“Addiction is a psychological and physical inability to stop consuming a chemical, drug, activity, or substance, even though it is causing psychological and physical harm.”
My addiction is a black hole- a place of nothingness- numbness and escape
This blog is a personal means for me to untangle my minds thought processes and understand my own psychology. Along the way I am hoping to explore numerous psychological theories and practices, including spiritual and medical. I will try and not judge anything specifically, but i am fairly analytical and tend to be more persuaded by science than spiritual things. However, my own experience has also shown me that sometimes you simply have to be open to things, even things not founded in my own personal rationality, for them to have an impact on ones life. At the end of the day i believe in what works for people.
The first thing is to address how I got to be here, why I am interesting in explore more psychology and doing so on a public blog.
Looking from the outside, my life looks pretty good. I am a highly educated successful man with an amazingly beautiful wife and kids. And yet I suffer from a compulsive disorder that i have relied to escape reality since I was 9-12 years old… why? well probably because my mind was in control of me and I was using sexual compulsion as an escape mechanism initially to escape reality and then to manage baggage. But we jump to far ahead- most importantly here, I want to make clear that my addiction is not an excuse for poor choices that I may have made and hurt I have caused. I have to own these things and work to fix them every day- it is however a diagnostic rationalization of my behavior.
I have learned that my compulsive sexual addiction had absolutely nothing to do with intimacy or connection. It is a lonely, selfish, destructive disorder that is bent on getting consistent/continuous dopamine hits. The compulsion can never be satiated and causes significant pain- especially to those around me.
My own compulsion stemmed from a lot of things- mostly from a fairly shitty early childhood. Baggage that I had buried deep into my mind, baggage I would escape from. It was not until an event nearly resulted in me losing everything that I really started to seek help. That is when I found the book “Breaking the Cycle: Free Yourself from Sex Addiction, Porn Obsession, and Shame” and started talking to George Collins.
George may not be for everyone, but he opened up my mind and provided the tools i needed to start taking control of my life. For me George has been instrumental in turning my psychological life around. One of the most critical elements and strongly abstract components to this process is the concept that “am not my mind”. This is a powerful sentiment borrowed from Eckhart Tolle. Of course my first response was- what is this crazy new age nonsense and my addict personality continues to call it a load of horse shit. However I noted above, I needed to change and I was open to anything that would help get my compulsion sorted out…i started to read The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle, which was one component of me starting the journey of recovery but also to better investigate different concepts and thoughts regarding mindfullness and the like.
One line from the Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle… “To not be able to stop thinking is a dreadful affliction, but we don not realize this because everyone is suffering from it, so it is considered normal”.. resonated with me- because we really are focused on the past or on the future- but rarely on now.
Intellectually after consideration “you are not your mind” made a lot of sense to me- more importantly- it put me in control of my addiction-I am behind my mind. I am actually in control and can shut it off or watch it. The ability to start approaching day to day activities with this insight is amazing but can be tough in practice.
This was one of the first key steps for me in recovery
Musings of someone figuring out how to be present 