When I was ten, my best friend led me into his older brother’s room and pulled open a large drawer to reveal a menagerie of sexually explicit magazines. To this day, this moment is a prominent fixture in my mind. I was immediately overwhelmed with the naked images before me. It wasn’t until thirty years later, two divorces, a shattered family, and a broken heart that I emerged into awareness—I was addicted.
… During my childhood, my mother used shame to punish me. She disliked the corporal methods my father required of her, preferring cold-critical enmeshment. It was my duty to make her happy; I failed miserably. She never offered physical affection though I longed for any sort of warmth from her. Cold criticism absent of affection, I later discovered, produced in me an insatiable desire for females who offered no more attention than my mother had given.
From the moment I found females interesting, I felt an obligation to please them; in turn, this became my understanding of love. Gaining attention by means of pleasing was fraught with constant failure, reinforcing the shame associated with feeling worthless and undesirable. The need to close myself off from the loneliness became unbearable. Relief came by means of acting out sexually via pornography. I created false relationships filled with acceptance and attention from women who could be pleased. These images became a virtual world where I could select an intimate encounter to fit my mood, creating a high that stemmed the loneliness momentarily.
The high did not last long, soon smothered by shame and another failed promise. Nonetheless, I fell to my knees, begged, and felt relief afforded only by grace. The experience of renewed commitment to God always brought about another high. It lasted as long as I could stave off feelings of loneliness, yet the cycle continued. In an attempt to thwart loneliness, I acted out and experienced a brief exhilaration only to be followed by pain again. In an attempt to escape, I begged again for forgiveness. Brief exhilaration came again then intense loneliness again and again.
The cycle became all too clear: loneliness, act out, brief exhilaration, pain, forgiveness, brief exhilaration, loneliness.
via The Cycle of Addiction | Covenant Eyes Inc..
