Addiction and choices

[Life-lies-trust]

Does the addict have a choice to look at P and M? Why? I am having trouble understanding the addict and what they do and why. If you could fill me in it would be helpful.

[gnein]

This is a difficult question, but I'll do my best to answer it. Bear in mind I'm a single guy who doesn't have a partner, so the answer might be different for the married men here.

Looking at it objectively, and removing all emotion from the equation, the simple answer is that the addict *does* choose look at P or MB, pretty much everytime they do it. However, it's a slightly more complex issue than that. When I relapse, there are almost invariably other factors at work, too. It's not just a desire to 'hurt someone', even though I'm fully aware everytime I do it of the fact that the performers on screen are often being exploited and treated like animals.

With an addiction, particularly this one, there is a physical craving to 'get a hit' if the addict has been without it for a while. Of course, what the addict needs to do in this situation is find another outlet (maybe exercise or doing something to engage his/her mind), but sometimes that outlet isn't there. Sometimes the craving is so powerful that the addict isn't always thinking as straight as they should be. Other times the addict might be tired after a stressful day and just "can't be bothered" doing anything else, so P is how they unwind.

I'm not trying to make excuses for anyone, least of all myself. I'm simply pointing out how a PA can do something that hurts their SO without explicitly intending to hurt their SO. Now that I write this, some other insights are coming to my mind. I guess there's a certain amount of selfishness involved in PA, or maybe perceived "self-preservation", possibly even narcissism.

In my case, I'm sometimes driven by thoughts of "it's me against the world", particularly at times when I'm feeling stressed. Hence, I might relapse because I'm putting my own perceived needs first, and maybe I'll try to rationalise it later by denying the effects of the P industry, or pretending it 'didn't really hurt anyone'.

I'm just rambling now, but that's my take on it FWIW. Maybe some of the other responders will have some other insight.

[FoolishMind]

Gnein I think you answer the question very well actually!

LLT, I can only echo what Gnein has said so eloquently, in that like virtually everything we do in life, we are faced with choices to make. The factors that make up that choice can differ everytime. Again as Gnein has mentioned, we do not choose to look at P with the intention to purposely hurt someone, infact it rarely is even a factor that we consider. It is an addiction, and like many if not all, addiction is a selfish plague, where the choices are only in favour in providing oneself with "pleasure" for the lack of a better word. Even if that "pleasure" is for a few seconds.

In terms of your title "addiction & choices" In the inital phase of recovery It would greatly help the PA to have NO choices. (with regards to should i view P or not) No choices meaning, removing all paths that could lead to relapse. This will start the conditioning of the mind, and the PA will begin to become more receptive to the world around him.

FM

[Daniel]

LLT,

Absolutely the PA has a choice: 1. Look at P. 2. Do not look at P.

The starkness of that choice is really an illusion in the mind of a PA.

Gnein and FM have already explained it well.

I say "illusion" because of the many rationalizations, excuses, outside pressures (work, stress, family, finances, health, etc., etc.), myriad cultural inputs, and (perhaps) finally how this adult PA was raised as a child (views on the world, God, morals, personal responsibility, parental non-involvement/involvement/over-involvement, unwanted contributions to thinking from siblings, "bad friends", etc.

The list could possibly go on forever. ALL THE REASONS I CAN ACT OUT.

But at the end of the day, after all of the junk, we still have that stark choice:

1. Make the Right Decision?

2. Make the Wrong Decision?

If we choose Right, then the subsequent Right Decisions will be easier to make, more automatic, less of a struggle, and our lives will reflect that good decision-making.

Daniel

[Life-lies-trust]

Thanks guys that is the area that I'm really struggling with is also the why of this.

I think the idea that the addict as Daniel put it "it's me against the world", and Foolishminds "addiction is a selfish plague, where the choices are only in favour in providing oneself with "pleasure" for the lack of a better word. Even if that "pleasure" is for a few seconds."

For the non addict this is really hard to understand and to come to grips with the addicts rationalization of their addiction.

[gnein]

For the non addict this is really hard to understand and to come to grips with the addicts rationalization of their addiction.

It's actually not all that different from other addictions. I'm sure most people who smoke, for example, are aware of what they're doing to themselves, and their effect on the people around them (through passive smoke). Often, however, a lot of people will try to rationalise it by saying "it's not my fault, I would have done it if certain things hadn't happened to me today".

