We hear this question asked and answered sometimes in our first SA meeting where a brother may share the compressed version of their story. Our First Step traces the progression of the powerlessness and unmanageability of this sexual addiction in our lives.
We tend to focus on the external behaviors that characterize this addiction:
- Searching for and binge watching of pornography pictures and videos
- Engaging in self-stimulation and masturbation
- Connecting with anonymous potential partners through chat and webcam sites for virtual sex
- Meeting with regular or arranged hookup partners for sex
The problem is that these external behaviors also had a part in forging a triple-banded habit that we have to unravel.
- The chemical habit is formed through the excitement, stimulation and ejaculation process.
- The mental/visual habit is formed by the images and videos that trigger that stimulation.
- The emotional dependency is formed when we go there to relieve pain, loneliness, anxiety, anger.
Chemical
The chemical habit is formed through the excitement, stimulation and ejaculation process.
We are very much chemical creatures. All of the systems in our bodies are managed and governed by chemical processes. Early on, we found out that some of those processes could be hijacked through behaviors. One of the most obvious ones is when we trigger dopamine hits through watching porn. But we can also trigger adrenaline rushes through thinking about sexual behaviors or planning a sexual encounter. Some have remarked that sometimes the excitement in anticipation was far greater than the pleasure of the actual event. That excitement is also creating a chemical dependency. It has the contrasting effect of making normal sex seem rather plain and dull. The most potent chemical process is when we hijack the body by using orgasm and ejaculation (from masturbation or sex) which releases the most potent cocktail of hormones into your system. The more frequently we engage in sexual behaviors, the more chemical dependency there will be in our bodies. That dependency will result in withdrawal as we try to stop.
Mental/Visual
The mental/visual habit is formed by the images and videos that trigger that stimulation.
When we engage in searching for and viewing porn, we solidify a mental habit. At first, we are just curious and find everything equally stimulating. But over time, our particular interests will fine tune into specific interests that became a regular ritual. The dopamine hit is rather small (compared to an ejaculation), but it can be prolonged for long periods (bingeing) and it is not reset (like the resolution phase after orgasm). So some prefer the longer, mental ride of a low-level stimulation buzz. But it engrains those habits and patterns of thinking and makes it more difficult to walk away from.
Emotional
The emotional dependency is formed when we go there to relive pain, loneliness, anxiety, anger.
When we experience negative emotions, we early on learned that they weren’t pleasant and that we wanted them to go away. But sometimes we didn’t have a way to deal with the things that made us afraid, or be worried, or feel hurt, or be lonely. When we found that the hijacking of the body’s systems to provide pleasure could be used as a substitute for comfort, we began to forge a process where we would link those negative emotions to the pleasure-inducing behaviors of porn, masturbation, and sex. The link isn’t always noticed at first. You may have some relative success at first in managing your porn and masturbation behaviors. And then you encounter a life event that causes fear or anxiety and you immediately run back to your addiction. This tells us that it isn’t just the behaviors that need to be modified. But also the way we handle the life issues that come our way. We need to learn how to address them in healthy ways and break that link to the artificial and temporary solution of sexual behavior.