Love You, Hate the Porn

How to Tell If You're Addicted to Sex

2012-02-15T08:13:00.000-08:00

Sex is a part of life. It can be one of the most fulfilling parts, extraordinarily exciting and bonding.

Given its enriching potential, it's not surprising that the pursuit of sex can also become excessive. We can obsess about it and pursue it in immoderate doses. Might we even become addicted to it?

Exploring the human capacity to become addicted to sex, some scientists have found parallels between the brain mechanisms involved in chemical dependency and a downward biochemical spiral that occurs when sex is pursued compulsively.

As a practicing clinician, I have no way of measuring what's going on inside my client's nervous systems. I can only ask about events and experiences in their lives. As we talk, I look for patterns. The patterns I see in clients with problematic sexual habits are awfully similar to those clients who suffer from substance abuse and dependence. To determine how much these patterns match what's going on in your life, check out this post I wrote for a new website, addictionsex.com.

A Wife Like Her, and He Still Went to Porn?

2012-01-23T05:00:00.000-08:00

Image: photostock / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Teresa couldn't figure it out. She knew she had it together. She was physically fit at age thirty-two, even as a busy mother of three. She had always been playful, responsive, and loving in the bedroom. Why in the world would Russ even feel inclined toward porn?

She wanted to know, but she couldn't ask Russ in person because she had kicked him out of the house the day after she discovered his stash of porn on the computer. So she asked by way of a text message. He was reluctant--he would rather have had the conversation in person. But Teresa insisted, and his old pattern was to hold things back, so he decided to take the risk and try to convey--also via text--what was going on inside when he went to porn.

Since it reflects what I hear from a lot of men, I got permission from Russ to share it here. It's a long text message, but it's worth reading. I hope it helps men acknowledge why they go to porn and find better ways to handle their emotional struggles. I hope it helps women not take his involvement in porn personally, even though that's a perfectly natural reflex to have.

Here's what Russ wrote:

"It will take a little time to explain how and why I ended up at that point. I hope you allow yourself the time to understand why men get sucked in. You will learn it isn't at all because of what you do or don't do. It isn't about you in any way. I will not make excuses or blame anyone other than myself for acting the way I did and for the choices I foolishly made.

"I think you are the most beautiful women in the world. You are the only girl I have truly desired to be intimate with. I have been attracted to you since the day we met you and you have been more attractive and satisfying to me than I will probably ever be able to convey. But it's not just about how gorgeous you are. Fifty years from now when we're both over the hill, it's your hand I want to still be holding.

"Every man, at some point in his life, is confronted with porn in some way or another. I had been a few times in the past. I didn't fall into it then because spiritually, mentally and emotionally I was in the right place and that is truly the key.

"I didn't search it out, but about two years ago I got a random email link. I saw a few pictures. I don't really remember what I was thinking, but at the time but I looked at them and that was it. A few months later I was pretty depressed. I hadn't deleted the email and I opened it again. This time I clicked on one of the pictures and three or four websites popped up. After that, sporadically (maybe every few months) I got depressed and feeling hopeless and really discouraged with how things were in my life (pretty much everything except you and the family). I felt like I couldn't talk to you about it because I was angry and felt like a failure at work and because I knew I'd caused a lot of my own problems. I was ashamed because I hadn't consulted you on any of my decisions, good or bad, which was a huge mistake. I was having a really hard time getting my confidence and happiness and my desire/drive back because I was not in the right place spiritually. Of course I was only making it worse, but I was desperate to just feel anything other than how I felt. I didn't go to porn all the time, but there were those random low points where I fell into it.

"As a woman, I'm sure it is hard for you to understand how I could do that and why men can so easily get caught up in it. It isn't something I'm very comfortable remembering and acknowledging even now. I'd get into it at those times and then after that it was out of my head--except the guilt. I'd bury it mentally and I would never think about it, ever, because thinking about it just made me angry at myself.

"It is a bad cycle and unless someone actively does what I am doing now, I suspect it would be easy to never get out of it. Unfortunately, many men have or have had an issue at some point in their life with this. Many of them may never confront it and fix it. They live in denial and hide. I have realized in going to the 12-Step groups that I don't face the temptations every day like some members do. I am thankful for that.

"I am also seeing that I have a personality that will naturally try to take the easy road, the path of least resistance. I run from situations I don't like. That's what enabled me to become spiritually undisciplined and out of tune. I'd never really had a problem with self-esteem until then. In that state, I wasn't thinking about the risks. I didn't recognize the hurt I would cause my family, and especially you. I excused myself: 'This won't hurt anyone. This isn't anyone else's concern. I can do this and it helps me feel better and no one has to know.'

"After giving in, I would very quickly try to rationalize or make excuses to myself so I didn't feel bad. I was trying to put everything hard out of my mind, not just my indulgences in porn. I was so depressed and my self-esteem was so low that I basically lied to myself about it so that I wouldn't have to feel the pain. As much as I could, I would avoid thinking about it.

"Then there were those other days, when I would be hard on myself. My perception of myself was horrible, like I couldn't do anything right. I felt like I'd failed at everything. My stress level about being written up at work was so high, and it seemed like I had nowhere to turn. Looking back, I could have and should have turned to you, but I was ashamed, I was embarrassed, I was humiliated, and most of all I was sooo afraid I would hurt and disappoint you.

"I was in a really awful state. Of course, it was all my fault because of decisions at work and neglect of my spirituality. I was failing to do the small things related to church that would have helped me. But it was tempting to avoid dwelling on those things because I knew that was one more area I was failing in.

"Instead of doing what I should to get my own life back on track, I tried harder to be there for you and be close to you and help any other way I could so I could feel some sort of contribution to our family. Not that I really thought I was making up for my other failings; but I had to do anything I could to make myself feel any kind of positiveness. I tried to be the husband every woman wants to be married to: putting the kids to bed, helping around the house, giving you time for yourself. But no matter what I tried to do, my conscience wouldn't let me rest.

"It took a miracle to give me the courage and strength to confront this and get myself to a point where I could really, truly fix things. You kept complaining about not feeling connected or close as a couple. I knew it was my fault. I was holding back. But there I was, trying to help you feel better about our relationship without changing the core that was rotten. Finally I'd had enough. I hurt so bad for myself and especially for you and your disappointment. At that point I would have done anything to help you, to somehow make you feel better. I felt like I'd tried everything, and yet it still wasn't getting fixed.

"I realized that the only way the Lord would help is if I allowed Him to. I needed to be honest. If I really cared about you and my marriage, I needed to resolve things with you and with him. I knew it was going to be very hard and take a long time to fix, but if I truly loved you I couldn't live with things being awry between us.

"You know what happened next: I opened up about the pornography and the handful of times I drank alcohol and the year-long period that I was abusing the pills.

"Since then I have had an incredible month. I have never hurt so deeply. At the same time, I am finally at peace--within myself and with God. It's been way too long since I felt that way. I know I still have work to do, but I know I am on the right path. I need to do the little things so that as I get discouraged and depressed I will have the Lord to turn to for help, guidance, and comfort.

"I hope and pray that at some future time we will have a marriage where we are truly there for each other, a relationship in which we feel safe and protected turning to one another for help and understanding. You have been ready for that and begging for it for a long time. Now I'm finally coming around. Sacrificing my pride a opening up to you was just the first step, but it was a hard one. Going through that showed me that I can do it, and it's well worth the sacrifice! It's given me strength to do whatever else it takes. I love you more than I ever have in my life. I am thankful you are who you are and that you are strong enough to do what you are doing now (the separation) because that is allowing me to truly fix me and change things that I so desperately needed to change.

"T, I know we have a long road of recovery ahead, but I have faith that our marriage can be better and closer than it ever has been because we will be closer to the Lord and we can learn to be there for each other in ways we haven't before. Deep down we still have that bond and connection we've always had. I know it's still there. There have been a lot of things clouding it and we've unintentionally neglected it for a long time. I am so sorry for that. I was so worried about my situation and the challenges I was facing that I was only doing the surface stuff for you, and not really seeing how you were feeling.

"Once I realized how much you'd been hurting, I tried harder in the surface ways, but then it seemed like things only got worse, which was hard to accept. Especially when you started talking to others and it appeared that you were making a connection with them. The fact that they were filling those emotional and spiritual needs made me feel very insecure and jealous. Then I recognized that even if they weren't there, I was still spiritually out of line and the Lord wouldn't allow me to be there or connect or make you feel safe unless I was clean and I was honest with you and with Him.

"So that's what I had to do, no matter how hard it was or how bad it looked on me. I didn't care, I just wanted to fix it and move on with life and be able to be happy and have the Spirit with me so that I could have the family and marriage I really want.

"I know it would be impossible for you to not be hurt by all this. I don't expect you to forget about your feelings because they are very real and very justified. All I ask is that you take the time to understand how vulnerable men are to being tempted by visual stimulation. If we're not in the right place spiritually, it's so easy to turn to that when in crisis. The "drug" we take is sexual, obviously, but we take it mostly when there's an emotional void or hurt, not a sexual need.

"It is not acceptable and I will do everything I can to avoid it for the rest of my life and be open with you if and when I fall back. I don't ever again want to feel the way I did. I know it's going to take work. I will have to confront my personality weaknesses, which may be even harder for me to work on than my inappropriate sexual behavior. But the price for not doing it would be losing you, and that's way too high. And I care way too much about my salvation to not keep going and improving and being honest with myself, with the Lord, and with you.

"I hope this gives you some peace in some way if that is possible. I never did anything to intentionally hurt you and I hope that, deep down, you know I never would. Now I know more than ever that I need to keep myself clean and worthy, not only for myself but so that I don't unintentionally injure you and the kids and erode what we can have as a family. I am so sorry for where I was and the way I let it lead to that course of actions.

"I feel the reality of the atonement and I have a much greater appreciation and love for my Savior. There are points in the Gospel that I conveniently put aside and didn't truly understand and that has led me to a lot of heartache and pain. I know it brought pain upon you as well. I don't know why we've had such limited Gospel discussions throughout our marriage. I guess it is because I felt very inadequate and I worried that you'd think it was a weird topic for us to launch into. I felt awkward about it. Regardless of the reason, it is sad and I vow to change that in the future. I hope our understanding, acceptance, and reliance on the atonement will continue to grow and be a big part of our marriage so that we can heal, accept each other, and help each other instead of living in fear, contention, or separateness.

"I love you with all my heart and wold go to the end of the earth for you and to heal our relationship. I am an open book. If you have questions or feel like you want to talk more about it, I am here to do that. You can ask me whatever you want whenever you feel a need to. I will put checks in place that will give you peace of mind. I hope that eventually we can rebuild the trust we've had so that eventually you can have confidence that I am clean."

Thank you Russ, for putting into words how you got caught up in porn and the true, deeper desires of your heart. And thanks for letting me share your experience with others. Women, what's it like to read what he's gone through? Men, how does your experience compare to his?

His Connection with Her Helps Him Avoid Porn

2012-01-16T06:36:00.000-08:00

Image: photostock / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Vaughn attributes much of his success in recovery to the growing sense of protectiveness. He wants to shield his wife, Holly, and their relationship from the damage pornography can do.

Despite knowing that this mentality should help, it hasn’t always seemed to. “I recall many times trying to think about Holly and her feelings about pornography when I was tempted. To be honest, it was never a big deterrent. I felt more guilty about acting out, but that didn’t seem to hold me back when I was at the brink.”

“Something about the way our relationship has been developing over the last nine months or so has seemed to make the difference. I’m more open and honest with her about everything, not just my struggles with pornography. I’ve let her in on my worries as breadwinner and as a father. I’ve shared my doubts about our religion and the wrestle I’ve had with my career path.

“These were all things I used to deal with on my own to avoid burdening her unnecessarily. In a way, I’d gotten so good at pretending that I rarely even acknowledged these struggles and doubts to myself.

“She’s opening up more to me, too. The array of feelings she deals with as a stay-at-home mom. Even her turmoil and ambivalence about having chosen me as a husband. She tells me when she feels the draw to fantasize about how things might have gone if she’d stayed with her ex-boyfriend.

“It seems like we have a much better handle on who I really am, who she really is. We can talk about anything now. No matter how difficult or sensitive the topic, it’s all fair game. I feel like we’ve become much more real with each other.

“Pornography seems like more of an offense against that. Before I could rationalize that what she didn’t know wouldn’t necessarily affect her. Now pornography seems interruptive of the closeness and connection we enjoy. We are more emotionally intimate, and pornography seems like a rupture of that.”

Vaughn is finding the emotional bond they share to be extremely rewarding. “The idea that pornography is the best game in town, my favorite pleasure, doesn’t ring as true anymore.”

Their sex life has certainly changed. “In past years there were lots of times when I thought I needed to fantasize about images from pornography to get stimulated. And typically I didn’t feel satisfied after sex with Holly, more let down. Of course it was my own fault: I had conditioned myself to expect hours of stimulation before the release. Regular sex couldn’t compete with that.

“Now, we’re more connected and open and real with each other, and that extends to our lovemaking. I want to be with her, this person I know at a deeper level, and I want to share who I really am. She has accepted and loved me through thick and thin, and my gratitude for her and amazement at her just overflow sometimes. We’re both more in the moment. I’m not grasping for something else, something more. It’s enough, both during and after sex.

“So when temptations come, I remember how good things are. Rather than conjuring guilt, I’m trying to preserve that warmth. I treasure knowing that I’m honest with her and things are right with us. That’s a good place to be. I think about Holly and I don’t want her to feel like she’s losing me. I’d hate for her to feel put down in the way she did when she knew I was going to porn.”

If you want to jumpstart what Vaughn is enjoying, here’s an experiment to try out. It will set the stage for you to develop a stronger emotional bond with your partner by giving you a better sense of empathy for her and what she goes through. Spend a few minutes a day observing her, pondering what’s going on inside. At least some of the time, watch her when she doesn’t know you’re looking. Track her movements, note what she looks at and for how long. Listen to the words she uses. Who is she talking to and what’s her purpose in saying what she says? What’s on her mind and in her heart? What are her hopes? In a spirit of exploration and discovery, inhabit the world she lives in. See if you can start to view it through her eyes. What’s life like for her? What matters to her? What moves her? What lifts her spirits? What dampens them? To know her IS to love her, and you miss out on much of what you might otherwise enjoy as porn fouls with your capacity to empathize.

How Therapy Helped Him Overcome Sexual Addiction

2012-01-09T18:33:00.000-08:00

Image: photostock / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Jay has been "sober" from porn now for over a year, but he still comes in to talk once a month. I asked him the other day how intensive therapy at our clinic helped him overcome the habit.

Jay is a married father of four, in his early fifties, and he works as a sales manager for a medical device manufacturing company. Pornography was an addiction that had haunted him for most of his life. Over the final five years of his involvement in porn, his acting out behavior deteriorated into involvement with prostitutes. He was arrested two years ago in a sting operation. He agreed to complete therapy as a condition of his probation.

Now, two years later, Jay had a ready answer to my question about how therapy had helped: "I got rid of all that baggage. The root causes of my low self-esteem. It was in therapy that I finally worked through the way I'd been treated by my dad."

I remembered all those hours Jay spent processing experiences from his childhood. His dad was a rigidly moralistic man who held extremely high standards for everyone else, especially his children. He would lecture Jay endlessly whenever he thought he'd stepped out of line. "That music is of the devil," "You're not raking those leaves right," "The Sabbath is not for your enjoyment," "You're not holding that golf club right," "You're letting your schoolwork slide."

Ironically, this same man allowed himself all kinds of leeway. He call in sick from work whenever he felt like he deserved a break. He blatantly ogled the bodies of Jay's step-sister's friends. The ugliest part of family life was how dismissive and disrespectful he was of Jay's mother. Everyone dreaded family dinners, where his misogyny was on full display. "Dear, please tell us you got more done around here today than what we can see." "Someone get me a jackhammer, I'll need it to cut through this roast!" She'd often end up in tears, but remained in her chair rather than risking more derision for leaving the table.

Once he was living on his own, Jay had moved two states away from his dad, in part to diminish the ugly influence of the man. It was in therapy that Jay discovered just how much his father's criticisms were still eroding his sense of self worth. "My dad was no longer there, but I was equally hard on myself. His voice stayed alive inside of me and never let up." At a young age Jay discovered that he could use sex to escape all that negativity. "It was a coping mechanism I kept using into adulthood. If I was fantasizing or planning or seeking or gratifying myself, I didn't have to think. And thinking was the sucking whirlpool for me, because it always seemed to go negative. Instead of staying stuck in that, I'd just go into this other world where there was only pleasure."

Looking back Jay could see why porn and sex were his drugs of choice. "The sweet spot they hit was just what I seemed to need. With pornography, you're accepted. The feelings are the opposite of what you were just experiencing. There's the fantasy that you are the one this attractive person wants to be with. With the prostitutes, I was trying to feel that same thing in person. Of course you know that none of it is real, but the feeling makes it seem real. There's the part of you that knows you'll be dealing with the negative effects later: the guilt and shame, more blows to your sense of value as a person. But at the time you just need the fix, the escape."

So how did therapy help Jay give that up? "In therapy I finally got answers to questions like 'Why was my relationship with Dad so traumatic for me?' 'Why was he like that?' Those old traumas were still alive inside of me. I talked about it in individual therapy and with the other men in group. They were all supportive. It meant a lot to have other people acknowledge that it really was as painful as I remembered it being. It was forty years after the fact, but they stood with me as witnesses of what I'd gone through.

"I also started to see that I was repeating in my marriage some of those unhealthy patterns I learned growing up. Just as I tried to stay at the opposite end of the house from my dad because I didn't want to be criticized, I also walked on eggshells with Elise, hoping to avoid her displeasure. I put my best foot forward--emptying the dishwasher and doing the laundry--while at the same time hiding from her all of my ups and downs, any weaknesses, and especially my sexual acting out.

"Well, of course, this pile of raunchy stuff that I thought I had to hide from her kept growing and growing. I felt worse and worse about myself all the time. I became more and more convinced that if she really knew me, she would see me as this disgusting creature I thought I was. I had no doubt that she would leave me if she discovered what I was doing. And I knew that I was already going to @#!*% . That was a given. So the best I could hope for was just to keep pretending I was a decent person, keep living the lie. Then at least she and my kids wouldn't have to suffer for my failings.

"I got pretty good at faking. And I had convinced myself on some level that I was handling it as best I could. I wanted out, sure, but since there wasn't an apparent way out, you just persevere best you can. You find a way to live in @#!*% and yet keep getting up every day and going through the motions."

Jay shook his head in dismay as he thought back on the torture of living a double life for so long. But then his face seemed to lighten. "Going back, remembering what it was like to be a kid, I could more easily see that I wasn't a bad kid. I didn't fail. In fact, I was a good kid. I did a lot right. I had a kind heart. All of that crap I dealt with was my dad's struggle. Sometimes adults handle things wrong, and he was dead wrong in the way he raised me, in the way he lived, in the way he treated women. I accepted that I couldn't have made it any different or better. The longings I'd had to connect with him and to please him, they were normal. But I had to give up the fantasy that we could have had this great relationship. No. It takes two people who are willing and able to have that.

"I came to terms with the fact that I was never good enough to please him and I never could have been. If I'd have become a seminary teacher like him or made millions on the PGA, there still would've been something he needed to correct me about. I finally accepted that as inevitable. It's just part of who he is. That enabled me to get off the little gerbil wheel of thinking I needed to please him. I don't have to dread displeasing him, I can just accept it as a part of my life that stinks, but it's beyond my control.

"I still have negative experiences. They're a part of life. But I don't get caught up in the negativity anymore. It's not worth hanging onto. I'm in the driver's seat and I let go of trying to control people's impressions of me. The hard experiences don't have to linger and affect every other situation in my life."

As I listened to Jay, I thought back on all of the therapy sessions focused on acceptance, surrendering control, and accepting life on it's own terms. I could see the look of serenity in his face that is a hallmark of solid, long term recovery. Jay felt the difference, too. "There had been times before when I've abstained from acting out sometimes for a year or two, but I hadn't really healed.

"Now," he said with a smile, "I'm not just two years since my last relapse, I'm two years stronger."

How Therapy Helped Him Stop Looking at Porn

2012-01-02T18:23:00.000-08:00

Image: Surachai / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Last week I talked with Jacob, a 22 year old young man who has been porn free for three years. That’s no mean feat, since he indulged regularly during his teen years. “How have you done it?” I asked.

“Group therapy helped quite a bit,” he responded.

“In what way?” I wondered.

“We were accountable to each other. We all wanted to stay on track so that we could report back that we were successful. We would celebrate each other’s victories.

“Also, it helped to talk about the addiction. If someone had lapsed, we’d help them problem-solve. We would ask about the events leading up to it.

“Back then, when I gave in, I was pretty hard on myself. It helped to have others ask about it who weren’t inclined to beat me up. They weren’t angry or frustrated. They were just curious. They cared about me and wanted to see me conquer. They were convinced that this problem would respond to our combined efforts, and that gave me hope.

“It turned out to be true: all our heads together were better than mine alone. After talking out what had gone wrong--for me or for one of the other group members--I started to see contributing factors I hadn’t recognized before. Little things, some of them: what time I got up in the morning, what I’d been watching on TV.

“It honed my senses. Then I was more on guard against those risk factors in my life. I could see them coming and I saw them for what they were: gateways into the danger zone. I knew those things heightened my risk, and I was able to steer clear of problems by interrupting the sequence earlier on.”

Jacob also learned that merely recognizing the risk and mentally deciding not to pursue porn wasn’t enough. “I couldn’t remain passive. Once I saw that I was at risk I had to actively do something positive to replace the seeds of thought that were starting to sprout in my brain. I would review a scripture I was memorizing or do a kind act for someone.” Proactively moving in a positive direction rather than just trying to avoid problems was a key in getting his recovery back on solid footing.

Talking with Jacob reminded me of a principle described by the relapse prevention guru Alan Marlatt. He encouraged us to scrutinize failures in order to flesh out the details of our personal “cycle” back into addictive behavior. He advocated taking particular interest in those little, everyday forks in the road where one direction mildly heightens the risk of later faltering. He called these “Seemingly Unimportant Decisions”--SUDs for short.

I’m sure there were many other factors that also played a role for Jacob, but he attributes much of his success in recovery to the group therapy process that illuminated these earliest steps on his usual pathways back to porn. He started to see those SUDs and turn the other direction instead. And now he has three years of freedom to show for it!

Of everything you’ve tried, what’s helped you the most? What boosts your recovery and helps you stay on track? Even if you’re not porn free yet, you’ve learned some valuable lessons. Please share them with us!

Healing after Discovering He's Been Hooked on Porn

2011-12-24T06:10:00.000-08:00

In a way, each woman has a uniquely individual experience when she discovers her man has a pornography addiction. It's based on many factors including how he handles the disclosure or discovery, her beliefs about him, her expectations of their relationship, their sexual history, what other areas of their life together have been like, and her feelings about pornography itself.

Despite the very personal nature of your response, it can be valuable to talk to and hear from others who are having parallel experiences. Healing as an individual and moving on as a couple often requires a massive reorientation in the most intimate realms of life. Checking in with fellow travelers on this journey can help reassure you you're not going crazy, illuminate ways of handling things you hadn't considered before, and instill hope that others have made it through what you're experiencing--in one piece!

In that spirit, let me recommend a video that was recently produced by KSL TV. My colleagues Jeff Ford, LMFT and Geoff Steurer, LMFT arranged the interviews and helped put the content together. Geoff coauthored Love You, Hate the Porn with me and the founding director of LifeSTAR of St. George Utah. Hope you find it helpful.

To Kick Your Porn Habit, Learn from Lapses

2011-12-07T08:51:00.000-08:00

image: dan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Hannah writes, "For five years my husband told me every time he messed up with porn. About a year and a half ago I decieded to 'change the rules.' He could tell me if he wanted (and most the time he did), but he didn't have to. It seemed to work for about 8 or 9 months. He actually did really great. But now he harldy ever tells me, but I know he is looking more and more regularly. Should he be telling me? Should he be accountable to me?"

Hannah, since your husband's been actively working to conquer his addiction for 6+ years, and yet still failing regularly, I worry that he may leaving out key elements necessary for building a solid long-term recovery. As helpful as it may be to address one's addiction more openly--to be accountable, as you put it--there's also much more that can--and typically must--be done.

Here's my suggestion to those who struggle: When you falter, in addition to telling someone, take the time to analyze your lapse. Identify a factor or two that played a role and try to come up with a corresponding solution. Keep tinkering, experimenting, until you find an approach that works for you.

Doug had successfully avoided viewing porn for over a year. Then he got a new 4G phone. Waiting to pick up his daughter her karate class, he wandered around the web. Before he knew it, he had crossed the line back into the realm of porn. The rush was back, and so was the guilt. When he got home, it was hard to tell his wife, Shelly. They'd come so far, things between them seemed almost back to normal, and he dreaded what this might do to her confidence in him. He told her anyway.

Shelly swore at Doug and then cried. Then she thanked him for telling her. They brainstormed together. At first Shelly wanted him to ditch the new phone. They discussed what had helped Doug avoid problems on the computer. One key was the monitoring software they'd installed a year and a half ago. "Whenever I'm online I feel like I'm in a fishbowl. I know you'll be getting the report on where I go online. It's not even a temptation to go to adult sites anymore."

"Too bad they don't have monitoring software for phones," Shelly lamented. After a moment they looked up at each other and then both reached for their phones. Within moments they were exploring the pros and cons of different Phone Monitoring Software programs. Since installing FlexiSpy on his phone, Doug has felt as protected with it as he does when he's online at home.