I had a good example of that today on my way to work this morning, I was getting angry at a few perceived "hold ups", even though they only really cost me a few seconds. I actually asked myself why I was getting so angry and the instinctive response was "I'm getting angry because all these things happened to me". Then I realised that it wasn't getting me anywhere, and I was able to calm down. I was nowhere near P at that point and wasn't thinking about it anyway, but it's an example.

A lot of people who use P will probably use something similar to justify it's use - they might blame their job for causing them stress, or maybe there was something wrong in their relationships, or something else that upsets them. The P becomes their escape, an almost instinctive response to a problem. Then the thing becomes their 'escape' on a habitual basis, when they really should be confronting the problems that are bugging them.

[WifeOfNewLifeMan]

I am not disputing gnein's response about using rationalizations to use P. I know what he says is true. But I just don't think that people go around saying, man, I am stressed today so I am going to look at P. That is the excuse, but the core of it is that they like P. So, the excuses are just excuses. I rarely hear anyone on here say that they looked at P because they were horny and bored and it was easier and more exciting than being with their partner (if they have one). But, that is the core of it. This may be a simplistic view, but that's what I think.

[dave]

Choice . . . . Do smokers have 'a choice'? How about you compulsive shoppers, or eaters? We all try to get by in life and fall into habits that are counter productive.

In my case I learned to use sx as a drug many decades ago. Gradually it became a compulsion. I was living in a bubble full of rationalization, denial and ignorance. The sx chemical rush is so powerful that brain circuits that make 'choices' don't operate very well. In addition there is the shame of hours spent with P when we intellectually know the harm it does in so many areas. That shame is a very powerful emotions that fuels more compulsion in a viscious circle.

I say this not to excuse myself but to articulate what has changed in my almost 2 years clean of M and P. It took a few months, regular attendace at SAA and several hours with a great counsellor to excavate the hole I was trapped in. In that time I came to see so much of myself and a pathway to live differently.

SAA talks about being powerless and living unmanagably.....then is talks about being restored to sanity. My old way of life was not working but I didn't see another way. Sx was far too powerful a factor in my daily life. I remember my early months of tears as I struggled to live withoug regular sx fixes. Gradually I regained my sanity - the urge for M and P lessend as I learned to live in new ways. It wasn't a simple matter of "honesty saying I quit". I was too messed up to know how to live differently. Rather it was the gradual acknowlegment of how my life revolved aroung my addiction. I had to learn to care for my inner self in new ways. This was VERY hard, but I had good supports. It probably took 6 months to get the feel of a new way of living.

Even today when life piles up on me, I have urges to reach for the old sx drug. But the 'choice' to acknowlege my pain and handle it in a better way is far easier. In those first few months I really did not see a fraction of what I see now.

So in conclusion I suggest choice is such an inadequate word. Sx is a powerful drug and only time and good help showed me the miracle of recovery.

[Daniel]

… But I just don't think that people go around saying, man, I am stressed today so I am going to look at P. That is the excuse, but the core of it is that they like P. So, the excuses are just excuses.

WoNLM,

You are exactly right.

They are just excuses in the end.

In a fit of unflinching self-examination, I will admit in brute fashion that I “liked” P.

But it is also a highly qualified “like”.

Because there will be hell to pay in the immediate aftermath, and the million different negative feedback consequences of the indulgence. Not to mention that it I know P is morally wrong, a sin against God, and therefore ruinous to my internal peace.

Thus I like it. But I also hate it. I conclude I can’t live with P.


Dave, this is a brilliant response.

My old way of life was not working but I didn't see another way. Sx was far too powerful a factor in my daily life. I remember my early months of tears as I struggled to live withoug regular sx fixes. Gradually I regained my sanity - the urge for M and P lessend as I learned to live in new ways. It wasn't a simple matter of "honesty saying I quit".

I was too messed up to know how to live differently. Rather it was the gradual acknowlegment of how my life revolved aroung my addiction. I had to learn to care for my inner self in new ways. This was VERY hard, but I had good supports. It probably took 6 months to get the feel of a new way of living.

Exactly. “Too messed up to know how…” That was me. Even Mrs. Daniel, the last place to go for sympathy in all this… she has said it’s a wonder that I wasn’t worse than I was considering my childhood environment and the sexual free-for-all attitudes of my parents and siblings. It wasn’t abusive, illegal, or perhaps even that eyebrow-raising for some. But in hindsight it was a very long way from ideal in helping a young mind think right about sex, P in particular.

In those first few months I really did not see a fraction of what I see now.

This is so true. The farther you go the more clear everything seems!

Go Dave!

Daniel

[Brooke_M]

I couldn't agree more WifeofNewLifeMan!