As a single guy, my husband had a serious porn addiction (although we didn’t know to call it that in the 1990s). He had some sobriety under his belt when we started dating. He confessed his issues up front and we got counsel from wise people at our church who were confident in us moving toward marriage. Despite some mental health struggles in the early years of marriage, Phil didn’t “act out” with self-stimulation or porn. We were very careful with things like movies or magazines coming into the house. We didn’t have cable TV for years. We were late adopters of things like a personal home computer or smart phones. To borrow language from the last post, we had good habits in place for sober living. It was easy. We also had a good marriage like regular date nights and relationship conferences. We cared about keeping our home life stable and giving our kids a Christian environment to grow up in. As the years passed, we talked about struggles with lust and porn less and less because we each became overwhelmingly busy in our spheres. Eventually, we did find ourselves with a laptop and a desktop and two iPads. We both had cell phones, a Netflix account, and teens on all the popular apps. Despite Phil being a leader at church, very involved in our kids moral education, having a supportive and adoring wife, and being a manager at a fortune 500 company, he managed to find himself acting out sexually on all these devices in time. The good habits, close marriage, and being a good public example wasn’t enough to keep him sober and faithful.

After several years of flirting with sexual acting out, he found himself far beyond lines he never thought he’d cross and in the counseling office of an addictions counselor. Later, we’d learn that counselor wasn’t a CSAT. He didn’t have the training to take us very far down the road, but what he was able to offer us at the beginning was perfect. Phil’s first several visits were all about addiction. Several times, this therapist told me, “Chemical addictions involve two brain chemicals while sex addiction involve up to nine. That’s why it’s more difficult to sort out.”

In the last post, I touched on the reality that sex addicts actually get “high” or “drunk” just like chemical addicts. Is that a strange thought? If they aren’t putting a pill or substance in their body, how are they getting high? By manipulating their sex hormones and neurochemicals to abnormally high levels. Actually, dangerously high levels. They’re altering their mood by adjusting their brain chemistry artificially. Internet porn is more addictive than cocaine. Consider the consequences of repeatedly engaging in dangerous sexuality and adding adrenaline to the sexual experience. Adrenaline magnifies experience like a match to gasoline. Then what about the bonding chemicals of oxytocin and vasopressin? God intended these chemicals to be like a glue between two lovers – strong enough to last for life. But what happens when we engage sexually with an image or a sex worker and our brains release those bonding chemicals? Sad thought. It’s not healthy to bond to a fantasy or a stranger. Think about the harm done when your brain releases endorphins when participating in an experience you’d consciously label as morally wrong. Dopamine is the feel-good desire chemical in the brain associated with novelty and reward. A real world sex life has some novelty, but nothing compared to the online world of “swipe left, ” as Gary Wilson’s brilliant research shows us. Everyone is novel at one time, and every novelty becomes familiar as well. If you’ve trained yourself to only be aroused by something novel or dangerous, you’re in a bad place, indeed.

If even a cursory look at giving one’s mind to sex outside of a pair-bond seems like a bad idea, why do so many people fall for this brain chemical cocktail, then? We’ve already discussed that any practice, given enough repetition, becomes subconscious. The brain is amazing in its operation, but not always sophisticated or optimal. God never designed our brains to function merely on instinct. Our intelligent wise mind must do that. Instinct says: Seek pleasure, seek novelty, be predatory, be lazy, eat sugar and fat, etc. Your BRAIN will lead you in a dangerous direction while your MIND must hold you back. This is what Christians understand as the war between the flesh and the spirit. Therein lies the problem for addicts. A healthy brain might try an addictive, dangerous substance or behavior but the mind decides “that felt good but I can’t afford to become a junkie.” Brains more susceptible to addiction try the substance or behavior and never thins they will come to harm.