Initially Shelly thought that availability was the primary factor leading to Doug's lapse; hence she wanted to get rid of the phone altogether. Talking together they realized that even if porn is available, it's not a draw unless Doug feels like he can view it in complete secrecy. This allowed them to come up with a fitting solution that wasn't overly restrictive.

Kevin is another individual who built a more solid recovery by taking the time to learn from his failures. He said, “I used to lapse on the road, so whenever I travel my mind reminded me it was time to look at porn.” The human nervous system is designed to take whatever we do regularly and generate an autopilot program for carrying out that sequence independent of conscious choice. Once we’re programmed, an initial domino in the sequence is all it takes to tip over the whole row.

Kevin's solution was to invest some time practicing other mental responses and making them habitual. He integrated the practices describe in my posts The Path from Craving to Freedom and Mentally Practice Your Way Out of Craving. On his next business trip, he deliberately practiced an entirely different line of thinking as soon as he walked into his hotel room. Before he even unpacked his luggage, he took out nine tattered index cards and read them, pausing a few seconds to let each idea sink in:

"Don't choose guilt and depression over contentment."
"As I get free of this problem Olivia and I feel closer and closer."
"Sex is for connecting, not distraction."
"That path separates and isolates me."
"I have much more power when I turn away."
"Think of how hard it is to face Olivia after messing up."
"Remember who I am and what I stand for."
"That path diminishes love and disconnects us."
"Loneliness is hard but I can make it."

Once each day for a week prior to leaving on the trip, he had imagined himself in this very situation and then read the cards to practice. The repetition had helped lay down a new path for his brain to take, an alternative to the old pattern that had become habitual because of past repetition. He has continued this practice whenever he travels, breaking out the cue cards again a week prior to leaving. Despite being on the road extensively this past fall, he only lapsed once, which was a drastic improvement for Kevin.

Don't endlessly beat yourself up over a lapse. But don't merely dismiss it, either, as an inevitable part of the process of recovery from addiction. Instead, do as Doug and Kevin did. Take the time to do an autopsy. Adopt the mentality of a curious, scientifically-minded coroner. It may be a complex interaction of factors that makes us vulnerable to lapse. Thus, coming up with a solution can be a challenge. But it can also be quite an inspired, creative endeavor. (I'll stop short of calling it fun.)

Analyze away. Experiment away. And then please share with us what you discover and the ways you develop and grow along the way. I will be as excited to hear your story as I was to share Doug and Shelly's and Kevin and Olivia's!

Book Review: The Porn Trap, by Wendy Maltz & Larry Maltz

2011-11-29T20:48:00.000-08:00

Back in the 1980s, Wendy Maltz and her husband and fellow therapist, Larry, were not that concerned about pornography. Like most in the field, they thought it was essentially harmless. The use of porn was even promoted at professional trainings as a way to help couples reinvigorate their sex lives. Then the authors noted a trend: porn was moving couples away from being sexually intimate with each other. For too many of their clients, porn itself had become the object of desire. They wrote Porn Trap because "We believe you have a right to healthy, love-based sexual expression, and that today's multi-media driven pornography is interfering with that right" (p. 8).

The authors share this gem of a line from the 14th Century Sufi poet, Hafiz:

Learn to recognize the counterfeit coins
that may buy you just a moment of pleasure,
but then drag you for days
like a broken man
behind a farting camel.

The Maltzs' case material was gleaned from interviews with those whose lives have been depleted by porn. "While pornography may promise sexual freedom, it can eventually deliver a form of sexual oppression--robbing people of sexual innocence, sexual self-determination, and the skills to experience healthy relationships based on a loving connection with a real partner" (p. 8). The cases in the book make real the suffering, but also help illuminate the way out. And that's one real value of the book: if you're stuck, you read of others who have been, too, but have made their way out. When you've been stumbling in the dark, such rays of hope are precious.

Here's what I appreciate most about the book: the authors back up their compassion and optimism by providing practical tools. They suggest steps for deciding whether porn is hampering your happiness and relationships, tactics for quitting porn if you decide it is a problem, and in-the-bedroom practices for turning your sex life around so that it can build closeness and fulfillment in place of the separation and depletion that pornography fosters. Wendy Maltz's expertise in healthy sexuality and some great material from her previous books are distilled into the chapter entitled "A New Approach to Sex."

Of the many tools the authors share, I'll highlight a couple I find particularly helpful:

When you feel the gravitational pull of porn, here's something you can do to literally come to your senses. It's an exercise they entitle Shifting Your Attention. "A simple sensory awareness exercise can help you shift your attention away from what you've been thinking about and on to something else in your environment. For example, 'Now I'm aware of the sun coming through the window." Repeat and complete the phrase 'Now I'm aware of...' until you have identified five different things that you see. Continue the exercise stating five different things you are aware of hearing, then five different things you are aware of touching or feeling inside your body. This exercise can help center you sensually in the reality of your present environment and take you farther away from the fantasy world of porn" (p. 195).

This is a theme throughout the book: real life--everything from real events to real emotions to your flesh-and-blood lover--are antidotes to the unreal world of porn. This theme reaches its pinnacle in one of the final skills they cover, Involving Your Heart in Sex, which is needed because porn-informed sex is all about stimulation rather than heartfelt connection. When you are engaged in sexual activity:

Take a moment to touch your heart or your partner's heart to activate or stay connected to feelings of caring and love.
Take time to smile and make loving eye contact with your partner.
Temporarily shift your awareness from your genital arousal to the attributes you most admire and appreciate about your partner.
Take time to verbally express your feelings of affection to your partner.
Touch in loving and affectionate ways that you have learned will be valued and appreciated by your partner.

Thank you Wendy and Larry for this invaluable book! Your deep care for those caught in the porn trap shines through. Your work is helping make that group smaller--one person, one couple at a time!

Why Does My Boyfriend Look at Girls Online?

2011-10-26T20:42:00.000-07:00

Rachel's boyfriend Carl never talks about it, but there's evidence on the computer that he spends a lot of time looking at other women's bodies. Today she found evidence in the clothes hamper that those images are satisfying more than his curiosity. This kind of discovery is confusing and disturbing to many women.

Regular visitors know that this blog explores how porn impacts relationships and what we can do about it. Today I'd like to share some insights from another therapist who works in the field of sexual addiction.

Todd Frye, Ph.D., runs a sexual addictions provider certification program at MidAmerica Nazarene University. In this video he gets to the heart of the matter: porn addiction is an intimacy disorder. I'm excited to share it with you.

Here are a few of the insights he shares:

"Most people who struggle with intimacy struggle with the capacity to acknowledge what's going on inside of them and share that. Intimacy in Latin is intimus, which means innermost. They don't have the capacity to be reflective enough to know what is going on inside them and share it in a way in which someone else can connect with that, relate to that, and respond to that. [Intimacy] also has components of empathy, the capacity to give comfort, protection, and attunement to someone else....

"They don't learn how to take their pain, their sadness, and their joy to someone else and share it with them and experience it with them so that in turn that person can in turn offer a response that is a natural antidote to how they feel, that's validating and creates connection. They tend to isolate more, they tend to withdraw. The way to lower their anxiety is to isolate themselves and pull away....

"Just because I isolate myself, the need to connect with people doesn't die, doesn't just go away. So they position themselves to need something that's non-relational to feed this inability to connect or manage their mood. They use sexual addiction as a way of doing that."

Thanks Dr. Frye, for articulating these truths so well!

Image: graur codrin / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Revisit the Moment You Got Hooked on Porn

2011-10-25T11:40:00.000-07:00

Wyatt's eyes were closed and his face was flush. Watching his eyes flit beneath the lids, I knew his imagination was taking him on a wild and vivid ride back in time. He was going back to that moment when he got hooked on porn.

He could see the 12-year-old he once was. He felt for the kid. He spent most of that summer home alone. Older brother, his usual partner in crime, was off working in the laundromat at the strip mall halfway across town. Dad was at work and it seemed that Mom was always off with little sister helping at dance practice or traveling to competitions. Then Wyatt had the falling out with the gang of buddies in his neighborhood over a kick soccer ball game gone bad. He couldn't believe what poor sports they were. After that, it felt like all of the usual avenues for excitement were shut down. He rode his bike around town for a while, but that got old. Then he started watching a ton of TV.

The pictures in the magazine he found in the grove of trees near his home weren't hard core by today's standards. Wyatt had never tried drugs, but he couldn't imagine a drug unleashing a more potent euphoria than the warm, eager looks of those women. Their inviting, yet concealing poses knocked the breath right out of him. To say that he felt compelled to hide the magazine so that he could come back and look again is too weak a way to put it. His chest was heaving with breath, even his head pounding as he left the grove that day, wondering when he could return.

That is where the adult Wyatt imagined stepping into the path of his much younger self. He escorted him home and into his room, where he'd feel comfortable. He wanted talk to him about what had just happened, share his perspective as someone older and wiser. He wanted to help.

"That was something else, wasn't it?" He asked.

Still dazed, his younger self faintly nodded.

"I want you to know that what just happened inside of you is completely normal. It's not a good thing for women to expose themselves in that way for men's entertainment. It's not good for them or for the men who view it. But the fact that you had such a strong reaction is understandable. God gave you the gift of your sexuality. It's this tremendously potent life force within you, and what you just saw awakened it more powerfully than anything you've ever experienced.

As Wyatt watched him in his mind's eye, it seemed that his younger self was taking this all in.

"Your reaction does not mean you're a bad kid. Nothing of the sort! You're a good kid. In fact, you're a fine young man! Don't let that experience convince you that there's something wrong with you, that you're not a an upstanding, righteous individual. You don't need to feel ashamed that you were drawn by those images and feelings. You could have walked away from the magazine when you saw what it was, and that is the best way to handle it in the future, but it's understanding that you found it so riveting.

"That's one of the problems with pornography. It is riveting. As pleasurable as it can feel, it can also take control of your life. That's one of the reasons it will be better for you to avoid viewing it in the future. And that's one of the main messages I came back to give you: the conclusion you came to, that you have to go back and look some more, you can't pass up that opportunity, is incorrect. You can say no. You're better off avoiding it than indulging. To the degree that you pass on pornography, your life will be better.

"You just concluded that you need more of that in your life. Well, you don't need pornography the way it feels like you do. Part of the reason you don't need it the way it seems to you right now is that this hard time, when it feel like you're alone all the time and it seems like life is passing you by... this time is over. It's not happening anymore. I came here to show you you're not still stuck here. Time passes. Life gets better.

"Let me show you these pictures of how you grew up to become me: Here's you at 13 on the track team. 14 at your cousins' ranch riding horses. 15 practicing football with the high school team. 16 with your beat up red Toyota..." And so on Wyatt went, up to the present day. Then he imagined bringing his younger self into his home as it is now.

His younger self had all kinds of questions: What's it like to drive a truck? Is that really your boat in the driveway? When did you get a dog? As he answered the questions, Wyatt realized that this part of him that was most hooked on porn was not his adults self. It was a part of him that had been oblivious so far to the passage of time. In a way, this made sense: only a part of him who hadn't tasted the toxic fruit of porn in his life would still find it so magical and inviting.

"You don't have to go back there," Wyatt said finally. You don't live back there in that loneliness and addiction anymore. You don't have to live that way, vigilant for an appealing distraction from pain. On the lookout for an escape. You can stay with me and the dog and the boat here.

"If you stay here, and your job is no longer to look for opportunities to look for sexual stimulation, what would you like your new job to be?" Young Wyatt thought about that. "I want to look for other ways to have fun."

That sounded like a good compromise to Wyatt's adult self. He needed more fun in his life.

(The above account is a brief excerpt from a session of therapy technique developed by Peggy Pace called Lifespan Integration. To be effective, the process actually requires multiple "trips" through the client's timeline. If you think Lifespan Integration might help you, here is a directory of therapists who have been trained in the method.)

Image: photostock / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

It's Not that She Won't Forgive You

2011-10-24T05:02:00.000-07:00

"I feel bad that I can't let it go," Anna said through tears. Then she pressed her palm to her chest. "But there's still this heartache. There's this catch inside me that says, He still doesn't fully understand. He still doesn't get what his porn or his affair have done to me. It feels like, If I forgive him now, before it's 100% clear, I'll be putting myself at risk. I could think we've moved on, moved past it, and then somewhere down the road when he's tempted again, he'll give in. And yet still have no idea how it kills me. I can't afford that. So there's this part of me that won't let it go.

To Jonathan's credit, he just sat there, listening, trying to understand. I've seen husbands apologize and promise and plead. I recall one who'd preach wonderful sermons to his wife about forgiveness, quoting the Bible and Gandhi and Voltaire. Should have saved his breath.

I complimented Anna for opening up and Jonathan on the receptive stance he was taking. I encouraged them to let it continue throughout the week. I gave him a copy of two bullet point lists (You can find one of them in this earlier blog post. The other one is in Chapter 4 of our book). "Use these questions as a guide. They are the kinds of questions that help many women open up and let their feelings known about their partner's sexual acting out."

That week was an eye-opener and heart-softener for Jonathan. And a huge relief for Anna. The discussions they shared were revealing and intimate. In some ways, they felt closer to each than ever before.

Looking back, Jonathan wished they'd gotten to that depth of connection earlier. "Before, I was all about trying to avoid her having hurt feelings. I was constantly vigilant of the triggers that brought up old feelings for Anna. I stopped wearing cologne to work because she asked me about it once and I didn't want her to worry. And yet I discovered that there was nothing I could do to prevent her from having concerns, from having those old wounds reopened. We'd drive through some part of town and she'd be in tears. Can't go there anymore! We'd see a movie and she'd pull away from me. Stupid Hollywood! I was so misguided! Now I've learned that the key is not to walk on eggshells all the time to avoid making her feel bad. I need to be sensitive, sure. But when she does get scared or the wound is reopened again, those times are opportunities! I relish the chance to talk out whatever it is that suddenly made her feel bad. I can let her know I really want to get it. It's a chance for me to let her know my heart goes out to her when she hurts again because of what I've done."

"It's made a huge difference to know that he doesn't view our deep conversations as a chore anymore," Anna nodded. "It's how I heal. And he's the one I want to heal with. It doesn't matter who else cares and is willing to listen. When I hurt the most, I need Jonathan to hear me out."

Jonathan reached out and squeezed Anna's hand. His gesture spoke volumes: "I'm here for you. From now on, I'll always be willing to listen."

As I think back now about Jonathan and Anna, I don't recall her ever again mentioning that it was difficult to forgive him.

Image: graur codrin / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Why Do We Go to Porn When It's TLC We Need?

2011-10-21T08:44:00.000-07:00

In my last post I talked about Paul, who tended to go to porn when he felt down. As he learned to reach for support when he was in need, it helped him avoid relapse. Why did Paul even need therapist to help him change that habit? Why didn't he simply recognize on his own that he needed TLC when he felt deflated and seek it out?

Here are three key reasons we go to porn instead of seeking the emotional support we need:

1. We tend to deny everyday emotional bumps and bruises. As we are going about our day and something happens that we feel bad about, we don't typically take a moment to even acknowledge the "ouch." After all, we're men. As one of my clients put it, "As a commanding officer, I have a duty to be strong, or at least appear strong. The army doesn't pay me to be in tune with my upsets and doubts."

We fail to realize that these little buried emotions can linger and fester. Since we don't acknowledge those initial hits, later in the day when we still feel out of sorts, we may not even remember where those bad feelings started. We end up with little more than a vague sense that things feel off today.

2. Porn is a potent narcotic. Since we're not clear about the problem, it's no wonder we can end up pursuing a faulty "solution." The brain is good at going back to a way it has experienced relief before. Sexual fantasy and masturbation become a habit that provides that release.

Even after we discover that pent up feelings are at the root of our relapses, it can be a challenge to give up porn as an easy and reliable source of immediate relief. Our solution may be misguided, but it's also addictive.

3. It feels more manly to be horny than to be needy. Consider Earl, for example. Once we discussed it, he had an easy time seeing the connection between emotion and relapse. He went home and let his wife, Helen, know that he'd be opening up when he felt bad. She was receptive, even eager to connect with him when he is in need. He was convinced that her attitude would pave the way for him to do it in the heat of the moment. And yet in our next session, he described calling her the day before because he was feeling off--sort of lonely--at work. "It was nice to talk with her and I felt better after hanging up, but I never was able to spit out the reason for the call."

As hard as it is to make ourselves vulnerable, we can do it! Once we do, life gets much easier. It's not only that we're more able to stay in the driver's seat of our lives and abstain from porn. As we become more comfortable being real, we become more relaxed overall. And the connection we feel to our partner catapults the joy of that relationship into a whole new territory.

Image: graur codrin / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

We Go to Porn When We Need TLC

2011-10-19T04:52:00.000-07:00

Paul had a hard day at work. His rear end hurt. His eighthour shift at the call center was long and boring. He thought about his buddieswho still worked at the car wash and longed for the good old days. He came homeand slumped over the kitchen table and unloaded all his complaints to his mom.

“Oh, honey,” she cooed. “It’s so hard to make these kindsof transitions. Life’s not nearly as fun as it used to be. I can see how hard itis right now to hold the course, even though you thought it would be the best wayto pay tuition.”

After a couple of minutes, Paul got up from the table,nodded an appreciative look to his mom, and walked downstairs to get ready forhis workout.

Paul has learned to check in about what he’s feeling. Hehas discovered that when he spills his emotions in this way and senses that hismom’s heart is going out to him, he feels some relief. It helps him “reset”emotionally.

When we find ourselves disoriented by unsettling emotion, we are genuinely in need. Fortunately, the human nervoussystem has a way of getting us what we really need when we need it. Ourattention narrows to the one thing our survival seems to depend on. We becomeextremely motivated to seek it. The brain becomes like a pit bull that won’tlet go.

Our genuine survival needs are all that way. We needoxygen, and if we are ever deprived ofit, the brain makes sure nothing else matters until we get it. We have moreleeway when it comes to sleep and food, but if we’re deprived long enough,eventually we become single-minded and driven until those survival needs aresatisfied.

Our need for compassion and support when we’re strugglingemotionally is just as essential to our well-being. Connection with a loved-oneat such times is our emotional oxygen. Take a deep breath of it, and we ourbrain resets and we can move on with life. When we’re denied it, we can’t easilyturn our focus to other things. We stay narrow-minded, shut down, and functionat a much lower level than usual.

If we can’t acknowledge what we feel, reach out tosomeone close, and sort it out with them, then we fail to reset in the most fittingway. We remain emotionally distraught and cognitively compromised. And,unfortunately, primed for a relapse. The brain is craving relief from thedistress, and porn provides a powerful distraction. But it’s only apseudo-reset, not a genuine solution. Soon the original distress returns, andwith it with the added bite that we let porn into the driver’s seat of our livesagain.

That’s how it used to go for Paul. Fortunately, he takesa better path now when he’s feeling downhearted.

Image: photostock / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

High Branch, Sweet Fruit: Why the Best Sex is between Committed Partners

2011-10-14T08:19:00.000-07:00

Porn ruins real sex. Fortunately, great sex can heal the porn-numbed brain.

It's fun to see the sexual rescusitation of men whose desire had been numbed and deadened by pornography.

First, they had to take a leap of faith. They were willing to bet that connecting with their wife would be more exciting and fulfilling, in the long run, than the thrill of porn.

That's not an easy leap for some men. When they turn from porn, with its top-of-the-scale intensity, sex with a familiar partner with a real body can seem bland. Many men find that they can't even get aroused any more during sex play with their wife. That can be scary and frustrating. It's tempting to fall back on the old standby.

Couples who patiently stay with it and push through that initial difficulty can eventually enjoy the best sex they've ever had.

Here's why: the dopamine rush from porn that deadens our sensitivity is not permanent. The body recovers. When it does, appetites can return to a healthy level. We can begin anew to want our partner deeply. Skin-to-skin contact becomes a thrill again. The warmth of eachother's bodies is immensely gratifying. We get back to where the mere scent of our partner drives us wild.

Make no mistake: this sweet fruit is on a high branch. We can't just be physically and mentally monogamous. We have to connect in a way that is different from the sexuality portrayed in popular media.

Our culture definitely has been pornified. We have come to expect intense arousal followed by intense stimulation followed by intense orgasms.

The best sex proceeds in a more nuanced way than that. It demands that we take the time to connect, express love, touch each other, hold each other. We orient toward this other human being who resides in the body in bed next to us rather than focusing narrowly on our own desires or their body parts. The best sex expands and invites our entire soul in the process rather than contracting down to the fewest ingredients that make up the easiest recipes for pleasure.

Abstain from porn. Hold each other. Speak lovingly to each other. Let your skin and her skin be the interface by which your hearts speak to each other's. Press your skin to hers; hold her skin greedily against yours. Let that most basic pleasure of contact and warmth soothe you. Be patient. Over time, it will excite you again. When it does, don't focus on the goal of the climax. Don't abandon each other chasing after dopamine. Stay with one another on that wondrous plateau of connecting and mutual pleasuring.

Have more sex. Not just more frequency, but more depth, more length, more breadth. Share that togetherness during lovemaking that doesn't come at any other time. Share that exclusivity. Be reminded of that priveleged status that each of you hold in each other's life. Let sex be an expression of all that.

The kind of connection you'll develop is spiritual and emotional, but it's not just those things--it's also chemical. With this kind of lovemaking we bathe each other's brains in oxytocin. Oxytocin bonds us more intensely to one another. It makes my partner more attractive to me. It makes us want each other more. And over time we become more sensitive to each other. Think of that! What a cool process: we are being sensitized! Just the opposite of what dopamine does to us, deadening and desensitizing over time.

So don't give up! Stay together! Dump porn! Have faith in the process! And make more love--not just more often, but more lovingly.

Here's good news: even if erectile dysfunction has been a problem, a limp penis can't stop you from this kind of lovemaking. And don't worry, it's only temporary. Your verility will return.

Your lives together will be better than ever. We see it happen all the time. There are lots of couples in the process of doing it.

Becoming Immune to Cravings

2011-10-12T08:59:00.000-07:00

Okay, so maybe immune is too strong a word. But we can get to the point where urges have much less power over us.

Consider Russ: He's a 34 year old married father of three boys. When I started working with him a year and a half ago, he already knew what made him more vulnerable to relapse. From his file I read in the notes of one of our first meetings:

"When I get weighed down with stress, like at work, temptations come more easily to mind. The list of things I need to do keeps growing, and I can't attack tasks fast enough to keep up. I get this feeling in my chest like a band is tightening. I have a harder time breathing and I'm prone to sighing more. That oppressive feeling can linger even when I get home. I may try to play with the kids, but I can't get into it. If Cheryl asks me to do soemthing I think, Why can't she do it? It's like the stress has totally taken the wind out of my sails."

Looking back at my notes from those early sessions, I also find this admission: "Neither Cheryl nor I are good at sharing concerns, feelings, frustrations. It's how we were raised. Both of our families are averse to admitting struggles and talking about how you're really feeling. I remember as a kid when we stayed with my grandfather after his hip surgery to help him while he recuperated. One of his neighbors said, 'Hubert, why are you limping?' He said, 'I'm not limping!' Likewise, I remember walking in one day after school to find my mom in tears. I said, 'What's the matter?' She answered, 'I just need to buck up.'"

Well, that's one family legacy Russ and Cheryl won't be passing on. Here are some excerpts from the notes of my most recent session with him:

"I've been breezin' through the last couple of months. It feels like everything in my recovery is coming together. Initially I thought that our sexual relationship would have to be going well in order for me to feel good, overall, about things. However, we still aren't having sex or touching each other as much as I'd prefer. We tried scheduling sex on a regular basis, but that didn't work well for us. But I just don't get upset about it the way I used to."

"I guess the biggest difference is that Cheryl and I are talking well about hard things. I talk about whether or not I get tempted. If a tempting thought pops in my head, I can share it with her. But most of what we talk about are emotional struggles, hers and mine. Even little things. She opened up to me when she lent out our rice cooker and it came back with the teflon scraped. We're recognizing how important it is to talk feelings out instead of keeping them pent up.

"It was especially helpful this month when I suffered a big disappointment at work. The chief operations officer put me in charge of a really exciting project. I thought, They're finally recognizing my talents and giving me a shot. Unbeknownst to him, some hotshot in another department went to the CEO to turn in his resignation. In an effort to keep him, the president told him he could be in charge of the project that had just been assigned to me. So they brought me into the CEO's office the next day and ripped the rug out from under me.

"I feel such a lack of accomplishment at work. I get so bored. I feel underutilized and so rarely challenged. Then, finally there's a ray of sunshine, and it's quickly snuffed out. I told Cheryl my sob story that night. She let me cry on her shoulder. The next day I talked it out with her again. In fact just about every day that week we had long, heartfelt discussions.

"Funny thing was, on Friday afternoon of that week I went to my parents' house to set the DVR to record a game I didn't want to miss. They have unfiltered internet access and all the satellite channels. A year ago, that would have been the perfect setup for a relapse. It's the end of a long week at work, especially a week like that. But that day, I walked into their house, set the DVR, shrugged off the other possibilities, and then left. I sat down in the driver's seat of my car and thought, Woo hoo! I'm in the driver's seat of my life!"

Sometimes it's hard to work in the field of addiction. But hearing from clients like that Russ about victories like that make it all worth it.

Image: photostock / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Craving Tenderness

2011-10-10T19:43:00.000-07:00

Frank's struggle has spanned half a century. He got into porn before he was even a teenager, and now, at age 63, he still considers it an addiction.

When I started meeting with Frank over a year ago, he succumbed almost daily to temptation. Lately, he sometimes goes weeks between lapses. Despite his improved track record, there are still times when Frank gets swept away by the stiff current of craving.

A couple of weeks ago, Frank had given in to the urge two days before our session. It was a good chance to take a step back and consider what put him in a state where he was more vulnerable.

