sex/porn/love Compulsions addictions
With the popularity and accessibility of porn and hookup apps, sex addictions are at an all time high. But a person does not necessarily need to spend years in therapy or even go to sex-addiction retreats and group meetings to quickly discover their triggers and get back in control. Sexual arousal is a widely available “drug” in our modern era. But in many ways, sexual-acting out is no different than any other type of compulsive urge or addiction.
My approach:
My training and experience tells me that sexual compulsions and addictions always serve the purpose of helping us take some form of control when something else in our life continues to be a source of frustration.
In that way, I encourage people to relate to their sex addictions almost as a kind of helpful friend, reminding the person to more consciously attend to bigger parts of their life - their career, intimate relationships, family interactions, religious feelings, or just their overall life-purpose etc. – that they can work to improve. Sometimes people just use sex as an escape and distraction, providing them with a temporary fun break from life, when it gets stressful, joyless or uninspiring. Sometimes its just a bad habit that needs to be broken by finding other things to do. When these are the motives, steps can be taken to bring more meaning, joy, connection and purpose in one’s life.
Sex Addiction & the Nervous System
There is also another angle to explore: In my experience, compulsive sexual urges always “go along with” two polar opposite “nervous system modes”, one called a hyper-aroused state - where we feel “jacked up”, angry, panicky, racing thoughts or obsessed and therefore need some kind of relaxant – or where we feel the opposite in something called a hypo-arousal state – characterized by feelings of defeat, collapse, “deadness”, shame or being checked out and therefore in need of some kind of reset or “pick me up” to go on functioning normally. These nervous system states relationship to any compulsive urge or addiction are discussed at length by renown trauma expert Dr. Janina Fisher in books like Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors: Overcoming Internal Self-Alienation (2017).
Understanding the relationship between a person’s acting out and these extreme nervous system states is key to reducing compulsive urges and addictions