Back in June, I had started going to Sex Addicts Anonymous, a very active and well-attended program in Mesa at the San Jose Fellowship, with maybe 15 or 16 meetings a week. I could tell that my compulsive porn watching behaviors were creeping back in and that I was getting tempted to get into intrigues and secret affairs, starting to look for sexual excitement outside the primary partnership with the ex, which was alarming to me because we were ostensibly in a poly nonmonogamous set of agreements. On a sexual level, these are my addictive behaviors. I liked SAA a lot, and lo and behold a couple of my AA friends were going to those meetings as well, so that was oddly reassuring. I am still sober from my self-identified inner circle addictive behaviors, 10 months later, even though I have not continued with that program. Working the steps in AA has benefits across the board.
But, as much of an issue as bad faith, dishonest, self-seeking, harmful sexual acting out behavior has been for me, I get the definite sense that the more global issues are codependency and romance/love addiction. Here's a handy diagnostic from Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous, by the way, for you to explore your own proclivities in this regard.
A few notes on sex addiction, and sex and love addiction, and codependency. Many people are skeptical of sex addiction in particular, usually because sex is not a substance/drug and/or the moral framework of the skeptic puts sexual behavior in a realm of moral choice and personal responsibility. Of course, sexual behavior exists in these moral, or at least, ethical realms. Legitimately, a guy caught cheating on his supposedly monogamous partner with multiple partners and/or sex workers could just be an asshole sociopath who uses the label "sex addiction" to try to get out of a terrible bind. That kind of situation will not lead to any real sobriety or behavioral change, however, for probably obvious reasons.
People seem a little bit more able in general to accept love/romance addiction and codependency as "real." But even there, some feel that labeling a lot of these compulsive behaviors as "addiction" is simply pathologizing "normal" falling in love, infatuation, etc. There is definitely overlap. The phase of infatuation in a new relationship or reawakened in an old one is all consuming indeed. But the main difference is that it is a phase and it wanes, and if there is anything in the relationship happening on a real level, if both of the people involved are not addicts or are working a good program, the relationship survives that fundamental change from what poly people call 'New Relationship Energy" to more sustainable and spacious relating.
Regarding all of these reservations and all of this skepticism, it's helpful for me to revisit the basic nuts and bolts framework of addiction and see if sex/love/romance/codependency fit the bill.
Addiction combines a mental obsession with the experience of craving during acting out behavior. The mental obsession makes it impossible for the addict to stop on his or her own. It always leads back to starting into the addictive behavior again, no matter the resolve to stop or the consequences of continuing. The experience of craving leads to out of control behavior once the acting out starts. There is a definite, urgent, painful sense that there will never be enough of whatever the addictive substance or behavior is. At best there is only temporary, unreliable relief. Intermittent reinforcement becomes a definite hook-- usually with longer periods between the acting out behavior "working," that is, providing the expected relief-- and usually with progressively more dangerous and extreme acting out over time.
If you accept this definition of addiction, then of course compulsive sexual, romantic, relationship and codependent behaviors completely fit. If you can put aside moral or personal responsibility questions altogether and just look at the shape of porn addiction, addiction to visiting sex workers, addiction to affairs and intrigue, to drama, to "new" lovers and "exciting" sexual/romantic escapades, you can clearly see the fit with addiction. In particular, the person caught on these hooks often desperately wants to stop, suffers awful consequences such as loss of good long term relationships, loss of employment, excruciating shame and guilt that can lead to suicide, huge financial losses, ongoing physical and emotional abuse from compulsively staying with an abuser, STDs and traumatic, unwanted sexual assault situations, on and on. But no matter what these consequences are, the sex and/or love addict cannot stop on his or her own, no matter how good a person he or she may be in other ways.
Even more baffling to both the sex/love addict and the people who love him or her is that the acting out behavior usually gets worse over time, without regard to consequences. In fact, relapse after a long period of refraining from acting out, if there is no program of recovery or support system, usually involves a harrowing bender of epic proportions, even worse than before.
So the basic shape of all of this is absolutely identical to alcoholism, or drug addiction, or gambling addiction, or you name it addiction. A mental obsession that leads to acting out combined with the experience of uncontrollable cravings while acting out.
The trouble with a lot of this is that our culture in many ways frames all of this as normal. Some partners caught up in these painful tangles even hope for obsessive behavior from their love interest, as a sign of "true love." We've been taught that possessiveness or jealousy, or controlling behavior, or even violence and abuse, is a sign of love. We've been taught also that obsessive focus on a single other person is what constitutes love. We've also been taught that "falling in love" is a significant experience to be taken seriously, and we rarely interrogate that basic assumption. In a larger way, we've been taught that feelings require action, that sex equals commitment or that sex has to be without attachment and is meaningless, that if we "fall out of love" our relationship is doomed, etc.
In short, we've been taught that if we are lacking and have a "hole in our soul," sex and/or love or another person will fill it. This is a terrible, insidious lie and it leads to a shit ton of fucking awful misery. The simplest reason that it leads to misery is that it's false and therefore unreliable. The attempt to fix ourselves using what is false is often just what we do, and if we wake up, it can lead us to deep healing. But while we're caught in that racket, it's poison. And it can literally kill.
To make matters worse, sex/love addicts usually find each other and become not only entangled but actually co-addicted. Instead of simply being lovers or partners, they become *acting out partners* with each other. And since they are in "a relationship" and usually get the endorsement of the culture, they feel they have even more leeway to act out with each other-- which leads to even more shame and double binds when the secret acting out starts. As a friend of mine who works both an AA an an Al Anon program says: "Two sickies do not a wellie make."
For me, the beginning of a solution to being caught in these talons of misery is to get into recovery. Relationship recovery in general. Relationship sobriety. Obviously this is going to look different for different people. But what definitely does not work as a real solution for me in the long term is self help, therapy, or anything involving an attempt on the part of myself to help myself. I absolutely need to get into a spiritual program of recovery around it all. Therapy and counseling can really help in profound ways, but even with all of the self knowledge in the world, if I remain spiritually sick I am bound to relapse and be even more baffled than before. My counselor currently is definitely helping me by providing advice on how to recognize obsessive impulses, how to avoid acting out in behavioral ways, some suggestions for reclaiming a sense of myself, etc. But I need to bring all of these tools into a much larger, global recovery-- a radical reconfiguration of all of the causes and conditions of my addictive behaviors regarding sex and love.
It turns out that Al Anon, Codependents Anonymous, SAA, SLAA and other 12 step groups all have this same aim-- to provide lasting recovery from all sorts of compulsive attachment and control disorders. From all sorts of rip offs where we insist on locating our solution in the behavior or bodies of other people. From this arena of trying to use what's false to fix what's already a sick delusion.
No comments:
Post a Comment
This is an anonymous blog, mostly in an effort to respect the 12th tradition of Alcoholics Anonymous. Any identifying information in comments will result in the comment not being approved.