Physical vs psychological dependence

The way I understand it is that most addiction's are a combination of physical and psychological dependance. People start to escape their problems/negative feelings by numbing them with pleasurable feelings, either with drugs/alcohol or rewarding behavior. So by first using the addiction psychologically, over time, it also becomes a physical dependance, where dopamine receptors become desentized from 'normal' stimuli. Now observing my boyfriend (23) and his behavior, I was never sure if he was really addicted. He started watching porn when he was 12 or 13, and ever since I've been with him (4 years), he's never had any problems with getting aroused and staying aroused with me. What he did have problems with is not looking at porn behind my back, which he often did when he was bored or we had a fight and he felt rejected by me. He also always wanted to act out things he had seen in porn and fantasize about porn-like scenarios with me. And also, whenever he did look at porn behind my back, he was doing it really casually. He was browsing it on his phone or PC like he was browsing the news, just for a few minutes and then he would continue to do something non-sexual. So on the one hand, this seems like evidence for desensitization, on the other hand, I would think that as an addict, he would feel more tempted to release the sexual tension after looking at sexual images. I also noticed he has a very hard time to achieve his personal goals, he spends most of his time playing video games or browsing the internet rather than working for his goals. Is it possible that he is replacing the psychological effect of porn with these other habits? I'm curious to know if some people here experience their porn addiction as mostly a psychological dependence too. Or does it usually go hand in hand with physical dependance?

 

I don't think the psychological and physiological can be completely separated. Two sides of the same coin. I am not an expert on addiction though, just my own experience.

 

I'm not sure I understand exactly how you differentiate between physical and psychological addiction. If the brain's dopamine receptors are desensitized from too much dopamine and causing withdrawal symptoms and dopamine cravings when not using, I would classify all of it as physical dependance, since it's caused by a neurobiological malfunction. I actually realize it was not accurate on my part to use the term "psychological dependence". What I meant is using the addiction as a psychological coping mechanism. But I think that might not necessarily be dependent on the addiction itself. I'm sure there are coping mechanisms which are healthy but they are still used in a way to deal with a bad feeling or situation without confronting it directly. Whereas addiction is an unhealthy coping mechanism, because whenever the addictive substance/behavior is used to cope with something, it only fuels the addiction/physical dependence further. Sorry if this sounds confusing, I'm just trying to make sense of it in my head.

 

I am part of that group and usually more active in the relationship section, but in this case I am not looking for relationship advice. I'm trying to understand the mechanisms of porn addiction, which I feel is more effective to ask in this section rather than the relationship section.

 

Hello Angel, I think an example to differentiate physical addictions from psychological addiction is that physical addicts show severe symptoms like fever, shaking, nausea etc. as soon as the addict doesn't have the possibility to satisfy their addictions needs. As someone already said before me, especially substances can change the bodies 'chemical households' reaction tremendously. The need for the substance is not only driven by the brain but by the body itself that is 'craving' for the substance. Of course in the center of all that there is always the brain organising everything. So I would say that a physical addiction cannot go without a psycholocial addiction.

Addiction is usually used as a substitute satisfaction. People associate only negative aspects with addiction but there is actually more to it as most people know. The core of addiction is actually something good. Addiction is a part of all of us because the core is a survival strategy. Let me give you my story as an example: As a young teenager I got horribly bullied that nearly drove me to suicide. Porn and addiction was one of the most supportive things I had in that time. It gave me relieve from all the horror that I had to experience. The issue is the long term usage. Your dopamine level is not working correctly anymore and you get caught in a circle you cannot escape easily anymore.

PMO addictions are usually categorized as behavior addictions which means that a trigger causes a reaction - for example masturbation - that leads to relieve. This pattern repeats itself. So, your statement that you believe that addiction is a coping mechanism is completely right.

People that suffer from addiction in their youth already can create a very flexible behavior concerning addictions and probably have a higher risk in their future life to face addiction again. Since we are the first real generation that is faced with addiction quite young there are sadly no long term studies about this topic yet - at least that I know of. What you describe could be a shift in his addiction behaviour from one to another. As you said it is a coping mechanism, even though the one addiction may would get less there is still the need for coping as long as the root problem is not solved.

Please let me say that I am no expert and that I only can write as much as I learned from my own experiences, books and therapies I went through before. Most of my statements are taken out from a book by the way.

 

I wonder if it's possible to use porn as a psychological coping mechanism without becoming physically dependent on/addicted to it. There are people who don't get addicted to porn, alcohol, gambling etc. while others do. If there is no genetic predisposition for developing an addiction, then (ab)using a substance or behavior with the potential to cause addiction as a coping strategy wouldn't necessarily result in addiction. At least I would think so, but I am no expert either.

