Porn Addiction Triggers: Understanding and being Aware.
In this step, we will be reading about most common triggers of porn addiction and how if one’s aware of such triggers, one can consciously avoid them.
The physical structure of the brain can be changed by repeating behaviors due to a mechanism called neuroplasticity. For instance, when a top athlete trains at jumping hurdles on a track, she is training her muscles, but also rewiring the synapses of her brain to more quickly respond to her thoughts and environment when jumping hurdles on a track.
Similarly, a person who habitually uses pornography when he is bored in his bedroom is priming his neural circuitry to more quickly think of pornography whenever he is bored in his bedroom. A person who uses pornography to distract herself from feeling lonely late at night is training her neural circuitry to more quickly crave pornography whenever she feels lonely late at night. Through the mechanism of neuroplasticity, these people have literally reshaped their brains to the point where it’s difficult for them to think of anything except pornography in certain situations.
Addiction makes a full circle when the addictive behavior causes conditions which then trigger the need to once again act out the addictive behavior.
For instance, John uses porn when he’s bored or lonely. Feeling lonely on a Friday evening, instead of calling up some friends, he goes to his favorite porn site and masturbates for a couple hours. Since he looked at porn, he missed his chance to find friends to hang out with, so he just watches videos for another hour or two until he feels bored enough that he turns to his go-to solution for boredom: more porn.
Hence, in case he was aware of the trigger, he would have called over his friends and wouldn't have relapsed into his addiction. It is important to the recovery that one must actively point out such triggers and fight them appropriately before it becomes a problem.
How did you acknowledge and fought off your triggers today?