to regret your decisions. You unknowingly contributed (and continue to contribute) to a great deal of pain in a great number of people, but I don’t resent you. I don’t know your life, who you are, or why you do what you do, and I don’t need to. All I know is that my happiness is no longer tied to you and to porn. I am now separate and free, bearing all the risks, scariness and joy associated with that.

Here’s to a new, porn-free life!

July Retrospective: The Elusive Wagon

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Its that time of the month again! Into a new month so time to reflect on the month before.

Here’s my updated sobriety chart:

Screen Shot 2016-08-03 at 21.23.10.png

July was basically the same as June. I had one long period of sobriety (11 days), and then after a slip the rest of the month was failing to get back to sobriety again.

My biggest failing of the month was my inability to re-commit do doing my daily routines. Mainly writing in my journal and reading my affirmation statements. These help me keep my motivational reasons for staying sober fresh in my mind, so I can recall them when triggered and use them as a weapon against the temptation to act out. If I don’t keep them up, I simply lose the strength to fight the urges when they come around.

I’m pleased to report that I’ve now finally got back on to the routines. I’ve started journalling again (3 new things I’m grateful for each day, and 1 detailed account of something positive that happened to me), and have started writing a new personal affirmation statement. I think this may become something I eventually record, and turn into a video, with photos and other snippets to be a short but concise hit of positivity and motivation. I’ll write more on that separately once it has progressed a bit.

So let’s see how I do in August. I hope that the routines will help me maintain my positivity. I’m still dealing with some stress around my dad getting re-married, which is actually less about his marriage and more about my relationship with him (or lack thereof), and the marriage is forcing me to be involved with him in ways I’d rather not be. Work stress continues but there may be a light at the end of the tunnel. Either way, stress is normal and I should accept it; it doesn’t mean I get to act out, which won’t really help the stress go away in any meaningful sense anyway.

I hope everyone else is doing well and keeping up the good fight!

Hello tiredness and stress my old friend

Porn Addiction, , ,

…I’ve come to deal with you again.

Its amazing how quickly I can go from being positive, connected and energised to acting out, and then dealing with the resulting bout of being tired, disconnected and unmotivated. I mean really, it can happen in the space of a few seconds. I can genuinely be feeling great, then be in a position where I can act out, I let me guard down, and then I’ve gone past the point of no return and I’ve ruined sobriety, and ruined the next few days while I climb back out of the post-acting out funk.

It really emphasises the importance of the tools of recovery. Simply being fantastically motivated isn’t enough, as forces outside of my control can overwhelm me at a moment’s notice. The tough thing is accepting this, as when I’m feeling good, I feel like I’m in control and I can do it. I have to accept that no matter how well I am doing, I’m never completely safe, and I need to always be following the routines I have set myself.

It is also probably not a coincidence that each of these times I act out coincide with periods where I’ve let the routines slip. Its the same old story for me – I have to maintain the consistency of the routines, but I’m really bad at it. Why? Because there are few big consequences to me acting out. I can act out and essentially ‘get away with it’, so there’s less incentive for me to maintain arduous routines every day. But I know they are worthwhile and needed, and I just need to keep focussing on them.

Meanwhile, I’m generally dealing with a lot of stress that makes it a bit harder. At work I’m dealing with a change in role that is exposing my areas of weakness, which in turn plays on my self-doubt and anxiety. My dad is also getting married, a few years after my mum died, which is a bit hard to get my head around, and my relationship with him is something I really struggle with, and I don’t think I’m dealing with it very healthily.

Anyway, I think I just need to relax a bit and allow myself to get back on track. Firstly I need to get some sleep, as this has not been happening (my daughter is ill and waking up early). If I can do that, then get back to doing the routines, hopefully the positivity will come.

Here goes…

June Retrospective: Progress not perfection

Porn Addiction,

Its the 1st of July, so time to take a quick look at my recovery in June.

Here’s the updated sobriety chart:

Screen Shot 2016-07-01 at 22.02.09.png

As you can see, the graph has gone downwards from May to June. That’s the wrong direction! Indeed this is true… I acted out 10 days in June and 9 in May, but there’s a big but.

