4 themes in treating porn addiction

Exactly what is involved in treating my porn addiction?

You think you have a porn addiction, or someone you love has told you that you need to get treatment for your porn use. If you are questioning what a porn addiction is or how to determine if you have one, take a look at this previous blog. Or consider this very brief description: If you find that you have a loss of control, tried and failed to stop, lose track of time when engaging in porn use, and continue use despite consequences, you may be have compulsory or addictive porn use.

Yep, that fits

If those factors mentioned above sound familiar then the next step is to decide if you want to stop. Very few people can say they have been successful at stopping a behavior when forced to do so. Even in the most strict environments people still must choose to change. Change takes courage, resources, knowledge and support.

Once you decide to reach out for help there are some components that are essential in effective porn addiction treatment. Let’s take a look.

4 Main Components

technology

Most porn use is accessed through the internet. In fact according to recent statistics, every second:

• 28,258 users are watching pornography on the internet.

• $3,075.64 is being spent on pornography on the internet.

Since pornography is so accessible online, whether at home or work, keeping your internet browsing secure is one way to limit the access to factors that can trigger you. There are multiple apps or programs available to install on your computer/devices that help block, interrupt or report your access and time on pornography sites. Enlisting the help of a loved one is another way to help you.

support

Whether your support system comes from a family member, friend or community they are each an integral piece of building and sustaining recovery. However what some don’t consider is inviting someone into your support system needs to know all those nitty-gritty details of your behavior. Disclosure to a support person is different from disclosure to an intimate partner (something for another blog).

Support persons are ideal when they have characteristics that demand accountability and honesty from the addict. When considering whom could be a support person, consider these factors:

• Accessibility: are they available to you when you need them?

• Accountability: will they hold you responsible for your behaviors or let some slide?

• Openness: will they be honest with you about their own experience and/or limitations when supporting you? Will they be aware of their own opinions and help you develop healthy strategies for you?

• Commitment: will they be there for the whole journey?

A support person may even be someone from the local sex addicts anonymous (SAA) or sex and love addicts anonymous (SLAA) groups.

Abstinence

One of the core guidelines when participating in recovery from porn addiction is abstinence. Abstinence is about purposefully and deliberately choosing not to engage in an action or practice that is wanted or desired. A secondary behavior that coincides with porn addiction is masturbation. Therefore abstinence is creating a ‘clean slate’ behaviorally that includes active steps to cease porn use and masturbation. Many addicts fear that this is a lifetime requirement for sustainable recovery but the bottom line is that a recovery success plan is created in collaboration with your therapist that is uniquely healthy for you.

As hard as it may be to accept or practice, abstinence from the behavior is the most direct route to beginning recovery. A part of recovery is to uncover how your behavior was initially triggered and became the addiction that it is today. Creating emergency plans or behavioral intercessions when those urges arise, is a key conversation with your therapist (and or support person) when starting recovery.

Environmental Cues

Managing your environment and triggers is part of recovery, part of your success. When addiction has its grip on you, it’s hard to be fully aware of the triggers or environmental cues that are increasing your urge to use the porn. Uncovering those environmental cues is essential in creating a safe space for you.

What are environmental cues? These are the sights, sounds, smells and sensations that are present when we engage in a certain behavior. For example, each evening after work you routinely sit in your comfy chair at home, pull a fuzzy blanket over you, grab the remote and sip some wine. Each time you do, these actions are intricately linked in your brain. But then you decide that you want to cut back on your alcohol consumption. The next time you sit in that chair, pull up the fuzzy blanket and grab the remote, you’ll be reaching for that glass of wine that isn’t there. The same idea applies to porn addition. You have created a connection that when you see, smell, hear and feel something, your brain inevitably tells you to start looking at porn.

Working with a therapist, you can dissect the linked behaviors, or rituals, that coincide with your porn use. Then begin to remove and replace those behaviors with something more aligned with your treatment goals.

Now what?

