Does the label "porn addict" remain useful long into recovery?

We're in it for a lifetime, but I see no point in humiliating ourselves. Feelings of shame, guilt and grief are N1 stressors leading to relapse. We have to learn how to truly forgive ourselves and move on with our lives. Ruminating over the past actions has no value, on the contrary, it's very damaging for ones mental health. Past is the past, we can't change it, future is uncertain so all we have is here and now. Forgive not forget is the right thing to do.

 

These are my thoughts on the matter and it has to do with stages:

1. Pre-Diagnosis: The life you had prior to being diagnosed.
2. Diagnosed: The time you accepted you have a disease.
3. Treatment: The steps you took to combat the disease.
4. Remission: Your progress during treatment.
5. Survivor: Reversing your condition and conquering your disease.

At some point I feel you need to call yourself an addiction survivor. IMO, this title helps you celebrate where you are in life while serving as a reminder of where you’ve been.

 

Addiction survivor, I like it very much. It sounds much better, more positive, than an addict or a former addict.

 

I personally have never viewed shame or guilt as being bad things in and of themselves. I think there is a healthy level of shame and guilt and an unhealthy level. If we never feel guilt or shame for anything thing then we clearly do not have a conscience.

 

We're all entitled to our own point of view, I respect that. Still I don't believe feeling guilty is the way to go. I agree reassessing things we've done from today's sober perspective and learning from past mistakes is a must, but feeling guilty not so much. Modern life is full of potential addictions. Hell, our addiction wouldn't even be possible just 30 years ago. We're not wired for the lives we live today. Dr. Stephen Ilardi wrote:"We were never designed for the sedentary, indoor, socially isolated, fast-food-laden, sleep-deprived, frenzied pace of modern life." We also have different predispositions in epigenetics and environment. Blaming yourself for getting hooked because you have inherited low emotional resilience or had experienced some childhood trauma that made you mentally less stable and more vulnerable to compulsive addictive behaviours is totally counterproductive. The important thing is that we recognized we have a problem and are prepared to get rid of it no matter how hard it gets. We don't have as much of self-control as we'd like to believe. More than 60% of our actions are done on autopilot. We can't blame ourselves if our autopilots got broken along the way. Especially as we know today that all major corporations are doing everything in their power to capture our "lizard part of the brain" to sell us more stuff or do data mining on us. Pharmacies/health industry know painkillers are highly addictive yet they don't care as long as they make money. Booze industry makes most of the profits on alcoholics. Tobacco industry sells product with more then 40! addictive substances in it besides nicotine and no prohibitive action against it has been taken. YT algos are written in such way that they abuse our prehistoric hunter-gatherer instincts in hooking us in never ending loop for advertising purposes. FB and other social media do the same to data mine us shitless and sell data to the highest bidder. Even Food industry is trying to get you hooked on a sugar high. Gaming industry has gambling loot boxes praying on innocent children for god sake. You can't blame yourself if the whole rigged consumerist system is trying to take advantage of your underlying weaknesses. I recommend reading David T. Courtwright - The Age of Addiction - How Bad Habits Became Big Business. It's very eye opening read. No matter how smart you are you can't escape it. There are thousands of smart people on the other side, trying to analyze and exploit your weaknesses in every way possible.

 

I think the information you provided presents that we might not be as culpable for our addiction as we would like to believe, which I agree with; however, can you say the same for recovery? Would you feel no shame or guilt if you decided to ignore recovery, especially if you knew it was good and beneficial for you? Should someone not experience shame or guilt for not doing something they ought to do?

Shame and guilt can be used as motivators just as much as they can be used as a means to beat us down. For motivation I can say “Shame on you, Augie, for not understanding your own worth and treating yourself with respect. You’re worth more than PMO” or it could be the opposite “Shame on you Augie. You’re just a worthless piece of disgusting shit”.

The difference and power shame has will depend on our outlooks.

 

I'd rather say to myself:"OK Fenix, you've made a mistake trying to self-medicate your anxiety/depression with PMO. You understand now, that your repeated action led you to developing harmful addiction. What steps should you take to get better?" There's no need for shame or guilt in my eyes. Most of us here suffer from low self-esteem (being addicted does that to you). We should (re)learn how to love the person we see in the mirror (again), no one else can do that for us.

 

I get that. To me the word mistake indicates a circumstance/situation that I didn’t intend to happen; like an accident. While I admit that is possible in some situations, I don’t believe it’s right to take that view regarding all situations; such as the ones I did intentionally. To me, that’s not taking ownership or responsibility.

Back when I was on a weight loss plan with my trainer I had a week where I just blew-up and said fuck it. I ate like shit and didn’t workout. When my trainer asked me what had happened I told him “I fell off the wagon” for a week. His reply was that I was wrong; I didn’t fall, I jumped and that I need to take responsibility for jumping and evaluate why I did it. I didn’t accidentally fall into a deep-dish pizza and then accidentally eat 5 pieces while accidentally chewing them all. I choose those things even when I knew it wasn’t what I should have done. What I did wasn’t a mistake.

 

I don't get too hung up on defining myself or any condition I may have or have had. I can understand why some would classify PMO as an addiction, and I can understand why some would not. I don't believe either are wrong, but rather it's a case of both being accurate.

