The Cycle and Me...

The addictive cycle that seems to be common with sexual addiction as discussed by Patrick Carnes, Ph.D. consists of four steps that intensify with each is completion. The cycle progresses through preoccupation, ritualization, compulsive sexual behaviour, and despair. In his book Out of the Shadows: Understanding Sexual Addiction, describes these four steps as follows:

1. Preoccupation is the mood or trance like state that the sex addicts’ mind is engrossed in the thoughts of sex, a mental state that induces the obsessive search for sexual stimulation.
2. Ritualization is the routines that the addict establishes that lead up to sexual behaviour. This ritualization intensifies the preoccupation adding to it arousal and excitement.
3. Compulsive Sexual Behaviour is the actual sexual act that preoccupation and ritualization lead to. For sexual addicts’, this behaviour becomes uncontrollable.
4. Despair the utter feeling of hopelessness that the sexual addict has about his or her sexual behaviour.

So how is it truly for me?  Well to be honest it is not that great. I have moments where I feel quite in ‘control’ and then I lose it. I know all the ‘right’ things and been there done that but the cycle of addiction just keeps going around. Where am I going…what am I doing? Well I feel I lost and just get all confused at times. With multiple compulsions such as eating, drinking and cruising I have sometimes just ended up in a state that I feel ill.

The trouble is I am good at putting on the face…I call it my mask so on the outside I appear fine but on the inside and in my daily routine I am a mess. This is also not helped in part by the fact that I have no person to turn to help me out. So I really just have to go on my past knowledge and my reading. But this is really not adequate and finding someone I can trust and provide accountability is very difficult where I am currently living.

I came across this in reading “Cruise Control”
“No amount of information is going to stop a sex addict from repeating patterns of problem behaviour. You can only meaningfully change your behaviour by taking deliberate, on going, active and committed steps toward change…one day at a time.” (Weiss)

 Struggling with compulsive sexual behaviour and thoughts I know that my coping mechanisms have been totally inappropriate…my default button in the end has been just to go and act out. I also had some other pretty unhealthy ways of dealing with things that just seemed to put me further under. I eat big time to stuff myself full or have several drinks. That just compounds a weight issue that I have.

I hope that it gets better the further down the track I go. I had at one time been in a very good space but that seems to have gone.  At present I am trying to develop more effective ways to handle things and also not to put myself in a position of isolation. It has taken me several years to get to this point and believe you me there have been plenty of diversions on the way.

Sounds  great. Yes!!! But I know it I still fall flat on my face… and grovel around in some pit of pathetic beating myself up and what’s the point and…

That’s why I have been interested in the writing outlined in the previous blog entry and the steps that I need to put in place to ensure some hope of pulling myself out of the hole that I am in at present.


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