"I felt bad that day. Carol was coming home from her sister's place in Arizona. I told her to wake me up when she got home. Well, I woke up at about 6:00 p.m. That's the middle of the night for me since I work graveyard. I was surprised to hear the TV on in the other room. I thought, She got home and didn't even bother to wake me up. I was annoyed."

Later that night, in his office at the plastics manufacturing plant, Frank got online and masturbated to pornography.

"Did you talk to Carol about how you felt?" I asked

"Not really," Frank responded. "I asked her why she didn't wake me up, but then I had to run off to work."

"If you had talked to her, what might you have said?"

"I wouldn't have talked to her. I don't want to put that burden on her. Especially after what I did that night when I was feeling bad. I don't want to put the blame for that on her."

"It's not that you'd be blaming her," I insisted, "just opening up to her about important, tender feelings. I role played for him what he might say: 'It was so good when you called from Blanding. I missed you this last week. The house seemed empty and my whole day revolved around you getting home. Then, when I woke up discovered you were home, and concluded you simply hadn't bothered to come wake me up, something collapsed inside. You're so important to me. If I start to feel like I don't matter to you, it feels lousy inside. I can go through the motions of the day, but not whole-heartedly. There's a part of me that keeps feeling wounded and vulnerable."

Although I put more tenderly than Frank would, I could tell by the tears welling in the corner of his eyes that I'd touched a chord.

When Frank and I met again this week, he said "I talked to Carol about opening up to her in that way. She said she'd welcome it. She's been wanting that kind of closeness for years."

That week, when Frank had a bad day, he came home and spilled his guts. "I had all these errands to run, but I sat for the longest time waiting at the doctor's office. Then, when they finally took me back, they had to keep poking me trying to get blood. It took three different nurses and over an hour to finally collect it. Now I'll only get five hours of sleep tonight. It'ts so frustrating."

I could imagine Carol: "Oh, Honey. I'm sorry you had to go through all that. It must have been so frustrating to have everything slow you down as you were trying to get things done and get back here to bed on time."

"I bet you slept better after talking to Carol," I said.

"It sure has felt better," Frank admitted. Then he described the kind of changes in his pornography struggle that I've come to expect over the years as I've seen couples learn to connect more deeply and emotionally: "Mind doesn't tend to wander to sex as much... urges are easier to dismiss..."

Rock on Frank! Keep it up and before long you'll be firing me. As much as I've grown to love you and enjoy the time we spend together a couple times a month, I will welcome that day and celebrate with you that landmark on your path of recovery!

Image: Ambro / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The Way Out of Porn Addiction

2011-10-09T07:47:00.000-07:00

Greta said, "Stan's been telling me every time he has a pornography relapse, but his rate of lapsing has been the same for a months now. Honesty and openness with me doesn't seem to be helping him kick the habit."

This is one of the most frequent complaints I hear from visitors to this blog and from the women who come up and talk to me after I give a presentation on pornography addiction.

There was still a missing piece in Stan's recovery. He was open about viewing pornography after the fact. That was a great foundation for the work he needed to do next. Stan needed to become more aware of what set him up to relapse, and be more open about it with Greta. For many men, this becomes the heart of their ongoing recovery.

What's Eating At Me?

Most of the time Stan went along doing fine. Sexual temptation didn't even faze him. I encouraged Stan to watch for those times when sex suddenly became supercharged. "Cravings for our addiction are like a divining rod," I said. "They tell us there's something else important going on. Take inventory of what's happening in your life. What have you been going through? Most importantly, how are you feeling about it?"

It didn't take long for Stan to put this idea into practice. He got online to do some homework for his business class during his lunch hour at work. At the bottom of the webpage about a silicon valley company he was researching, there was a link that was mildly sexually provocative. "I felt the pull to click. I tried to dismiss the impulse and move on. But then I was reading a different news feed about the same company on another site, and again I felt lured by a thumbnail of some scantily dressed celebrity. It was frustrating because I'd been doing well for a couple of weeks. I shut down the computer and called Greta. I told her that I was following your suggestion to call when I was struggling. She reminded me that I was supposed to not just open up about temptation, but also spill my guts about what else was going on at the time.

"I told her, 'Homework is a real drag. Here I am eating my peanut butter sandwich so that I can study the entire hour. A couple of guys brought back Mexican takeout, which I can smell from my cubicle. I get feeling pent up in this place when I don't leave at all during my entire shift. And what do I have to look forward to when I get off tonight? Instead of going golfing with you, I get to go sit under the fluorescent lights in the old business school building and listen to a lecture. I want to keep working toward graduating, but do get feeling sorry for myself sometimes in the middle of the sacrifices we're making now."

Greta's was sympathetic. "Oh, honey. I'd rather go golfing with you tonight, too." Both of them were quiet for a moment, but Stan could tell that she was letting her heart go out to him. "Thanks for talking to me about what's going on inside for you," Greta finally said.

"Sure you won't get sick of hearing my sob story?" Stan asked?

"Hey I want to be in this together with you. I feel closer to you when I know what's eating at you. I want you to let me in like that."

Vulnerability Is Harder, But Works Better than Porn

When they told me about their conversation that day, I knew they had launched into a new stage of recovery.

Stan and Greta's transition into openness about emotion had come fairly easily; it's much more difficult for some couples. It's quite an adjustment to develop the habit. It's hard to let out what's eating at us and making us more vulnerable to unwanted urges. However, often, nothing else will help us reset and get back to feeling mentally free. To purge the urge, we first need to spill our guts.

Strong emotion puts us in a regressed state of mind. It's uncomfortable and we want a way out. Outwardly, we may try to--and even appear to--move on with our lives, but our feelings can stay stuck on yuck. We still need a release. This is when the addictive sexual behavior we've been trying to avoid can start to seem so attractive again. Our brain knows it would provide a quick escape from the muck when more reasonable alternatives just don't seem to hit the spot. The other things we try don't give us any traction out of the regressed, vulnerable state into which we've dropped.

Pouring out our heart, expressing vulnerable emotions, is a response that respects and matches the state we're in. More so than trying to snap out of it or distract ourselves by doing something that feels good. Spilling our guts may seem like whining and it may seem immature, but that's just because our vulnerable state calls for the same kind of soothing young children need. We freely give that TLC to them, but we hesitate to seek it as adults or give it to each other. But guess what? We never grow out of our need for empathy, compassion, and understanding. When we feel bad, when we're downhearted, when our spirits are dampened, we need tenderness and caring. As appealing as porn can be at such times, it offers nothing more than momentary distraction.

Image: photostock / FreeDigitalPhotos.net (http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=2125)

Getting Back to Magnetic Sex

2011-06-03T10:13:00.000-07:00

Most couples remember a time when sex drew them together, made them want to cling hungrily to each other. Making love magnetized them, and so magnetized, they wanted even more sex.

Oh, to spin 'round again in that happy circle!

Is it still possible? Or does monogamy inevitably foster monotony? It sure seems to for many couples. In a response to my article on Corey Allan's Simple Marriage blog, a reader I’ll call Josh wrote:

“My personal weakness is for watching strip teases.... What I find thrilling is seeing a beautiful woman with a great body who is proudly, happily, and excitedly stripping her clothes off for her special viewer. I’m turned on to her excitement and willingness to share her sexiness.

“My wife suffers from very low self-esteem. She thinks her body is ugly, and the thought of doing a strip tease for me terrifies her. I’ll agree, she doesn’t have a model body. But I believe that if she had that confidence, she would be very sexy to me. She used to be addicted to pornography to dull the pain in her very unfortunate teenage life, so she knows the ‘standard of sexiness.’ She won’t allow herself to believe she’s sexy, therefore, until she has a supermodel body. Personally, I get very discouraged because I don’t think that’s ever going to happen. One reason I go to pornography is because I have a need to feel deeply attracted to a woman, and though I love my wife and she’s my best friend, her insecurities prevent her from being deeply attractive to me.

“I am drawn to pornography because I want to feel that thrilling attraction to a young woman. I fantasize that she is my mate, and that she is willing to give me that sexual excitement over and over again because she loves me. However, when my wife finds out about this situation, she is very hurt. She feels that she has been replaced, and becomes frightened that she will be tossed aside and abandoned, confirming that she is worthless. It’s a lose-lose situation.

“Watching pornography also lowers my self-esteem. It makes me feel like an animal. When I’ve been watching it often, I undress women I pass in the street in my mind, then evaluate them based on their sexual excitement potential. I generally tend to have far more passionate sex and more intense orgasms, but that’s because when I’m making love with my wife in the dark, fantasies of making love to the women I saw on the screen send my imagination into overload. Then, I am left feeling depressed that all of those beautiful women are not my mates, that my mate is really not that sexually attractive at all.

“While watching pornography is extremely exciting and a motivating factor pushing my wife to be a sexy partner, I also feel guilt about watching it, it leads me to be dishonest with my wife and my employer, and makes me feel disappointed in my wife and feel regret for marrying her. It also makes me critical of her, which pushes her in the opposite direction of healing from this problem. I am therefore doing everything I can to eliminate pornography by attending a weekly addiction recovery group with other men who have lost their wives and children because of it.

“But that alone is not the answer. I am desperate to figure out what can be done that will help my wife gain the confidence and the emotional security to feel that she can open up with me sexually and be a really fun and enticing sexual partner.”

Josh and Kaitlin are in a downward spiral. Their problem is shared by many couples.

Our sexual sensibilities have been so swayed by pornography, we’re now more focused than ever on appearance and performance. Our porn-saturated minds have been backed into a corner of consciousness during sex. Heightened awareness loops back and forth between the brain and the genitals, what we’re seeing and how we’re doing, but rarely ventures anywhere else. Outside stimulants (pornography or even another human being) are there to be "consumed" as "input" by the brain in order to have the desired effect on the genitals, which hopefully then has the desired effect on the dopamine circuits of the brain, and so on. Our partner becomes little more than "the other body" rattling around within an otherwise vacuous energy system.

To be emotionally on our own during lovemaking is particularly lonely. Don’t misunderstand, I’m not suggesting that it disconnects a couple when one partner gets lost in the depths of delight at the cusp of orgasm. Neither does stimulating one's own genitals during sex. Rather, the human connection is hindered rather than strengthened when a porn-saturated partner is routinely "out of it" during sex, "lost in their own world," allowing their interest in their own stimulation or performance to eclipse this living, breathing human being who would like to connect with them. Sex, which can so potently attach us to our beloved and electrify the relationship becomes just another mood altering drug. Being another person’s fix can feel pretty empty.

A more deeply personal, emotionally engaged sex life is one of the best reasons to give up porn and one of the greatest rewards for doing so, but it requires a new approach. It's a challenge to practice relationship-oriented sex when auto-eroticism has been the familiar path of least resistance.

Here’s how I responded to Josh:

“To enhance the likelihood that sex will connect rather than detach the two of you as partners, pay attention to the loop of energy and communication that flows back and forth as you express and receive physical affection from Kaitlin.

“As the two of you begin to come together physically, focus on what you feel in your heart when you attend to her. Then, let the touch of your hand on her shoulder blade, the press of of your hips against hers, express that energy. Look into her eyes to see what’s in her heart. Are the signals you’re sending by way of your touch making it all the way down into her soul?

“Perhaps not yet. That’s okay, keep trying. Use your voice. Might your words and your mmm’s and aaahh’s pierce through the fog of separateness and reestablish that precious soul-to-soul link? By way of your voice, convey your feelings. Messages so sent need not stop at the ears or the brain. Let them reverberate more deeply.

“Skin and lips and tongue and even genitals may be the concrete means of communication, but the messages are being sent spirit to spirit.

“Let yourself receive her words, her touch in the same manner. Making love in this way awakens entirely new possibilities and vitality. You’ll rise above the stimulant/brain/genital loop that has isolated you from ‘refreshing’ input from Kaitlin, this real, live, warm, breathing, human other.

“The focus turns from appearance and performance to mindful attunement to what’s real now–two individuals and a dynamic mix of feelings, sights, sound, textures, and smells. Lovemaking as a vehicle to connect soul-to-soul and mingle your very essence with hers brings a new level of excitement and immediacy. Porn, sex toys, and your wildest fantasies can’t hold a candle to what emotional connection does for sex.

“As the two of you are becoming intimate, what if Kaitlin expresses hesitation and self-doubt? Ask her to give you the gift of staying in touch with what is genuinely passing between the two of you instead of reverting to what she thought she saw in the mirror earlier in the day or the sexual trauma that occurred back when she was single. Keep your mind on her when it’s used to wandering to the strip teasing mental mistresses. You may keep the light on so that you can look deep into her eyes in hopes that she will see that you don’t want the dissatisfaction of mutual disconnection anymore. Express your willingness in this way to really be with her here and now.

“Here is another human being giving you the gift of her attention. If she feels insecure and her eyes downcast, she is being emotionally real with you in that moment. Don’t regret that, be with her there, in that feeling. Let it into your heart. Then let your heart respond to that and convey that response by way of touching her cheek, looking at her, embracing her, vocalizing words and soothing sounds. It may be compassion you’re conveying, but also a different view: an appreciation and a hope that she will allow in the esteem you hold for her and your desire for her (and no other woman) to come out from behind her shield and play with you sexually, fully share herself with you. It will require sacrifice to truly be with each other in this way, but what each of you gain will be well worth what you’ll be giving up.”

Because of the discouragement he had expressed, I assumed that Josh and Kaitlin might have a way to go to get to what I was describing. Imagine how delighted was to get this response from him the very next day:

“Thank you very much for the advice. I spent a good while thinking about this, and realized that although we have had erotic lovemaking before, we are not initiating it now. I talked to Kaitlin about this, and we both realized that my fears of being sexually disappointed and frustrated and her fears of being a disappointment were preventing us from initiating erotic lovemaking. We discussed what it took for us. Talking, snuggling, and then stripping is what we came up with. Then, we decided that we would set up specific days of the week to do it, so that with experience our fears will subside and our ability to let go and connect will get stronger. I also believe it will lead us to have a less stressful approach to life as well!

“Thank you for your post. Connecting with her emotionally is something we’ve had difficulty doing, in bed and out, but we found something that really helps. 6 months ago we heard about and tried Harville Hendix’s Imago Dialogue, and it has revolutionized our communication. It used to be our conversations were riddled with fear and pain, but after the dialogue, we’ve both been able to calm our fears and communicate clearly and listen with a open heart and willing mind. I highly recommend it, even though it seems weird at first. I’ve also been encouraging Kaitlin to calm down and ‘feel’ instead of stressing out about ‘performing’ for me. Connecting emotionally as you mentioned is definitely something I will be thinking about.”

Has your lovemaking has become routine? Do you feel cut off from your partner? Get back to heart-to-heart sex. Let us know what you learn in the process.

Image: photostock / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Only You can Ground Her Emotionally

2011-05-03T10:58:00.000-07:00

On page 31-32 of our book, Geoff tells the story of Teri, who uses the word "gruesome" to describe her life with Ken since she found out about his involvement in pornography. Ken could have easily reacted defensively--"Life with you hasn't exactly been a picnic, either!"--which would have left her feeling misunderstood. If he hadn't been her "ground wire," letting her pain pass through him at that time, it would have continued to build for her. She may have felt the need to use even stronger language the next time she was hurting.

Instead of defending himself or attacking Teri, Ken asked her to tell him more about what the word gruesome captured in her experience. He asked her to let him in on just how much she'd been hurting. She talked those feelings out, and as a result she felt more understood by him and safer with him. As a result of conversations like that one, over time her feelings toward Ken had been softening rather than heightening.

Since then Ken has kept trying to listen to Teri when she's upset instead of pulling away from her. Her anger has continued to transform over time. Recently Ken sent this email to Geoff:

"Teri has been so close and we've both felt very connected. She has not had an anger episode for 51 days. What a wonderful milestone! Yesterday was the first time and it was really not an episode. It was so much better. We sat and talked about what she was going through. She did not pull away and get depressed, laying in bed. She was not quiet and did not reject my offers to be there to listen. We were able to talk.

"She said that watching my progress toward re-baptism into our church is bringing up all the old feelings in her. She's reminded that it's because of my betrayal that we even have to be going through this in the first place. She told me how hard that is for her. I responded that it is hard for me as well. She said, 'I hate it when you say that! Why do you say that?' Just because I was having a hard time, too, I said.

"She said, (mind you I understand that this is the anger talking) that she did not want to go to the baptism. I said, I can certainly understand why you would not want to. We sat there for a while and did not say anything. I just kept rubbing her back. After several minutes she asked what I was thinking. I had just finished reading Love You, Hate the Porn, so I said, 'I'm thinking about how glad I am that we are here together sharing the pain, and that we are not alone.' She said 'we are not sharing the pain, we are just talking. It doesn’t help the pain.' I said that it may not seem to help right away, but for me it does make a difference later. It drifts away so much faster when I've shared it instead of keeping it inside. She just listened and said 'hmm.'

"After a while she said she was angry. I told her I was sorry she was. She said she hated it when I said that. She hates it because, although she knows Imean it, I have said it so many times. (The funny thing is she always tells me an hour, a day, a few days later that it did help.) I know at the moment she is in angry mode and doesn't really want anything to help. In fact she told me 'I want to be angry.' I just said 'That's okay. I'll be here with you while you are angry.'

"She instructed me as to which spot her back needed rubbing. She asked why I wasn't getting angry back at her anymore if this topic is still hard for me. I told her that, having gone through 34 years of internal struggle, I was sick of feeling that way inside. I know for me the anger just festers and takes me to false beliefs and places that I don’t want to be anymore, so now I follow my exit plan of the things to think of to get out of that place. If I were to try to figure it out how to handle my anger in the moment, it would take much longer to get out. I would be like a general trying to make an exit plan in the midst of being defeated. I told her that this works for me, but it's okay for her to be angry if she wants to. She said, 'who would want to stay angry?' There was a slight, 'c’mon that is silly,' in her tone, a disconnect from her statement from a few minutes ago that she wanted to stay angry. Isaid 'You're right, no one would.'

"The trust is still building. At one point in our conversation she talked about sharing her story again in group therapy. It brought back up a lot of scared feelings for her. Virtually all of the ladies in her group are on the verge of divorce. She asked why I was such the exception. All of the other guys seem to be relapsing and struggling with the addiction still. Why are you the only guy out there that is not relapsing. After a bit she said, 'You have all become master liars. You could be lying to me right now. How am I supposed to know that you are not lying to me?'

"It was so peaceful to not get defensive, to not have feelings of fear or feel unappreciated for all the work I have done. I knew she just needed reassurance and to feel safe again after her discussion with the women in her group group rocked that. I just said to her, 'There is no way of you knowing. I know it's hard to trust me. I did lie and hid and you're right, I could be lying now. I'm not, and all you can do is look at my behavior and the things I'm doing that are different than what I used to do. I do my daily plan of action and you see the way I interact with you and the kids now compared to the way I used to. Those little things would change if I were acting out again. She said a soft 'Uh, huh' in agreement, as I was instructed once again to rub her shoulder.

"She now told me to rub her hip that had been sore. We lay there on the bed with each other until we had to get the kids ready for school and I had to get ready for work. When I left we had a long embrace. There were no words said other than 'I love you' from both of us, but there was an understanding that we are okay together. What I heard in that embrace was 'Thanks for being there for me and allowing me to feel and share. The pain is better.' We kissed and the next time we saw each other there were smiles, love, safety and security in our relationship.

"The big difference for me at this stage in recovery is the positive feeling I have about this experience. I see these discussions as extremely valuable and productive instead of something to be avoided at all costs. Sure she has difficult emotions, but the point is: she expresses them to me. She wants me to touch her and soothe her. She wants me to stay right by her and be with her. She may say some things that sound contrary to that, but I know to look under the conversation, which is by far more important. I know not to react from the hip at a statement. I understand that decades down the road I will still have to offer safety and security to her, and as I show patience and love she will respond in kind. In this way our bond will become stronger and stronger and our connection will be eternal."

When Geoff sent me this update from Ken, he said, "What a blessing to be involved in this great work." I couldn't agree more. Wow. When I witness the heroic efforts of couples like Ken and Teri, I'm blown me away. What a privilege to see love conquer pain and connection defeat separation. If that hasn't happened for you yet, don't give up! You'll get there, and the victory will be even sweeter for all the pain you've suffered in battles along the way.

Image: photostock / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

(http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=2125)

Mentally Practice Your Way Out of Craving

2011-04-19T04:36:00.000-07:00

When I worked at a preschool for autistic children, we went through a peculiar routine every time one of them failed to follow directions.

"Kevin, it's time to clean up." Little Kevin was oblivious. "Kevin, please put your toy away." He kept playing with the truck. "Kevin, you need to put your toy away." No response.

Now it was my job to walk over and guide little Kevin's body through the motions of cleaning up. "Kevin, it's time to clean up." Placing my hand over his, I'd guide his hand down and help him pick up the toy truck with it. I would them walk him over to the toy bin and help him drop the truck in. There you go Kevin. That's the way we clean up.

With that, we would have been done--if I'd had my way.

But I wasn't in charge. I was following a treatment program. So instead of getting on with the reading activity that was next on the schedule, I'd pick up the little truck, walk Kevin back over to where he'd been playing, and drop the truck on the ground again, where we repeated the whole thing.

"Kevin, it's time to clean up." The guiding of his hand, the picking up of the toy, the walking to the bin, and the dropping of the toy in the right place.

Then we did it again. And again. For a total of ten reps. If you're thinking, "Wow, that would get old," you're right. It got really old.

But drudgery was not the goal. I wasn't punishing Kevin into submission. Push the little Sisyphus's rock down the hill again and make him do it all over again.

The developer of our program, Dr. Ivar Lovaas, knew that impaired nervous systems need more repetition in order to acquire skills and generate them independently when they're called for. It wasn't enough for Kevin's mentally distant mind to know what he needed to do next. His brain and body needed to be conditioned: This instruction goes with this behavior. See, this instruction goes with this behavior. And, as if that weren't enough, this instruction... You get the idea.

The principle of repetitive conditioning can be very helpful to those of us in the habit of repeatedly engaging in self-destructive behavior.

In the throes of a craving, our nervous systems are impaired, in a way. We are mentally distant, not unlike little Kevin. It's as though the mind's in a thick forest, and can only see one path from here: succumbing to the urge.

Every time you take that path in the heat of the moment and end up acting out, why not go back to that forest after things have cooled off and make a few practice runs, mentally? Imagine taking a better path, one you hope to take in the future.

Olivia was excited to practice this exercise. She'd relapsed four days ago. I had her imagine sitting at the computer again and having the urge to view pornography. She dwelt on that for 30 seconds. Then she imagined standing up, walking out of her dorm room, and then outside for some fresh air. She repeated to herself these thoughts, which we'd come up with earlier:

"Walking away feels good now and builds strength for later."
"I won't have to suffer the usual guilt and discouragement."
"It will feel good to have conquered this problem by the time I leave for summer break."

She spent time dwelling on each thought and associating it with the trigger situation: being alone in her dorm room with the urge to view pornography.

Then, she thought about a second scenario where she found pornography tempting: watching TV late at night. After thirty seconds of focusing on it, she imagined standing up, turning off the TV, and walking into the bathroom to get ready for bed.

"Walking away feels good now and builds strength for later."
"I won't have to suffer the usual guilt and discouragement."
"It will feel good to have conquered this problem by the time I leave for summer break."

Olivia practiced imagining being in a state of craving and then taking a different path this way for ten minutes a day over the next month. It built her capacity for standing up to cravings and making a different choice in the heat of the moment.

3 Reasons to Beware of Porn

2011-04-11T20:26:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Corey for running this guest post over on his Simple Marriage site. It's already generated some great comments--mostly critical. I need to follow up and site the research backing up my statement there that "study after study" has demonstrated that pornography use decreases the viewer's satisfaction with and attraction to his or her partner. I see couples so immersed in the problems that result from porn that I start to think that these conclusions are not only backed by good research but also by common sense...

Picture Your Porn-Free Future

2011-03-26T03:26:00.000-07:00

If our work together accomplishes exactly what you hope, how will things be different for you in six weeks... six months... six years?

It's a question I ask all my new clients.

Jake didn't need time to ponder. "I won't have this problem, my porn habit, weighing me down. I'll be able to focus on other things in my life without worrying when the obsessions are going to return with a vengeance and eclipse everything important to me."

What will that be like for you?

"Oh, a tremendous relief. I will know that my hopes and efforts weren't in vain. I have to admit, with how much I've struggled, I've started wondering whether it's a dream that will never come true."

What will that mean to you? To feel that relief? To know you've made it?

"Oh..." Jacob's face reddened and his voice faltered. "That would mean everything to me. It feels like this is the main thing holding me back from the life I want. I have a wonderful wife, a new daughter, a job I like... It would finally feel like I'm living the life I want, complete and free with this cleaned up. I wouldn't have this burden, this recurring failure, holding me back and pressing me down."

I always know we're getting somewhere when folks talk about burdens lifting, murkiness clearing, being able to breathe more easily. Things are brighter, lighter, and there's plenty of oxygen. Life is good!

It would be huge for you.

"It would mean everything to me. For the first time in my adult life, I could count on my mind being under my own control."

If there were a price tag on this future you're envisioning, how much would you be willing to pay to have it?

"It would be priceless. There's limit to what I would pay."

If I were to travel into the future, follow you around for a day, videotape everything, then come back and push play right now, what would we see on-screen?

"Me living with self-respect and confidence."

How could we tell that's what you feel inside? What would we see on-screen?

"I'd be looking the people I care about in the eye. You'd see my wife smiling instead of looking tense. I'd be involved, working side-by-side with people instead of withdrawing back to my own cubicle in hopes that they won't notice that I have this dark side. I'd look at ease and have a smile on my face when I went to bed at night."

