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Active addiction vs passive addiction (question for PAs)

Discussion in 'Partner Support' started by Deleted Account, Nov 11, 2018.

  1. It sounds like you've come a long way and have lots to be proud of, and I'm sure so is your wife! Can I ask, how did the community support exactly help you? Did you get support in the sense that you saw others struggle, or did you actually reach out about your own struggles and have others tell you to not give up and motivate you?

    Exactly, I think one can show signs of recovery on the outside and be passive in their addictive behavior, but maybe on the inside they still have some unresolved issues that are at the root of their addiction.

    I guess overall it's a never-ending process and you always learn with every struggle and temptation, resisting it or not.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 13, 2018
  2. NF4L

    NF4L Fapstronaut

    Since you’ve said as much that you sort of made these up, i’ll Bite. Active addiction for me would be actively perusing the addiction, like using P, M, and Ogling (see what I did there?). Passive addiction I would see as not actively being in recovery, not taking steps to improve yourself, remaining defensive, not being vulnerable, gaslighting yourself into thinking you can do it by yourself, white knuckling it, just being sober, harboring resentments and negativity, avoidance, etc., etc.

    See above, but really I would say passive is just physically not going through the motions of addiction. We are talking about a behavioral addiction here, so it is more than just pictures, videos, and pixels on a screen.

    I would say no. Unless your are resetting or relapsing regularly. Unfortunately, a lot of fapstronauts seem to be in this middle ground. They stay in the passive addiction phase, hoping to get through another day, and relapse or reset frequently. This isn’t a recovery, and borderline insanity. If you aren’t making continual changes or improvements on a regular basis, you are just one step away from active addiction.
    Recovery can be flipping a switch. This is where “Rock Bottom” comes into play, it is an inflection point where you begin to see the damage you have done and begin to repair it. For me it was a switch, I knew I needed to change, and I was the only one who had power to make those changes. I stopped P entirely, M a couple of days later, and still haven’t relapsed. Did I become addict free overnight? Not even close. I still see and hear from the addict on a regular basis. It’s at the point now I can say it isn’t everyday (ma Be it is better at hiding some days), but it is there. I have tried to disassociate from the addict, but that isn’t a reality. The addict is a part of who I am. I can’t change that, but I can make better decisions and choices. Part of recovery is accepting the full responsibilities of our actions, for me the depth and layers the addict lives and are vast and deep. I find him in all sorts of places, and root him out. With plenty of sobriety behind me, I can recognize the addict’s influence in my daily life and interactions. I don’t catch it all the time, but that is what introspection and reflection is for, then I realize that it was my addict fueled behavior, and I work on correcting it. It is a slow road to get here, maybe not a road, but more like an old overgrown path that is full of new yet familiar things that are both inspiring and rewarding that I never was able to see on that other road I was always taking with the addict at the wheel.

    I hope to meet you on that path someday.
     
    Kenzi and AngelofDarkness like this.
  3. kropo82

    kropo82 Fapstronaut

    This may be a long post, and isn't about the active recovery / passive recovery, but since you're the original poster here goes!

    Looking back at my journal here's what I said just eight days after joining the site:
    Let me pick out a handful of examples.

    I like this one as it is a great example of how a seemingly simple piece of advice can have a massive effect. It's from something @DayOne44 posted on my journal when I was at about day 200.

    Now that seems almost absurdly simple but it had a *huge* impact on my recovery. Day 200 might sound like a large number but I was still constantly struggling back then. I adapted @DayOne44's 'catchphrase' to "no, I don't do that anymore" and I found I could say that to myself even after my resolve had snapped. Even when I had given in and was reaching for the laptop to open some porn site I could still whisper "no, I don't do that anymore" to myself and snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. It reminded me that I had already done enough porn, I did not need more, and I realised that I did not have to be strong like a lion, just strong enough.

    This one's a bit self-aggrandising but realising that I was a useful member of this community was also important. When I realised that my voice was different to others and that people wanted to read my thoughts. In a private conversation one member said
    That kind of thing helped me realise that being open and honest in my journal and other posts was important to me and was helping others too.

    That may have been the start of me realising that rebooting went beyond rebooting! It wasn't just about giving up porn it was about using 'giving up porn' as a lens through which I could change other things in my life (and my psyche) and grow into a better man. Reading some of the journals of the guys who were really deeply into their sobriety helped open those ideas up for me, people like @vxlccm.

