Active addiction vs passive addiction (question for PAs)

That sounds right.

I wanted out big time. Here and 12 steps helped turn my frame of mind. It’s a daily effort to turn or keep the switch turned off. I’m still striving for sobriety and it’s deepening.

My “grand-sponsor” was still acting out in program for years until the actual rehab.

Watching newcomers try, stay halfassedly is very
clarifying to see denial and our addicty thinking.

Maybe both are the right answer.

 

Do you mean, what is the process and experience like? I wonder why you ask where do you draw the line? Are you asking if one is bad or good or there needs to be a distinction?

For me they are two ways in which we think, or try to come to terms with reality, although neither is reality, but the active one is closer to it.

When you have a problem can you really go into it and see it and observe it for what it is?
In that moment, if you really are observing that dissociation if wanted can be made and that problem as it arises can be solved.

But does that mean nothing will ever come up again? I dont think so, in a sense it is a process but as well it is an instantaneous action that has change.

Overtime those changes and actions develop an understanding that is something else entirely.

 

@GhostWriter .
I remember seeing a post awhile back that had some sort of ratio . Like for someone that has a 20 year porn addiction that it would take x amount of years to FULLy be in remission/recovery ? Do you remember that somewhere ? I heard an analogy like you have this big river ( the longer the addiction the bigger the river ) and if you place a small dam to stop the big river it’s not going to hold , so like a 20 year porn addict can’t just simply put blockers on they need to make a bigger dam , of actual recovery work ? I’m rambling but eff I know I saw it somewhere!!

 

I think it can be seen like that, maybe try this out sometime.

If you’re having a negative feeling or you are doing something you dont like for yourself (could be anything - throwing clothes on the ground whatever, just an example), try to see in yourself in that moment in complete honesty. When Im completely honest with myself and have nothing else to hold onto, we see our actions utterly for what they are, there is no issue of willpower or choice anymore! We would obviously know what is right, and when doing that right action that is the completely active and creative act that has nothing attached to it.


But does that really mean you dont have all the experiences and problems from before? I havent really found that to be the case, so when you start noticing that things are feeling like they used to, you do the exercise again. Over time your actions and way of being will become very sensitive (maybe this is the passive part, really caring and becoming aware of wanting to recover), but to me thats just the effect of being active. So really theres no distinction between the two but they go hand in hand.

Like Ghostwriter was saying most people end up needing a type of rock bottom or light bulb moment, these are also called barrier moments or privations. When you really are forced to realize something is wrong or you cannot do something, if you continue with that you will always see how far away your past actions were from yourself. It takes a really unique individual to not need one of these for change, I certainly did not fall into that.

 

Your brain processes like mine; connecting dots for an answer or to understand a problem, rather than thinking of the endless paths & scenarios the problem might bring.
Exhausting, huh?
Good job on reaching out for knowledge; I am positive it's already started helping you.

 

Sorry I cannot help, I've not come across the two terms and they don't mean anything to me.

At risk of derailing the thread I can help with this question. I saw one such rule-of-thumb here:

If there is such a rule I doubt it is linear, at least I hope it is not because at 35 x 2 = 70 months, or 2,131 days, after 773 days without porn that would mean I have 1,358 days (or 3 years, 8 months, and 19 days) to go!

 

Close !! It’s the general idea ! I think my Bloom coach was the one who talked about the river and the dam . I’m going to ask where she found it ! My SO is a huge analogy person .

 

god I hope not for your sake ! I saw somewhere 3-5 years depending on how often etc .

 

I had no idea that I was addicted until I properly tried to stop. I'd flirted with the idea of stopping but never committed. When I came to commit I found I could not stop and I realised I had a problem. Don't get me wrong, I knew it would be hard to stop but I thought my will-power would win; I was vegetarian for 21 years and I love meat. I assumed it would be like that. But no, of course it was way harder, and so I realised I was addicted. I did manage some long streaks, one of 22 months, but they always ended with me diving back into porn use. For me the change came after about six years of trying when I found this site. The support and knowledge I have found here have been the extra bits I needed to make it work.

That's my story so far, but I'm not sure how I'd fit the terms 'active' and 'passive' over that. I guess the active parts are when I am having to try hard to stay sober and the passive parts are when I am not trying. But the passive falls into two parts, sometimes I was not trying because I'd given up and was using porn, and sometimes I am not trying because the temptation is not close at hand and so I do not need to try in order to remain sober.

 

Sort of. I think it was a series of experiment and failures. Each time I tried to stop I'd try a new 'technique', keep a journal, celebrate success, allow erotic literature, read about giving up porn, etc. etc. But each time the experiment failed. Looking back I was learning all the time, but it was soul destroying. There were some successes, I knew that for my wife me using cam girls was worse than me using porn and so the last time I did that was seven years ago (almost to the day), but the failures were overwhelming. Especially after my 22 month sobriety, it was hard to see myself as absteining once I had immersed myself in porn after that. But I clawed it back. I reached the point where I knew I couldn't do this on my own. I had looked for support communities at the beginning but they were all explicitly Christian (NoFap didn't exist in 2010). But in October 2016 when I looked again there it was

One other way that 'active' and 'passive' might play out is in perceptions. I know it is important to lots of the wives and girlfriends here that their porn addict partner is in 'active' recovery. For them that seems to mean things like reading books, listiening to recovery podcasts, joining groups, getting therapy, etc. They are some of the outward signs, but I think it's the inward work you are more interested in.