Habits – More Freedom Blog

Addiction – A Chronic Condition

I’ve heard some people who have said, “I’m cured of my addiction to….” When I hear that, I just smile and nod. I congratulate them and keep my opinions to myself. My experience and my opinion though is that addiction to anything (porn, alcohol, drugs, etc.) is a chronic condition. This means it doesn’t go away but only goes into remission.

I am in remission from my addiction to porn, lying, etc. and have to continue to work at staying there. I feel it is very, very dangerous to think you are “healed” of the addiction and go on your merry way. This is a denial of the situation. You can change your habits, you can change your environment, and you can change your heart (with help) but you can’t change that you are and will always be an addict. To refuse to admit this is, in my opinion, akin to lying to yourself in a horrible way. It can lead to denial or justifications about other things and ultimately lead to acting out in a deeper or worse way than you did before.

Traveling and Unstructured Time

When my surroundings or schedules change – usually by traveling somewhere or during a holiday season or weekend – triggers get stronger. Some boundaries that are generally in place, like Internet filters or TV channel filters, may not be in place in my new surroundings. Idle time is deadly. I’ve heard people say that Christ chose His disciples when they were at work and that Satan chooses his disciples when they are idle.

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The “Lust Balloon”

When I entered the program, I acted out almost daily. As I progressed, I would act out weekly, every two weeks, every month, etc. It seems to me as though I have some sort of capacity to hold lust within me – I’ll call it a lust balloon. Once I have filled this balloon with lust, I feel compelled to resort to my addiction by acting out my addictions physically.

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Surrender Before Sleep

I have learned to take a few minutes before bedtime and think back on the day to see if any triggering memories from the day pop up. I have learned that if anything pops up, I didn’t really let go of it during the day and so I have to let go of the thought or visual again and again until it stops coming back to my mind. See the Step 3 and Surrender articles for more detail around how to let things go, or surrender them.

When I do this, I have a purer sobriety and am much more lust free, and the lustful dreams don’t happen. Again, I don’t know how this works but it does. I talked to someone who was at an earlier stage of recovery who had tried this and they said that unless they were in a good place spiritually, thinking back on the day would bring up things that they were unable to let go of and it ended up making things worse. Through that experience, I have learned that I must be in a good spiritual place and must be able and willing to surrender my lust before I can use this technique successfully.

Changing Habits

Recently, I changed the location of the trashcan in my cubicle at work from my right side to my left side. It had been on the right side for several years. After switching it to the other side, I spent a lot of my time turning to the right to throw away the trash, realizing in frustration that the trashcan was no longer there and then turning to my left to finally throw the trash away. With time and patience, I started catching myself earlier on and only started thinking about turning to the right and finally, I now just turn to the left by habit.

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