Don't Fight Your Urges, Cure Your Cravings

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.

Former Porn Junkie Sober 20+ Years

I have lots of spare moments, chances to brush up on my reading, as I travel around the country training therapists to treat pornography addicts. I’m knee-deep in this material all the time, but I was still a bit self-conscious sitting on a bench outside the airport thumbing through a volume, Pornography Addiction Workbook emblazoned across the front in bold red letters. There was a smartly dressed man sitting a couple of seats down from me. When I glanced up he said, “I used to be addicted to porn.” I put down my book and smiled. “Got into it in the Navy. Then I couldn’t kick the habit. My wife hated it. And who can blame her: sweet young thing, thought I would have eyes just for her. I wanted to ease her mind, but I kept falling back in. So I’d hide it. Then she’d find it and around and around we’d go again.” He shook his head. “Those were hard years. Struggled into my late twenties. Life got much better once I got that under control.”

He looked to be in his late fifties. Some quick math told me he must have close to three decades of sobriety under his belt. I’d only been in the business fifteen years, so I’d never talked with anyone with that kind of recovery to look back on. What an opportunity. Suddenly I hoped our hotel shuttle would be slow to arrive. I wondered what it was like for him now.

“It still calls to me sometimes,” he admitted. Then he shrugged and laughed. “I just take that as part of life. It’s all around us these days. I pay attention to see if there’s anything I did to put myself at risk so I can avoid those problems in the future.  I don’t watch TV late at night anymore. I bring something to read when I’m travelling, or some entertainment of my own for evenings in the hotel room.”

The airbrakes screeched and the door of the shuttle bus popped open in front of us. I realized we probably weren’t going to be talking about porn anymore. “How are things for the two of you now?” I asked as we settled into our seats in the bus and it lurched away from the curb. “The two of us are now thirteen. We have four kids and seven grandkids. We've been blessed. You’re from Salt Lake. Are you LDS?” I nodded and he continued, “I’m serving as a Stake President in Colorado. Help lots of people with this problem now. Life has been good to us. Couldn’t be happier.”

It was just a brief conversation, but I’ve thought about it a lot since. A few things were striking:

• He doesn’t overreact when porn sometimes still calls to him. He doesn’t let that suck him back into shame: “What’s wrong with me?! I’m never going to get over this! I’ve ruined myself for life!” He doesn’t sound the alarms: “Dang! I’m still addicted! Gotta fight these urges with all my might!” As a result, he doesn’t overcorrect. He isn’t hypervigilant, worried that every sexual cue might lead to his downfall.
• He seemed to be relaxed and at ease. I remember him shrugging and laughing about temptation being a part of life.
• He stays observant and flexible. As a result, he learns from experience. If something puts him more at risk than usual, he takes it to heart without panicking. He takes simple, sensible steps to make life easier for himself in the future. If his new approach works better for him, he sticks with it. He doesn’t assume that the mere passage of time makes him safe and knowingly put himself back in harm’s way.

His way is a relaxed, perceptive, easy-going, but committed one.

How different it is from the knee-jerk reaction we have when we’re fed up. We’re prone to fall into an uptight, impatient, put-my-head-down-and-do-whatever-I-need-to-do-to-put-this-habit-behind-me-once-and-for-all mode. Unfortunately, that way is inflexible and more of the same. It hasn’t worked for us before, why would it now? Even a good Navy man knows that sometimes there are better ways than “ @#!*% the torpedoes, full speed ahead!”

Talking Is Not the Only Way to Reach Out

Even after trying it for several weeks, Jay found that it was never a relief to come home at the end of the day and try to talk to his wife, Wendy. He often had a hard time putting into words why he was feeling off kilter or wound up. He came up with a blank most of the time. He just knew he wasn’t feeling at his best. He didn’t know what to talk about, but he kept trying. After he and Wendy had talked, he always seemed to feel just as stressed out as he had before.

I didn’t think Jay was just resisting something that was good for him. I encouraged him to honor his own experience and keep exploring options. Even though it didn’t seem to particularly help him to connect through words, I knew that connecting with Wendy in some way might provide what he needed at the end of the day, the very time he was the most vulnerable to the pull of pornography. But how could he let her know that he was in need when he was feeling off without talking about it? He decided that it would be easier for him to hold her longer when they hugged or give her the thumbs down about his day. He thought that when he was feeling particularly in need he might even put his head on her shoulder as they watched TV together. Then, what could they do together that would feel more natural and satisfying to him than trying to verbalize his uneasiness right when he had the least desire to talk? We came up with a short list of options:

• Sit close to each other out on the back porch swing
• Listen to music together
• Take a walk together
• Scratch each other’s backs while they watched TV
• Leave the TV off and just spoon on the couch or bed
• Turn off the phone and all other electronic devices and just sit together in a quiet, dimly lit room or out on the grass in the backyard.