Bingo. Jake's individuality and personalized vision for the future is really sinking in for me. He's not just one more client struggling with the same problem I work on with most of my other clients. I'm starting to feel hopeful for his future and excited about helping him get there. I'm eager for that future moment when Jake and I will look back and celebrate his progress and freedom. His success!

It's absolutely crucial to build a clear, personalized vision of a porn-free future. If we don't know exactly where we're going, we reduce our chances of getting there.

Feel free to go back and read the italicized bold questions above, as though they were directed at you.

Write out your answers.

Then, take two or three of the most inspiring tidbits and use them as a part of your Cue Mastery practice. Keep practicing that exercise as directed there. Each repetition is building within your brain a ready route, an escape hatch of sorts, for those key times when you feel drawn by either the euphoria or the inertia of your addiction.

Hang in there! You deserve that better future, the one you can almost taste! You're not expecting it to fall into your lap; you're learning and working and even searching online for solutions. You may not feel sure of it yet, but I'm confident because I've seen hundreds of people find freedom: the path you're on now is the one that will take you there!

The Path from Craving to Freedom

2011-03-23T05:30:00.000-07:00

When we crave, the primitive motivational core of the brain screams "Go!" We find ourselves drawn back to something we promised ourselves we would avoid.

A Fool's Dilemma:

In the throes of addiction, there are only two apparent ways out of the craving state. One is to resist. We try to wrench ourselves out of "Go!" and back into "Stop!" mode. The problem is, all of our "Stop!" efforts don't eclipse the "Go!" signal in the brain. An inner arms race of sorts is launched. Fighting a craving does not resolve it, and a we keep bouncing like a pinball back into the craving state we were trying to escape.

We sometimes get so tired of fighting that the other way out of our craving state not only sounds more and more appealing but starts to make more and more sense. We succumb to temptation. We give in and "Go!" We proceed from Craving and on to Indulging & Gratification, and then inevitably on to Satiation & Guilt.

After indulging, it may seem like we're free. Guilt and satiation both keep the craving monster at bay--for a time. However, indulging is just as sure a route back to craving, even if it is more roundabout than fighting was. The "Go!" state, when it returns, is stronger than ever, reinforced in the brain by the gratification of our latest indulgence.

The Best Way Out:

Anna Childress, a researcher the University of Pennsylvania, is my heroine in the field of addiction. She has made a career of studying the brain's "Go!" signal and developing anti-craving tools and strategies.

The coolest thing Childress came up with was a creative way to help addicts pave a third path out of the craving state. She showed cocaine addicts videos of someone using cocaine, which triggered in them a craving state. Then, instead of leaving them to their usual options--fighting or succumbing--she guided them to practice a state of mastery by engaging in techniques such as calming their breathing and envisioning a sober future. They repeated this process over and over again, practicing effective coping skills while in a state of craving. Later, when they faced triggers in the real world, their brain had plenty of practice taking this third exit.

"Cue Exposure and Coping Skills Training" has been utilized and embellished by many others since Childress came up with it, and has been found to be extremely effective in reducing addicts vulnerability to relapse. The sequence of going from craving to mastery starts to become almost as automatic as relapse once was.

The coolest part is that this third path doesn't just loop back to the trap of craving. The state of mastery enables an addict to move on with their day and eventually, when practiced regularly, to move on with their life. Not only can we get better at it over time, it becomes more rewarding. Freedom is pleasurable in its own way, so the brain starts to become more enticed by the route of mastery.

Commit to the Process:

Amidst a devastating fire, hundreds of children safely exit the school building in an orderly manner. This feat is possible--and in fact almost automatic--because they practiced doing the same thing over and over during fire drills.

We can develop the ability to respond with the same alacrity to potentially devastating cravings, but we need the same kind of practice and repetition.

How To Practice Cue Mastery:

Commit now to beat your own path from craving to freedom by practicing Cue/Mastery twice a day over the next three weeks and then once a day for three weeks after that. You're building a neurological bridge that will enable your brain to go from craving to mastery in the heat of even the most tempting moments.

Here's how your twice-daily practice will go:

1. Bring to mind a trigger situation. Imagine it vividly.

2. Once you feel the pull, take your heart rate for 15 seconds.

3. Practice these mastery inducers/craving neutralizers:

take eight nice, slow, full breaths. Keep count by moving your thumb from one finger to another at the end of each exhale...
then, dwell for a few moments on how much a future of freedom will mean to you...
then, imagine doing something enjoyable or meaningful that's incompatible with relapse...

4. Take your heart rate again for 15 seconds.

Keep a record of your practice. Think of it as your twice-a-day dose of antibiotic: take one first thing after waking up and again later right before going to bed.

I've not only seen the result of the research by Dr. Childress and others, I've seen the fruits of this technique in the lives of my clients. I'm confident that it will be well worth your while.

Let me know how it goes!

One Real Wrinkled Wife or a Harem of Airbrushed Goddesses?

2011-03-23T05:00:00.000-07:00

Candeo is running this article on their blog. While you're over there check out their free mini-course.

Porn Derails Our Bonding Instinct

2011-03-15T04:44:00.000-07:00

Gary Wilson and Marnia Robinson have just posted my latest article on their fantastic site, Your Brain on Porn.

While your over there checking it out, watch Gary's videos about pornography addiction and the brain. If you struggle with pornography, it will help you understand what's going on in your brain. That understanding should help reduce your shame over the struggle. You're hooked because your brain's overloaded by content it's designed not to ignore, not because you're morally weak. A greater understanding what's going on in your brain will also help you more effectively work to avoid relapse.

If it's your partner who's had a porn habit, Gary's videos might help you take your their struggle less personally. The survival core of their brain has been tricked into seeking pornography as a survival imperative. It's a lot like any other addiction.

They get a lot of traffic over there, and I really appreciate their generosity in giving me a place to share these ideas about the effect of pornography on our ability to love and bond with a partner.

(Photo from Southern California photographer Jessica Claire.)

Don't Fight Your Urges, Cure Your Cravings

2011-03-10T07:00:00.000-08:00

There are lots of reasons addiction continues, even when we're trying to stop.

One big contributor is the knee-jerk way we handle urges and cravings.

Let's talk first about how we usually handle them (which too often fails miserably) and then we'll talk about a more helpful way (which can help us stay on the path of recovery).

Once a craving is triggered, we find ourselves in an ambivalent state. This is the very nature of addiction. Part of my brain starts pressing on the gas pedal, another part the brake.

Here's where we start to go wrong: Since we've failed at times to resist our urges, we think we need to resist more intently in order to successfully avoid relapse. We assume that fighting harder will be the key. We throw all our weight into pressing on the brake.

We think, "Oh, no!"
We get single-minded about avoiding a lapse
We think we have no choice but to fight, resist, restrain
We hold our breath, put our head down, and try to weather this hard time

This approach can initiate an all-out arms race between our urges and our restraint. Once it gets going, we may be battling for hours--or even days!

Our craving may have put us into reactive mode, but the way we're handling it has only intensified that reactivity. We're getting more intense and tunnel-visioned.

Reactive mode is a very different state of mind (and body) from mastery mode, which is how we operate when we're at our best.

In mastery mode:

Problems are viewed as something to handle, not to panic about
We remain broad-minded enough to notice what's actually going on
We remain open-minded enough to remember that we have options and calmly look for ones we hadn't noticed before
We keep breathing, learning, adapting--and then we get back to (and on with) our regularly scheduled life with as little fanfare and drama as possible

In reactive mode, we're like a resident of a burning building in a full panic. We're more likely to do things that don't serve us well.

In mastery mode, we're more like a trained firefighter. We know what we need to do and we go about doing it in spite of the heat.

To foster mastery, we can deliberately cultivate its characteristics:

Accept the urge as a part of life (oh, yeah, that--yawn) instead of as this hugely significant problem or invitation and opportunity
Breathe (nice, full breaths) to keep the brain oxygenated
Notice (specific sights, sounds, touch) to keep oriented to what's real now instead of looping into panic or fantasy
Choose how to respond. Experiment by trying out a different response instead of by doing what we've always done, which has so often failed

Steven had successfully avoided pornography for months. Nonetheless, despite his best efforts, he could not manage to completely abstain from masturbation. This may not sound like a big deal to most people, but Steven was twenty years old, devout in his LDS faith, and otherwise ready to serve a mission.

His masturbation habit was fouling up the most spiritually meaningful quest of his life! He told me that he felt the way Frodo Baggins might if he were forever stuck in the shire!

Since this goal was so important to him, it was completely novel idea to view sexual temptations as (yawn) "Oh, yeah, that... that's just part of life, and a mundane part at that."

But he liked the idea. He laughed and shrugged when I described it to him, which let me know that he was already more relaxed and breathing easier.

I encouraged Steven to take acceptance to an even higher level. "This week when you're tempted, say to yourself: "Good! A chance to practice mastery!" He assured me that, if the week was typical, he would have plenty of chances to practice. I coached him to then breathe and notice what he can see, hear or feel... and then finally to deliberately choose to respond in a way he wasn't accustomed to.

It's convenient that these repeatable features of mastery mode follow the first letters of the alphabet:

Accept
Breathe & Notice
Choose

After his first week of practice, Steven came back a bit confused. "I finally felt prepared, so why weren't there as many opportunities to practice as I was expecting?"

"Exactly!" I said. "As soon as your brain knows that you have a way of handling urges and cravings, they're no longer viewed as these all-important things to be vigilant about. They become merely one type of feature among so many on the landscape. The little emotional sentinel in your brain is no longer on high alert and on the lookout for sexual triggers as potent threats, which the pleasure center of your brain then morphs into potent opportunities."

It's all about potency. When sexual content is less potent, triggers and opportunities start to blend into the endless parade of other stuff that goes on in your day. As they should! Sex is a part of life, but it's not the biggest part! It doesn't deserve all of the energy we've been giving it!

Several weeks later, Steven told me about an experience from a few days earlier. He'd arrived home after dark from playing basketball with some buddies. Everyone else in the house was asleep. As he walked to the top of the stairs to go down and shower and hit the sack, it hit him that he was at risk. In a moment, he was in high alert: "I've gone over two months now without masturbating. I'm closer now to leaving on my mission than I've ever been! But I've lapsed before in the shower, and with everyone asleep I'm more at risk!"

Steven felt an intense desire to stay on track, and knew that it might be followed soon by an equally strong--or perhaps even more overwhelming!--desire for sexual pleasure and release. It had been weeks now and he was a healthy young man with a strong sex drive! Should he hit the sack without showering? Even if he did and he made it through this night, could he ever truly hope to make it an entire three months, the goal he was working toward?!

Then, at the top of the stairs, it occurred to him: "I'm doing this to myself. I'm working myself up. But I don't have to! This is a great chance to practice mastery!"

He took a nice, full breath and really looked at the textured pattern in the ceiling above the stairs as he descended. Another breath as he listened to the sound of the furnace in the next room. With the next breath he felt the cool metal of the doorknob to the bathroom door in his hand. Right then it popped into his mind: one way that he could choose to behave differently. He could leave the bathroom door unlocked while he showered. That would certainly be an experiment he'd never tried before. On the one hand, he knew that everyone was probably asleep, but on the other hand he just couldn't imagine masturbating in the shower with an unlocked bathroom door.

Although I kept listening as Steven finished the story of that night, once he got to this point I knew all I needed to know. Before hearing about the outcome of his efforts that evening, I was already confident in the outcome of his entire treatment. Whether he had successfully avoided masturbating that night or not (as it turned out, he didn't lapse), he would succeed in overcoming the habit. He was developing the ability to shift out of reactivity and back to a state of mastery.

Instead of remaining the burning building's panicky resident, we can like Steven become a firefighter. Over time we will get better and better at it until we can handle what once might have been the most threatening situation with calmness and grace.

Between Addiction and Life, Take Life!

2011-03-09T15:25:00.000-08:00

One of the most fascinating studies on addiction was conducted in the late 70's with an interesting and unique group of addicts.

These weren't alcoholics from the inner city or trendy youth using club drugs in discotheques. The addicts studied by Canadian psychologist Bruce Alexander were rats.

He had fed them water laced with morphine, sweetened to help the rodents get past their initial resistance to the drug's bitter taste. Once they'd been drugging up long enough to get hooked, he put them into an environment that he called "Rat Park." Unlike the usual bland existence of lab rats, they had access to a spa and neighborhood clubhouse. Well, at least the rat versions of those: pals to socialize with, balls to roll, tunnels to climb, wheels to run on, and colorful scenery all around.

Alexander had an interesting hypothesis: it's not the drug itself, but an addicts impoverished life that keeps them going back to their pathological escape. The rat subjects in other addiction studies typically kept up their "drug-seeking" behavior. Alexander argued that they remained dependent because their cages were comparable to the lifestyles of many human addicts: impoverished.

Here's the question he wanted to answer with his research: Could we reduce the incidence of addiction by providing and enriched environment with lots of opportunities to enjoy life?

So, what about those rats in Rat Park? Did they remain junkies, constantly loading up on morphine?

Actually, they preferred plain water to the morphine laced, sweetened water--even though they loved the sweet taste! Once they could socialize, choose how to spend their days, and enjoy themselves... apparently they weren't interested in numbing themselves!

Easy enough if you're a rat who's been set up for success by a kindly rodent psychologist landlord, but how do we make our own lives a little bit more like a human version of Rat Park?

What kind of activities should I try?

Try thoroughly absorbing activities. My colleague, Kreg Edgmon, has addicted teenage clients in their residential programs train for and compete in triathlons. I think that's fantastic: Diving in the pool and feeling the water all around you. Blazing down the road on a bike with the wind rushing by. Willing yourself to keep pounding on foot when your body's screaming to stop. Activities don't need to be that intense to immerse us--even gardening fully engages us when we're not our knees, hands buried in the earth.

Go for variety. Think of it this way: you're not looking for one thing to replace your addiction, you're trying to create a more fulfilling life. It takes an entire well-balanced lifestyle to replace the one thing you're giving up: porn. That makes it more challenging than just "finding something else to do," but having this mentality will help you be more patient and treat it as a long-term quest.

What if nothing lights a fire in me?

Don't worry, nothing will, especially at first. Don't expect thrills. Start to put better, healthier things in your life and let enjoyment come on its own terms.

Several months into his recovery, Peter began one of our sessions telling me about the delightful conversation he'd had with his teenage daughter, Breanne. She had called him to walk her home from a friend's house that Sunday night because it had gotten dark while she was there visiting. She talked with Peter about the music she liked, a board game her friend's family loved to play, and even the World War II veteran she was interviewing for a history report.

Peter's eyes were bright as he told me about this experience, but then his face suddenly sobered. "After we got home I told Jillian how much fun I'd had talking with Breanne. It was great to get that little window into her life. I tried to think back to when I'd last had a conversation of that depth with her. The last time that came to mind was when I drove to her cousin's house for a sleepover several years ago. She told me all about all of her friends' ninth birthday parties and exactly how she wanted hers to be. Then it occurred to me: back then she was turning nine, now she's fourteen. It's been five years! That's how long I've been caught up in this blasted addiction!"

Peter hadn't even realized that time with his kids had stopped lighting a fire in him until after he had been in recovery for a while and it started lighting a fire in him again.

But I don't have time to enjoy myself!

Of course you don't! Who does?

That's no reason to give up on it. James was an avid golfer before he descended into alcoholism, but that was also before he got married and had kids. When we talked in group about honoring our own desires, he appreciated the sentiment but didn't see a way he could put it into action. Being a father myself I respected how busy he was, but some of the other group members kept pressing him about it.

The next week James reported back with a grin on his face. "I'd been feeling sorry for myself ever since I started working swing shift and Carol and I have been trading off taking care of the kids. I knew I was doing the most important thing, but part of me was playing the martyr. 'I never get to do what I want to do.' That mentality sure fed my drinking: 'At least I have this.'

"I thought I had valid reasons for my suffering, but last week you guys kept calling them lame excuses. It kept eating at me after group: 'Do you want to keep feeling sorry for yourself or do you want to do something about it?' The next day I sawed off a few of my old clubs and moved the grip down so that they were short enough for Kelton, my six-year-old. Then we drove over to the city course and took Olivia, who's three, and plopped her in the golf cart. It was a gorgeous day and we were one of the only threesomes on the course. The kids loved it. They smelled French Fries in the clubhouse when we were done and wanted some, so I went back to the house and fried up some homemade ones for lunch. It was one of the best days I've had with my kids, they absolutely loved it."

Apparently, the good life is not just for rodents after all.

Liberating the Enslaved Mind

2011-03-05T06:16:00.000-08:00

The good news: Rod had just been promoted at work. The bad news: it was creating havoc with his addiction.

He was under more pressure. He felt like he had to work harder than ever to live up to new expectations. He was afraid that his boss might conclude that he’d made a mistake in hiring Rod, the only guy on the new executive team without an MBA.

As a result, Rod was always second-guessing himself when he wanted to take a full-lunch break or go in to work on time instead of early. “I gotta get this done.” “I gotta keep working.” “I can’t let that go until tomorrow.”

As I heard him describe the previous couple of weeks, it sounded to me like he was in “gotta” mode all day long now. It didn’t surprise me to hear him say that by the end of the day his brain was lapsing back into its most self-destructive “gotta” trance: “I gotta find some porn!”

“I’m up late, Phyllis is sleeping, and I feel like I gotta eat something else to help me wind down. I gotta watch something else before I’ll feel relaxed enough to sleep. But another bowl of Cheerios and one more episode of CSI don’t always do the trick. I’m still up, still antsy. That’s when I fall back into porn.”

Rod didn’t just need to just handle his evenings differently, he needed to handle his entire days differently. Here’s what I suggested:

12-Step adherents call it surrender. Zen folks call it freeing ourselves from attachments. Whatever you call it, here’s how to do it--at least here’s how Rod descred it the next time I talked to him:

“I just kept reminding that I don’t control everything. Whether I accept that or not, it’s true, so I might as well accept it. I may not perform well enough to keep my job. People do get fired, that’s part of life. I’ve been fired before, and it wasn’t the end of the world. Whether I do keep my job or not isn’t entirely under my control. Every time I leave work on time or put off until tomorrow reviewing a database from one of our teams I’m running a risk. However, life’s not all about work, not all about keeping this job. Several times a day I’ve been letting go of all my efforts to make good things happen. I take a minute to relax and focus on what I have already accomplished, everything I already have available to enjoy in my life. I smell the roses. The entirety of the remainder of my life is not dependent on how things go here and now. ”

Not everyone needs structure in order to step back and surrender, but some of us really benefit from it. One of my clients has a mindfulness gong ap on his Droid that goes off at random times, reminding him to stay attentive in the present moment. Rod had a reminder cue set on his calendar for half-past every hour. He would pushed himself away from his desk and take deep breaths. He reminded himself that oxygen was a gift from above, not from his boss and not based on his performance. Air would be available to him whenever he needed it and wherever he went for the rest of his life. For three or four breaths he would really drink in that gift instead of as though through he was sucking it through a coffee straw. After a half minute or so, he would pull his chair back up to the desk and get started on his work again, in a fresher, more relaxed frame of mind.

Control is the hallmark of addiction. That which we try to control ends up controlling us. When we become obsessive and compulsive about anything in life, we fan the flames of the very fire that can jump the break and become the wildfire of our worst habit. Or, to put it another way, we place our own mind in the very shackles our addiction will later use to lead it around against our will.

If we want to get over addiction, we need to confront our need for control and loosen our grip around the neck of life. Fortunately, even when we take our little break from being the general manager of the universe, the big blue globe keeps on turning.

Kick the Porn and Relish Real Life

2011-03-03T12:11:00.000-08:00

Check out my guest post just up this morning over on Jeff's blog MySuperchargedLife. He has a great life hack blog that discusses budgeting, getting the most out of life, and now: pornography! Thanks Jeff for your coaching and editing to help me take a more positive approach and get the article right!

Behind Every Raunchy Behavior Is a Tender Feeling

2011-03-01T10:56:00.000-08:00

We were doing an autopsy on Darrin's last relapse. We were exploring around in hopes of gaining insight into what had made him vulnerable.

I had him imagine peeking into different rooms and seeing different parts of himself.

There, in that room, is the part that was about to go get the erotic massage last Saturday. What can you tell by looking at him? What was he feeling like? What did he really need?

There, in the next room, is the part of you that feels wise, spiritual, peaceful.

And in the next, the part of you that loves to play with the grandkids, drink milkshakes, and could just lay in bed in the morning and listen to the birds sing. The kid in you.

In another room, the part of you that exerts himself and carries heavy things and takes on the most physically taxing things that needs to be done.

Invite them all out into the main room, the one you're in, and have them sit around this large circular table. Let them know that this one part of you is particular need of their help. It's the part who can get feeling like sex is the only answer.

Is every other part of you willing to help by taking a sledgehammer and breaking down the wall that keeps that part of you isolated and alone? We need to turn the room he gets stuck in, with its cement walls and a metal door, into an alcove. He needs to be able to access the rest of you in the future when he's in need. His view of the rest of you may get obscured back in this recessed part of the room, but he need never be truly alone again.

Paul's imaginary parts cooperated and tore down the wall. Then I had him open his eyes and talk about it. His reaction to this little exercise surprised me.

"I had tender feelings. I wanted to cry. They (the other parts of himself) really cared and wanted to help."

"I recognized during that imagery that something I went through last week was harder than I had realized at the time. Strong feelings came up when you had me imagine the hard-working, physically exerting part of myself. Last Wednesday afternoon I worked my tail off replacing a fence post. My wife didn't even seem to care. I opened up the blinds in the bedroom the next day and said, 'Have you seen my handiwork from yesterday? Check out that fence post.' She was totally distracted. 'Oh, yeah. Wow.' Meant nothing to her. I wanted to take a minute and celebrate that."

Then Paul looked embarrassed. "But I can't tell her that. Blame her for my lapse."

"She's not to blame for your lapse," I suggested. "But burying your feelings not advocating for yourself might have contributed to your vulnerability. What if you had handled it differently: You open the blinds, she doesn't give it much notice, and you say, 'Let's try that again. Lillian celebrating Paul's hard work, take two... Ta-da!"

"Yeah, she would have laughed and come over and hugged me and admired it."

"Even if she hadn't, you would have felt better for acknowledging and honoring what you felt you needed. That must be an important love language for you: words of affirmation."

Paul's face was reddening. "Why is that so important to me."

"Don't know, but it seems pretty genuine."

Paul Nodded. "I need to be more aware of these feelings when they happen, instead of five days later when you drag them out of me."

"Don't put me out of a job too quickly," I said with a wink.

Were those tender feelings Paul had on Thursday even a part of what led him to act out sexually on Saturday? I'm not sure. Unacknowledged disappointments sometimes evaporate on their own. Too often, however, they don't, distilling instead into resentment, which prompts detachment, which becomes fertile ground for urges and cravings to take root.

The title of this post took the idea too far. Not every raunchy urge is preceded by a tender feeling. Sometimes it's simply time of day the brain is used to getting a sex fix and so it raises the possibility again out of habit. Or we're traveling on business again and historically that's been a time to relapse. Some urges might be triggered by little more than fluctuations in testosterone or spirituality. However, if none of those other culprits are in the vicinity, and sometimes even when they are, it's always good to dig around a bit for buried emotion. I've found it to be the most reliable of suspects.

How to Neutralize the Urge to View Porn

2011-02-25T04:25:00.000-08:00

Try breathing and noticing.

It doesn't always work (dang it), but it's a good weapon to have in your arsenal for when you're ambushed by temptation.

Whenever I teach about methods to use in the heat of the moment here on this blog, in a podcast, or in person with clients, "breathing and noticing" is the method that I always get the most positive feedback on.

(I take that back. People have the most success with a method that's not from the realm of psychology. It's a spiritual tactic: the surrender prayer. Surrendering your obsession or desire to your Higher Power. Most people don't learn that one from me, they learn it in their twelve-step group. But I will certainly suggest it to clients if they're religious at all but don't attend twelve-step meetings.)

Of all of the psychological methods I teach people, people seem to get the most mileage out of this simple mindfulness exercise, breathing and noticing:

Feel an urge? Take a nice, full breath. As you exhale notice something you can see. Pick one point in your entire visual field: right where the wire meets the telephone pole outside your window. Notice exactly what it looks like this very second. What color is it? Is it lighter or darker than what's around it? Okay, take another nice, full breath. Close your eyes and notice something you can hear. What, exactly does it sound like at this very second? High or low pitched? Constant or discrete? Is it a steady or undulating sound? That's good. Now breathe and rub lightly on some surface with your forefingers of your dominant hand. Touch your sleeve or the armrest of your chair. Notice its texture as if you were touching it for the first time.

Good! It's taken you less than a minute to try it out. Repeat the process one more time for good measure.

It may not seem like you just meditated, but breathing and noticing is actually is a simple mindfulness exercise. More and more research is demonstrating that mindfulness can be a valuable aid in recovery from addiction.

But why? It's such a simple process! How does it work? Why does it help?

The processing capacities of the human brains is limited. It is decent at multi-tasking, but sometimes must select between two thoughts.

As the brain selects where to devote attention, all possible topics are not treated equally; our brains are biased. Thought content with the highest emotional salience is high in the pecking order. That's why addictive urges sometimes win out over the spreadsheet I should be creating or even thoughts about how much I love my family.

However, there's something that the brain knows is an even higher priority than an emotionally charged memory or future opportunity. The brain operates according to what neuroscientists have dubbed the "Reality First Principle." This means that "what's real now" gets highest priority.

