Addiction is a choice RANT

Nobody chooses to become an addict, but once you realize you are one, it is a choice how you will respond. The brain can beg and plead for what it wants, but the brain is not in control unless you decide it is. Nothing can force you to find P and look at it. Nothing can force you to touch yourself sexually. You may have made it a habit to do so. I know! I did for many long years. And it takes time to break such an ingrained habit. However, there is an opportunity to decide once you become conscious of your triggering, troubling thoughts. And what you do at the point of that decision is what counts.

I did just what you describe when I was at my rock bottom. I literally laid down on the floor and felt like I would die. That was when I realized I had nowhere to go but up. I didn't change overnight (I've been at this for six years since that time of initial decision), but I did reach a point where anything was preferable to PMO, no matter the cost. And recovery has indeed cost me dearly.

It is not easy. It may be the hardest thing we ever tackle in this life. But change *is* possible. In a supportive community. With lots of time and help. With much grace and forgiveness. I am cheering you on. Do not give up.

 

Why pay attention to ignorant people man? Rather than rant about them, treat their groundless opinions as "white noise"!

 

this post needs to be highlited and seen and praised everywhere. YES!

 

I think addiction is real but your decision to continue your addiction IS a choice in the sense that no one is forcing you, even though that voice inside may be telling you to use it

The issue i have with someone saying they have an addiction is that they are potentially putting themselves in a position of weakness and powerlessness. By saying “ i am addicted” they might be mistakenly believing that because they are an addict, they can never get out (this is false. it is possible.) Thus by some saying they are an addict, if they don’t have the right mindset, they may be dooming themselves into believing there is no hope

Let me explain what i have realized, after having wrestled with the question of whether or not i should view myself as an addict.

I have accepted the fact that i am an addict by definition. Yes, if i go back to PMO, i cannot just easily stop, the addiction is very real.

BUT i choose to proclaim that FROM THIS POINT ON, i am NOT an addict. I choose not to place myself in a position of powerlessness. I do not have an addiction. By believing this, i put myself OUTSIDE of the sphere of sin, sickness, disease, addiction. If i classify myself as an addict, then i have already admitted i have no hope.

Now let me explain the phrase: “Once an addict, always an addict”.
I no longer follow this philosophy, although it is true. It is true because IF i ever go back, if i even try to taste PMO, i will once again become an addict, stuck and find it extremely hard to get out. An alcoholic can never have even a single drop of alcohol even after 8 years clean. But after 8 years clean, the alcoholic is certainly NO LONGER an addict. BUT his addictive nature still lies beneath the surface and he could become one again if he goes back there.

THE same applies with PMO. So currently, 140 days free, i am not an addict. i choose not to be

 

You need to update your counter!

 

i don’t actually want to see my true current day count because i don’t think it matters. it’s not like i’m going back

 

A choice by who exactly?

Or lets look at it this way, what are the choices? On the basic level you choose to be addicted or not. Oh really. Okay suppose someone chooses to be addicted to binge watching TV shows on Netflix, because hey it's harmless and "at least I'm not addicted to drugs or sex or rock.. oh wait".

And lets back up one step. There's their behavior and there's their thinking, both involves a choice. Do they choose to believe all addiction is a choice, regardless of stage of development or the particular addiction, the external chemical and/or stimuli introduced or the corresponding physiological reactions within the nervous system? I mean since they're all different such a blanket statement certainly sounds like a "choice."

So as far as peoples thinking are concerned, are they "choosing" to believe the easy, simplistic thing, maybe based on their simplistic experience? Or choosing what makes sense to them and works for perhaps a simple view of moral judgement without qualifying for what it is specifically judging?

This may go back to the initial question of who it is that does the judging, and asking who indicates a sense of self. That one will likely minimize their own addictive tendencies, while offering the "wisdom" of thinking of addiction as a choice. Because of course if they themselves had to be viewed through that lens they can admit to something mild like binge watching shows but then all of the sudden anything they may be guilty of really doesn't even qualify as an addiction, or just a very mild one, or a justified one like being a rage-a-holic or something. (which is of course other peoples fault for pissing them off)

There are some people who say that sense of self, which is biased to say the least and fundamentally dishonest, is actually the root of the addictive tendency - and here I'm thinking of people who have been through full on substance issues.

That leads to the question: Is your sense of self a choice? Ties in with the point about adolescence and the entire developmental context. Because it sure seems convenient when those who may make this "point" may either admit to mild addictions or just not admit their stuff is an addiction at all, that it's hardly worth talking about - it's those OTHER people that need to listen to their simplistic wisdom philosophy. Yeah.