I saw the faraway look in Jay’s eyes as he described this last option. It became apparent to me that he wasn’t trying to avoid Wendy. He wanted to be with her; he just didn’t want their time together to become one more situation that set him up to feel like he wasn’t doing things right. I knew that in the future, he’d need to talk to her some of the time in order to meet her need to communicate. However, if he was going to reach for her instead of reaching for his addiction, he needed to also be able to feel that, at least some of the time, he could be completely at ease with her in a way that was most comfortable for him. There didn’t have to be the requirement of and pressure to talk about things if he didn’t feel like talking.

To Break Your Addiction to Porn, Connect with Your Wife

He just knew he’d be going to hell.

Throughout almost a decade of his life, Gene had resigned himself to the idea that he was hopelessly addicted to sex and would be spending the eternities suffering for it.

A year ago he was convinced by a mentor in his church who had travelled the road before that there was a way out. It would require, however, this friend insisted, complete and utter honesty. Deep down Gene felt that what he was hearing was true. So, as painful as he knew it would be, he decided to be 100% honest with God, the leaders of his church, and with his wife. "I threw myself at God’s feet and put my neck under his heel. I was at his mercy. I opened up about everything. I half expected to be struck by lightning."

He wasn’t. Instead, his church leaders, including this mentor, were loving and helpful. They’ve also been patient, continuing to work with him regularly over the months. Compared to how it’s gone with his wife, that part has been easy.

Gene started out trying to be completely honest with Lillian, but when he’d talk to her about feeling tempted, "There would always be tears and hurt." Too often, when he wished he could report growth and successes, he had to admit faltering and failures. It became very difficult for him to open up. One day, he acknowledged to her that he was tempted: "I’m really struggling wanting to call a prostitute."
What happened to Lillian when Gene said that felt catastrophic to both of them. "I started to wonder, ‘Who is this person I’m married to?’" recalled Lillian.

Gene said, "I saw that in her eyes. I couldn’t believe I’d done that to her again, hurt her so badly. These disclosures were like a punch in the face to her, and I was continuing to punch her in the face. I thought, ‘Not only am I not getting better from this addiction, I’m hurting my wife even more in the process by letting her in on the gory details.’ I couldn’t do it anymore. I didn’t shut down completely after that, I just substituted lesser disclosures for the real ones, the difficult ones. I struggled with the hard stuff on my own after that."

Not surprisingly, his addiction took a downward turn, as addictions do. And once again, he was alone in his struggle against it. Then Gene relapsed in a very bad, illegal way. Even worse, he secretly stayed caught up in that pattern over a period of four months. It all finally came out into the open. He wasn’t discovered; he mustered the courage to break the secrecy himself. He resigned from his job, was headed toward likely excommunication from his church, and was facing the possibility of incarceration. However, his life didn’t fall apart completely: Lillian decided to stay with him and try to work through the problem.

In addition to continuing to meet with his mentor, his church leaders recommended counseling. During my second session with Gene and Lillian, I explained to them that disclosing our behavior is the top, most superficial level of honestly. Revealing our urges and cravings requires honesty at a deeper level. However, the most difficult honesty, and the most productive, is deeper still. Think of it as honesty at the tips of the roots of bad behavior. Before we act out, we’re tempted. Before we’re tempted, there’s something else still. And here’s what that something is for most of us: there’s an emotional upset that creeps in like a cloudy haze and obscures our ability to think clearly and make the best decisions for ourselves. It’s difficult to stay aware of what’s going on at such times—to be honest even with ourselves about how we’re doing. It’s easier to turn on some music or eat something or brood. All of these are easier than acknowledging that we’re feeling off, that we are emotionally out of sorts. And there’s something even more appealing than the radio or food or feeling sorry for ourselves: sex. Even if we don’t go to it straightaway, when we turn on the TV or start clicking around the internet, we’re sitting ducks at such times. Sexual content is never more titillating, never more erotic, than when it beckons us to step into its light and out of emotional darkness, into its warmth and out of emotional chill, into its blissful rest and out of emotional turmoil. No other drug can offer what sex offers at such times. And so we keep going back, despite all intentions and commitments.

Gene and Lillian have already travelled a long road. The road will be longer still. However, if they work on developing emotional awareness and expressiveness, they can be close again as a couple. Over time (and with dang good professional help) Gene can develop the ability to reach out instead of acting out. Then, feeling more connected with each other than before, more support from each than ever before, the distance of the road and the length of time it takes them starts mattering less. Patience is easier to muster. Somehow, each mile, each day, each step feels lighter and the entire journey more worthwhile when you’re walking hand-in-hand.