The first step towards recovery is to admit that you are not in control of your porn use; instead, it controls you. Working towards recovery is a marathon, not a race. Reread the sections above and see what changes you can make in your life now. Even one change will make a difference. And that one change can foster hope for more changes to be made. Finally, remember you are not alone in this journey. Finding support through local recovery groups and a therapist specializing in porn, sex and love addiction is essential for your sustained sexual wellness. Be Well.

How to be an expert at identifying your feelings

Emotions vs. feelings

Wait! There’s a difference?! 

In fact there is. 

Emotions are the biochemical reactions (e.g. neurotransmitters) to an external stimulus. The amygdala is primarily responsible for this emotional arousal. The amygdala is at the center of our brain and also where the flight-fight-freeze-fawn responses originate. Like when the hair goes up on our necks, or our stomach drops? That’s emotions; the generalized physical sensation experienced. 

Feelings on the other hand are the conscious experience of the emotion stimulus. The feelings, or labels, we apply are actually our personal interpretation of the emotional response. The interpretation comes from our lived experiences, beliefs, memories, thoughts and awareness of the situation or trigger. 

To get an accurate understanding we must collect information from both our emotions and our feelings. By creating this awareness within ourselves we can then more fully appreciate the experience and more healthfully respond to the trigger. 

Each human experience triggers an emotional response, which in turn triggers our feelings, and responses. So let’s ask a few simple questions to get a better grasp of things. 

Tell me, oh great amygdala, what am I feeling? 

 In my years as a therapist helping others navigate their emotions and feelings, I’ve learned that many are unfamiliar with their own body’s physical response to feelings. So I talk to them about building awareness of their physical sensations in everyday situations. 

What are physical sensations? Those are the biological events occurring in our body, again triggered by our amygdala. Some examples include sweating, hot red cheeks, tingling on our hands, rapid heart rate, or shallow fast breathing. Think back to a time earlier today when there was an increase in tension or excitement. What was happening in your body? I tell my clients to do a mental body scan—head to toe—to see what’s different in that moment. 

Once there is a new awareness of the emotions, or physical sensations, experienced, I then help my clients create an understanding of the feelings associated with it. Here is where we get to label things. 

[pulls out her label maker…]

Did you know that there are approximately 3000 words used to describe feelings in the English language! That’s a lot of labels! How did we get so many? Read on to find out. 

One of the most prominent theories of the 20th century is Robert Plutchik's wheel of emotions. Since we now know that once we label the emotion, it is called a feeling, we will now refer to them as feelings on the Plutchik wheel. Plutchik proposed eight basic feelings—joy, sadness, trust, disgust, fear, anger, surprise, and anticipation. Using colors to represent each basic feeling, the wheel showed that these overlapped and bled into the next like hue on a color wheel. With those 8 basic categories to start, that leads to over 34,000 combinations of feelings! 



Too many choices! I need an easy answer!

Like the Pixar movie, Inside Out, sometimes it’s easiest to identify a fewer number of options. In the movie there are five major categories of feelings portrayed—anger, sadness, joy, fear, and disgust. The key is to collect all the data points possible to identify the final answer. So how do you determine what you’re experiencing? Here are some simple steps to Identifying your Feelings applied to a simple example. 

Picture it. You are at work and the boss stops by your workspace saying, “Come find me later, we need to talk.”

(Gulp. Anyone else having an immediate reaction to this? No? Just me. Okay.)

1. Pay attention to what’s happening in your body. This means creating that awareness of body language and physical sensations. 

   “I immediately notice that my heart rate has increased and I’m starting to sweat. My shoulders have climbed up into my ears (tensing) and I have an awkward smile and am nodding foolishly.”

2. Decide what happened to make you feel this way. This can be the full situation or a portion of the situation. Don’t negate the automatic negative thoughts (ANTs) that come into play. 

   “My boss just unexpectedly came to my work space and asked to see me. I don’t know the reason and it’s an unusual way for her to ask me.”

3. Decide what to call the feeling. Here we get to put all the data points (see step 1) together and out a label on what’s happening. What label do we place on what we are experiencing? 

   “I’m feeling anxious and concerned about my performance on the job.”

 (Note that all the steps of the skill, Identifying your Feelings, are done mentally; not aloud).