Nervous system avenues can only handle so much traffic, and when we're focused on something that's real now it's as though the traffic cop in the brain holds up her palm to that plan about how we could pursue sex right now or that memory of a sexual experience we've had before. She says, "The avenue of consciousness is in use right now with traffic more important than you. It's busy with what's happening right now, which I always give the right of way."

Here's the cool part: What's real now may just be a the sight little old telephone wire or the feel of a sweater sleeve--something emotionally neutral or even boring. Nonetheless, the mind doesn't really have a choice, the brain's reality first principle holds true. Surprisingly, these little here-and-now sensations hold more sway than an emotionally intense fantasy or image.

Obviously, we can't focus on the telephone wire forever, but sometimes just a minute or two of breathing and noticing is enough to break the trance of craving, to detour the mind from the insanity of euphoric recall and lust.

At other times it's not enough, and it doesn't work...

But isn't it worth a try?

How Can I Help My Porn-Addicted Husband?

2011-02-24T06:14:00.000-08:00

This is what I'll be talking about today on KSL TV's Studio 5. Wish me luck!

What do you say to a woman who has just discovered her husband has a pornography habit and is trying to decide whether to leave or stay?

1. Relationships can heal. The title of our book and blog reflect what we hear from women: I hate porn enough that part of me wants to leave; I love him, we've built a life together. They want to know: Is there a way to work together to heal and conquer this? There is! Couples are stronger together than as individuals and they heal better with each other's help.

2. Work as a team. Women feel left out: "He deals with porn on his own. I'm an outsider and only occasionally get a window into how he's doing--and then by accident or because I do detective work." That's not a relationship. They're more willing to stay if it becomes us--husband and wife together--working against the problem of pornography. Men are surprised to hear, "Your dishonesty and secrecy hurts me more than the porn use," but it's typically true.

What can a wife do to help her husband overcome his pornography habit?

1. Cut yourself slack. Women say, "I'm not myself. I feel insecure, even paranoid. What's happening to me?" You're not going crazy. You thought you could count on your husband to be mentally faithful as well as physically. That got turned upside-down. Panic and confusion are natural reactions. It's traumatic. It takes time to get your bearings again.

2. Check in to rebuild trust. One clients said, "Just his answering the phone at work is reassuring." For a while you may need concrete evidence you can trust his word.

3. Talk out feelings. Don't bottle up pain, fear, anger, hurt. Tell him, "Talking it out is how I'll heal." When something reminds you of his porn problem in a movie or in the middle of the day, talk it out. If you want him to just listen and reassure instead of defending, explaining, or promising to do better, tell him that. You're not holding it over his head and it won't go on forever. Just as his recovery is a gradual process, you're healing will take time, too.

4. Support him. Assure him you want to be a part of his healing. He may been trying to do it on his own because he's ashamed and frustrated with himself. You're the most important person in his life, he hates letting you down! He thought just needed to be a man and kick this habit on his own without bothering you about it. Obviously that hasn't worked. Over time men realize: we are stronger together and do heal better with each other's help. Many men say, "I can't tell her about a close call or lapse. She can't handle it." The truth is, she can't handle it without getting emotional, and he has a hard time dealing with her emotions. Learning to tolerate emotions--his own and hers--is an important part of his recovery. In recovery he will get to the point where he can handle you being upset.

5. Ask about feelings. If he says, "I struggled today with urges," don't ask, "What turned you on?" It's not about sex. Ask, "What dampened your spirits or hurt your feelings?" Men aren't used to exploring emotions, but if they don't reach out when they feel bad and talk out what's going on inside, they're more likely to act out sexually.

Instead of Porn, Try This

2011-02-19T03:37:00.000-08:00

Hank had been tracking his close calls and lapses to porn for a couple of weeks. Now he looked like a cat who'd cornered a mouse. "I've seen a common denominator in eighty plus percent of instances."

I was very interested. Hank is good at gathering reconnaissance and combing through what he has recorded. He did it all day at work as a videographer.

"I tend to struggle when something earlier in the day hurt my feelings or dampened my spirits," Hank said.

Hank is like most of us. Our feelings get wounded or our spirits get trodden... and then the addicted brain tries to take over to help us feel better.

We need to do more than just avoid acting out with porn. We need to reach out instead. Spill out. Moan out what's inside. Whine it out.

We can do it. Even we stoics are nothing more than reformed whiners. We may not remember that time in our lives, but it came so naturally when we were little that it just flowed. For most of us it wasn't all the time, just when it fit the situation.

Now we hold back, hold in... and store up. We find it hard to whine because we've been trained not to complain. "Come out of your room when you have a better attitude." "Cowboy up or go in the house with your mom and sister."

Despite our fears, whining won't turn us back into babies. There's not much risk of it taking over our entire personalities. We can do it part-time--we can moonlight--and only when we really need it.

Let's just make sure we do enough of it, when it's called for, or else we'll be in trouble. We'll be Jonesin' for some porn.

Hank is single, so he doesn't have a partner to complain to.

Carol is married but she can't bear to whine to her husband. It feels to her like complaining aloud would wake up some remote gods and bring down their wrath. She's been keeping at bay most of her life by trying to be a good girl. Her father was an alcoholic. She had plenty to complain about. But her job was to be perfect, and part of that job was smiling and pretending everything was fine.

I wanted to give folks like Hank and Carol a forum here. If you're in their shoes, try out the "Crave Porn? Try Whining" tab at the top of this blog, far right side. Click there and complain away. It will be good for you. Tomorrow, you'll be glad you purged you feelings instead of escaping to porn.

She's Afraid He Now Finds Her Unattractive

2011-02-17T04:26:00.000-08:00

LeAnn knew what Gary's impotence meant.

He'd watched so much porn, had masturbated to so many airbrushed goddesses, that he wasn't excited by her body and making love with her no longer appealed to him.

LeAnn thought she knew what Gary's impotence meant. She couldn't have been further from the truth.

The truth she discovered as they explored the issue together was this: Gary's conscience was so harrowed by his digital daliances that he felt guilt and anxiety when they were together. He was afraid that he didn't deserve her. He was afraid that he didn't measure up for her.

Gary had always wanted to measure up for LeAnn. He had always wanted to help her feel loved and cherished. He had a porn habit despite adoring his wife, not because he didn't love her, not because he wanted anyone else.

However, after discovering his struggle, LeAnn was afraid that it meant he could easily dump her and run off with someone else. She needed reassurance that he wanted to remain true to her. She sought that reassurance in the bedroom.

That was when a bad cycle got going between the two of them. She initiated lovemaking. Gary wanted intently to perform because he saw how much it meant to her. The more pressure a man feels to maintain an erection the worse it usually goes.

Losing an erection is a common occurance for men. When a couple is not in crisis, not overinterpreting the commonplace, they relax together and try again later. Or they go on with lovemaking. (After all, none of his other body parts have gone limp! His voicebox hasn't siezed up! He hasn't lost bloodflow to his imagination!)

After a while his erection may return again. It's amazing how exciting he can get watching her when she's lost in pre-orgasmic delight. Or they enjoy caressing or clinging to each other.

But a couple in crisis like Gary and LeAnn have a hard time relaxing and moving on. LeAnn thinks she knows what his limp penis means. Gary wants to badly to show her she's the only woman he loves. He doesn't find sex with her boring, he finds it too intense. He puts too much pressure on himself.

The good news is, Gary and LeAnn's situation is easier to resolve than chronic desensitization.

I could tell Gary's love for LeAnn was sincere, so I thought he'd be willing to take on a difficult assignment. They always spent time together in the evenings, so I told him to approach her every night between then and our session the following week.

"Your job is to spend a half hour or so making love with your wife. The catch is, you need to do it without an erection. You've been overly focused on that, on making sure that happens, that you've ignored LeAnn. So we need to remove that as an option for now."

I turned to LeAnn. "Before we go ahead with this, I need to check something out with you. There are two kinds of women. Some only feel loved if their man has a rock-hard erection as he's making love with her. To the other kind of woman, a hard penis is not her main way of feeling loved. She can feel attractive to him because of the way he gazes into her eyes and appreciates her body. She can feel cherished because of the words he whispers. She can feel adored because he doesn't want to stop touching and caressing her. LeAnn, before we go on with this assignment of Gary not having an erection this week, I need to make sure it won't devastate you. I need to make sure that your this second kind of woman."

LeAnn readily assured us that she would feel loved if Gary moved toward her rather than away from her, even if he didn't have an erection.

Now Gary had something he could do that he actually had control over. It would be a challenge to initiate being together when he had come to fear it. However, I also knew that he could respond well to this kind of pressure.

(He could handle intense pressure. He'd seen combat in Vietnam.)

Gary just needed to have a way of improving things that would go better under pressure instead of worse.

Porn Kills Real Sex with a Real Partner

2011-02-16T07:03:00.000-08:00

Brandon was too young to be tired of real sex.

Nonetheless, at 22, he was a veteran. He'd been spending free time immersed in pornography for a decade.

He came in for help because of how it was going with his girlfriend, Mika. "I like her a lot. We're talking about being together long-term. That's why it bugs me that having sex with her is so bland."

"When I look at porn, it's toned bodies and smooth skin. The real thing is warm, and that's nice, but then it's like..." Brandon held his fist over his open mouth and sighed a fake yawn.

Later in the session, Brandon disclosed something he sometimes does to bring more spark and spice into their lovemaking: "I start to imagine that we're making a porno flick. The cameras are all around and capturing everything. I'll envision what it would look like to watch us onscreen. That sometimes helps me feel more turned on."

I have to admit, that session had me scratching my head for days.

It made me think back to my own first exposure to pornography. Evan Crandall flashing that picture of a nude woman all around Boulton Elementary School's East playground. I'm sure Evan's sharing planted some seeds of anticipation. But I'm confident none of us thought, "Maybe if I keep looking at stuff like that I'll prefer it to the real thing someday. Can't wait for that to happen."

Preferring the virtual to the real boggles the minds of most people my generation and older, but it's getting more commonplace all the time. I see it in my office. Others have noted the pattern and made interesting observations. Naomi Wolf's article in New York Magazine describes how porn crowds real women out of men's sex lives--and how younger women are becoming pornified to try to compete. Marnia Robinson's new article on the Good Men Project describes the way porn interferes with our monogamy instinct and leads to marital dissatisfaction and disaffection.

The bottom line: If you love sex, you may find porn compelling. But if you love a real person, too--or want to in the future--then porn's not such a great idea.

Intimacy is More Satisfying than Gratification

2011-02-12T06:12:00.000-08:00

Spencer writes, "Please talk more about how expressing our needs heals addiction. What do you mean when you say, 'it's more powerful to express our needs than to actually address our needs'?"

Spencer, I'm so glad you asked. It's such an important topic in recovery from addiction. Thanks for the chance to explain.

Here's what I've discovered in my own life and over the years working with clients: There's great power in becoming more aware of what's going on inside us and then revealing it to someone else, especially our spouse.

A good word for letting down our guard in this way is intimacy. It's about getting naked with our partner, not physically, but emotionally.

By taking the risk of being vulnerable and being real, we open the door for something very powerful to happen. We can be seen and heard for who we are. My wife can really get me. She can connect more fully with the real me than she ever has before, because I've just revealed to her even more of me to which she can relate.

The bond between us can strengthen because my interface with her has enlarged--there's more surface area to adhere.

One of the most helpful things we can do in recovery is conduct an autopsy on a close calls or relapses. (I like to assure clients: if our subject--their relapse--isn't dead before the autopsy, it probably will be by the time we're done.)

During these post-mortums, I'm always looking for the moment in their life when something real was going on inside, but it was something they quickly found unacceptable or automatically decided they shouldn't feel, so they tried to dismiss or suppress it.

I'm looking for missed chances to be real, missed opportunities for intimacy.

These are such important moments, because they show us those key turning points in our everyday life when we can be more aware of what we feel and stay connected to it instead of detaching from it. We can be real instead of trying to convince ourselves and others we feel something we don't. (A draining feat, often unsuccessful, and the trying can sure lead to dysfunction and misery.)

Here's how this looks in real life:

Trent was excited because his company's holiday party was at his favorite Mexican restaurant. As he walked down the buffet line in the banquet room, he realized that wouldn't be able to construct his favorite burrito because some of the ingredients he loved were missing. He'd dumped the pork and the black beans on his tortilla, but there was no sour cream or guacamole. It felt unsatisfying to sprinkled just lettuce and tomato chunks on top.

Trent felt bad, but he heard a voice inside saying, "Don't be a wimp. They're treating you to dinner for crying out loud." Then he remembered what he had discovered about being real. He knew from times past that the feelings he was having could put a kink in his mood for the night and hamper his ability to really "get into" and enjoy the party. Feeling ungratified could hamper his ability to enjoy himself and enjoy other people.

Unacknowledged resentments didn't evaporate, he had found. He would have found it easier to resent something during the CEO's state-of-the-company talk. Easier to find fault with little things about other party-goers. Easier to be irritated and annoyed with Stacy on the drive home.

What did Trent do? Simply ask a server for sour cream and guac? That might have worked fine, but what he did instead turned out to be even more powerful. He sat down by Stacy and said, "I was so disappointed when I got to the condiments and saw that there was no sour cream or guacamole."

Stacy looked over at his burrito and remembered what he usually ordered. "Oh, yeah. I bet that was a bummer for you."

Sounds simple, but very satisfying: Trent stays real with himself. He decides to be real with her. She gets him. She lets him in and let's him know she did. He stays more firmly rooted in reality. Enjoys the party more because he's not inwardly divided. He's not wasting mental and emotional wattage trying not to feel, trying to pretend he's not feeling something he really is feeling.

He talks to Stacy and it's over that quickly. Instead of the emotional energy staying contained and continuing to build up inside, it diffuses through Stacy like electricity through a ground wire.

That's the tremendous power of opening up to someone we love and having them understand and accept us as we are.

Trent felt at ease again. He got home that night tired and ready to sleep, instead of feeling disconnected and off-kilter and hankering for his old addiction to porn.

Everyday Wounds and the Salve of Addiction

2011-02-11T07:06:00.000-08:00

I'm reading Unbroken, Laura Hillenbrand's harrowing memoir of Louie Zamperini, a B-24 bombardier during World War II. A gunner on Zamperini's crew was hit by enemy fire during the air battle over Nauru. He was injured and bleeding, but kept firing his gun, staving off several Japanese Zeros that otherwise might have taken them down.

Emotionally, our everyday lives can be like a bombing run. Flak flies all around, and sometimes chunks make it through our armament. In the heat of battle, coursing with adrenaline, we might be able to ignore what we're feeling and keep manning our station.

But what do we do once we're out of the fray and back at our base?

Then it's wise to attend to the pain. Tell the medic where it hurts. Clean out the wound so it can heal instead of festering.

What if we pretend we don't need a medic, and just head for the officer's club instead? Well, we'll probably be drinking more whiskey than usual on nights like that.

Gene used to rely on porn to ease the sting of emotional flak. Now he talked to his wife, Linda.

Yesterday he was putting out little fires all morning at work. Then at lunchtime he got an email from the CEO chastising him for bidding too low on a big job for a demanding customer. "Work this hard and still can't please anyone," Gene thought.

He had no time to stop and eat lunch. Thinking about all the phone calls and emails he had to catch up on ruined his appetite anyway. He worked through most of his lunch hour.

However, before walking into his first afternoon meeting, Gene took a minute to text Linda. "hard day demand after demand found out i dropped a ball (big one) sore throat craving relief probably won't be home til 9 or 10 moan"

That's right.

Attend to the pain.

Say where it stings.

Clean it out.

Don't let it fester.

He discovered that evening that poor cell phone coverage in their building had prevented the text from even getting through to Linda.

And yet it had worked. It showed him that simply expressing a need can be as powerful as actually addressing it. Maybe expressing it is the most important part of addressing it.

It hadn't made the day easy. It hadn't eased the burning in his throat. But he knew what he needed at the end of the day, too. A hot meal and the chance to unload about his day with Linda. After he'd done that, he felt some relief. He was ready to go to sleep. He wasn't left jonesin' for the salve of his addiction.

Break the Trance of Craving

2011-02-09T06:48:00.000-08:00

(Also check out our most recent post on this topic: Don't Fight Your Urges, Cure Your Cravings.)

Charlie had just relapsed the day before our session, so we had fresh craving material to work with.

"I was so discouraged after I gave in. I'd been doing well for two weeks."

I had Charlie close his eyes and imagine that he was looking down some stairs at a door to an underground room. "Walk down the steps 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10. Now you're on the landing. Open the door, walk in, and you find a table there with chairs around it. There is a window and a door in the wall to your right and a window and door in the wall to your left. Walk over to your right and look in that window.

In that room is you from yesterday, right after you messed up. Tell me what you notice about the guy in there, that former you. How does he feel? What's going through his mind?

Tears were squeezing through Charlie's closed eyes. He is 61 years old and he's been struggling with this addiction since he was a teenager.

"He's depressed and discouraged. He feels worthless. At times in the past he has even felt suicidal. He wonders if Louise is finally going to give up on him."

"Walk into that room and take him by the arm," I instructed Charlie. "Walk back into the main room with that downhearted you and take him over to the window of the other room, the room on the left. You both look in and see another you, the one from just an hour earlier yesterday, the you that was craving pornography, ready to go find some. As you watch him, can you tell what's going on inside him?"

"He's lonely. Confused. He's discouraged about mixed signals from Louise."

"What mixed signals."

"The night before, she initiated snuggling. We were lying close to each other and our legs were entwined. But when I tried to initiate sex, she pulled away. Then I remembered that she had pushed me away the last time I tried to be affectionate with her."

I asked Charlie to go into the room and bring that craving self into the main room and sit both the craving self and the downhearted self down at the table.

"Now ask them both, 'Isn't there a way to keep working toward connection with Louise--without feeling down on yourself because of the way things go or behaving in a self-destructive way?"

The discouraged, post-relapse part of him had an idea: "I could talk to Louise about wanting to be closer and tell her that the relationship is too important to me to keep destroying it by pulling away or acting out."

The tempted, pre-relapse part of him wasn't sure that would work. "It seemed useless to talk to her yesterday. It felt hopeless. It seemed like the relationship had no meaning to her, so why try? I lost perspective, got depressed, and then the good stuff in my life loses importance."

Charlie thought for a minute as I took notes on what he'd just said. "Plus, if I tell her that feelings about our relationship were a part of what led to my relapse, I'm afraid she'll feel like I'm blaming her for my problems."

What the heck, I thought. Let's bring an imaginary Louise into the room and let her speak for herself. We had both the pre-relapse Charlie and the post-relapse Charlie tell Louise what a central role she plays in his life. They admitted that they sometimes overreact to the way she responds. The bottom line for all three Charlies was this: he wants to be close to her. He wants to make love more often but he didn't want her to take on feelings of responsibility for keeping him sober.

He wants to be able to open up about what he was going through instead of keeping it bottled inside. I asked him how the imaginary Louise felt about that. The tears flowed again. "She can handle it. She welcomes it. She's always wanted it and keeps asking for it. It's me that struggles with openness."

Seemed like a productive session. A few more bricks out of the wall that keeps Charlie from reaching out instead of acting out when he's in need.

I think that future craving states will be a little less impervious to other options and other ways of viewing life. Hopefully, Charlie's maladaptive lines of thinking will be a little less convincing in the heat of future moments of temptation.

(A brief note about this technique: it is based on the work of George Leowenstein and others in the field of behavioral economics. They study the phenomenon of temporal flux in our preferences. At different points in time we experience very different states of mind with different preferences and inclinations. When I crave porn I can't relate to the way I will think and feel after relapsing. Leowenstein calls this "the intrapersonal hot-cold empathy gap." The me that I am right before I relapse doesn't empathize with the me I will become immediately after relapse. Fortunately, just as it's possible to develop empathy for others, we can also develop greater empathy between our own various temporally shifting states. That is the purpose of this technique. To delve further into the fascinating field behavioral economics, check out Dan Gilbert's book Stumbling on Happiness. To see how it can be applied in a practical way to overcome addictions... keep coming back to this blog and watch for my next book.)

How to Stop Looking at Porn on the Computer

2011-02-08T03:30:00.000-08:00

I have more confidence in the next generation whenever I get done meeting with Wendy. She is delightful 17-year-old who has her own unique style, writes quirky poetry, and is editor for her school's literary magazine.

She also happens to be struggling with a pornography and masturbation habit.

We've met together for the better part of a year. She's doing better, but unfortunately still struggling. She's so sincere and motivated. She keeps showing up and doing all her homework. It inspires me.

When she starts to get down on herself, I remind her: "I'm dang good at what I do, and I'm struggling to figure this one out just like you are. But we haven't failed. We just haven't completely succeeded yet!"

Doesn't mean we're approaching the process wrong; it's just the nature of this struggle sometimes. We're still playing detective, looking for what's leading her to falter, exploring why her craving mindset is so insulated from her wise mind, and trying to address those issues as we identify them.

The fact that her treatment has taken a while has given us the chance to discuss quite a few of the tools and techniques that I've found to be helpful for other clients over the years. The fact that she's an editor has led her to pare down my wordy material into straightforward stop-drop-and-roll type steps.

She was nice enough to let me share the document with you:

When you feel the trigger…
Thoughts to look out for:

“I’ll just do_____, I won’t actually get all the way to______”

“Just one time isn’t a big deal.”

“The consequences won’t be that big of a deal. It’s worth it.”

-ack of thought. Just Action.

Be especially careful when you feel like A SLOB:

like Avoiding something
Stressed
Lonely
Overwhelmed
Bored

How to avoid acting on temptations:
Shift modes

Accept: “Oh, good. A chance to practice mastery.
Breathe: A few nice, full breaths.
Notice: focus on specific sight, touch, and sound.
Vision: picture an image that captures the feeling of freedom
Choose: now that you are free, make a choice (hint: choose freedom)
Surf the feeling

Recognize the thoughts for what they are.
Don’t fight the urges, let them come on, but don’t succumb to them, either.

Become a scientist:

Where do you feel it?

How much time did it happen for?

Observe, observe, observe.

Reach out to others

Call up someone and groan.

Tell people what you are doing online, and how long you will be doing it for.

Just talk to someone.

Make any sort of human connection to fulfill that need.

Stick to Dr. Jeff Robinson's 2 out of 3 rule (always do 2 of these when online)

Someone is in the room who can see the screen.
Tell someone what I am doing and when I will be finished.
Stick to your white list (agreed upon safe sites)

Keep perspective.

Picture 8 year old and 13 year old Wendy, and how much you have grown
What would I do for a child that age who was in need. (Wouldn't give them sex!)
Go in the conference room with the sad little part of you that gives into temptation
Think of what other options you have. There are options.

Surrender the temptation

Pray.

Know that you are too weak to fight on your own, ask for help

Turn to the scriptures

Delay

Set a time that you can mess up at
Prepare for that time with previous steps, reading, praying, etc…
If you mess up at that time, let yourself. Delaying is the point.

Attach an ordeal

Do after messing up if you have to, but eventually try to make it before.
Do the dishes, or ten jumping jacks every time you mess up, or before you mess up.

Imagine

Imagine the sensation after messing up
Imagine yourself messing up (not the actual process, just pretend it already happened)

What to do after you mess up:

Keep a journal
Record ups and downs,
Record emotions before and after mess ups.
Tell someone
Within 15 minutes, let someone know you messed up.

Remember:

It’s a bump in the road, not a wrong turn.
Don’t stress, as stress goes down, so will mess ups.
Christ has already won the greatest battle, anyway. If you’re doing well,
celebrate that. If not, take solace in it.
Keep a playful attitude. It’s like a game. Satan doesn’t get humor. It is a
freedom of mind. He isn’t a free being.
Progressing slowly and the problem not going away look similar, but they’re not the
same thing!

Try:

Going through the first few actions in the process of messing up, then stopping, to prove there is an exit option.
Make a paper chain, string of beads, etc. marking successful and unsuccessful days.

Best Free Online Help for Kicking a Porn Habit

2011-02-05T09:06:00.000-08:00

Our blog is here to help couples heal relationships damaged by pornography.

But remember: relationship recovery is not the whole picture.

Don't neglect your individual recovery! We can't truly be there for a partner unless we are progressing toward personal integrity and inner wholeness.

Check out these other free online resources to boost your individual recovery... and then keep coming back here to work on your relationship.

1. Over at Feed the Right Wolf, Alex offers a great free course that will help you understand and deal with cravings. Alex admits he's no doctor and English is not his native tongue... and then he goes on to explain the power of methods like Exposure and Response Prevention better than we psychologists do. He argues for a broad and balanced approach since, in his own experience, "a combination of different methods appeared to be bringing the optimal result."

2. Check out New Life Habits when you have time for a feast... or keep going back for quick snacks. You'll find practical entries like how to create your own rehab and thought provokers such as you'd better learn to enjoy your new life if you expect to keep it.

3. For years I've been referring people to Joe Zychic's work over at SexualControl.com. Look there for great insights on why willpower alone is doomed to fail and how to cultivate a deeper and more sustaining motivation for change. His work will convince you that addictive sex is no match for genuine loving sex in a real relationship.

On all of these sites, comments from other visitors are sometimes the most helpful and inspiring. You'll leave knowing you're not alone!

Intensive Help for Serious Addictions

2011-02-04T06:13:00.000-08:00

For someone whose life was in crisis, Naomi seemed quite calm. “I was in turmoil, but now my resolve is firm. Once I determined exactly where I need to go from here, peace settled in.”