    You asked "how did the community support exactly help you" and I need to include the example of direct help when I needed it most. Once I clocked past a year I thought I was in the clear but I wasn’t. At about 450 days I went on a business trip and was poleaxed by the temptation to watch porn. I journaled about it and several people came forward to post support. The same happened soon after (day 532) when I flew to America on another business trip. Again the people who reached out to support me on my journal were super helpful. One interesting thing was that one person, @RunningFree, challenged me. He felt that I had relapsed. I don't think I had, his rules are harder than mine (he includes porn-substitutes as porn) but I saw that getting support here isn't all about people sending me positive affirmation, it is also about people pushing and challenging me in the way a best friend might in real life.

    Another recent example is the support I got from @daemonwithin about curtailing sexual thoughts. It took me a long time to decide that I wanted to rein in my ogling, and even longer to decide that I should work on sexual fantasies (idle daydream ones) too. When I did I found @daemonwithin was doing the same thing and had already come up with some interesting techniques. So we were able to share. I talked about his techniques with my therapist and she liked them and suggested one refinement which he then adopted too. That's another very clear example of mutual support here.

    Reaching out to help others also helps. I was the accountability partner of one guy here. I'm not sure how much I helped, it fizzled out and he and his wife do not post here anymore but by giving someone help I also felt valued and thus supported myself.

    @AngelofDarkness I hope that all helps you see exactly how the community support here helped me in my recovery. Sorry it's such a long post. I'm not sure it adds anything to your active vs. passive discussion, I suspect this is all active.
     
    Last edited: Nov 14, 2018
  4. I don't see the point of the distinction.
     
    AngelofDarkness likes this.
  5. Queenie%Bee

    Queenie%Bee Fapstronaut

    1,313
    2,084
    143
    Stole the last bit to share with my SO ;)
     
    AngelofDarkness likes this.
  6. Thank you for sharing your thoughts on my questions and your own interpretation of the suggested terms. I'm glad that your "rock bottom" helped you to commit to recovery. It really sounds like you have achieved a lot already and are on the right path that leads to recovery. I have no doubt that I will see you there some day.

    I was wondering about this, do you feel like that post-self-reflection is necessary when there are visual triggers in your daily life that made you think of PMO or rather the psychological triggers that you might subconsciously compensate with other behavior? Or both?
     
  7. Thank you very much for that detailed post. I can see that realizing you have an addiction and knowing you have to quit PMO is simply not always enough to truly recover. So for you it was a combination of getting practical advice from other addicts, sharing your own advice with others and getting constructive criticism as well as positive feedback. Maybe overall helping you to be more aware of your own problem and how to fix it. I'm glad you finding support through this community helped you so much to finally be in recovery.
     
    kropo82 likes this.
  8. I don't think there really is a point, I'm just trying to better understand, as a non-addict, what internal thought processes make you act passive in your addiction, whatever that means. I might have caused confusion with the terminology. I didn't mean to imply they are established terms or anything, just a distinction I made for myself, open for discussion.
     
  9. I really, really like those definitions, especially adding the third category of 'recovery addiction' to complete the terminology. Maybe one suggestion to "refine" the definition of 'passive addiction', it could be further distinguished between realizing and wanting to stop the addiction but failing to do so VS (to also reference what @NF4L said) stopping a part of the addiction by stopping PMO but still having unresolved psychological and behavioral issues that stem from the addiction. Does that make sense?
     
  10. NF4L

    NF4L Fapstronaut

    For visual triggers, I always correct, and have been working on this since the beginning. It has lessened dramatically, but still happens. I no longer scan as readily as I did before, but it still happens. There are still shiny things, and eyes will instinctively be drawn to butts or breasts. I’ve taken a cue from my learnings through SA lately, and say a prayer or blessing for those who I unintentionally am drawn to for however brief a moment. This has helped a lot recently, as it takes what I see as a negative of that shame and guilt cycle of PA, and turns it into a positive through conveying positive energy towards them through a collective consciousness or higher power in the universe. I try to give back what I have inadvertently (uncontrollably) taken. At this point I see the retrospective as more of a reflection of the psychological patterns of behavior I have exhibited, it is a discovery of those defects of character that I can recognize and work on to improve. In summation, it is both. It is also a chance to gauge how well I have progressed towards my own goals and challenges I have set for myself, and to continue the things that work, stop the things that don’t, and try new things as part of a continual improvement cycle.
     
    AngelofDarkness likes this.
  11. I would simply add to your definition of passive addiction: "Abstaining from the harmful addictive activity does not equal recovery if psychological and behavioral issues remain."?
     
  12. Thank you for clarifying. Sounds like you are doing more than well in your recovery, which gives me a lot of hope that anyone change if they want to.
     

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