I found that the sexual part of these addictions starts with lustful thoughts that I was completely unaware I was entertaining – hours, days, weeks, or even months before any physical manifestations of addiction. As I started going to the meetings and working the steps to start working on myself from the inside out, I then started becoming more aware of how much I was lusting after people each day. As I become more and more conscious of it (I never knew how much I was looking and lusting before I came into the program), I try to let go of it at the earliest stage possible – when it’s easier to let go of it. It’s kind of like the easiness of pulling out a new weed compared with the difficulty of pulling out a weed that has been growing all summer long. My capacity to turn away from the temptation to lust is directly proportional to the strength of the faith and self-awareness that I build in these 12-step meetings.
I have learned that lust is an act of hatred toward another person. It’s the exact opposite of love. I use lust for selfish reasons – to fill a lack I have within me whether it’s to feel loved or lovable, to feel self-worth, to numb out other negative feelings, etc. Love is the selfless concern and desire to sacrifice on behalf of the eternal welfare of someone else.
I have also learned that my compulsive sex drive is created by me engaging in lust. If I surrender all lust – truly let it all go – then my compulsive sex drive goes away. Physical intimacy then becomes a choice. This happened to me over a few years in my marriage. I got pretty good at surrendering lust during the day. Because I was so accustomed to the results of that lust compelling me toward physical intimacy, when the lust and compulsive sex drive it caused was gone, I didn’t know what to do. So I just sat there as an asexual being. I learned during those years that I instead had to actively make choices to sacrifice and engage in acts of love and service to create an emotional intimacy that then manifested itself physically in a more natural and completely non-compulsive way. I never imagined that I caused my own sex drive – it was just an “I’m a man, so I have a sex drive” attitude and I found that to be false. People call it a “drive” because of the compulsive nature of it. Surrendering that lust gets rid of the source of that compulsive drive, so it’s not suppressing it, it’s eliminating its cause, and then I have to learn how to replace it with a freedom-based intimacy. This was 180 degrees different and is so much better and more fulfilling.
I learned that lust is about me, not the other person. So if I lust after my wife or objectify her, that lust usually walks out the door with me and is then strengthened as I apply it to other women I see throughout the day. If I have intimacy and love toward my wife instead, then that’s fingerprinted to her and nobody else. It stays between me and her and can’t be applied to any other woman, ever. I actually learned this characteristic of love when I had twins and loved them both very much, but I noticed that the feeling of that love was very different and specific to each twin. This was much easier with twins because they’re at the same age and so the kind of love toward them is similar enough to be easily compared.
I also started to see that there were many non-sexual disturbances – like stress, shame, anger, hunger, depression, fear, judgment, and negative fantasy – that came before the lustful thoughts. Often I would find myself creating a negative fantasy backstory about a woman walking down the street moments before I would objectify or lust after her. It was kind of like dehumanizing her so I could feel more comfortable selfishly lusting after her. I had to let go of these disturbances as well so that I wouldn’t feel the need to cover them up with the addiction. Sometimes positive things like success can be triggering too. It seems any change of physical or emotional situation can end up throwing me off balance and so I need to connect with others during such times and even beforehand.
More Freedom Blog 
5 thoughts on “Lust and Self-Awareness”