It's not specifically on-topic, but I was reading this article yesterday:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/...st-behavioral-addictions-get-better-their-own
I post it here just to stir the conversation some. Again, I could understand anyone who may absolutely disagree and anyone who may complete agree.

I will say that I personally do not subscribe in any way to the "addict personality" philosophy - as though one were born with a penchant for addiction. I think addiction is a coping strategy, a symptom of one's attempt to manage or overcome (obviously illogically) any number of emotional or psychological conditions, traumas, illnesses, issues, etc.... It could be as simple as an ongoing attempt to cope with loneliness for example, or something more complex like childhood emotional abuse. There are relatively few emotional and psychological conditions that are unmanageable given proper treatment. So by treating the true underlying cause(s), I believe addiction to be fully resolvable to the extent that a former addict can reach the 5-year Point Of Durability, in which they are no more likely to experience addiction again than someone who has never been an addict. It seems there is always some risk for anyone to become an addict.

I'm certainly not trying to sway anyone toward my opinions. They are just that - my opinions. I always try to stay open to new info and research to keep my opinions informed.

 

As 15 years old depressed kid, getting internet connection for the first time and by it getting unlimited amount of explicit material by the click of a button for the first time in my life, I couldn't have known where it would lead me. It helped me ease my anxieties and by the time I started to notice I might have a problem, my brain was already hooked. I can't blame or shame myself for that. I fought with this addiction for long, long time. You couldn't get solid advice back then, hell, no one even knew PMO could be harmful. I visited a shrink when I was 23 and she laughed at the idea that PMO could be a problem. Only in the last 5-6 years could I get literature on how our brains work, recognizing that sex addiction is real and how I should fight it. All the neuroscientist and therapists say relapses are part of the recovery process. So why should I feel ashamed or guilty? For being only human? When you have impaired prefrontal cortex (PFC), addiction does that to your brain, you have hard time fighting against automated PMO behavior, engraved into your midbrains. But with every additional day of abstinence, your PFC gets better and it becomes easier and easier to control this deep learned habit. I wish I'd knew that when I was 23 yo, but hey even my shrink had no idea back then.

 

Man, am 15, and I started doing PMO about a year ago. I also did it once a week, normally. Now, I'm trying to quit... This is such a problem, nobody realizes.

Sex is natural.

Porn is not.

 

I don’t think we’re taking about shame or guilt in the same context. No one should be made to feel shame or guilt for things that were not intentional (to a degree) or beyond their control. You and I agree on this, however, that seems to be where it ends since you seem to believe shame and guilt shouldn’t be attached to intentional actions as well? I understand you didn’t have a lot of helpful resources in the past regarding recovery and shouldn’t be shamed for your bumpy recovery journey through uncharted territory. I totally agree. Nowadays, however, you have enough resources by you own admission to help you recover. If you turned your back on recovery now and went back or ignored further healing now, then how would that be a “mistake” on your part and not an intentional conscious choice to not do what you ought? How can you say you’re not culpable for that choice?

 

If I'd completely abandon recovery now, after achieving 2x +6 months of abstinence in the last 1.5 year, I'd have no excuse and I would feel guilty. But I wouldn't feel guilt, if I'd relapse because of some highly stressful event and continue with my recovery as soon as I'd get my act together. Stress reactivates dormant neuropathways, that's a fact. During highly stressful event your brain will demand you take easiest highly dopamine rewarding activity to counter stress hormones buildup. In such case you will most probably not be able to resist these cravings, as your newly developed neuropathway (new habit) is not yet strong/wide enough to counteract the old one (PMO), you'll go on autopilot and relapse. It's just how our brains function. I can't take blame for that. The wrong thing would be not to retake control over this behavior once relapse happened. Blame, guilt and shame over relapse would just make things worse as it would prolong stress and reinforce old deep learned behavior (PMO). That's why Adler's saying is so right:"I just got tired of being sick and tired and feeling down. Part of recovery is relapse. I dust myself off and move forward again."

 

I love it and think our views are similar. Thank you for explaining your outlook.

 

I think that a lot of behavioural 'addictions' such as porn are poor coping strategies, they make us feel a sense of comfort or give us a thrill or transport us away from revolving negative thoughts. I also believe though that problems surrounding porn use have a tendency to compound each other. For example, at first a person might use it out of curiosity but later on, problems might arise due to them using porn, comparing themselves to others, low self esteem, jealousy etc so these feelings are then used as a further excuse to continue using, creating a kind of catch 22. You use because you hate the feelings you get as a result of using which you didn't realise are being made worse by using.

I'm on track personally towards the 5 year mark. it's been over 4 years of no porn, drugs or alcohol and it's well documented with addiction recovery experts that this is the time it takes generally for the brain to heal from the addiction thought patterns.

But this thread is about labeling and the word 'addiction' often people use labels without fully understanding the proper meaning. People use the word loosely these days, for example 'man i'm so addicted to these caramel shortcakes right now' ...no you're not! you are just going through a phase which you'll eventually get bored of. Yet alternatively you will get alcoholics insisting they don't have a drinking problem.

I think if a person finds labeling themselves as an addict or identifying a certain negative behaviour or practice gives them the impetus to get help or enlightens them to a more positive way of thinking then it's good. I think the bad thing is when others use the word 'addict' as a means to verbally beat someone with a stick.

 

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