For example, if a child always got ice cream whenever they felt scared, they would have never learned how to deal with the feeling of being scared and why it's there. And over time they would have just developed eating ice cream as the only way to cope with these feelings. And without ice cream, they would be helpless. And maybe if there was no ice cream, they would have just eaten chocolate. But of course, they would not be considered to have an ice cream addiction.

I am just trying to figure out if I was being repeatedly lied to and betrayed because of addiction, which would be a justification, or if it's something else, since I feel like he's never really had strong urges or withdrawal symptoms when not looking at porn. But maybe it just worked because he could easily replace porn with something else, like YouTube/internet/car browsing or gaming. But come to think of it, being forced to stop a coping strategy that has no healthy outlet would require a similar protective instinct as it exists in addicts.

 

Thank you for your reply, Tavla, I appreciate you sharing your knowledge and experiences. I am sorry you've had such traumatic experiences and I am glad you are trying to get better and heal. Coincidentally, my boyfriend had similar experiences, he was bullied as a teenager and had a horrible prank played on him with a girl asking him out but only as a joke and the whole school made fun of him. He also had a childhood friend who would constantly betray him. And he himself told me he watched a lot of porn during that time to feel better. Still, I do not know if he became both addicted to and psychologically dependent on porn (and gaming and internet browsing), or if they are just a psychological coping strategy without addiction. But I guess only he can know that...

 

Addiction always means the loss of control. Control signifies the need of support and healthy relationships a person needs with others. If these needs are not satisfied we tend to turn to substitute satisfactions that give the feeling of security and support! We replace one with another. A person that is surrounded by a healthy environment with healthy relationships will not face the same dangers of addictions like a person that is sourrounded by a toxic environment. In general everything is connected with our dopamine level. If you want to know more I gladly answer you in another post.

What you describe is actually not far off from reality. The addictive substance in your example would be sugar. The person you described would use suger containing (junk) food to cope with issues. Eating disorders due to traumatas are very common.

Getting rid of (porn) addiction is not easy. Many of us deal with it over years. Abnormal sexual behaviours are very hard to get rid of because in contrast to alcohol or weed that you simply can ban out of your life forever you cannot get rid of your sexuality. That being said it is hard to tell what the real reasons are. I for example suffered from ED and used medication to treat it. After several months I continued to use it in secret and tell my girlfriend that my ED was cured. The main motivations were that it was very hard for me to accept and admit to myself I had a severe problem that felt very shameful about it and secondly my ex-girlfriend would take it personal thinking that she was the reason for my ED and I would not adore her enough. Of course this was not the case! Nevertheless, I was pretty good in hiding the addiction and its symptoms. Secondly, the way to accept to be an addict is a long way. Even after I said to myself I had a problem with porn it took years of dealing with my issues that I realized the severity of my problem. Only your boyfriend will be able to answer that for himself.

I am sorry to hear that! It impacted my life in a negative way over a decade. I did go to therapy and it changed my life! Did your boyfriend ever think about doing the same? I cannot speak for your boyfriend but I was aching to speak about it so much. In therapy, all the problems got enough space and I could analyze each one of them. My life felt so much easier afterwards! It literally felt like having a backpack full of stones (issues, traumatas, worries,...) on my back and I took one stone at a time, looked at, talked about it and then dropped it on the floor and left it there. It felt amazing! I actually found out about my addiction in counceling and I made a huge stop forward afterwards.

Let me just say that I respect your effort to understand him! A lot of us are scared to open up to other people about our issues because we are scared of rejection, judgement and loss that brought a lot of us here in the first place. I wish everyone would have the same mindset like you! But in the end we are all responsible for our own future. If you have a problem with his behaviour you should have the right to ask him for change! Addiction may be the cause but should never be the excuse! Don't forget that.

I will stop my post with the words I started with: Addiction is a loss of control. If your boyfriend cannot control his porn, gaming or browsing consumption it is very likely due to addictive behaviour.

 

I do think he has no control over his behavior with porn, otherwise he wouldn't have kept looking at it behind my back after 1+ year of saying he would stop and knowing exactly how I feel about it. Whenever there was an opportunity to feed his need for arousing images, he was never able to resist, despite negative consequences. However, outside of opportunity, he didn't/doesn't seem to be struggling without arousing images or when he is/was exposed to a trigger, it didn't/doesn't seem to affect him enough to act on it. So maybe the physical dependence on porn isn't as pronounced in him as with other addicts. Especially when he keeps his dopamine levels artificially stimulated with video games/Internet browsing. Also I noticed during discussions confronting his behavior, he would often argue very irrationally and illogically, without even realizing it. And also not just when it came to looking at porn but when trying to use me as a projection surface for porn, me saying 'this causes me physical or emotional discomfort' would just fall on deaf ears, which is not rational and acceptable in any healthy relationship where you always respect your partner's feelings and wellbeing. And most importantly, his own wellbeing is neglected by prioritizing quick pleasure from video games or fast food/sugar or internet browsing over achieving his personal goals.