Now that you have some clearer steps on how to more accurately and consistently identify our feelings, I hope that you find it useful while navigating everyday situations. If you are experiencing more intense feelings or find it difficult to find a helpful and healthy response to those feelings, I encourage you to find a  therapist who may be able to help.  

5 tips to honestly answer the most common question

How are you?

The most common question asked today by friends, family, strangers, customer services reps; the list goes on and on. But how do we know when and what to say in response to this question? There are a few factors to consider, like who is asking, how much time do you have, and do you want to engage in a full conversation.

I feel…

In order to accurately share your current state, one must first fully know in fact how they are doing. We can do this by paying attention to our physical sensations and body language to identify your feelings. Check out my short video on how to successfully identify your feelings.

When you’re stressed or anxious it’s common to want to minimize the sharing of those details with others for fear that they may judge you for your stress levels (“she really doesn’t have her stuff together like I thought she did.”) or that maybe you’re exaggerating the severity (‘they must have low tolerance because that wouldn’t bother me!”). You may not want to share because it’s confidential or sensitive information, or that the other person may take it as an opportunity to one-up or problem solve for you. In the end, it’s your decision to share honestly. If you choose to, here are some benefits and tips to make it productive and keep it honest.

Sharing helps alleviate physical symptoms

• Persons experiencing stress from daily life often find themselves also experiencing increased physical ailments (headaches, irritable stomach, shoulder/back pain, clumsiness). By minimizing and or avoiding the information our body is telling us, we are essentially telling ourselves that we know better than our body.

• Our mind and body are intricately interconnected and most times our body tells us something is wrong long before our brain catches up.

• The longer we avoid or delay addressing the stressors the more physical ailments or damage may be done to our whole body. Think about the last time you were stressed, we may reach for the pint of ice cream or bag of chips, or alcohol. Sometimes even over exercising is harmful rathe than helpful. When we have honest acceptance with our own thoughts and feelings the greater the results will be for our mind and body, our relationships and performance.

Sharing helps us feel connected

• First and foremost by allowing ourselves to accept that we are stressed we can reduce our stress levels! By hiding, avoiding or minimizing our stress (from ourselves and from others) takes a lot of effort and energy. The less we spend on hiding it the more effort we have available to address it.

• We tend to believe that we are the only person(s) experiencing the stress or symptoms of stress which in turn leads us to believing that we are weaker than others, or even consider ourselves a failure at living a happy life. By sharing honestly with others that we are experiencing stress, normalizes it for us and for them. We might find a comrade in our stress and a partner in our efforts to reduce it.

• When we keep stress and stress thoughts to ourselves we can exaggerate them. As the car mirrors state, objects may seem close than they appear, when we hold onto these stress thoughts and feelings, we may see them as much more unmanageable or insurmountable than they really are. Share a stressor and find out that it’s more of a mole hill than a mountain,

Sure there are benefits, physically and mentally, in sharing our stress but how do we share it in a healthy and productive way?

How-to’s on answering honestly when stressed

1. The best way to begin is to take the first step-- accept that you are stressed about something and identify clearly what that is. Sometimes writing about it first (journaling) can help clarify what the root of the stress may be. Then tell yourself, out loud, “I’m stressed about _____ and I’m going to be okay.”

2. Be clear on whom you are willing to share the information. Keep in mind the situation (time and place) and the relationship (is it the floor clerk at the shoe store or your best friend).

3. Instead of saying, “I’m fine” try starting with saying "Thanks for asking", then add...

   • “I’ve got a lot on my plate right now and I’m learning how to manage it.”

   • You could say, “I’m handling all my responsibilities as best I can while taking care of myself.”

   • Or even “Life/work/family is causing me to feel ____ and I need to ________.”

4. Or try asking for help by saying, “I’m a bit overwhelmed and I could use some help with___.” Be specific in what you need help with. The more unclear or uncertain you are the less likely you are to secure the help, and stress relief, that you need.

5. Be brief. Depending on the relationship with the person asking, they may try to solve your problem for you or validate your stress and share their own (or worse one-up you). You may even find that the person asking either doesn’t really want to know the answer they’re just being polite or they become uncomfortable with your honesty and try to change the subject.