While the mood is altered via the chemical rush, the addiction fix is in due to another mechanism: cognitive distortion. The brain wants this experience so much, it starts removing the “Road Out Ahead” signs by messaging that makes the feel-good-right-now-option a good thing. The common distortions are justifying, minimizing, denying, compartmentalizing, blaming the spouse. The part of the brain that would normally be saying, “Bad idea!”, closes its eyes. Your brain starts lying to you. When a brain starts lying to itself and is believed this is called confabulation. This is one of the most serious changes that occurs in the brain with addiction that wouldn’t be happening if a behavior was at the habit level. Marc Lewis Phd, in his book, “The Biology of Desire”, compares this ongoing destructive process to an up-side-down cone. Addicted brains allow all other beliefs and priorities to fade away in light of one single solitary goal: getting the next hit. An addict’s focus gets narrower and narrower and narrower. They come to see everything in life through the lens of their addiction.

So how can this information help addicts in their fight for sobriety? Addiction has a mind of its own and it’s working for one thing: a hit in the short term. It doesn’t care how you or your loved ones suffer in the long term. Addiction doesn’t care if you lose your job or end up alone. The first thing the addiction counselor explained to my husband is that addiction knows where you left off. If you aren’t on guard against the advancement of addiction in your life, if will pick up right where you left off. And addiction can wait until you’re not on guard. Once you start the ball rolling, like a stone rolling downhill, addiction only gets bigger and faster in its goal.

However, since your brain isn’t your mind, you actually can bring these subconscious responses and chemical reactions into consciousness and stop them from taking your life over completely.

A good place to start is by understanding the affect dopamine has on your mood and behavior. Your neurochemicals ebb and flow by design. After sex, dopamine and oxytocin fall sharply. This reaction involves other chemicals in the brain. It’s more sharp in men than women, which accounts for the “roll over and fall asleep” behavior in men after sex. When this happens after self stimulation or viewing pornography, the discomfort can feel like despair, which in turn makes the addict want to numb out again. Gary Wilson explains that our brains were never designed to encounter so much sexual novelty and stimulation as we have access to today. It drives dopamine so high in the brain, that the receptors start blocking out dopamine – which means the addict will keep seeking the drug to get the same high while feeling worse and worse.

Believing that intensity is synonymous with love or sex is destructive and untrue. There are actually two dopaminergic pathways in the brain: one is excitatory while the other satisfies. The Bible says that God satisfies us with His love. Stimulating love isn’t designed to satisfy. Sure, our brains respond to stimulation and novelty: technology, food, sex partners, reward. But that doesn’t satisfy. Humans have never had this much access to novel stimulation. We must handle it wisely. Just like adolescent adventure dissipates in light of a steady job that offers a pay check and benefits, so, too, does the sexual impulse toward lust and novelty pale in comparison to knowing and being known by a faithful companion.

Did you know that God actually allows stimulating dopamine to decrease within a monogamous sexual relationship to give rise to attachment love?It’s calmer. This allows the partners to focus on other important goals, such as raising children, outside of the bedroom. When we reject satisfying experiences for only intense stimulation, we are behaving like animals. In so doing, we actually feel worse and worse. Giving ourselves to over-stimulation DECREASES joy and wellbeing, not to mention destroys important things like relationships and reputations.

So here is a good place to start: seek out simple pleasures. Remember how thrilling it was when you were younger and you knew how to enjoy the simple things? Give your dopamine receptors a chance to heal. Prioritize satisfying experiences like reading, nice walks, grooming, peaceful music, quiet cuddles, being face-to-face with your loved ones instead of excessive stimulation. You will experience more joy in the long run!

Healing a brain from addiction takes time! Be aware of when your brain is lying to you. Be aware of craving stimulation. Be aware of changes in mood that make you want to escape reality. Be aware of the sex industry trying to exploit you and keep you hooked. Be aware of not prioritizing the right things like a life-long partner. (married people are the most healthy and satisfied over all). Be aware of unconscious behaviors that violate your values. Be aware of habits that lure you closer to acting out. Remember, addiction doesn’t care about you. Remember, your brain isn’t your mind. Remember, don’t think like a junkie – think and behave like a mature, sober adult.

Resources:

Great article on dopamine