Phil Monroe's "Cycle of Addiction"

THE CYCLE OF ADDICTION
(by Phil Monroe)




Often the cycle starts with certain triggers, external or internal circumstances that remind us of the allure of the pornography. These can come in the form of thoughts, experiences, feelings, situations, etc.

This leads to tempting thoughts in our own minds. We begin to ponder the idea of going back to the pornography.

This leads to “SUDS”: Seemingly Unimportant Decisions, the little decisions we make that get us closer to the object of our addiction. For instance: “I’m just going to check my email, nothing more.” “I’ll just get online, there’s no harm in that.” “I’ll only look for a little bit, but then I’ll stop.”

Finally, there’s an indulgence. Many times this indulgence is justified by a false sense of control: “I can handle this.”

You may also notice that there is a direct line from the triggers to indulgence. This is because many of us have been in this cycle of addiction for so long that we can’t even recognize when the tempting thoughts or the SUDS appear. We mindlessly move quickly from the triggers to indulgence.

After a time of indulgence we have these defeated interpretations of our sin. We have broken the promises we made to ourselves. We think we might as well just continue sinning because we have already indulged. This often leads to continued indulgence.

Eventually we get tired of that cycle of indulgence and defeated thoughts, so we move to the next stage of guilt, which really just prolongs the same defeated thoughts.

To assuage our guilt, we move into a time of penance: we try to get ourselves “clean” by doing something good.

This leads to a time of abstinence.



To learn more about how to break this cycle, go to Breaking the Cycle of Addiction.