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Addiction
Recognizing the Symptoms If you or someone in your family or associates display these patterns in their lives they may be addicted. Adapted from Hope and Recovery - A Twelve Step Guide for Healing from Compulsive Sexual Behavior. - Do you sense that your sexual thoughts and/or behaviors are causing problems in your life?
- Have sexual thoughts interfered with your ability to function at work or at school?
- Do you sometimes think that you are the only person who has certain sexual thoughts or engages in certain sexual behaviors?
- Do your fail to meet commitments or fail to carry out responsibilities because of your involvement with pornography?
- Do you struggle to control or completely stop your thinking about or viewing pornography?
- Do you view pornography in order to escape, deny, or numb your feelings?
- Do you think about sex more than you would like to?
- Do you spend more money than you can afford to spend on pornography?
- Do you have two standards fo fidelity- one for yourself and one for your spouse or partner?
- Have you ever promised yourself that you would never again view pornography?
- Do you use pornography to deal with, deny, or avoid problems in your life?
- Do your sexual thoughts and/or behaviors interfere with your spiritual or religious life?
- Have you lost a job or risked losing a job because of your involvement with pornography?
- Do you scan printed material or change channels on the television set just to find something that will stimulate you?
Common Reactions to the Discovery of a Spouse's Pornography Addiction by Holly Passey , LCSW Shock, devastation, confusion, and betrayal are terms often used by women when they find out about their spouse's addiction to pornography. This discovery impacts so many areas of a person's life, including their relationships with their spouse, their families, their physical and mental well-being, and many times even their own sense of self-worth. Some very common reactions might include the following: Emotional: Many women report excessive crying spells, feeling hopeless, betrayed, angry, depressed, confused, frustrated, guilty, and powerless. Some women even admit to feeling relieved when the addiction is finally out in the open. Most wives would say they had a nagging suspicion something was wrong but were unable to put their fingers on it. It is normal to experience a broad range of these feelings. Almost all women report feeling betrayed, although the betrayal is with a person that is "not real" to the addicted spouse. Journaling, talking with a trusted friend, consulting with a therapist who specializes in sexual addictions, taking time to cry and as needed, and allowing yourself to express anger through appropriate avenues would be beneficial. Physical: Many people report several physical symptoms that accompany their grief upon discovery of their spouse's addiction. These symptoms might include: insomnia, nightmares, waking up several times during the night, major changes in appetite, headaches, nausea, diarrhea, and fatigue. For many, these symptoms will last for several weeks. If your symptoms last for more than 4 weeks, or appear to increase in severity over time, it would be wise to consult with your family doctor. Taking good care of your physical self during this time is imperative. Intimacy: For women intimacy is a very emotional act. When a wife is feeling that her husband has had sexual feelings towards "another woman," even if she is just in a magazine, her basic instincts tell her she has been betrayed. Often women report a decrease in desire to maintain sexual relationships, reporting that, "if I have sex with him, he will be thinking of those perfect women in the magazines." Other women try to over compensate by increasing the amount of sexual intimacy in their relationships. They feel that if they can meet all of their spouse's sexual needs, he will no longer want to turn to pornography. Unfortunately, a pornography addiction is not about sexual intimacy for the addict. The addiction is about escaping reality through fantasy, and achieving the "high" that this experience provides. Increasing the amount of sex in a relationship will most likely not deter an addict from continuing to act out. Mental: Another common response is for the spouse to have recurring unwanted thoughts and images of what they imagine their spouse to look like while engaged in their addictive behavior. These thoughts can be very disturbing, and can prevent the wife from being able to concentrate or focus on many ordinary daily activities. Becoming too pre-occupied with these thoughts can be very self-destructive, and always diverts the wife away from thoughts and activities she would much rather be engaged in. Trust: An informal poll of my clients who have experienced this would reveal that they feel trust was broken, and that this was the most damaging aspect of the addiction on the relationship. Many feel they are no longer sure exactly who this person is that they have been married to for the past number of years. They feel he has been leading a double life, and often being to question what other areas of his life may he not have been honest with. Denial: Another very common reaction to finding out about a spouse's addiction is denial, or pretending the problem does not exist, or that it will go away without any further intervention. A study of alcoholics found that most spouses live with their partner's excessive alcohol consumption for 7 years before they acknowledge it is a problem. Then on average they take another 2 years before they seek help. It has been my experience that these numbers are fairly applicable in pornography addiction. Imagine the havoc that is reaped on a family, an individual, and a marriage if a pornography addiction is allowed to ravage people's lives for 9 years. Untreated pornography addiction is not a problem that gets better with time. Despite his promises that "this is the last time," a pornography habit is best treated when it is first discovered. Professional intervention is almost always necessary and highly recommended. 1/05 Communities for Decency Hot Line: (801) 971-4029
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