Naomi had amazing clarity. (It helped that she’d been talking with my friend Ken, who is an addict in recovery, and his wife.) Naomi had concluded:

Otis is a good man, but his behavior has become intolerable. His addiction has numbed his conscience and altered his thinking. He not only committed adultery, he had reached the point where he behaved immorally in many other ways as well including lying, cheating, and stealing.
She was no longer willing to participate in her husband’s demise. She realized that her patient persistence has only enabled him to continue to destroy himself, his marriage, and his family.
Otis may be using his addiction to deal with underlying issues (ADHD, depression, and anxiety). It was high time that he be evaluated thoroughly so that those could be addressed.
Her fear that Otis might kill himself had long prevented her from putting pressure on him to get help. She would no longer be controlled by this fear. Whether he lives or dies is not up to her, she decided. If he threatened suicide, she would call 911 so that he could get the help he needs from trained professionals.
She was ready to stop taking primary responsibility for Otis getting better. She was ready to get out of the way of his recovery and surrender it to others: his Higher Power, treatment professionals, his Sexaholics Anonymous sponsor, his pastor.
She had been a lifeline to him in a way that had enabled his addiction to continue. She was going to shut down those unhealthy means of support (for example, covering for him with their grown kids, letting him still sleep in their bed despite the betrayals).
She and her kids needed time and space away from the drama and trauma that he had caused. They needed to return to a normal routine. They needed to eat meals together. They needed to focus on things like science projects and school dances. Otis and his struggle needed to be out of the picture for a while so that they could rediscover happiness with each other and in life.
She needed to hold to her limits and reflect back to Otis his responsibility. She had started practicing phrases like, “I’m sorry you’re going through that… but that’s not my responsibility.” “Shoot. Sounds like you’re in a tough spot. I hope you find a solution.”
She knew that, at that point, Otis’s word was worth nothing. She was willing to rebuild trust for him again, but he would need to earn it back by stepping up and being responsible for his problems and situation in life.

Naomi informed Otis that she wanted to work it out with him and stay together. However, in order for that to happen, he needed to get into an intensive treatment program. Serious problems require radical interventions, not the kind of half-measures that he had been applying thus far.

When they talked, Otis could tell immediately that Naomi had reached her limit. In a way, he was relieved. He felt like this was finally it: this would either be the end of his marriage or the end of the road for his addiction. Despite past ambivalence, more and more now he wanted out of his addiction. He definitely wanted to stay married and always had. In the past Otis may have tried to appeal to Naomi’s compassion, convince her to let him try again in the usual ways, or focus on the role she played in their problems.

In a strange way, it felt good to him to commit to a treatment program instead. If this was rock bottom, maybe it wasn’t so. He hoped that this could be the beginning of a new chapter of his life, a new direction for their lives together.

Over the next month, Otis spent a good portion of his waking hours at our clinic in Salt Lake City. Naomi joined him for the third week of treatment. It was good to see them addressing underlying issues and repairing old wounds.

It hasn’t exactly been smooth sailing since then, but it’s been a year and a half now since their intensive and their family is so much better off. Looking back, I can see that the foundation of their success was the groundwork that was laid by Naomi.

My Boyfriend Looks at Porn and I Hate It

2011-02-03T04:58:00.000-08:00

Tricia writes, "Ever since I was young enough to understand what pornography is, I've viewed it as something inappropriate and degrading. I am not religious at all--in fact I am atheist. Nonetheless, I have led my life by a very strict self-imposed moral code.

"I've been hesitant to get into relationships with men who view pornography. From the very beginning, I make sure to bring this topic up and make my position on the matter clear. This is a challenge because most men look at pornography. I've concluded that those who say they don't are most likely lying.

"My current boyfriend assured me that he was quite disgusted by pornography and hadn't looked at it in years. I believed him. Our relationship progressed and I thought things were fine.

"Over time I had some problems trusting him. He would lie to me here and there about little things. I'd forgive him though we'd try to move on. However, sometimes I'd get this bad feeling inside that he was hiding something from me. I just couldn't understand it. I'd ask him if he looked at pornography and he'd say absolutely not.

"The anxiety started to really get to me, so I decided to go to therapy. I figured it was just my own insecurities and I didn't want to make my boyfriend feel like I couldn't trust him.

"Two years into our relationship, something awful happened. I found pornography on my his computer. I tried to let him redeem himself. I asked him if he was looking at pornography and he held me close and said he would never do that because he knows how it would hurt me.

"I was furious. How could he lie right to my face about something so important to me? I told him what I'd seen on his computer. He tried to deny it initially, but eventually came clean. He told me he has been looking at it for the entirety of our relationship and just couldn't bring himself to tell me. He said that he'd always felt ashamed. He knew that if I ever found out I would be devastated and possibly leave him. Yet he did it anyway.

"It has been really difficult for me to wrap my head around the whole thing. To realize how many times he has selfishly lied in order to get me and keep me in a relationship with him. If he had admitted that he looked at porn, I could have made up my own mind about what I wanted to do. Instead, he let me believe that he was the guy of my dreams who wasn't like other guys. I should have known better I guess.

"He is willing to go to counseling and wants to change. I just don't know if I can go through what it might take to heal our relationship. I am feeling very lost. My anxiety is so extreme right now that I can't sleep. I can't focus at work. My mind races with horrible thoughts.

I'm trying to deal with my anxiety in therapy. I want to progress on the path of healing and eventually trusting again. Any words of wisdom or advice would be greatly appreciated."

Thanks for writing Tricia. Our heart goes out to you. I know that you've spoken for a many women. Here are some thoughts about your situation. I hope they're helpful.

Each one of us has a sentinel in our brain that monitors what we go through every day. It’s a nervous system alarm mechanism that’s sort of like a love watchdog, and it’s always on the lookout for signals about how our most important relationships is going.

Human development experts call it our attachment system. Those researchers who have come to know it best say that it switches on in the womb and operates until we die. The signals it sends us are both unmistakable--in fact, they're unignorable. Subjectively, they seem to come from the depths of our soul, which makes me suspect that there is more than just biology at work here.

This love watchdog, this sophisticated yet primal network within the nervous system, has a key purpose in our lives. It tells us whether everything’s okay our relationship with our primary attachment figure.

When I need him, is he there for me? If so, the sentinel screams out from the castle tower, “All is well!”

When I call, does he come? Another shout from the tower: “All is well!”

Is he as interested in me as I am in him? Nothing from the castle tower. Well, is he? I’m on pins and needles waiting for the sentinel’s signal.

Since we’ve been together I’ve been sexually exclusive. I’m drawn to him so I eschew chances to pursue other relationships. I’m content. He’s enough for me. Thoughts of sex with other people are less compelling to me than thoughts of sex with him. Even when I do find someone else attractive, I restrain my yearnings and fantasies. What we have together is too important. To flirt or fan the flames of lust for someone else would seem to strike at the heart of what I want to share only with him.

It’s been awfully quiet in there. Did he leave? There he is at the computer wide-eyed. He doesn't even hear that I’ve come in. What’s he working on that has him so engrossed? What?! Oh my, no!

Women don’t choose to be offended by porn. Their attachment system gives them no choice. Stress hormones are dumped into the nervous system. The question, “Is he into me the way I’m into him?” gets answered in the negative. He can say it’s not about that. Perhaps she can come to believe him on a logical level.

Nonetheless, the gates of her emotional security have been splintered to shreds. Porn is the battering ram that did the damage.

Fortunately, when both partners are willing, relationship security can be restored. There’s a lot that can be done to repair and rebuild. So much that Geoff Steurer and I have written an entire book about it. Here are some of the most important insights you’ll find in it:

1. Pornography can be a hard issue for any couple to work through. It's not necessarily that either spouse is handling it wrong. She keeps bringing it up--or needs to--because she's traumatized. He doesn't want to talk about it because he's so embarrassed. Each reacts the way they do because the relationship is so important to them. Unfortunately, they’re each unintentionally depriving the other what they yearn for most from the relationship.

2. She needs him now more than ever. She's hurting; he's the most important person in her life, the one she naturally turns to when she's in need. Sure he feels rotten for putting her through this, but he doesn't have to let that prevent him from being the one who comes to her rescue now by listening when she needs to talk. His attentiveness now will mean more than anyone else’s, be it a friend, family
member, ecclesiastical leader, or therapist.

3. His hesitance to talk doesn't mean he doesn't care. He feels more than he shows. In fact, he may be emotionally overloaded because he’s let her down. He may feel like he can't bear to discuss porn so much. He may freeze up when he thinks about admitting that he is tempted or that he gave in again. However, he can at least tell her why this is so: because she is the most important person in his life, the one he wants more than anything to please and measure up for!

4. He can learn to hear her hurt. Over time he begins to see that it draws them closer to talk about this topic that used to wedge them apart. He can take in--without always taking personally--what she's going through when she feels insecure in the middle of the day or night, when she lashes out or wants her space, or when the topic of sex reopens her wounds. As he takes in her pain and fear without getting defensive or pulling away, he becomes a healer for the relationship.

5. His relapses to porn are often fueled by feelings. An important step toward gaining control is becoming more aware of his emotional responses to everyday events. He can get into the habit of talking about what happened during his day and how he felt about it. Acknowledging feelings helps defuse their potential to convert into addictive impulses. This may be unfamiliar territory for him, but it becomes a tremendous relief to reach out (instead of acting out) in moments of emotional vulnerability. It also helps them bond as a couple.

6. Reaching for each other is more healing when we make it habit. The wounds from porn are deeper when it was a frequent problem; healing must be even more regular. Couples can make it a daily ritual to draw close to one another by talking and touching first thing in the morning, during the day, when they reunite in the evening, and before going to sleep.

An interesting thing happens for couples as they apply these insights. It takes time, but somewhere along the way, as they continue to work at it, the attachment system in the betrayed partner’s brain is put at ease. From the depths of her soul she hears the cry from the lookout on castle wall… “All is well!”

And it really is!

When Sex Is Not the Answer

2011-02-02T17:30:00.000-08:00

I'm as pro-sex as they come. I'd rather sing its praises than be the guy talking it down.

However, there's a painful, out-of-whack theme I see in the lives of men I have the privilege of chatting with for several hours a day.

Partly it's a guy thing. Even those of us who have never been addicted can get pretty needy when it comes to sex. Rather than face our everyday hurts and heartaches, we want sex to be the ultimate nightcap that just soothes them all away.

When our advances aren't accepted, no wonder our emotional world crumbles. We're not just missing the warmth of skin-to-skin contact, the pleasures of intimate engagement, and the ecstasy of sexual release. As much as we may miss those, that's not the real kicker. After all, we can have that all again sometime soon. (As wonderful as Disneyland is, we don't mourn that we can't go there everyday.)

The real bite is this: when we don't get sex, we are at risk of being left in emotional limbo--purgatory even. We have to face our demons without a narcotic.

We may go to all ends to try to avoid facing what we feel inside when we want sex and can't have it. We may pressure our partner. Women love feeling wanted and needed, but nothing turns her off sexually like suspecting that she's not much more to him than a live human masturbation aid.

Women who keep succumbing to the pressure to have sex typically become emotionally disengaged--not only during sex but from their husbands in a general way.

On the other hand, she might become less willing to have sex. Then he feels an even greater hunger and applies more pressure. Which in turn makes her even less interested. Actually, she's not just uninterested, she's actively avoidant. This is a cycle we can get stuck in, an amusement park ride that's easy to get on and hard to get off.

Some men then look outside the relationship for gratification, which is like planting dynamite on the merry-go-round to get it to stop.

Fortunately, there's a healthier way out of this struggle.

Look at it as an opportunity. When we're not able to have sex, we get to face some of our demons.

I suggested this a couple of weeks ago to Jonathan, who was so sexually frustrated that he was considering chemical castration as a solution. He laughed when I talked about this "opportunity" to become more enlightened and thus freer from his impulses.

His usual approach was to keep turning to her, pleading that she read another blog on the benefits of sex, emailing her a link to an online Christian program that discourages abstinence, offering to give her a massage that he would try to turn into an opportunity to make love.

His homework from me was to go sixty days without sex.

He admitted to me this morning that he left that last session angry. He felt like his wife, who was there to hear the assignment, would take it as a justification of her position. He feared that if he took the pressure off her that they may never have sex again. "She has everything she wants. I take care of her financial needs and our kids all still live in the area." He didn't have any confidence that she would actually choose sexual closeness with him, if given complete and utter freedom to choose for herself.

How sad for Jonathan! He deserves more love and affection than that! But I don't think he had any confidence that my approach would help him get it.

I had a more confidence in her. Not because I know her very well yet, but because I've seen many women like her before. It's amazing how their sexuality can awaken once it's no longer being smothered by his.

I encouraged Jonathan to talk to Michelle about how he felt emotionally when he wanted sex but knew he wasn't going to get it (which would be every time over the next couple of months if he followed my suggestion).

"However, before you can talk with her about all the emotions that come up for you then... you have to become more aware of all the emotions that come up for you then." To do so, I encouraged him to:

Stay with the emotions that come in the wake of realizing you're not going to be sexual.
Pay attention to the physical pain. Where is it? Exactly what does it feel like?
Keep breathing. Nice and full. Slow and easy.
Accept that you feel this way.
Let yourself feel this way.
Give yourself permission to feel this way.
Remind yourself that no one died from not having sex. (Not that a coroner has confirmed, at least.)
Notice where you feel the emotional discomfort in your body.
Stay with that.
Keep breathing.
Let your mind float back in time. Keep attending to the feeling in your body but let your mind drift from the current situation and back over time. Maybe even way back. What memories come to mind? When else have you felt these feelings in your body?

Often, the memories that come up have nothing to do with sex. Homesickness during my first summer camp. The day I discovered dad's model train table gone from the basement and realized that it meant my parents were getting divorced. Feeling rejected by the group of kids in my neighborhood because they thought I had a funny name and skin color.

Take those feelings to your wife. You know what you'll get? Her heart will go out to you. She'll want to hear more. She'll stay with you through the thick of it.

Jonathan didn't make any intriguing discoveries by trying this out. But something else happened when he followed my directions to not pressure his wife for sex. (Actually he did "invite her once in a very easy-going way," but then she just reminded him about the assignment.) Even though Michelle had to remind him that once, guess what happened? I haven't spoken to her yet about it, but perhaps because of the easing of external pressure, she had the opportunity to listen to her inner desires. Guess what they told her. After a week and a half, they prompted her to initiate lovemaking. For the first time in a long time!

Amazing things can happen when sex is a choice, and you feel free to have it--or not--rather than feeling like it's the intravenous line through which your partner is receiving their emotional life support.

Porn Used to Numb His Need for Her

2011-02-02T06:30:00.000-08:00

It’s a thing of beauty to see a man who has been addicted to porn finally let his wife in emotionally. When he does, she can finally see how much he needs her.

I wish I had a plan that predictably helped couples get there. Then again, maybe that would detract from the miracle of it.

In Trent and Stella’s case, a little reading went a long way. I encouraged Trent to read Terrance Real’s book, I Don’t Want to Talk About It: The Hidden Legacy of Male Depression.”

“I was a basket case all week,” he reported at the beginning of our next session. “I read and cried, read and cried.”

Stella nodded. “After I held and comforted him one night, I had to turn my pillow over before I could go to sleep. It was soaked with his tears.”

This was different for Trent. He didn’t usually cry. In fact, he didn’t usually feel. At least he thought he didn’t. Underneath his calm exterior he had always been feeling. Feeling so regularly, in fact, that he had to go to porn to escape what he would otherwise have had to keep feeling.

For a week he had been feeling and voicing it instead.

It was helpful for both Trent and Stella to see some of the history behind his habit of escaping feelings rather than reaching out when he was in need.

That had been a part of those crying sessions throughout the previous week. Trent had talked about his dad leaving their little family when he was four. And he had cried. Trent had talked about banging on the door to try to interrupt the arguing and slaps and knocks he heard coming from behind his mom and step-dad’s bedroom door. Telling Stella about it, he had cried and yelled and pulled at his hair and wrenched into a fetal curl.

Trent had talked about “horrors” and his “nightmares.” Like the kid who waited to beat him up as he walked home from school in fifth grade. Taking a different route some days, running really fast some days. And then there were the days when his buttons got torn from his shirt and the raspberry streak on his face stung from being ground in the dirt and his ribs ached from being kicked. He hid in his room instead of coming out for dinner because he was ashamed that he’d gotten beat up.

Trent talked about feeling alone through all that, but now he wasn’t alone. This was the first time he’d let these things out in anyone’s presence. It was the first time he’d cried like this in front of anyone.

By the time they were back in my office, the tears had dried. He had started calling the bullying “a stupid little thing” that had happened to him. He’d been bothered by hearing mom in her room with strange men, but now he said “funny little things like that got to me back then.”

“I know you want to shut off that pain and put those things back in the box they’ve been in all these years,” I said. “But you don’t have to. You don’t need to minimize it anymore. Being real about your pain makes you more real to Stella. To be able to stay with you, she needs you to stay real.”

His sexual addiction has been so bad, Stella sometimes considered leaving. That week, she said, she’d found an apartment that might work.

Her own apartment?! Dang! didn’t she see that Trent was doing better? Wasn’t she feeling closer?

“How did it feel to you when Trent opened up about what he feels. When he allowed himself to talk to you about the pain he’s been through and cry with you?”

“I felt so sad for him. Intimate and close--not sexually, but emotionally. When he talks to me, I feel at ease. It’s when he closes off that I feel my rage over what he’s done.

“When he cried and I held him, it was amazing. Like nothing could get in our way. Like we’re going to get through this and I can be here for him. It even felt like we’ll be able to get the passion back. We could have fun being around each other and doing things together again. If I had my way we’d talk like that all the time.”

“And yet, as close as that felt, you hurt so much that you’re still thinking about leaving.”

“I told Trent I’d found a place that might work, but it won’t be ready for a couple months. Do you know what he said? ‘I’ll try to help you.’ I don’t need his financial help! I don’t want him to help me pack! I just need to know whether he even wants me to stay, whether he really wants me.”

“Trent, what happened inside when she said she’d found a place?”

“Oh, it killed me. But I know it’s because I’ve hurt her so badly. I have nothing to whine about. It’s my own fault.”

“But what happened inside? Where did you feel it in your body?

“Oh, my gut. Sick. Ugh. I can feel it now.”

“You’re sick about the idea of losing this woman who means so much to you. But you couldn’t tell her that.”

Trent shook his head. His eyes were getting wet.

“You felt sick, but frozen by it and like you deserved it and the best you can do is help make her move easier. You couldn’t tell her what you were feeling inside. Can you tell her now?”

“Not without bawling.”

Trent laughed. I could see the realization in his eyes as he remembered what Stella had just said about his tears and they way they had drawn her to him and how much closer she felt when he let her see that he was in need.

He reached out and patted her hand, then gripped it. It took him a while to speak. I could see his knuckles whitening. “Don’t…” Without letting go of her hand Trent bent all the way forward like he might be about to get sick. He sat back again, took a breath, and turned to look at Stella. His tight throat barely let his voice rasp through. “I don’t…” He wiped is eyes with his other hand. “I hope…” A few more breaths. “I‘m not...”

He hadn’t made any sense at all. Stella knew exactly what he meant. She stepped over and bent down and embraced him.

Human Connection is the Best Relapse Prevention

2011-02-01T05:40:00.000-08:00

Troy had been sober from porn for 40 days. When we talked yesterday, he was so delighted: "Life's better. I can sit and read to my little boys--sometimes two or three books--without feeling so impatient. Celeste and I go for walks and it feels good to just hold hands."

What surprised Troy most is the improvement in his sexual relationship with Celeste. "What we both feel when we're together has been electric. Of course the whole package is better than porn because I'm living with integrity now. What blew me away is that the intensity of pleasure is reaching a level almost as high as what porn was in its best moments."

I remembered back to a few months ago when Troy talked about "porn at its best." Part of his motivation to get sober was that he was devoting more of his time and energy and receiving less and less in return. When he was craving, he might recall the most euphoric incidents of porn consumption, but once he gave in to the craving the actual experience was rarely living up to those memories.

Troy wasn't alone in this. It's porn's law of diminishing returns. Another word for it is tolerance, and it's a fixture on the landscape of all addictions.

Now he was experiencing one of the sweet laws of recovery: human connection is the best relapse prevention. Here are a couple of reasons why:

1. A committed relationship is porn addiction's nicotine patch. The chemical oxytocin is a source of natural biological bliss. It calms anxiety and makes us more easily satisfied. It's released in our brains and bodies when we spend time working beside, caressing, conversing with, resting a hand on the shoulder of, or even touching base by cellphone with our beloved.

This "cuddle chemical" has also been found to diminish addictive urges. In 1998 G. L. Kovacs and colleagues administered to rats regular doses of heroin, cocaine, and morphine in order to develop dependence. Then they gave half of the rats oxytocin. Those oxytocin-dosed rats opted for less of their "drug of choice" when they had unlimited access and also showed fewer signs of withdrawal. In 2006 Billings found that oxytocin had the same effect on rats' cravings for sweets.

2. Oxytocin makes commitment more appealing. Scientists didn't have to dose up any rats to discover this; nature had already done the experiment for them on some other rodents. All they had to do was compare the "Family Values" of Mountain Voles to those of Prairie Voles. These cousins are biologically similar in almost every way, but the brains of Prarie voles produce and release more oxytocin and have more receptors for the chemical in key areas. The effects of this difference? Prairie voles are more sociable, they mate for life, and both parents care for their young. That's a far cry from Mountain Voles, which are promiscuous, solitary, and the dads of the species are deadbeat, leaving the mothers to care for the young on their own.

Some have wondered whether philandering humans have brains more like these promiscuous rodents. I think a different implication of this research is more interesting: As humans, we can influence our own oxytocin levels. Why not do the things that lead to the production and release of oxytocin rather than remaining victims of our original set point, whatever it happens to be?

Couples who are the happiest and most satisfied touch and talk to each other more. But let's not assume that the causal relationship just goes one direction. Sure we can respond to feelings of contentment in our relationship by connecting physically and verbally... but we can also make an effort to touch more and talk more. When we do we're dosing up with oxytocin, which in turn makes us more satisfied with our partner and less likely to even want to wander.

It was fun to see Troy's face light up as we talked about this miracle chemical. He was understanding more about what he'd already been enjoying in his life. I could tell how good it felt to be in the driver's seat of his life--so much better than his former enslavement to porn.

[Just a brief final note to twelve-step adherents: By calling human connection the best relapse prevention, I'm not trying to diminish the role of our Higher Power in recovery. After all, who else would get the credit for having put these loved ones in our lives?]

When We Crave Sex, Sometimes It's Touch We Really Need

2011-01-31T20:07:00.000-08:00

Greg used to go to porn at times like this. He admitted that he could barely keep himself from running back to it now.

The problem was the superhuman standard to which his boss held him.

He was expected to plan everything for a conference their entire team was attending. Other team members seemed to have time to spare, but Greg was always under the gun. When he tried to reach his boss to ask questions about their itinerary, his calls and emails went unreturned. When something fell through as a result, he was grilled about why it hadn’t been taken care of.

When he tried to improve their display for the convention hall, the fifteen bucks he spent on materials was held over his head. When there weren’t enough business cards for every member on the team, somehow he was to blame.

It was killing Greg. He felt like he couldn’t win. He hated to disappoint people, so to have someone over him who was continually unhappy was excruciating.

He was thinking about quitting.

“Don’t do that,” I said. “This is a great opportunity.” I must have sounded like a bubbly cheerleader rooting on my favorite gladiator. (Later he would tell me, “That was bizarre. You didn’t tell me to keep my job in spite of what I was going through, but because of it!”)

“How much better it will be to get free in your job than to get free of your job!”

He made a commitment to his wife and to God that he wouldn’t go to porn anymore. Now I was telling him he shouldn’t quit his job. He had the wide eyes of an animal right before it’s devoured.

For the rest of that session I did everything I could to try to help him unload emotional responsibility for his boss’s satisfaction.

Like my mentor, Craig Berthold, I role-played his boss and asked him to hold up some books from my bookshelf. “These are the boxes that hold my happiness.” Told him he wasn’t doing it well enough. Told him it would spill out if he didn’t tilt it just right. Asked him to raise it higher. Not that high. What’s wrong with you?Eventually he did drop the books in disgust.

I called his efforts idolatry. I told him that he could load sacrifices on the altar of pleasing his boss for the rest of his life--and yet his boss’s satisfaction was a god would never be full enough to stop demanding more.

Like Byron Katie, I encouraged him to say, “I accept that he will always be disappointed in me. I look forward to hearing his growl the next time I let him down.” Greg stuck out his tongue and held his stomach the first time he said those words, but it got easier as he repeated them.

I called Greg the next day to check in. He already sounded more relaxed. At our next session he looked more at ease.

He told me about an incident at the convention. Some materials had been left at the front desk of the hotel. No one on their team had remembered them; everyone had forgotten them. As he was loading materials up the elevator to where his team was setting up in convention hall, he had received three texts in two minutes from his boss: “What are you going to do about it?” “What are you going to do about it?!!” “WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?!!”

As he recounted the incident, the intensity of the texts wasn’t reflected on his face.

“I’m not going to quit. He may fire me. I just decided that I’m going to only do what I can and not get too caught up in how he reacts. I can only control what I do. It’s up to him how he responds.”

I could tell that he meant what he was saying, but I’m not used to seeing see that kind of shift in clients in one week’s time. “So you just decided not to get too caught up…”

“Yeah, like we talked about last time.”

“I know we talked about it. Just didn’t expect you to be able to really feel it yet.”

“I shared it in group therapy that night. It helped to have everyone there empathize and validate what I was going through.

“Then when I got home, Elise could tell that I was struggling. We’d been talking about how I need more touch, and that’s why I always offered to give her backrubs. She hadn’t given me a backrub in the thirty years we’ve been married. She asked if I wanted one. She has arthritis in her hands so I offered to let her use our massage wand. She said no and just used her hands and arms. It was divine. For over an hour she caressed me and hummed quietly. I turned over and she caressed my chest and arms.

