“In Recovery” ≠ “Not Tempted”

What was Calvin hoping to accomplish in therapy? He pressed his clenched his fist into his thigh and said, “I want to get to the point where temptation doesn’t even faze me.”

Wrong goal.

There may be men who “aren’t even fazed” by sexual temptation. I’m certainly not in that elite club. I only know one or two men who claim to be. I dare say very few—if any—of them are recovering sex addicts.

I let Calvin know immediately that I wouldn’t be trying to help him with that. I know better. I’ve seen too many people bang their head against that wall.

In fact, I talk all the time to new clients who’ve been trying for a long time to get to that magical point on the horizon. It goes worse for them than staying just as far from their goal as when they started trying. Unfortunately, they continue to find themselves ever further from it.

They’ve tried to clamp down on all thoughts and urges, and they find the task maddeningly difficult. They can’t even go to work without finding their eyes drawn to body parts, their minds drawn to sex acts. It’s never been this bad at work before! They can’t go to church without struggling. So much for having a spiritual experience! They can’t go to the store. And we’re not talking about the mall with the Victoria’s Secret displays and the sexy cosmetic counter attendants—we’re talking Sam’s Club. What should they do, become hermits?

One way to gauge the effect of an addiction in your life is to assess the “size of the footprint” of the problem. How much of your time, energy, and focus is consumed by it? Consumed by lusting—or fighting lust? Spent looking for ways to act out sexually or spent feeling guilty about what you’ve done in the past and fearing that you'll screw up again in the future? How much of the pie chart of your life is taken up by all the various aspects of this problem?

The footprint of addiction for men who have adopted a zero tolerance policy toward sexual thoughts tends to be up in the 70-80% range. They may not be acting out very often, but their life remains dominated by the struggle. Given the heart and soul they’re putting into their struggle against it, you’d think the footprint would be shrinking. And yet it keeps growing.

Calvin said to me, “The harder I try to get rid of sexual thoughts, the worse it goes. Now it’s like a grizzly bear on my back. I go around with the hope in the forefront of my mind that I won’t see an attractive woman. I’m living in fear.”

Hellish way to live.

Fortunately, it goes far better once we 1) understand the power of the “resist/rebound effect,” 2) accept the way the sexual brain operates, 3) adopt more realistic and helpful goals with regard to sexual temptation, and 4) broaden the focus of our recovery to include temptation management but emphasize emotion management and overall personal growth.

In the coming weeks I’ll discuss these issues in greater detail. Stay tuned!

Feed--REALLY Feed--Your Craving Brain

We can certainly feel hungry for sex. But as hunger pangs go, our addictive urges and cravings are terrible predictors of what will actually "hit the spot" and leave us feeling full and satisfied. We may feel like we need a sexual release. But after acting out we are left feeling empty, guilty, ashamed. 

It turns out that we as humans can be lousy predictors of what will make us feel good. George Loewenstein of Carnegie Mellon University calls this the "Intrapersonal Empathy Gap." When we don't know others as well as we think we do, there's a gap in our inTERpersonal empathy. But we don't even know our future selves as well as we think we do--hence the inTRApersonal empathy gap. 

When you're in hot pursuit of an opportunity to act out, if feels like you're sneaking your future self a delightful, forbidden gift. "Look what I'm working really hard to get for you!" Once you've acted out, you sneer at your past self and say, "How could you imagine I'd want more of that crap in my life?!"

Try out this exercise. It can help provide you with alternative activities at those moments when you're vulnerable to acting out. It will also illustrate some of the gaps in your empathy for your future self. Hopefully it will make you more willing in the future to try constructive activities that don't seem very appealing in the heat of the moment.

In the middle of a page, make a list of possible activities you could turn to when you're at risk of relapsing. Then, in a column to the left, rate each activity from 1-10 according to how satisfying you think the activity will be. For example, here's Paul's list:

Projected

Satisfaction                 Activity

6                     Browse news websites

7                     Listen to music

7                     Talk with coworkers

5                     Work hard

7                     Lunch with family

8                     Play football on Wii

7                     Volunteer at church

8                     Sub for Santa

7                     Caroling with neighbors

7                     Lunch with coworkers

8                     Browse entertainment websites

4                     Go running

Then create a right hand column where you can rate actual satisfaction from 1-10. Throughout the coming week or two, right after you engage in each of the activities, rate how satisfied you feel. Here is the completed assignment Paul showed me two weeks later:

 Projected                                                            Actual

Satisfaction                 Activity                          Satisfaction

6                     Browse news websites                     2 (ugh!)

7                     Listen to music                                 9

7                     Talk with coworkers                        8

5                     Work hard                                       8

7                     Lunch with family                             9

8                     Play football on Wii                          6

7                     Volunteer at church                          8

8                     Sub for Santa                                   10

1                     Caroling with neighbors                    9

7                     Lunch with coworkers                      8

8                     Browse entertainment websites         2

4                     Go running                                       7

Notice the gaps--some of the huge!--between how satisfying Paul thought these activities would be and how much he actually enjoyed them. 

It has made him rethink all the time he spends online and playing video games. And has made him more willing to try things that sound challenging (working hard) or even miserable (Caroling with a group of neighbor families)

Try out this exercise for yourself. And stop ingesting poisonous activities--they make your future self sick every time!

Sober is Different

Three months ago Kyle was masturbating to porn almost daily. Every time he tried to go without, the pull became almost unbearable. He said during one of our sessions, "Sex is the ultimate for me. The rest of the life pales in comparison."

He's now been sober for two months.

"When I consider doing porn, it feels a lot more hollow and pointless. Life's gotten better as I've been clean for a while. I guess I'm forming new habits.

"I've see more control and confidence in all aspects of my life. I'm studying to go back to school. I can sit down and do that more readily now. It feels like my life is moving forward. I'm more patient with the tasks I have to do at work.

"I'm more emotionally stable. It used to be such a roller coaster when I gave in after being sober for a few days, in those rare instances. I would be so low the next day, it was terrible. I was down on myself, irritable, less patient with my roommates. Most of the time I was giving in daily so it was a constant cloud that hung over me and dragged down my self-esteem."

Kyle summed up the difference he's experiencing in these words: "I'm a happy person."