 

I agree a lot with @Tao Jones
I would say the addiction is not a choice but we do make choices all the time when we are addicted. We choose whether to indulge in the behaviour or do something else. But in our mind, it's us thinking do I want pleasure from indulging or to face the pain from whatever I'm dealing with? When we put it like that in our minds, we aren't thinking of the consequences or we just want to shove them away. When thinking of consequences it could then be phrased like do I want to feel shameful, regretful and guilty about myself or do I want to do anything else that will actually be good for me? I think the whole choice thing relates more to this rather than addiction as a whole. So people who aren't addicts would say things along the lines of why do people purposefully choose to feel or look like shit, why do they always make the bad choice?

For me, I didn't really choose to pick up an addiction. Even though I was very young and didn't know any better about porn, you could technically still say it was a choice. I got curious and I made the choice to explore it. But I didn't know whether porn was a bad thing at the time, all I knew was I was getting more and more interested and eventually I thought it felt good to get aroused to. So I guess it's that I unconsciously made the choice to become addicted, although I was an uneducated and innocent little dude who would not have thought about the consequences of it all.

 

Addiction almost always begins as a coping mechanism, often during childhood. Addicts almost universally have difficult upbringings in one way or another, and they must learn to cope with those harsh environments in some way. Very few stumble onto a healthy path (and even fewer are led there), so the method of coping that is chosen, while helpful in the moment and a real lifeline during crisis, ends up becoming its own issue down the road. And thus is born an addiction.

Parents can help stave off the next generation of addicts by providing loving, caring, stable environments in which coping mechanisms are seldom required and, when they are, the parent is the one who leads the child into healthy ways of doing so.

 

It's a grey area.

First of all, for all the folks who'd say "addiction started with choices" ... what do you say to the person who developed an opiate addiction because their doctor prescribed legitimate pain pills? What do you say to the man who was molested as a young boy by his father, and has spent his adult life trying to get validation through sex with other men? What do you say to the young girl who was relentlessly body-shamed as a child and developed an eating disorder? Are you really going to tell these people "you just made poor choices?"

When I look at the totality of my childhood and adolescence--the traumas I experienced, the environment I was raised in, etc--I see dozens of variables I had no control over that influenced and shaped what became a rampant sex addiction. Were there choices involved? Of course there were. But given my background, my experience, and my circumstances, who is to say I would (or could?) have chosen any differently? Who of us can say we would have chosen differently, given the same circumstances?

We make an awful lot of assumptions when we claim that choice makes an addict.

Is addiction a choice? It's a pointless and meaningless question, because no matter what the answer is, it won't help an addict get any better. The only thing that will help an addict get better is getting help (which, when you read it like that, seems about as obvious as you can get, but there you go). Everything else is just pontificating.

 

addiction isn't a choice but it was your choice to start using porn and also you now have a choice what to do about it.

A lot of people in my generation had no idea what shit porn was doing to them. I stayed away from hard drugs/smoking/weed because I knew it just wasn't worth the risk, and I didn't need an escape from life as I enjoyed it. I started using porn because I lacked education. if I knew 10 years down the line i'd be quitting an addiction do you think i'd really choose to start in the first place? now I know its bad for me I have made the eternal choice to quit.

addiction just makes the choice to quit much harder.

 

Addiction isn't a choice, but it is our "drug of choice". Once highly dopamine rewarding behavior gets transferred from Pre-frontal Cortex to our Mid-brains (after many, many repetitions) it becomes automated and we lose control over the behavior. It becomes so called automated deep learned behavior as our brain falsely identifies it as essential action to our survival. Here's a brain scan showing that compulsive sex behavior gets engraved into our midbrain the same way as cocaine addiction (or any other addiction) does:


Repetition is the key here. Once you've repeated highly dopamine rewarding behavior A LOT, you're F...ed as it gets automated. That's why you need abstention and habit replacement, if you want to have any chance of breaking out of this automated behavior and switch it off to dormant state. You can't erase it. It will stay with you until you die, unfortunately.

If you want to know the whole addiction forming process, you can see it here ->
https://www.nofap.com/forum/index.php?threads/addiction-is-the-perfect-storm.241266/
https://www.nofap.com/forum/index.php?threads/every-pmo-addict-should-watch-this-video.211961/

 

But if addiction is not a choice then how will you overcome it?

That's the crux, there is a real quandary at the heart of this.

 

You need to abstain from it for long period of time +6 months to turn deep learned behavior off (send it to dormant state) and learn new dopamine rewarding behavior as it's replacement and repeat it day in, day out so it becomes a habit replacing PMO behavior. BUT you'll have to be vigilant not to wake up PMO behavior as the old neuropathway can be reopen in an instant even years after last use. It's the same as with former drug or alcohol addict. Sober for 2 decades, one glass of vodka, old neuropathway awakens, autopilot takes over, catapulting former alcoholic 2 decades into the past, resulting in drinking binge session at best and full blown relapse at worst. Addiction is a bitch with eternal memory.