Sex addict in recovery after 25 years

Your Story
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I don’t think sexual cravings are natural. I think cravings are the distinguishing mark of an addict. If you want to draw a comparison between humans and animals and say that we’re just animals, I can’t go along with that. Cravings are instinctive, and some are natural. Craving food is natural if you haven’t eaten for ten days. Craving sex, I contend is the mark of an addict or someone with a problem.

Do you remember a time before you were addicted? I remember being an adolescent very much attracted to various females without the cravings I have now. I remember being in a relationship in my teenage years where I was deeply attracted physically but not having cravings. I remember what it was like to have a healthy attraction for a female. I want to experience that again.

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Hey @RBG, I hear where you’re coming from. I have to say there’s a difference I began to understand only in the past month or so that it’s extremely easy for me to confuse the pornographic craving with the craving for companionship, friendship, support, and love. These are all verymuch human things, and I think in my case the addiction to porn conflated easy dopamine hits with the same natural and healthy cravings.

If I didn’t crave support and love, I’d be worried I was on a dark path. I think I need to allow myself to want for them, because when I don’t, I delude myself into thinking I’ll be happy going at it alone.

I haven’t had really solid friends in my life, and really, I lost touch with my best friends around when I stopped dating. Chicken and egg, and I couldn’t tell you which begot the other. Point is, in my case, I’ve really spent time asking myself where the porn craving comes from. I feel it’s got something to do with a lack of positively reinforcing and supportive relationships in my life, not an unnatural place.

I have a hunch most people crave sex at a basic level, sort of like what @Chrispl said, but I do think we, as addicts, have it a bit tougher than usual. In my recovery I’ve gained the perspective that I used to crave porn to a degree that I lost interest in real people, and pursuing real relationships. They didn’t call seem important to me, and I was blind to the sincerity of them.

It’s about how we condition ourselves to understand the cravings, and how we are conditioned by porn. I’m trying to be patient as my brain chemistry slowly equalizes back to a state of emotional sensitivity and honesty, and step one is not seeing the want, the crave and the addiction as some part of me I want to remove, but rather a sickness my body and mind’s fighting. It misinterpreted porn as something friendly and harmless, and porn latched on like an opportunistic virus to the dejected and lonely boy I was.

Anywho, wanted to share my 2 cents on the cravings being unnatural bit. Onwards and upwards :+1:t2: congrats on nearing 90!

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Distinguishing between a normal and abnormal craving can be difficult. It isn’t entirely clear to me. What I experience now isn’t normal. That much I know. Thanks for sharing your perspective.

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Isn’t that the truth! :point_up:
I find myself running over that (seemingly) paper thin line, all the time, in my intimate relationship with my wife. I’ve heard a lot of people say “all you have to do is take your sexual focus off of porn and all the other women out there and put it on your wife”… well that doesn’t work! That’s just like telling a snowplow truck driver to stop plowing snow off the highway and turn his truck towards one little snow man, all that does is leave my wife a smashed mess, thinking all she’s good for to me is sex. (A bit of an extreme analogy but you get the point)

While on the other hand it would also be unhealthy for me to just ignore every sexual craving that comes to me because of her. Though I’m sure at times she might act relieved if I ever came to her and told her that “I’m going to fight off every sexual craving that comes to me, even cravings that come because of you” I know if said that, and if I was actually able to keep my word, she would start to feel very unattractive and unwanted by me. And our relationship would suffer badly from that extreme too.

So it’s that middle ground I hope to find and distinguish and stay on (and I’m getting better at it). Staying between the two extremes, not letting my self turn her into "my own personal porn star " as you’ve mentioned before, and not going so far as to not have sexual craving for her.

I’m glad to see your already working on distinguishing the differences between unhealthy and healthy sexual craving before getting back into a relationship :+1:

I’m guessing, when the time is right, you’ll end up with a very good woman! and you’ll be a very good man for her!

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This is really well put. I like your distinction between desire and craving. I think it’s valuable.

I respect your desire (not craving) to not die alone. I think that is a core, healthy human need (to connect, to form sustained, mutual-growth relationships). I believe it will come as a result of healthy growth in sobriety. We’re natural, organic; like other organisms we grow into and around each other. Healthy growth leads to connection.

Thanks for sharing. Looking forward to hearing more as you continue :innocent:

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There must be something like natural tendency to bond physically through having sex.
If that wasn’t the case, then why would people feel so passionate about each other.

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Thank you for sharing your perspective. I don’t envy your situation, having to go through recovery while tending to your marriage. Recovery will be very different for you and probably more difficult. I definitely have to get my life in order before I complicate things with a partner. I have no excuse not to.

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I’m glad you grasp the distinction. Desires versus cravings… Humans versus animals

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I accept your wording here.

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Well, if sexuality wasn’t a thing, then none of people would have sex, addicts or not. There must be something that navigates people to have sex and I’m not sure, if it’s something unnatural and toxic.

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For an addict I think it would be toxic. Because an addict is governed by his cravings rather than his desires. As humans we are privileged with the choice to act on our desires rather than our cravings. Addicts have given up this privilege.

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I don’t know about other addicts, but when it comes to me, I always see clear distinction between porn, which I used to probably use for getting easy pleasure and maybe for something else too, which I don’t know yet. Though when it comes to actual, real sex with the person I go for it to form a connection with another living being and to be able to give pleasure and satisfaction to the person I’m connected with, during intercourse.

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You are the expert on your own condition. When I speak of sex addiction, I am really talking about copulation or orgasm.

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Yes, so what are You trying to say by that?

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I’m recognizing the reality of the addcition. Sex is orgasm wrapped up in a package. You can wrap it up in different ways, but what is sex without it?

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I have had similar challenges & many deep conversations about this with my wife. It is a learning process for both of us; in many ways I feel I’m re-learning (or entirely learning, for the first time) how to have an intimate, joyful relationship of exploration and healthy desire. Pleasure is natural in life, and healthy pleasure is possible - we can learn this :innocent:

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Sex without orgasm is the process of deepening intimacy between people, who love each other.
Sex without orgasm is for example tantra :slightly_smiling_face:

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I knew we had a fundamental disagreement about something. There’s no reason to continue this conversation. Good luck with your recovery.

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85 PMO
7 dreams
5 cravings
Five days without craving is just incredible. The reason I could never recover in the past was due to the fact that cravings were constant and unceasing until I acted out. There was no off switch. A decision not to act out was only good for an infinitesimal moment. Willpower was pitifully inferior to the crushing waves of cravings. Often I would act out just so I could get it over with and go about my business.

At some point during recovery, an off switch was installed. It was around a month ago. And it always works. I can count on it. And oh the confidence it gives!

What is it really? It’s a choice. I choose what to think about. I choose how my body gets stimulated. Arousal starts in the conscious brain, which is now under my control.

Now cravings come several days apart without invitation. Or they can come through a lapse in discipline. But the switch always works. Let me be clear though. I do not test or experiment with this. That would be foolish.

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I’m kind of waiting for it to get harder with possible cravings.
It’s no fun, when there’s no challenge before achieving something good.

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