In June, I went 10 days without watching porn; the longest streak since January this year. That is a massive improvement for me and one that I’m really pleased about. It shows that I can do it; that it is possible. I just need to keep working on the details that keep me sober and avoid the slips.

Two things of note for June:

  1. I achieved the increased sobriety streak by re-connecting with my therapist, committing to some daily routines, and implementing porn blockers on my devices. The combination of preventing me from acting out technologically, with improving my mindset through reading and writing on a regular basis, had a demonstrable affect.
  2. The slips were almost always because I hadn’t stuck to one of my routines, for example going to bed at 10:30pm without fail. If I stay up too late, I inevitably end up watching (or trying to watch) porn. If I am staying up late, it is a sign that my mindset is slipping – that I’m losing focus on the goals and slipping back into escapism. The answer is simple – I need to stick to the routines without fail. If I can do that, I’m confident I’ll start to build up more mental strength.

I still fight the blocks in my low points, and if I find a loophole I’m powerless to withstand it. That’s the drawback of blocks for me; they represent a possibility of something, the pursuit of which becomes as exciting as the actual result.

So now it is July and a chance to put this into practice. Day by day. I often look forward a few days or weeks to imagine what sobriety would feel like, and as nice as that is, it is more important to focus on the present and the current day. One day at a time. One day at a time. Look after the pennies and the pounds take care of themselves… that sort of thing.

The importance of having, and sticking to, a routine

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Last night I slipped. Today I am dealing with the usual mental repercussions – depression, anxiety, tiredness and horniness to name a few.

As always, each time I act out I ask myself why and how it happened and what I need to do differently to prevent a similar situation happening again.

This time it was easy to understand – I didn’t stick to my routine. I have a number of things I must do each day, and one of them is going to bed at 10:30pm without fail. Most of the time I act out is when I stay up late procrastinating – watching YouTube videos etc – until my mind leads me to porn, almost as something to do to postpone the having to go going to bed. (Why I feel the need to avoid going to bed is probably the more interesting question and I have a few ideas).

It is so interesting how powerful routines and rules can be in recovery. My rule of a 10:30pm is responsible for countless sober porn-free nights, and after only a few days of slipping into a slightly later and later bedtime, I acted out. The challenge is that without any form of accountability on whether I go to bed on time, it is very easy for me to start slipping in this way.

The other aspect to my acting out was that I remembered a major loophole in the blocks of my computer, which today I have closed. There will always be loopholes but for me they should only be ones that are hard to put to use; the one yesterday was just a few clicks, so I closed that off.

Anyway, just writing this post as a form of checking in and acknowledgement of the slip. I feel a bit down about it but that’s ok – I’m going to accept how I feel, learn from it, and carry on. This was my best sober streak since January so I’m really pleased about that, and I’m confident I can do the same, or better, again.

Hope you’re all doing well too!

Porn Addiction vs Sex Addiction

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Sex Addiction, according to Wikipedia, has been around since the 1970s, but porn addiction (specifically internet porn) is a far newer concept, not least because of the relatively recent development of technology to make online porn so available and therefore powerful in its addictiveness.

During my early days of therapy for my porn addiction, I was quickly and eagerly referred to Sex Addicts Anonymous, or the more relationship-orientated Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous. These programs follow the tried-but-not-that-tested[1] 12 step approach to recovery conceived by Alcoholics Anonymous.

Upon attending, it was immediately clear to me that my personal addiction was a bit different to the addictions of some of the others in the room. I was hearing stories of infidelity, prostitution, exhibitionism and worse. My habit was solitary masturbation to internet porn, and the more I thought about it, the more I came to think that not only was porn addiction different from sex addiction in the nature of the harm it causes to the sufferer and others, but also in the reasons why it is addictive.

I settled on a compromise that porn addiction must be a sub-set of sex addiction. It shares plenty of characteristics to sex addiction, but it also has some specific nuances that make it different. Without a specific place to go for porn addiction, it seems SAA and SLAA are still the best option for porn addiction sufferers.