Honestly responding to the question, “how are you?” can be liberating! Try it out and let me know how it goes!

Let’s talk about sex , baby! Lets talk about sex (addiction)!

Sex is a natural human activity, a way to express love and connection. Sex can be fun solo or with partner(s), so how can it be a problem? For many, sex can become an addiction. While there are many points on the continuum to discussing sex, for our purposes we will focus on addiction to sex. 

Then what is sex addiction?

Addiction is a common term; one often overused and over simplified. In fact people make flippant remarks about being ‘addicted to’ tv shows, a specific drink or roller coasters for example. This generalizing can diminish the seriousness of addiction to those that are truly trapped in its grips. The American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) looks at the “interactions among brain circuits, genetics, the environment, and an individual’s life experiences” to assist in identifying when a person has an addiction. They go on to say that addiction can be of substances or behaviors. 

Also referred to as a compulsion, being hypersexual or having out-of-control sexual behaviors, sex addiction is one of the core treatments at the International Institute of Trauma and Addiction Professionals (IITAP). They have defined sex addiction as “a pathological relationship to a mood altering experience (sex) that the individual continues to engage in despite adverse consequences.” That can be a complex definition so let’s break it down into every day language. 

• Pathological refers to the abnormal connection between the cause (addictive behavior) and effect (consequences) of a condition on a persons physical and psychological health. 

• Mood altering is the ability of a substance, activity or object to change moods. 

• Adverse consequences are unwanted, unhealthy, or unsafe outcomes due to engaging in the behavior. Arrest, physical injury, loss of employment are examples of adverse consequences to any number of addictions.  

Addiction treatment professionals follow common rules related to the identification of addiction. As a therapist it’s important to distinguish between a clinical diagnosis or a behavioral observation; depending on the experience and licensure of the therapist some are able to provide a clinical diagnosis like those found in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) or the International Statistical Classification of diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD). 

Sex addiction can include behaviors such as: voyeurism (e.g. peeping toms), exhibitionism (e.g. flashers), frequent anonymous sex, paying for sex (e.g. engaging in prostitution), and pornography use, including role play, cosplay, amateur, type of sexual positions, etc.  

I like sex, a lot! Does that mean I’m addicted to sex? 

Absolutely not! Sex brings with it innumerable benefits, including enjoyment, connection, confidence and procreation.  That fact that you enjoy sex, makes it that much more pleasurable! Sex as a addiction is when the individual has lost much of the pleasure and intimacy of the act and is focused more on meeting their cravings or urges (remember that pathological relationship mentioned above). 

Just as in identifying other addictions, such as substance, gambling, or nicotine, there are criteria that must be met. Some of those criteria include:

• Loss of control—engaging in the compulsive behavior more than you intended to

• Efforts to stop—repeated attempts to stop the compulsive behavior without success

• Loss of time—significant amounts of time is spent getting ready, engaging or recovering from engaging in the behavior. 

• Continue despite consequences—even though the individual may experience adverse consequences, they continue to engage in the compulsive behavior

Please note that this is not a comprehensive nor conclusive indication that someone is addicted to a substance or behavior. You are encouraged to  speak with a licensed therapist if you are concerned about your own or someone else’s behaviors.

Now what? Is there treatment available? 

Treatment does exist for someone with sex, porn or love addiction. It’s important that the therapist you work with has experience helping those in sex addiction but it’s not essential that the therapist have a certification in sex addiction. Consider it an added Sarah at Total Wellness 365 is a Certified Sex Addiction Therapist, Candidate through IITAP. Prior to getting her certification she has worked with those in addiction for over 10 years.

Therapist working with sex addiction clients will help them develop a clear understanding of their specific addiction cycle. Then teach skills to interrupt the cycle by creating a plan to incorporate healthy replacement behaviors, reducing risk and increasing wellness as a new lifestyle. Recovery is takes time; it also takes hard work, patience and support. If you or someone you know are interested in learning more about this subject, here are some additional resources. If you are interested in finding a sex addiction therapist, you can search here.