That's a good point, I guess there would be a difference again between someone eating candy to feel better on occasion and being able to control their consumption and prioritize healthy behavior, while someone else would see no other way to escape their psychological stress other than with sugar.

Exactly, I think he has been trying to fix the problem by avoiding it and not admitting it to himself, which is no long-term solution. I think there is too much pain involved in facing the truth and reality of his behavior. I am glad you have managed to escape your denial to finally be able to achieve true recovery.

Thank you for your kind words, maybe I can just relate to him on some level because I too developed an unhealthy coping mechanism as a teenager to protect myself, even though it's not addiction. I too am afraid of rejection and judgement, altough for me it results in not letting other people and my own emotions close to me. I've suggested therapy to him a few times, to fix both of our issues because they just keep fueling each other in a vicious cycle, but of course with him being in denial it, didn't really go anywhere. I agree addiction is not an excuse but it's scientifically proven to hijack parts of the brain that are needed to control actions/behavior. I think addicts deserve love and support, not punishment. But if he continues to stay in denial, I will have to move on one way or the other, because compromising my happiness and wellbeing without getting anything back is not fair.

 

Thank you for your detailed and insightful post, stegiss.

It is interesting that you mention the word porn scares you, whenever I would try to link my boyfriend websites talking about porn addiction, he always said he felt angry and ashamed and could never even confront those sites. I agree that the motivation to change comes from realizing negative consequences of a behavior, and depending on the form and severity of addiction, these consequences can be more sublte than others, like PIED is a very obvious problem while others are less noticeable, and combined with the effect of denial non-existent.

I guess a good way to put it is that, even though due to addiction dopamine receptors become desensitized and dependent on more dopamine, the effect of that is only noticeable when the addict is not distracted and occupied with something else that compensates that feeling. And especially negative feelings are further fueling the "low feelings" and make them even more noticeable.

This is actually in line with the science behind dopamine, which is not causing feelings of pleasure, but anticipating feelings of pleasure.

This is something I still don't understand. The purpose of porn is to be aroused and sexually stimulated, that's how the majority of people use it. In a sexual context. To relief physical sexual tension. So again, in addicts there must be a desensitization to those physical reactions due to overuse. On the other hand I read about porn addicts who are at the gym or on the street and see an attractive woman in revealing clothes and immediately feel like they need to relief the sexual tension caused by the slightest sexual trigger. How can addiction cause both desensitization and heightened sensitization to sexual triggers?

For my boyfriend it is similar, his porn folder consisted of some explicit images of intercourse, but mostly it was just women in revealing clohtes and actually even completely 'regular' looking women, like random Facebook profile pictures that didn't even show the women's figures. This is again the effect dopamine has, which is not only rewarding natural rewards like food and sex, but also rewarding novelty. Porn addiction is more about novelty than about arousal, although arousal is the side effect sexual triggers have.

Thank you for the video link, I will suggest it to him!

I don't mean any offense, but I have to say that all of this part about lying sounds to me like an addict rationalizing and minimizing. What my boyfriend does with his own time and life is none of my business, as long as my boundaries and feelings are respected. If he wants to eat candy despite me telling him it's not healthy, then that's his right. If he eats candy despite saying he wants to stop eating candy and doesn't tell me, then that has nothing to do with me. It doesn't affect me at all. Now if I had some kind of personal trauma with candy, maybe I was abused as a child with candy or something like that and I would ask him to stop eating candy to not hurt me and violate my boundaries, then he is absolutely obligated to tell me whenever he did eat candy. He would be lying by omission if he wouldn't tell me. It has nothing to do with "forcing my opinion on him". I am asking him to respect my boundaries and if he doesn't and doesn't tell me, he is betraying my trust. Sorry if I sound harsh, but this is a very common way in addicts to minimize and rationalize their behavior. No matter how ridiculous my boundaries would be to him, if I told him I feel emotionally and physically uncomfortable if he wears red clothes, he has no reason to ignore my feelings, unless addiction makes him unable to control his actions. Or if he really did define himself and his happiness by wearing red clothes, he would need to tell me that the relationship isn't going to work, because he wants to be happy but also not hurt me. Anything else would be wrong and not rational. Trapping a person in a relationship where they keep getting hurt and betrayed is neither logical nor morally acceptable.

Thank you for your words and sharing your thoughts on this subject, I wish you good luck in your recovery journey!

 

Thank you, this is a very kind and motivational post! I would really want to do these things with him, but as long as he is in denial, it will be pointless ;/