The invisible spiral, Myelin and why most of us relapse

in the last week or so I ended up studying lots of self-knowledge and self-improvement principles that could be applied to addiction. Today I just had this huge "a-ha" moment that I want to share with you all. First, let's go for a quick neuroscience detour:

- When you do, learn, feel, think or visualize something for the first time, you create a new neural pathway.
- With enough repetition, rewards and interest, those pathways are strengthened with a bunch of myelin wrapping around those pathways. The myelin insulates it, so the energy goes through it faster and that's why (with enough repetition) we can get good at anything.

Ok. You're probably asking what is the big deal about this. Most of us have wired our brains in a way that when we feel horny we go seek porn. When we think about porn, we go seek porn. When you visualize porn (in your mind) you go and seek porn. When you see someone on the street and that excites you, you go and seek porn.

So basically what we have is lots and lots of pathways leading to the same behavior. Imagine our addiction is a chair with 4-10 legs. Each leg is a specific behavior you related to doing, learning, thinking or visualizing.

What's the invisible spiral? The 'invisible spiral', to me, is all those behaviors, beliefs, thought patterns and feelings. Think about it: What do we try avoiding? PMO. But PMO is merely a sympton from all those behaviors, feelings and thoughts. What we do when focusing on avoiding PMO is comparable to avoiding sneezing when we have a cold. The flu is already there, so there's no point on focusing on the symptoms.

Every few days or weeks that precedes a relapse are all marked by those 'symptoms' You start to get all frenzied about sex, thinking about it 24/7, dreaming about it and doing ALL the behaviors that sustains your "addiction chair".

When I enter that state, I already lost. There's no going back. Just like when you spend all day thinking and fatasizing about eating that ice cream on your fridge, you can't help yourself and eat it even if you don't want to.

And how can we solve this?

It's funny that I found the answer on two very different places at the same time. I was watching a talk by Russel Brand (actor and ex-drug addict) about 12 steps and reading Napoleon Hill.
On the same day I read the chapter about standing guard at the door of your mind so no negative and self-destructive thoughts enter it, Russel talked about one the steps: "STAY AWAKE" (or vigilant, as you prefer).

That's the solution. When you find the way to stop thinking, obsessing and going crazy over sex, you'll have no trouble staying away from relapse. I know itt sounds oversimplified, but life is really simple when we think about it.

And that's why most people relapse sooner or later (me included). When I worried only about PMO, I ended up doing all the things that led me back to it over and over again. I'm not judging you if you do that, since I've been on this recovery journey since 2013, but I think this was the missing piece for me and I hope it helps you too. Feel free to ask questions and reply.

Stay strong!