Are Your Choices Becoming Compulsions?
Have you ever wondered how one becomes hooked into a sexually compulsive behavior? The purpose of this article is to show how the choices we make to handle the stress in our lives can lead to harmful compulsions later on. Dysfunctional choices always lead to ruin in the long term.
It begins with stress
All of us face situations in our lives that cause us to feel stress. Sometimes, we hardly recognize that we are experiencing it. It is hard to have a conscious awareness in the exact moment that stress occurs when we are facing it. Unless what you face is rather severe, it is an unusual person who has the presence of mind to recognize that, “I’m in a stressful situation.” Think about it, how many times after something happened to you did you later think, “Hey I was under a lot of stress back then”?
Stress requires that we seek relief
Stress always requires that we seek a form relief so that we may feel comfort. We all recognize that when one of our primary needs is not being met, such as being hungry, tired, thirsty, or cold, that we’ll seek out ways of meeting that need. What we may not realize is that this same principle holds true for the other stresses in our life as well. For each stress, we will feel a compulsion to seek relief. To carry this a bit further, we need to recognize that each day we face hundreds of little stresses. We have bills to pay, telephone calls to return, errands to run, food to buy, work situations, relationships to balance, and so on. Each of these stressors, in and of themselves, may not amount to much, or so we think; so, we don’t worry or give much thought to them. But whether we recognize it or not, each of these stressors require that we do something to bring about needed relief.
Stress is synergistic
Synergy means that the end result of a set of conditions is greater than when we add each of the conditions together. Stress is like that. The tension we feel in our lives will always be much greater than it would be were we to add all the big and little stresses together. So, when we think about it, we may now realize why it is that we can feel stressed out even when we don’t have a lot of big stresses in our lives.
We react to stress predictably
The longer we live, the more habitual we become. The same is true about the ways in which we handle stress. Some people develop patterns of avoidance and passivity while others may blow up, become angry and full of rage. Over time, the ways that we handle stress become predictable, that is, we use the same methodology over and over again. The pattern we use to handle our stress was developed, for the most part unconsciously. Some say that it was developed in the early years of our childhood.
We choose things that feel rewarding
When we feel stress or pain, we will want to do something about it–we want to relieve the pain. Thus, each of us will turn to some behavior that brings relief or feels rewarding in some way. Some people may choose a behavior that causes them to forget or numb their pain such as drugs or alcohol. For those caught in sexual addiction or sexual compulsions, our temptation is to drink in sexual images, resort to self-gratification or participate in some sort of risky sexual behavior.
Some of us choose dysfunction
As said earlier, we handle stress predictably. The choices we make will either be functional or dysfunctional. Another way of saying this is that we choose to react in ways that benefit or don’t benefit us in the long term. You may wonder why someone would choose to react to stress in a way that is not beneficial for the long term. The answer is simple, when we first make our choice, the approach doesn’t seem harmful to us. In fact, it may feel wonderful and brings a sense of pleasure and euphoria. For those of us with sexual compulsions and addictions, we made our choices because it felt good to us physically and it gave us a temporary sense of emotional relief.
Dysfunctions turns into addictions
Once we find a convenient way of relieving our stress, we will turn to it again and again. As we know, for every action there is a consequence. For the sexual addict, when the choice was made to turn to some sort of sexual activity there were powerful consequences for the user’s body and mind.
Though I cannot prove this, I believe through my own experience, that the body reacts in physically differently ways when we use sexual behaviors to counter stresses in our lives than when we use it, as it was intended, in loving relationships. From my experience, the chemicals released into the body during sexual behavior are similar those of an adrenalin rush experienced in some sports. And, there is ample evidence that the body releases very powerful chemicals as a physical climax is reached.
Addictions turns into compulsions
In the beginning, we chose to participate in sexual acting out. Later on, we discover that we have little or no choice to but to participate. Because we are hooked, our choices are to continue our dysfunction or suffer withdrawal. The chemicals released in the body are said to be as powerful as crack cocaine. At any rate, the sexual addict begins to crave pornographic stimulation in much the same way as an alcoholic craves drink. The body demands more and more stimulation to feel better. This desire, if not corrected through treatment, turns into a constant obsession of unwanted ideas or impulses that repeatedly well up in the mind. In the case of the sexual addict, the images are always sexual. There is a constant seeking for more sexual material and thinking about the next fix.
Compulsion is slavery
Slavery, captivity, and bondage may be defined as being held, against one’s own will, to the will or desire of another. When a person cannot shut off the constant stream of sexual thinking going on in their mind, they are most certainly held captive by the addiction. A person is also in slavery when they are constantly thinking about the next time they may sexually act out. In the beginning, this slavery may seem pleasant enough; but, golden handcuffs still keep one captive and a guilded cage is still a prison.
Slavery is a dead end
Dysfunctional ways of handling stress always lead to ruin–especially so in the long term. In the short term, we may feel some guilt or shame about what we are doing. Later on, it becomes clear that our lives aren’t working so well. Depending upon where we are in the addictive process, we may or may not realize that our choices are a dead end.
Early on in the addictive process there is a lot of excuse making for the behavior we participate in. We may deny that there is anything wrong with pornography or any other sexual behavior of our choosing. About mid way through the process we may come to the realization that “we have a problem.” We begin to realize that choosing to act out sexually does not take care of our problems and is creating additional stress in our lives. At some point we begin to realize that we are not choosing our behaviors–our behaviors are choosing us. Before long, if something is not done, our lives become unmanagable. This is because our minds have became more focused upon satisfying our wishes and desiresthan those about us. Our preoccupation with ourselves and our needs spills into and ruins our relationships. For some, choice will be made that are either socially undesirable or illegal.
Dead ends don’t have to stay that way
At the Purity Project, we’ve all been there, done that, and ordered the tapes. We know from experience that inappropriate sexual behavior lead to ruin. We know that we cannot solve our problems by acting out. We all know what it is like to be caught up in something or some behavior and not know how to get out of it. We know what it is like to not know who or where to turn for help. We want to assure you that you don’t have to live like this. We hope you’ll contact us for help–that’s what we’re here for.
