Are You Connected?

A couple days ago I read an article on addiction and that there might be more to it than a hijack of the brain. It talks about human connection and isolation and how those may be the keys to addiction (why someone becomes addicted and others do not & how people overcome addictions many times without rehab). I will put a link to the article later, I did find it very interesting and a lot of it made sense to me so I wanted to talk about it and share my thoughts. I am not a doctor or a specialist I am just someone that has dealt with addictions. 

This article did get me thinking and words from SA's White Book kept coming to mind. In The Problem in SAWB it starts out by saying "Many of us felt inadequate, unworthy, ALONE and afraid.". Then a bit later, "Early on, we came to feel DISCONNECTED-". "Please CONNECT with me and make me whole!"

SA White Book but with
 the title on the cover

Just reading The Problem in the White Book is enough to know that for a sex addict our biggest problem is our feeling alone, isolated, like no one understands, wants us, we are unworthy of love.... We reach for connection the only way we know how. Many sex addicts were abused as children and kids need to feel safe to connect. As a sex addict I was abused and did not feel safe as a kid and still struggle with that feeling.

First come the fantasies. That is a way to escape and feel connected to something even though it is not real. Then it just spirals from there. Once we connect with others there seems to be something missing. The connection is not real, it cannot be real because we have become lost inside ourselves.

"We took from others to fill up what was lacking in ourselves" (SAWB). Intimacy is missing. Love is elusive even though it 'feels' like we love others we cannot know real love until we first learn to love ourselves.

The Solution (yes, that is the next page in the White Book). "Encouraged to continue, we turned more and more away from our ISOLATING obsession with sex and self and turned to GOD and OTHERS." We know that others have done this and we see that they have healing and that is what we want. The fellowship of other sex addicts help us, hold us accountable, a safe place to face ourselves for the first time. In the community of other addicts we begin to heal, grow and know that there is life without the chains of the addiction.

I know that I have cut back on meetings and that is good for me. I am going out and connecting with other people in healthy ways. My sponsor says that it's all about relationships. We go to meetings to learn how to have healthy relationships so we can go out in the world and live a life worth living....or better yet create a life worth living!

Link to article...HERE!! It is pretty interesting.