“I kept sighing at first. Then I got really relaxed. After the massage she wrapped her arms around me and held me. She kept holding me to her. Talking softly in my ear. I felt like I was in this protective cocoon and everything was going to be okay. It had a very healing effect. After a while I felt like I didn’t need to be encased anymore. I relaxed and fell asleep. Slept like a baby. That next day I woke up feeling softer, looser. I knew then that everything was going to be okay, no matter what happened with my job.”

Now that’s good therapy.

The Searing Light that Keeps Us in the Cave of Addiction

2011-01-29T21:23:00.000-08:00

As men who struggle with pornography, we are blinded by a glaring feeling: that it would be all wrong to deal with this problem openly with a spouse. It's such a relief when we decide to hunker back into secrecy mode.

However... that brilliant light coming from the mouth of the cave won't incinerate, it will heal! Here are three reasons why:

1. Her measuring stick is horizontal, not verticle. I want to measure up in her eyes. However, when she measures, it's to see if we're close. It's her deepest instinct. More than whether I'm doing well or poorly in life, she's concerned with whether we're in it together.

She wants to know what's going on inside for me. She wants to be one, collaborating as partners. She wants me to let her in. Shame and pride can rule my inner world, but that doesn't mean it's the lens she sees me through.

Over and over again in my office I hear women tell their men: "Even more than your struggle with porn, I have a problem with your secrecy. You kept me out of an important part of your life. I can take working together on anything; it's feeling apart from you that kills me."

2. An unseen need for support can't be met. I'm going to reach for something when I'm in need--my wife or my addiction. If I hold back from revealing my struggle, how is she going to know that I'm in need?

Touch and talk are healing salves that can be applied once the everyday wounds are revealed. I know, I know, they seem like weak medicine compared to solo sex, but they truly start the healing process instead of just temporarily numbing the pain.

3. Our vitality depends on being real. When I let down my guard, I'm vulnerable. Vulnerability is a two-edged sword. I may feel anxiety when I go to a sexaholics annonymous meeting and say, "I'm a sex addict," but I also experience the exhilleration that comes from everyone there seeing me exactly as I am... and still embracing me!

Vulneability--being real despite the risk--is not just a way out of addiction, it's a key ingredient for a fulfilling life.

A double life ends up being half a life--or less. Between the highs of the acting out, we feel phony, disconnected, insincere, divided.

So when you feel the light on your face and you're about to lose your nerve, keep walking! You're headed in the right direction.

Why Your Husband Won’t Read This Blog

2011-01-29T06:05:00.000-08:00

Vivian writes, “What should I do when I discover my husband has been viewing porn again after promising not to? Talking to him about it never works. He immediately gets very upset and defensive. He says this is HIS problem and HIS addiction and he will deal with it. He claims that he is more upset and disappointed in himself than I could ever be. Then he stops talking to me.”

Vivian, I wish I knew the key element that helps us as men reach the magical point where we allow ourselves to take off our armor and lower our guard. What exactly enables us to say “I’ve had enough of the @#!*% of battling this habit alone. The way I’ve been doing it’s not working. It’s time to go into therapy, do an online program, read about this problem. It’s time to deal with it in a more open way with my wife.”

Fortunately, most of us do get there… eventually. At various times this past week, three different men who had reached this point sat in my office with their wife or girlfriend. I told each of those couples that I wished I could share what they had with the women who email me and come up and talk after every presentation I give on the topic of pornography.

It’s probably the most common question I hear. Certainly the most earnestly asked. “My husband knows I know about his porn problem. He swears he wants to quit. But he refuses to talk with me about it. He wants me to leave him alone and let him deal with it on his own. I’ve left it alone for years but that doesn’t seem to be helping. He has relapsed as many times this year as he did four years ago when I first discovered the problem. I don’t want to give up what we have—what we could have. He’s great with the kids. He works hard to support our family. But the emotional connection between us is dying.”

It’s enough to make a woman wonder if her partner is as committed to her as she is to him. Or convince her that he just doesn’t care.

He is committed. He does care. Almost always, in my experience.

Here’s what he’ll say later once he’s being more open with you. I know because I’ve heard it before—and heard three new variations of it this week:

“I’m used to dealing with hard things on my own. I don’t like to see her upset. That’s not all. It feels so awkward to face this problem. So uncomfortable. When I read your blog, it’s like throwing on a bright floodlight. I read a case and think, ‘That’s not me.’ Then I read a little further and think, ‘That’s sort of me.’ Then I finish reading and realize, ‘Crap. Me all the way.’ I don’t want to be the guy I’m reading about. Yet I’m the only one in the bright room and that floodlight’s revealing everything. I don’t have the option of running from how I feel. I want desperately for things not to be so bad between us. Yet it’s in my face again that they are.

“So I tell her ‘I’m a textbook case, I guess.’ I push through the embarrassment and commit to keep working on it. Not just to her but to myself. I commit to God, even.

“As the days pass, it fades from the forefront of my mind. One of my biggest weaknesses is that I tend to forget about things—especially if they’re inconvenient or troubling. I don’t even call the dentist to set up an appointment. She’s been reminding me for three weeks to do it. At night I complain to her about the pain in my jaw, and then during the day I don’t call to make the appointment. There are two texts on my phone from her, one from this week, one from last, reminding me our dentist’s phone number. I still haven’t called.

“I want to forget about my pain. Pretend it’s not there and hope it goes away. And her pain? I hate it. It scares me. I’m afraid she might get tired of this and walk away from the relationship. That would kill me. She means everything to me. So you'd think that would motivate me to read and write about my recovery like she has asked me to do. So why do I put this out of my mind, go on with my life, and try to live like a normal person again? Pretend I’m someone who doesn’t have this serious problem? I know it doesn’t make sense, but I fall back into it even though I know it doesn’t help. I want to turn away from this and focus on other things. For years I have been wishing that would be the way I would finally overcome this problem.”

Here’s the good news: talking about the temptation to avoid the topic is as helpful as talking about the topic itself. Talking about the fear of being abnormal and unacceptable (to someone who’s willing to listen) somehow helps us feel more normal and acceptable. As reluctant as we are to talk, especially at first, talking really is a key element of healing. Eventually we find that we feel better when we talk, and that makes it easier for us to keep it up.

Don't Act Out, Reach Out!

2011-01-25T20:04:00.000-08:00

Paul used to go to porn when he was stressed, now he is opening up to Gretchen: "I have three days worth of programming still to do, and we're supposed to launch the product tomorrow." That may not sound like a huge revelation, but it is new for Paul to open up that way. He used to have lots of reasons to keep that kind of stuff to himself:

I'd rather leave at work all the stuff that's weighing on me.
My job is so specialized and technical, there's no way she'll be able to relate to it.
There's nothing she can do to make the stress go away, so why burden her with it?

The truth is, if Paul had been good at simply setting aside his stress and leaving it at work, he wouldn't have been so vulnerable to the pull of porn. Furthermore, Gretchen doesn't view it as a burden. Nor does she feel pressure to fix it. Not only that, but the more he talks about what goes on at work--and more importantly, how it impacts him inside--the more Gretchen understands what made her husband tick. She can relate to what he is going through, and it feels good to her that he is letting her in.

"Oh, my," she says when he brought up all the work he still had to do on the application the customer is expecting tomorrow.

"I start to worry about everyone waiting on me." Paul is getting more used to exploring what goes on inside. "I guess I've heard rumblings that mine might not be the only part that still needs work."

"What a relief," Gretchen says.

"Yes and no. I still have more work to do than I have time to do it in. It's so frustrating that they won't hire someone to help me. I am the entire department. Every time they talk about being able to afford a new hire, I get my hopes up. Then when I find out where they're going, I'm always disappointed. It makes me feel like they don't understand how much they lay on me. Maybe if I weren't so good at what I do, they'd actually find help for me sooner."

Even if the conversation doesn't go any further than that, it feels good to Paul that the most important person in his life now had a clearer window into what he is going through. Back when Paul kept struggles like this to himself, he was alone in it. That felt lousy. It left him feeling distinctly in need. He often misread his uneasiness as a craving for sex. Now that he reaches out to Gretchen when he feels bad, it surprises him how often he feels more settled afterward. Pornography is still at times a powerful craving that he needs to manage, but he is tempted less often and the compulsion is losing some of its potency.

He's More Needy than He or She Realized

2011-01-20T21:19:00.000-08:00

It had been a narrative that Hugh and Esther had adopted early on in their marriage, and it had stuck: Esther was more needy than Hugh; he was more independent.

It sure seemed that way. Once, during one of our early counseling sessions, Esther was in tears telling Hugh how much she needed more time with him and wanted to feel closer. She pleaded with him to turn off the TV and come be with her and their three kids.

Hugh shrugged and shook his head. He didn't get why this was all so important to Esther. As I watched him and listened, I was almost convinced that Hugh simply did not need Esther as much as she needed him.

Almost.

I wasn't entirely convinced, partly because Hugh had been hooked on porn for seven years of their marriage. That made me suspect there were "pressing needs" underneath his seeming independence. The biggest clue, however, was this seemingly aloof guy's sensitivity to his wife's displeasure:

"I hear her sigh and inside I clench up."

"If I keep the TV on after one game ends, I know she's going to be bent out of shape about it."

"I sometimes wonder, if I remain the person I am, will she ever have confidence in me?"

It may have seemed to Esther like all Hugh needed was to be entertained and well fed to be fine with his life. And yet he watched five hours of TV a night and was gaining a dozen pounds a year--and yet still did not feel fine.

If you watched and listened closely, it was clear that Hugh felt that the essence of who he is was a letdown to Esther.

He needed her alright. He needed her acceptance and approval. Its warmth would have been like the sun on his face on a bitter cold morning.

However, unlike Esther, when he didn't get what he was needy for, he didn't keep coming to her and pleading and letting her know how much he yearned for it. He simply assumed he wasn't going to get it from her, and then pulled away from her in order to feel emotionally safer.

He retreated. To the comfort of the couch in the basement where he watched TV. And silently hoped that she wouldn't come down and want to talk or ask him when he was going to get to this or that chore. Or simply stand behind the couch and sigh.

Turns out Hugh is just as needy as Esther. And he was getting as little of what he needed as she was.

Their old narrative slowly gave way as Hugh told Esther how sad it felt to him when he thought he'd never be good enough in her eyes. How that deflated him and his desire to keep trying. Made him feel like he couldn't bear to draw close to her even if he wanted to.

Once Hugh voiced it, Esther could do what came naturally to her once she knows someone's needs. She was more attentive to and respectful of what was going on inside him.

It's not that she started walking on eggshells, just being more restrained in what she conveyed. Especially now that she knew a lot more had been getting through to him than she once thought. Even a sigh could make him want to retreat! She started feeling like her acceptance and approval were the nuclear rods that could power an entire city. And she loved feeling that important to Hugh.

By talking about what was going on inside, Hugh interrupted his old pattern of retreating when he felt emotionally threatened. By softening the way she approached Hugh, Esther interrupted her old pattern of amplifying her complaints when she was in need.

It's no crime to be needy. In fact, it's part of life for all of us. The tragedy is when very meetable needs go unmet because we don't go to the trouble to put our finger on what they are or let our spouse know how they can help.

What are you learning about your own neediness--or your partner's--on this journey of recovery? What are you learning about how you can better help each other get those needs met?

Allies in the Anti-Porn, Pro-Relationship Revolution

2011-01-20T09:40:00.000-08:00

We're lined up like a huge Red Rover team. All of us who cherish human connection and see how it's threatened by virtual-pseudo-connection.

I'm inspired by individuals all along the line. I love hearing from men who are mustering the courage and tenacity to get and stay porn free. I'm inspired by the stories of committed women who know their men are better than their worst behavior, and so hang on and keep fighting for what they value most.

I feel like my spot in the red rover line is getting stronger, and for that I'm indebted to to a few veteran bloggers who have offered encouragement and help to this novice over the last half year.

Dustin was kind enough to share with his audience my post, Five Reasons to Tell Her You Struggle with Porn over on his blog, Engaged Marriage. He has built an amazing community of readers. I was blown away by the passion of the discussion that followed that post.

My colleague and friend Laura Brotherson ran my post, Help for Husbands Stranded in the Sexual Desert. Again, the comments from readers were moving. Her website, Strengthening Marriage, is a goldmine of resources. In addition to her insightful blog, she has podcasts of her radio and TV programs. Of course her book, And They Were Not Ashamed, has for years been helping my clients heal their marriages.

Maybe I shouldn't admit this since I'm trying to swim with the big fish, but just a kind mention by Julie Sibert on her Intimacy in Marriage site doubled my traffic for the week!

Finally, thanks to the folks over at New Life Habits. Their willingness to run "Don't Lock Horns with the Devil" gave me my first (very addictive) taste of blogging.

I'll say more later about some projects I'm doing with Candeo and husbandandwife.com.

For now: keep a tight hold on the hands of those standing next to you! United, we can hold the line!

I'd love to hear what you (or someone else you're proud of) is doing at your point along the anti-porn, pro-relationship red rover line. Please share your stories by commenting below. They inspire the rest of us!

My Husband Gets Mad and Won't Talk When I Bring Up Porn

2011-01-15T05:38:00.000-08:00

Hannah writes, “Whenever I try to talk to my husband about his ongoing pornography problem, he immediately gets very upset and defensive. He says this is HIS problem and HIS addiction and he will deal with it. He says that he is more upset and disappointed in himself than I could ever be. Then he stops talking to me. I am starting to realize that he has never been ready for me to be the supportive wife that I’d like to be, that I’m trying to be. I’m not sure what to do. I am not ready to give an ultimatum—but sometimes is that the only way?”

My heart aches for you Hannah… and for your husband.

The other night my three-year-old son, Sam, had a cough. When Jenny tucked him in bed she put a humidifier on his nightstand and explained that he needed to sleep by it to help his cough go away. He seemed to get it. At two-thirty a.m., coming toward us down the hall we hear this little “cough, cough; slosh, slosh; cough, cough; slosh, slosh.” He staggered into our room with his little arms wrapped around that appliance. Not even pausing at my side of the bed, he trudged all the way around—cough, cough; slosh, slosh—to see: his mom. He knew what he needed when he didn’t feel good, and it wasn’t just a humidifier!

The most natural thing to do when we’re in need as humans (or any other primate for that matter), is to reach out to those who love us. It’s instinct, automatic, and there is not an age at which we grow out of this response. My aunt Ida, who died at almost ninety, lived with my parent’s at the very end of her life. This strong woman who was someone I could run to as a child, in turn, called out for my mom and dad when she hurt or got scared in those last weeks on her deathbed.

Deep down, your dear husband shares with Sam and Ida the same instinct: to reach out when he’s in need. However, there are reflexes that we humans can develop that cover over that deepest emotional instinct.

For instance, when I was younger I may have expressed needs and then felt ignored—and logged that experience away in my psyche as an important lesson learned. I may have discovered that when I talked about a struggle, that material might later be used to belittle me. I may have learned that, in our home, we don’t talk about what we feel, we keep it to ourselves. I may have learned that girls talk and complain, but we guys need to suck it up and tough out problems on our own.

My client, Darin, remembers sitting at the kitchen table doing his homework as his brother ran into the room with a picture of a nude woman that he had discovered in Darin’s room. Darin’s mom (bless her heart) exploded. From then on it seemed to Darin that she was the puberty detective: always hounding him, prying, and reminding him about the evils of sex.

My client, Jake, remembers starting to view pornography during the summer before his last year of junior high. His parents worked all day, his older siblings now had jobs, and his younger sister was always over at her friend’s. It seemed like everyone else had important things to do and people to be with. He felt left out, lonely, and most of all: that he was on his own to try to navigate the pull of this exciting and forbidden new world.

He didn’t do very well. Porn was such a potent and easy fix during that otherwise empty summer. He felt so guilty and ashamed about it that he concluded he would have to conquer it on his own.

Here’s the good news: whatever Darin and Jake learned when they were younger about how ashamed they should be about porn use… however firmly they concluded that they need to struggle on their own to get over it… however long they’ve been approaching the problem from that lonely mindset… they have a deeper instinct and they’ve had it for even longer! And, just like my Aunt Ida, they’ll continue to have it until the day they die. It’s the natural and automatic response of reaching out when we’re in need.

It may take a while to unbury it, dust it off, and trust it enough to start honoring it. However, I have seen tons of men do it!

Porn Won't Heal Your Emotional Wounds

2011-01-13T04:18:00.000-08:00

It would be a painful scene to watch in a movie:

Sometime during our knight's courageous daily battle, a poisoned dart finds its way between the gaps in his armor. The paralyzing serum gets into his bloodstream--but fortunately doesn't kill him. By the time he arrives back at the castle, he's a shell of his usual self.

Here's the bind about being a heroic warrior: He can't walk in and say, "Help! I'm wounded!" Instead, he stumbles around and does his best to get the horse settled in the stable and bathe the little prince and princess. He listens politely as the countess talks about her day. But he doesn't really hear her. He's squinting and clenching his teeth over his own wound. He doesn't show her his growing blister or tell her his left side has gone numb.

It's just as painful to witness the emotional equivalent of the above scene among men in the throes of addiction. And it's beautiful to watch them develop true, deep, relationship courage, the kind that allows them to come home at the end of a hard day and cry out, "Help! I'm wounded!"

As Lyle was trimming a huge oak tree, one of the falling branches tore down a rain gutter and damaged the eave of a nearby house. For the rest of the day, one of the more experienced guys on the crew teased him relentlessly about his mistake. Then when they got back to the office, he razzed Lyle in front of their boss and the biggest gossip in the city offices. Lyle felt humiliated and angry.

Three months ago, he would have tried to just keep going as the poison serum coursed through his bloodstream. He wouldn't have talked to anyone about what he was feeling.

That night, he would have stayed up late listening to heavy metal music, eventually turned on the TV, and eventually found something salacious on cable to distract him from how crappy he felt inside. Then, the next day, he would have felt even worse about himself.

This time, instead, he took one of his more understanding coworkers aside later that afternoon. He mostly let out a string of profanities, but at least he was talking. "I haven't used that kind of language in years." Something about the whole #@!&$ department he works for. When he talked about the tree branch and the damage, his friend responded, "Everyone does that kind of stuff now and then."

When he got home, he didn't exactly cry out, "Help! I'm wounded!" He just let his wife, Katie, know it had been a hard day. He let all of his frustration and shame and feelings of inadequacy spill out. "...and then, to top it off, a woman in payroll got on my case about how I had reported my hours. She must have seen that I was totally shut down because she started backpedaling. She said, 'I'm not trying to be mean to you, I'm just telling you so that you avoid it in the future.' Inside it felt like, I have one more enemy I have to watch out for in this place..."

Talking with Katie didn't suddenly help Lyle feel all better. But these days he's staying sober despite the kind of emotional poisoned darts that used to send him back to his old ways. He's reaching out instead of acting out. He's dosing up on oxytocin instead of dopamine, and that's helping to clear the stress hormones out of his system. He's bonding with his wife instead of becoming more hooked on smut. It's a better life for our hero.

She's Been Hurt by Your Porn Use? Three Ways to Help Her Heal

2011-01-12T20:34:00.000-08:00

Vance wrote, “Two months my wife caught me looking at porn on my phone. For me it was a relief--I haven’t felt this free in years. Getting this out in the open was just what I needed to finally put it behind me. But it's torn into Rachel so deep, I don’t know if she'll recover. Or our marraige. In fact, it keeps getting worse, not better. Can we get back what we had before? I'm scared that it's ruined our relationship.”

Vance, it’s important for you to know why the news of your porn use hurt Rachel so deeply: precisely because you are so important to her. She relies on your relationship to give her a sense that everything is alright in the world, and so her universe has been turned upside-down. The fact that she cares so deeply is a promising sign that, with work, the two of you will be able to draw together and heal your marriage. Here are three ways you can work on it:

1. Take time to hear about her hurt. Your emotional reflexes tell you to pull back: “She’s hurting, give her space. She’s wounded, give her time to heal.” Don’t do it! She needs you close. You’re the source of her pain on the one hand, but mostly you’re “her primary attachment figure,” the one she instinctively reaches for when she’s struggling and in need. Follow your deeper protective instinct: Spend more time right there beside her. Keep asking her what was on her mind and in her heart at the end of each day, even though she might have a hard time opening up because it was fear and doubt and hurt again today. She’s not harboring that pain, she’s not relishing the victim role, it just takes a long, long, long, long, long (get the point?) time to get it all out. In order to move forward, she needs to be able to look you in the eye and see that you really get how deeply she’s been impacted by your virtual infidelity. And she needs to know that you’ll keep being there for her each time a new wave of hurt knocks her down.

2. Be patient with her regression. When we were toddlers, we had to check in with our primary attachment figure (for most of us it was our mother) every few minutes in order to recharge emotionally and feel secure. As we got older, we didn’t have to check in as often to know that we are just fine on our own for awhile and they would be there for us if we really needed them. By the time we reach adulthood and our spouse has become our primary attachment figure, we can still feel connected and secure even if, for example, one spouse is away on extended military deployment. However, when something like pornography seems to threaten our bond, a switch inside of us flips, turning us back into an emotional toddler. This process may make your wife preoccupied with the relationship during the day and unable to function at her usual tasks. She may cry, withdraw or lash out more readily than usual. If so, be patient and stay close (if that’s what she prefers) during her time of emotional turmoil. If she asks for time apart, see if she means different rooms for twenty minutes or so, rather than assuming that she wants you to move out.

3. Respect her need for physical proof. Temporarily, during her worst period of insecurity, she may need to hear more often than usual where you are and what you’re up to. And she may have a hard time believing you even when you’re telling the truth. She may want to keep checking your internet history and read all your emails from female coworkers. She may grill you about your past pornography use and want to know if it was going on during key events in your life together. She may ask you if you’re attracted to this neighbor and that actress and that new woman at church. She may doubt her own beauty and question whether she’s enough to keep you attentive and devoted in the future. This may start to feel like a no win situation, but each time she asks, she wants to see and hear you be attentive. When it starts to feel like you’re being interrogated and your patience wears thin, hear her emotional pleading behind each question: “You are so important to me. My world turns on how you feel about me. I don’t want anything to threaten what we share together. Tell me again that I come first in your life!” Logically she may know that porn is no match for what you share together, but she just had the emotional rug ripped out from under her and now she’s unsure of her footing. So tell her again (and again and again) that she comes first in your life.

Remember: everything you’ve built together, everything you’ve shared together, everything you’ve felt together is still there! It hasn’t been obliterated by pornography, just buried. With your help, she can heal. And with her help, so can you. Working together, you can make your marriage stronger than it has ever has been before!

Stay in touch Vance! And the rest of you, too. Comment below to let us know how it's going on your journey to healing as a couple.

Hearing the Inner Voice That's been Drowned Out by Craving

2010-12-24T07:36:00.000-08:00

It takes a while to develop the kind of inner attunement Nigel's now practicing.

Instead of meeting in person yesterday he phoned in for his session from his in-law's place. He and his wife and their new baby will be there throughout the break between semesters. Last year we did a couple of sessions the same way over the holidays, but the content of what Nigel talked about was very different. I was so struck by the contrast that I thumbed back in his file to check out my notes from a year ago. Here's how he started our December 20, 2009 conversation: "I'm feeling so antsy here. They live in the middle of the prarrie and they're not big on TV. I can feel this big hole where I'd usually be going to some form of electronic entertainment. I've looked through their bookshelves and pulled out three or four titles that interested me, but I just can't get into any of them. I think I'm feeling lousy because I can't get to my addiction the way I do at home. We didn't bring my laptop and their computers are all password protected. I want to be tempted, I want to have the opportunity to see something that will make me feel good, and I can't so I'm grouchy about the whole thing."

Part of what's different for Nigel now is that he has made it past the withdrawal he always went through back then whenever he managed to abstain from pornography for a time. But there's an even more important difference. He no longer attributes the antsy feeling he sometimes gets to his addiction. He doesn't interpret all of his distress as coming from an urge to go to pornography on the one hand or to a sense of guilt and shame from having relapsed on the other. He's getting so much more adept at sorting through his feelings. Here's what he told me this year: "I asked Melissa to sit down with me last night because I was feeling unsettled. It wasn't clear to me at first, but as we started talking it out I realized that I was wondering what we're doing here. What's our purpose? How will we know whether we've achieved it once it's time to head back to school? I want to make sure we open ourselves up to opportunities for good things to happen. I want to experience things that feel nice, like a real conversation with some of her siblings or her parents--a chance to connect more deeply with them. Or is there a project I can help with around their house that would help me feel good about pitching in? I decided that it might be as simple as going to the store and getting some blueberries so that I can make some pancakes one morning. As we kept talking, I realized that I'm also feeling some fear of the upcoming semester. It's supposed to be the hardest semester of the entire doctoral program. There's a desire to stay where someone else is taking care of everything. For some odd reason it's a little hard to enjoy the down time. In quiet moments, what's coming after the break looms it's head and stares me down."

I asked Nigel how it felt to talk all of that out with Melissa. "Oh, it was nice. It cleared my head. She's a good listener. Talking with her validates what I feel." I've learned over the years that, not only can our wives be good listeners, they tend to me more attuned to emotion than we are as men. As we talk with them about the events in our lives and, in particular, what it's like for us personally to experience them, they can often help us sense the feeling tones that color what we're going through. Before talking with our wives, we only see this messy stew of unformed things, a tangle we would rather cover up by numbing out with our addiction. Despite all the disadvantages of our addiction, at least it's a familiar problem and the emotions associated with it are well-formed and straightforward. "I haven't given in for a day/week/month, so now I'm lusting... I gave in, so now I'm feeling guilty." That two dimensional see-saw blinds us to so much of life's emotional subtlety and richness.

