The addiction cycle

How familiar does this sound?

You figure out you’re addicted to something (in my case internet porn, but it could just as well be alcohol, cigarettes, or anything else). You work hard to stop (and if this sounds easy I’m sorry. It can be REALLY tough to break the cycle in the first place) and you’re doing OK. You’ve done without for a while; a few days, a week, a month, it feels good, doesn’t it?  You’ve abstained, and you start to relax. It’s all good, you’ve done it, it’s over. BUT…

You see, hear, experience something that reminds you, (a trigger) and all of a sudden you’re wondering how it would feel, your heart might pump just a little faster. You might not even feel it, but you might feel a little agitated, a little stressed, and you start thinking. What if? How would it feel? Do you remember why you used to? Would it really hurt? All of a sudden you find yourself making little steps. Seemingly Unimportant Decisions (SUDs), but decisions which you probably haven’t made the entire time you’ve abstained. How about checking to see if you remember the name of that site? Maybe just a quick look. Just one site? It can’t hurt just the once, can it?  It’s Christmas, time to relax?  and all of a sudden those teeny, tiny little decisions mean you’re indulging again. You may have even convinced yourself you can handle it. It’s under control. (REALITY CHECK- If you’ve got as far as identifying an addiction, and then end up indulging again, it’s NOT under control.)

DAMN! That’s screwed up. I’ve dropped the ball again and failed myself. I feel horrible. I’ve let myself down, I’ve let my partner down, I’ve let my blog followers down.  You might even start rationalising that you’ve failed now so you might as well carry on. This can go on, and on, and on, or it can be a quick realisation, but at some point the guilt kicks in. You KNOW this is wrong and it’s making you feel awful. The weight of the guilt keeps pressing down on you, making you feel worse and worse until you try and ‘fix’ that by doing something good. Something right. Something to make up for the lapse in control. Maybe owning up? Maybe blocking porn sites from your computer? Something else? It could be anything but at some point you end up right back where you started and are abstaining again. Unfortunately the risk of relapsing remains as string as it ever was unless we can figure out how to break out.  What do you do? What could you do? What can other people do to help? I’d love to know, and will see if I can give some ideas in my next post,