Similarities

Let’s start with the similarities. Porn and sex addiction both share the same broad definition:

For an individual to be compelled to compulsively continue with certain sexual behaviours in spite of the known or unknown negative consequences that those behaviours bring to their life

That isn’t a formal definition I copied from somewhere; it is just how I perceive it and the two key elements are the compulsivity and the negative consequences. So by this definition porn and sex addictions are the same. I’ve related to all shares of others in the groups when they refer to the anxieties and struggles regarding the above – the destruction of self-esteem, the inability to say no, the self-loathing, the harm caused to others, to pick just a handful.

I think they are also similar in that the 12 step program is probably equally appropriate to each of them. Both sufferers will benefit from the introspection, self-understanding and life changes that the 12 step program encourages.

Differences

What I find to be the most interesting difference is in their actual addictive nature, or addictive properties.

(Internet) porn addiction by its nature only exists due to the prevalence of online porn and the technology available to view it. By providing a limitless supply of instantly-accessible visual stimulation, online porn does, in my opinion, something different and unique to the human brain. I’m always a bit wary when treading on the science turf as I haven’t researched it enough to confidently support or resist the claims, but my gut instinct is that this is true – that porn triggers dramatic, recordable chemical reactions in the brain similar to those well understood in other highly addictive drugs. For a bite-size overview, watch this video:

 

So it is this constant hit of sexual stimuli, tricking the brain into going into mating overdrive, that makes porn unique. I can’t see how ‘traditional’ activities that sex addicts suffer from activate the brain in this way, as experiences tend to be with real people and therefore far less varied in such a short space of time.

A unique approach

That is of course not to say that the end results aren’t similar, or even identical. The addict, regardless of the type of sexual behaviour, still ends up exhibiting the same compulsive and destructive characteristics. But, if we are to accept the premise that the nature of the addictions are different, does that not then suggest that we should take a more specific approach to the treatment and recovery of porn addiction?

Again, I’m not an expert in therapy or recovery so I can’t really answer that, but in my experience with both subjects, while I’ve seen huge benefits, I’ve also been conscious that so far I’ve received very little help that is specifically tailored to porn addiction.

For example, the use of internet blocks is commonly recommended in the SAA program, but the context is very different. For many sex addicts I’ve spoken to who act out ‘in person’, porn is not in itself addictive, and doesn’t tend to be included in their inner circles. They may fall back to it if the real hit can’t be achieved, but to them porn is more of a trigger or a prelude to the real thing. This means that for them, internet porn blocks are useful to help prevent journeying into their addictive behaviours, but they aren’t actively and directly preventing their inner circle behaviours.

For porn addicts, however, internet blocks are one of the most primary and fundamental tools to physically prevent an addict from acting out. This elevates the importance of blocks a huge deal, but this distinction is rarely made in recovery programs. Of course, blocking porn is only a way of helping to achieve sobriety, it is not the solution to recovery (which involves introspection and life changes), but that sobriety is a vital ingredient to recovery. It saddens me to see so many porn addicts ambivalent towards blocks. Blocks are, without doubt, not for everyone, but the implications of using or not using them must be considered by each individual before deciding on a recovery strategy.

Anyway, I don’t want to get into a debate about blocks, but the point is that there are distinctions to be made between sex and porn addictions, which I feel could be further considered by recovery programs and therapists.

So, do we need a PAA (Porn Addicts Anonymous)? I’m not sure… there are probably more similarities than there are differences so grouping them together makes a lot of sense, but I can’t help but feel a little under-catered for when I attend and share. For now though, I will continue to explore SAA and SLAA meetings, as they provide a unique chance to talk to others in my situation, as well as provide the potential for a more formal recovery program.

Footnotes
1. I say “not that tested” because I haven’t yet actually read any studies on the success rates of SAA 12 step programs. I imagine this sort of data is extremely hard to collect due to the anonymous and secretive nature of 12 step attendees, especially for sex-related programs. This lack of validation of the success rates is a big contributor to my ongoing cynicism of, and reluctance to commit to, the SAA 12 step program.