Nigel has always needed Melissa to draw close when he was in need, but it's so much easier for her to do it now that he's coming to her to talk about his feelings. He used to stuff his feelings... then find himself more tempted... then either fight temptation or give in... and then come to her to confess after the fact or wait until he was caught. She had a hard time relating to his wrestle with sex addiction, but she can readily relate to his real emotions: Wanting the holiday to be special. Being afraid of going back to school. These kind of feelings are universal and easy for her to empathize with.

I was so struck by how different things seemed this year compared to last, I had to check and see if Nigel could also tell the difference. "I'm looking at my notes our session a year ago. Do you remember how you used to handle it when you felt uneasy and out of sorts?"

"Oh, yeah. When I got into a dark mood back then, sometimes I didn't even realize it. That's no surprise, since I had lived my entire life ignoring my feelings. Once I did recognize I was in a down state--usually because it got so bad or lasted so long--I thought I had to get myself out of it. I needed to turn to the Lord more. Then I often felt like I didn't get any help from the Lord, but I blamed it on myself: I must not be doing my dailies well enough. I need to step up my prayers or scripture study. The Lord doesn't abandon you; you must have abandoned the Lord. The idea that when I was in that dark place, I didn't have to just trudge through it on my own, that was so new to me. That was good to learn. I don't have to just deal with hard times on my own. I don't have to just "take it." I can talk about it. That started to change as I learned to talk out what I was feeling in group therapy. And then Melissa and I started checking in each night, doing a little inventory of how we were each feeling and what was one blessing in our life. It has developed into this habit of connecting at the end of almost every day. Sitting on the couch and talking things out. If one of us has had a hard day we'll rest our head on the other one's shoulder or lap and let it all spill out. Nothing's off limits. There's this unspoken contract: we know the other person will honor whatever we're feeling without criticizing or getting defensive. We hardly ever watch TV anymore. We'd much rather connect. That time together unwinding and connecting has become our thing. I'm only realizing as I'm describing it how sacred that time has become for us. I think it's the primary reason I've gone this long without relapsing. Our relationship is getting stronger and stronger and it seems to be healing my addiction to sex."

The biggest cost of addiction is not what it makes us do, but what it makes us miss. The main price Nigel paid for his addiction was not in what he did as he got so caught up in sex, but in what he missed when he was in the orbit of resisting and succumbing. For years he missed out on the quiet inner voice that was tugging at him, telling him to reach out, subtly prodding him to find meaning and connection, to cry on your wife's shoulder and probe your brother-in-law about how he made it through graduate school and make blueberry pancakes for all of your in-laws on Christmas eve morning. Oh, what a toll addiction exacts from us weary strugglers!

Please write and tell us what you're learning as you try to tune in, take your emotions more seriously, and open up and share what your feeling instead of keeping it all stuffed inside!

How Couples Start to Heal

2010-12-18T06:55:00.001-08:00

From early in their relationship, they shared a profound bond. When they were dating he “let her in” more than he had anyone else ever before. As she came to know the person he is inside, she saw his heart, and it won her over. She sensed deeply that she’d always be safe with him. Her guard came down and she came to trust him implicitly, without reservation.

The discovery of his pornography habit is so piercing, so disorienting because it rocks the emotional foundation she has been building her life on for years. Some of the worst doubts, the bitterest anger, the shakiest trust are directed inward: how could she have missed the signs of something so important? How could she have been that poor a judge of his degree of devotion and fidelity? What she felt between them was as real to her as anything had ever been in her life. Now it’s like she’s in a funhouse with the moving ground and distorted mirrors. Will she ever be able to trust him—or her own judgment and sensibilities—again?

Her husband finds himself equally disoriented. This is the most important person in his life, the woman he esteems most highly and would give his life to protect. To see her so devastated takes his breath away. To know that she’s hurting because of something he’s done feels unbearable.

His own distress makes it hard for him to draw close to her in the way she needs him to right now. It makes it hard to keep hearing about her pain. Reflexively, he pulls away to give her space, hoping that the raging storm will pass, praying that her feelings will calm, and that somehow, maybe, over time, things can be good between them again. Unfortunately, that’s exactly the opposite of what she needs.

Their relationship heals as he checks his reflex to give her space and instead runs into the burning building of her distress. He helps her start to heal when he wants to hear about the dark moments in the middle of the day when they’re apart and her mind starts to play tricks on her. Their relationship keeps healing because he stays near her when she’s angry instead of retreating. When she needs her space he waits in the next room instead of leaving the house for the afternoon.

He remembers that she’s still hurting even when she acts like everything’s okay around others. He honors her reactions to sexual content on TV, in a movie, or on the news. He hangs in there through her suspicions and accusations. He comes to understand that she’s been traumatized and the world she thought she knew has disintegrated. He comes to accept that she naturally will be haunted by images both of what he’s done and what she imagines he might be capable of doing. She can’t help but keep sorting through scenarios and seeing him in those images. She’s trying to decide who he really is: the man she thought she knew or a very different one.

There are lots of ways he helps her heal. He asks if she wants a hug when she starts crying out of the blue. He keeps offering his support even though he knows that some days she will reject it. He accepts that some of the deepest wounds are reopened when they reenter the realm of sexual intimacy. He respects how hard it can be for her even if she wants to feel the closeness that sex can bring. He honors her need to call the shots and readjust her boundaries according to how she’s doing emotionally.

He has compassion for her inconsistency. One day she really is fine and feels like they’re putting it behind them… and the next day it really is right there in her face again, as fresh and large as it was the day she learned about his pornography habit. He realizes that she’s not playing games, holding it over his head, nursing her resentment. This is a genuine struggle for her, perhaps the most challenging of her life, and she’s no more of an expert through this terrain than he is.

Something happens inside of her as she witnesses his patient persistence, and then keeps experiencing it again and again. As they look deep into each others’ eyes again and again, as he lets her see what’s going on in his soul through the process of working through this problem, it is reaffirmed to her in an undeniable way: the man he truly is inside is the very one with the heart she thought she knew. Whatever role that sexual struggle played in his life, it is not as important as she is. She sees him invest his all in healing their relationship, and that makes it clear to her.

Something important happens inside for him in this process as well. As he lets himself absorb her pain, his empathy expands. As he realizes what he stands to lose, his caring for her increases. Her sensibilities about the sanctity of sex heighten his own. It’s not that he’s externalizing his conscience, but internalizing how sexuality impacts her. He grows into the man he knows she needs him to be.

How is the journey of healing is going for you and your spouse? Husbands and wives: what are you learning along the way? What have been your low points and high points? Are you stuck in a seemingly hopeless valley or looking out from a particularly inspiring peak right now? Tell us about it! We need to hear it, and you may benefit from sharing it. May the Lord keep blessing your efforts to heal your bond and draw even closer than you ever have before.

Male Vulnerability and the Mask of Addiction

2010-12-11T06:33:00.000-08:00

This week I started working with two different men and their wives. On the surface, these men appear to have very different addictions. Yet as we have talked about their development, they have similar roots.

8 years ago Raymond was able to give up marijuana when Kelly made it a condition of accepting his marriage proposal. For the first four years of their lives together, Raymond recalls, “I didn’t need pot. We were everything to each other. That connection we had as a couple was all I needed.” Then Raymond and Kelly had their first baby. He started to feel less important to her. One weekend he felt neglected, got mad at her, and stayed out late with one of his old friends. He smoked again for the first time in years. He felt too ashamed to tell Kelly. After that it sometimes felt like he needed just a little to get through a hard weekend. Before long it was an almost daily thing again.

It’s been interesting to hear Raymond be more honest with Kelly about what he wants from her, deep down: her time and attention, to know that he’s important to her, to know that she won’t give up on him as he’s trying to get clean again. This is very different from the way Raymond reacted four years ago as he started to slide back into his addiction: “She’s going to be that way? Well, I don’t need her! I’m fine. I’ll take care of myself.” He couldn’t take care of himself... he needed regular doses of THC to do that for him. It reminds me of what my colleague, Geoff Steurer says all the time: As humans, we can’t help but reach when we’re in need. The question is, what are we going to reach for: an addictive substance, or that someone who means the most to us?

Then there was the other couple. Cheryl was drawn to Alan because of the tender-hearted, big hearted guy he was. Twelve years later she was ready to divorce him because of his anger. She talked him into taking an anger management class three years ago, but it did not help. If anger was his addiction, Alan seemed to be high all the time. When they came to our office for an intensive, week-long treatment, we talked about the time when things went from good between them to bad. Alan remembered hearing from a friend something that Cheryl had told that friend’s wife. It was something that hurt him deeply; “It was like a kick in the teeth.” Cheryl had never known how hurt Alan was. She didn’t remember saying what he’d been told she said, but acknowledged that, at the time, she very well may have. “I shared too much with that friend. I should have been working things out with Brad rather than complaining to her.”

What a relief it’s been for Brad to tell Cheryl about the deep hurt he’s felt over the years, from that initial comment, and then the immense shame he feels over his reputation with her family as “a monster” as his anger has worsened over the years. “I would rather have had you cut me loose and divorce me than to feel the way I did, that I was this guy you didn’t want, who was bringing you down, making your life worse.” Cheryl never knew about these hurt, and finds Brad so much easier to approach in loving ways when he’s “soft like this. When I can see what’s really going on behind the anger.”

It’s very powerful to hear these men talk with their wives about what they really need from them and from the relationship. It’s also been interesting to watch the difference between Cheryl’s and Kelly’s responses. Cheryl’s right there, willing and able to show Brad the love and acceptance he’s been craving from her once he lets her in on what he’s feeling beneath the anger. Kelly, by contrast, is not feeling very supportive or loving right now. I’ve been impressed that Raymond’s openness and honesty with Kelly is facilitating his recovery nonetheless. Seeing this with Raymond and other clients has changed my perspective. I used to think that we had to identify our real needs and have them met in order to overcome addition. There’s more power than I realized in merely talking about how we’re feeling to the most important person in our lives and exploring with them what our feelings tell us about what we need. The greatest power seems to be in the reaching, and not necessarily in the meeting of the need. Even if our spouse can’t or won’t in turn respond in the way we’d like them to and thus “give us what we need,” we feel better for having been real them. Being seen and heard for who we really are has a healing power in and of itself.

So get real with yourself about the vulnerable feelings that you’ve been masking by going to your addiction. Then get real with your beloved by opening up about those feelings. This process will help you heal your addiction… and more importantly, it will help you heal your relationship. May God bless your efforts!

Overcoming the Shame that Keeps Us from Reaching Out

2010-10-09T06:21:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow Kevin will be flying to Las Vegas on business. He's been there for training twice before, and on each of those trips he viewed pornography on TV two or three of the evenings during his ten-day stays. He is doing lots better now overall in his life, but he knows a trip like this will put him at high risk for relapse. In our therapy session this morning, I role played with him how he might open up to his wife Wendy all along the way about his mindset so that he has the most support right when he really needs it. After getting a feel for what had led to his downfall on his other two trips, I picked up my cell phone and pretended to be him:

“Hi sweetie. I just rented my car and I’m on my way to the hotel. You know how I’ve sometimes struggled when I’m on the road. I just wanted to let you in on how it’s going. I think I’m still going to be okay. I certainly don’t plan on doing anything. But I just wanted to check in because I found my attention being drawn by all the suggestive advertisements in the airport. Even on the flight down, I saw a magazine with a barely-covered model on the front. It gets my mind going and I’m tempted to obsess. These were just little pulls, but I want to stay in touch with you. Will you hold my hand so that if a riptide tugs at me it won’t drag me out to sea? That’s the last thing I need on this trip and in my life right now. I’m sure it’s the last thing you need, too.”

“It’s good to hear your voice sweetie,” Kevin smiled at me, not bothering to pick up his cell phone. “That is the last thing we need right now. We’ve been feeling so close lately. Do you really struggle even three hours after leaving the house? Are you really tempted to think sexual thoughts about other women when your wife is home taking care of your kids?”

“Oh, honey,” I grinned at Kevin, “I am so grateful for what a great mom you are. I’m so grateful you’re there holding down the fort when I have to be gone. That’s why I called. I need to get grounded again to what my life is really about. I wish I didn’t get so hooked by lustful thoughts, but I do. If you want me to just deal with these things on my own or by leaving messages on Dr. Chamberlain’s phone, I can do that. I don’t want to be a burden to you.”

“No,” Kevin said, “keep calling me. Here: why don’t you tell Charlotte a bedtime story while I go give Skyler a bath.”

“That,” Kevin said after I put down my phone, “is a call I’ve never made. It sounds great now, but I honestly don’t know if I could do that in the moment.”

Kevin was right. If disclosing temptation were a gymnastics move, its difficulty level would be 10.

“Of course you can’t do it in the moment,” I reassured him, “not in your usual state of mind at least. When you find yourself drawn by porn, you’re not the man you are now. In the heat of the moment, you’re in a sort of trance. You get hypnotized into the mindset of that 12 year old boy you were when you first found pornography on the internet that Summer when you were alone at home and your older siblings all had part-time jobs. You have all the needs for attention and touch and closeness and approval and affection that 12-year-old had. That’s what fuels the pull to porn. And then if you even look down that path of pursuing porn, you have all the shame of that 12-year-old. How likely is he to reach out for help the way we just role-played?”

“Back then I didn’t even want to let my parents know I needed help in Algebra. I don’t think it even occurred to me that I could get help from them about sex!”

“Right. And that’s the ego state you’re in when those feelings get triggered again. That 12-year-old still doesn’t know that lots of kids his age and even grown men have a difficult time managing sexuality. He doesn’t know you’re married to a woman you can talk to. He doesn’t realize that honesty is more important to her than a perfect performance. He thinks he can’t open up to people. He thinks he needs to conquer this on his own. The last thing he would do is talk about it! If you could talk to that boy right now, what would you tell him?”

Nodding his head, Kevin had a faraway look in his eyes. “I’d let him know that he doesn’t need to conquer this on his own. As hard as it is for him to imagine now, everyone will still love him despite this struggle.” Kevin kept gazing. Then he laughed: “One day a group of men will even clap when he admits to all of them that he’s a sex addict. The hardest person for him to learn to be honest with will be Wendy. She will mean the world to him, and he will absolutely dread letting her down. But, he will learn to do it. She will understand. Eventually, over time. And he will do much better in this struggle once he truly lets her in so that there are no more secrets between them.” Kevin nodded, a settled look on his face.

“What does that 12-year-old think of that?” I asked.

“I think he’s starting to get it. I guess we’ll see by the way he handles himself on this trip!”

“I guess we will,” I agreed.

Want Porn Out? Let Wife In!

2010-10-08T05:34:00.000-07:00

Here’s how it went in the wild West: the Sheriff faced down the outlaw: “There ain’t room in this town for the both of us.” Always, by the end of the movie, only one of them would remain. Most often, of course, it was the good guy.

Most of our wives feel the same way about porn. “There ain’t room in your life for the both of us.”

Shuddering at the thought of losing our wives, too many of us take the wrong approach to this problem. We hide from our wives the fact that porn’s still in town. We try to avoid porn and are quite ashamed that we’re not doing a perfect job of that. So, tragically, we avoid our wives. We still live in the same house, eat at the same table, raise the same kids, and even sleep in the same bed. However, we avoid eye contact, avoid talking about how we’re feeling, avoid too much closeness. All out of fear that she’ll see deep into my soul and find me repulsive. The fear of losing her can keep me from really letting her in. How ironic.

There is another way. I see men do it all the time. They stay close to their wives. They open up and talk about what’s really going on, keeping her informed about emotional highs and lows. Here’s the hard part: this kind of closeness includes a very intimidating prospect. If we’re going to really commit to a life of openness and emotional intimacy, we have to disclose when we slip back to a porn-seeking mentality. It’s a very tough thing to do, but it’s a sure way stay in recovery. Keep communicating with your wife about exactly what’s going on, and the sexy, seductive voice of porn gets hoarse and starts to crack. Let her in on the struggle, especially in its early stages, and the sprouting seeds of relapse wither in the searing sunlight of your honesty and her awareness.

“Honey, I’m on my way back to the office after grabbing some lunch in town. I just walked out of Barnes & Noble. I thought I’d just browse for a few minutes, but I saw a suggestive image on a book cover and then decided to head over to the magazine section. I got that tunnel vision, searching for something to look at. My chest felt tight. I grabbed one of the racier magazines and started thumbing through it. Five minutes later I was standing there with an erection reading an article. I tore myself away at that point, but I feel ashamed that I let it go that far. I don’t want to continue down this path. I knew that if I didn’t call you I’d probably go looking for stuff online this afternoon. So, as embarrassing as this is, I wanted to let you know how it’s going.”

At this point it’s tempting for a woman to say, “Why do you go into Barnes & Noble in the first place if you’ve had problems there before?” Or perhaps even, “Are you ever going to be over this problem?” But she wants to keep her finger on the pulse of how he’s really doing. She wants to be a resource so that he can keep reaching out. If he’s been addicted, this is the kind of struggle he’s had to deal with on his own. That hasn’t gone very well for him. They both want him to be able to keep coming to her and opening up. So she says instead, “Thanks for telling me. Let’s stay in touch.”

Ahhh. Staying in touch. That’s it. His connection with her, if he refuses to break it when he struggles, is the very thing that will keep loosening the grip of this other, self-destructive attachment.

Join the Anti-Porn Revolution!

2010-10-07T03:37:00.000-07:00

I’m so touched by the work of a group started by Zilfa the Freethinker. I happened on to their Facebook page and found it so inspiring I just had to share it.

Their mission: “To reduce the influence of pornography on our society in our own little way by: 1) aiding and encouraging the sober porn junkie in his quest to gain full control over his addiction; 2) enlightening everyone of the adverse effects that pornography has had on our society and of the dangers associated with being under the control of porn or even watching it at all.”

Count me in. I’ve always wanted to be part of a revolution.

Fans of the page include some who are hooked on porn. Olanrewaju Lanrezo Ali commented, “Yea dis a good ideal. I wish i culd stop dis act. It like u killin urself in pain. Wel am tryin.”

Reading Olanrewaju’s words makes me want to keep getting up and going to work every day to help people escape the jaws of this monster.

Those who’ve found freedom have also joined Zilfa’s revolution. Olla Ollu Atoyebi puts it succinctly: “Porn almost ruined my mentality bt thnkgod.”

Thank God indeed for Olla’s liberation. And thank God for people like Abonyi Emeka Samuel, who are thinking about our future: “Pls save our youths oh!! The addiction to porn is prevalent now, especially among the future leaders. I think we should join our hands 2gether n save our future. It is worth fighting for!!”

I’ll share just one more quote, a message from Hontonyon Horleryimicar Hayodeji: “We shall overcome it 2geda,wt d help of God, determinatn and a passionate hatred towards such things.”

Thank you Hontonyon for your hope and determination! And thank you Zilfa for calling us to arms. I’m going to do my best to hold my end of the front line. It’s great to know all in this battle together!

Connection Is What We Really Need

2010-10-06T16:59:00.000-07:00

Carol said that she wanted to go to bed the other night, but just didn't quite feel settled yet. She'd eaten a nice dinner and felt full that way. Yet she didn't feel satisfied somehow. She felt a lingering emotional charge. "The day left me itching emotionally. Incomplete. Like there was something more I needed." Often, the something more she goes to is online sexual chatrooms. They cover over that yucky feeling for a while, but then leave her feeling worse afterward. Carol has been working to stay with her unsettled feelings and reach out to her husband, Rob, instead.

So Carol walked into the kitchen where Rob was eating a bowl of cereal. "I feel like I've been jarred around today. I need a place or a way to retreat and have some soothing and some peace." Rob laughed, "You need peace? Good luck finding it in this three ring circus!" She was glad he was in a good mood, and she knew he meant well, but she also felt that her call out to him hadn't registered at all. She had reached as a bid for his attention and help in finding comfort, but he hadn't realized that she had a serious need that she was trying to bring to him.

It would have been very easy for Carol to retreat and give up. But persistent needs require persistent self-advocating. "I know that things aren't likely to change around here. We're not going to be hiring a maid or shipping off any of our kids to boarding school." Rob laughed again. "But can I come to you when I've had a rough day and just have you spend some one-on-one time with me? I'd love it if I could just put my head on your shoulder and have you run your fingers through my hair."

Rob put down his spoon and stood up and put his arms around Carol. Then he started talking with French accent. "Shh," Carol said. "Can we just go over and sit on the couch quietly? You know I love your sense of humor, but right now my heart needs some real quiet soothing." Rob sighed and smiled and took her by the hand and did just that.

How You'll Know It's Safe to Swim with a Killer Whale

2010-10-05T08:49:00.000-07:00

This blog is all about encouraging couples to work together to overcome pornography problems. However, some individuals who are struggling need to do a lot of work on their own before a spouse can safely work together to help them. For a spouse to work with such individuals too closely in the beginning can do more harm than good.

Henry had repeatedly told Cheryl that he would not have a pornography problem if she was more responsive to his needs. He exerted unrelenting pressure on her to engage in sex acts that made her uncomfortable. He told her that he'd find her sexier if she'd undergo breast augmentation surgery.

Cheryl was diligent in her diet and exercise routine, in part because she remembered Henry telling friends before they were married that he'd get divorced in a heartbeat if his wife ever got fat. She tried to keep their home immaculate but Henry always seemed to find a reason to complain. She hated how much pressure Henry put on the kids to achieve and perform.

Whenever Henry and Cheryl worked together, it was always Cheryl who bore the load. They taught a children's Sunday School class together. Henry had initially been offended that they were even asked to teach it, feeling like that kind of work was below his capabilities. In the classroom he had good rapport with the kids as long as they behaved, but Cheryl often felt like he would interrupt the lesson she had planned and "steal the show," spontaneously taking the lesson in a direction that often had little to do with the topic they'd been asked to teach that week.

Cheryl had not been a doormat when she married Henry. However, years of his anger and complaining and blaming had made her doubt herself. She sometimes wondered if the things that were wrong with their relationship really were all her fault. Henry seemed so confident most of the time, and so convinced when he wasn't that the problem was all Cheryl.

I knew that if Cheryl were to work closely with Henry on his addiction, she would end up bearing the brunt of it just as she did with their Sunday School class. I encouraged each of them to do some work on their own first. Henry needed to change some lifelong patterns of self-justification and entitlement. He needed a lot of practice taking responsibility for his behavior and future rather than looking to Cheryl to meet all his emotional needs. Cheryl needed to work in a group with other women to develop more emotional independence and the capacity to stand up to the pressure and control Henry could exert.

Many men in Henry's position, who are used to blaming their wives for what's not right in their lives and looking to her for soothing and solutions, bail when they discover that in the early stages recovery for them is going to be primarily an inside job. To Henry's credit, he didn't bail. He read Why Is It Always About You and learned about Narcissism. He read Jeff Young's book, Reinventing Your Life, and learned about the entitlement lifetrap. He worked in therapy to reverse those patterns. He read Terrance Real's book, Why Can't I Get Through to You and really took in Real's message: Your wife is probably right. It's you who need to change to heal the relationship. We watched as Henry worked his tail off in individual and group therapy. It took a while, but when they were finally ready to work together as a couple, Henry and Cheryl's marraige counseling sessions and the work they tried to do as a couple really made a difference.

He Needs Honesty as Much as She Does

2010-10-03T08:09:00.000-07:00

Once Phil started telling Carrie about his slips right after they'd happen, it changed the addiction for him. It robbed the addiction of its potency. Shame is such an intense emotion. Keeping our behavior a secret seems to just supercharge the whole struggle emotionally. Opening up to Carrie seemed to release some of that energy, the way a ground wire discharges electrical energy into the ground, neutralizing what otherwise might have been a dangerous charge.

Another thing happened for Phil over time as he got in the habit of being real with Carrie about his struggles. He finally felt like he had support in the midst of his worst moments. I told him early on, "You're a decent guy. You're one of the good guys. You deserve to have the support of the most important person in your life. There's no reason a guy like you should have to face such a gnarly struggle on your own."

It was a surprise for Carrie to see just how bad these periods were for Phil once he started conveying his true struggle to her. Since he'd never shared with her what was really in his heart and soul when things were bad with his addiction, Carrie had become convinced that he enjoyed it more than she now realized he did. She thought acting out sexually was a light-hearted thing he engaged in, something that he wanted to keep from her so that he wouldn't have to give it up. Seeing his angst and turmoil firsthand convinced her otherwise. He was less the bad guy in her eyes.

I'll mention one final benefit for Phil. Porn keeps us hooked, in part, because it's been paired repeatedly with the pleasure of sexual fantasy and masturbation. The frontal cortex of the brain, which processes our values and priorities and goals, is trying to keep us away from porn. However, that's not the part of the brain that is in charge in the heat of tempting moments. Rather, one the most primitive parts of the brain, a part we have in common with the reptiles, takes over at the controls at such moments. That reflexive part of the brain responds not to reasoning, but to conditioning. If what immediately follows a behavior is pleasure, that part of our brain wants to go back to it again and again. If what immediately follows a behavior is aversive, it will go to great lengths to prevent that outcome in the future. Just like we don't scold a puppy for wetting on the carpet three months ago because it would never connect the discomfort with the behavior, telling my wife three months after I had a problem with porn doesn't make smut less attractive to me tomorrow. However, if I disclose to her right away, the primal core of my brain starts making the link. After that, the bloom is off the rose of acting out sexually. If I know that I'll open up and do it right away, then the idea that no one has to know about this just doesn't hold water any more, even in the tunnel vision kind of focus we go into when we're craving.

What are the benefits for you of working together with your spouse? How has it been different than struggling on your own and trying to keep your ups and downs a secret?