Sex Addicts - turning off Fight/Flight/Freeze response - ain’t an option

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The cave man/cave woman response of Fight/Flight/Freeze, is alive and well. Don't beat your brain up too badly. It is just doing what it was designed to do to protect you.

The options it chooses or gravitates to, are at times, rather dubious and for Sex Addicts. The relief only lasts 5 minutes, but a much longer regret and repercussion timeframe. The brain needs re-training.

Stress, tension, anxiety, worry, boredom, loss, rejection, conflict and fear are just a few of the adverse emotions which cause loss of homeostasis and ramps up the brain into action - to protect you with Fight/Flight/Freeze. Realise, however, it isn't only negative emotions that trigger a desire. So also, does reward entitlement, which plants the seed of 'I deserve', 'I'm entitled', 'I earned it', 'It's my right','give me lushness'; often flowing from an existing dopamine high from other (non-sexual) activities.

The well carved out grove of entitlement, fires the neural pathway into action. It gets it's cue from the smoke alarm in the brain - the Amygdala. The message it gets is 'let's do what we always do'. No thought is needed or indeed can be reasoned, since the logical brain is nowhere to be found. It has gone offline.

There is no point at all shouting "The cave man/cave woman alarm isn't telling the truth". It is futile. 'Protect and survive' kicks in. 'Acting out" is the drug of choice. 'Feels' too powerful to fight. But even 'Feelings' ain't telling the truth. There is a conspiracy at work and you are losing.

Same old, same old, same old patterns of behaviours galvanise and will repeatedly do so until you begin to carve out a new positive hamster wheel habit of behaviours; a new neural pathway response to those emotions.

12 steps attendance is needed, but on its own, it mostly is not enough. You need an A-Z Recovery Programme. Stop flirting around the edges with lesser endeavours.

Isn't it time to take first steps to craving out that new positive neural pathway/Hamster wheel/habit - which serves you better. A new beginning beckons and awaits you.

Get help: bit.ly/pornaddictionhelp

Gary McFarlane, Accredited EMDR Practitioner.

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