Q&A – What does porn or sexual addiction think, act, and talk like?

Narrator: This is Pathway to Recovery, an SA Lifeline Foundation podcast featuring hosts Tara McCausland, who is the SA Lifeline Executive Director, and Justin B., a sex addict living in long-term recovery. We have conversations with experts and individuals who understand the pathway to healing from sexual addiction and betrayal trauma because we believe that recovering individuals leads to the healing of families. Welcome to Pathway to Recovery, our Q&A here with Justin B., my co-host, and myself, Tara McCausland.

Tara McCausland: Thank you for being here with us.

Justin B.: Yeah, thank you, Tara. I'm happy to be here.

Tara McCausland: Today we're going to discuss this important question: What does addiction think, act, and talk like? And the reason why we bring this up is, well, because in truth you'll find many betrayed spouses and individuals who are connected to addicts never actually see the acting out behavior. They don't see the pornography. They don't see the inappropriate texts. They don't see the conversations in the chat room. So what do they have to go on? Addicts become masters at lying and deceit.

And so we are going to talk about our CIRCLES model, a model of pornography use and sexual addiction, to help both the addicted and those who suffer from betrayal trauma basically have signposts as to what addiction really looks like when there's no evidence of acting out behavior. Any thoughts on that before we carry on?

Justin B.: Yeah, I can testify to that. My wife never suspected anything was going on for the first 10 years of our marriage. Never suspected that I had these issues, these problems, these actions, these behaviors until I, I wasn't found out. I, I came to her finally and admitted, trickle admitted. I didn't dump everything on her. So I totally get it. As an addict, I am a masterful liar and manipulator. And that's, that's how it manifests in my life too.

Tara McCausland: Hmm. My parents were married for, yeah, probably 10 years before my dad told my mom the truth. And she has in their 50 years of marriage, granted my dad hasn't been in an active addiction that whole time, but in the time that he was in his addiction, she never once saw any indication of the acting out behavior. And so that can leave a lot of people feeling bewildered about how do I know if someone is active in their addiction?

Well, we're going to give you some tools today, and this is unique to SA Lifeline. We have what is called our circles models for people who are dealing with pornography and sexual addiction, and we also have a circles model that we can discuss at a later time for the betrayed partner. their experience looks and feels like. So if we're speaking to the person that's struggling with a behavior, Justin, and we know that denial is a big part of the addiction, talk to me about denial and what role that plays in the addictive cycle.

Justin B.: Being an addict living in recovery and being able to look back at my life and see things from a more clear perspective, from maybe a higher ground than where I was at in the middle of addiction. I don't think while I was in active addiction, I would've said I was in denial. I would've said, I'm just working harder. I'm trying harder. I'm doing things harder so that I can overcome this. But man, I was in such deep denial that what I was up against was so much stronger than anything that I could do on my own.

And the more that I focused on self, on me being strong enough, The deeper in denial I went.

Tara McCausland: In our understanding of addiction, and in our last Q&A, we talked about the difficulty that some people have in calling this an addiction, and I think that denial is a big part of that, especially for the person that's struggling with the behavior, but that can also be the experience of other individuals in the circle of influence of the addict. So if we're going to look at this circles model. Again, you can get a copy, a free copy of this on salifeline.org on the main page.

What we see is in the center is a self-absorbed individual, and we see that this is impacting the spiritual, emotional, physical, and mental state of the individual that's struggling with the behavior. Right. But on the, in the white region, we have all of these symptoms. Again, this is acknowledging what does addiction Talk and act like it. What does it look like? It looks like resentment, lying, lustful, acting out, anger, fear, shame, fantasizing, lonely, victim, withdrawn, manipulative.

Did you want to add anything to that, Justin?

Justin B.: Yeah, I mean, this model really clarifies things. If, like what Tara said, if you haven't seen this, pull up that website so you see this physically. There's a lot of truth here and there's a lot of recovery truth in here. On page 62 of the Big Book, we read, selfishness, self-centeredness— that we think is the root of our troubles. Driven by 100 forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity, we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate.

This is all me stepping on the toes of my spouse, my family, my children. When I am all about self, it messes up my spiritual, my emotional, my physical, and mental life. And for me, I'm a king manipulator. I, when I am in addictive behaviors and thought processes, I manipulate like crazy. I become the victim like crazy. I'm angry. I'm, for me, it's more irritable. I'm more irritable and impatient, and I snap. I come back really quickly at others.

And that's, those are some telltale signs that I'm not in a recovery mindset. I mean, even today, I'm not always happy, joyous, and free. I step into irritability and then I can go, wait, what's going on? Why am I feeling this way? And take an inventory on that. So this, this model really clarifies things for me to be able to look at and, and understand myself and others better. So even if I am abstinent, from my addiction.

Even if I am sober and not acting out, I can still very easily demonstrate these things. Something that I've often shared in different places is I call it sodriety. I'm a dry drunk. I'm a dry addict, but I am insane because I'm still self-centered and selfish in the core. And if we look at the second model, that core needs to be connection with God, with a higher power, and When that happens, all of these things smooth out.

And that's why there's a difference between abstinence and recovery. There's a difference between not acting out and living in recovery. And the Circles model really helps me see, hey, I'm feeling shame right now. What's going on? Well, is there something wrong with my physical life? Is there something wrong with my emotional life, spiritual life, or mental life? What if I am really lonely? Lonely is one of those things in the Self-absorbed chaos. There's nobody around I can be with or connect with, and, and I'm feeling that loneliness.

What is the counteraction? Well, it's connection. I can't just wait for somebody else to reach out to me. I need to reach out to somebody else. I need to make that connection in order to cure that loneliness, at least for the moment. Just because I may be exhibiting some withdrawing behaviors or manipulating or whatever doesn't mean I'm acting out right now. But I mean, I could be, I could be, but it does mean that I'm not in a recovery mindset and I need to get there because if I stay in this restless, irritable, discontent, manipulative state for very long, it won't be very long before I do spiral into acting out behavior.

So the sooner that the individual can recognize it and address it, the sooner I can get back on their pathway to recovery.

Tara McCausland: Yeah. So in addressing that question, what does addiction look and talk and act like? We can use those behaviors in the CIRCLES model to give us again some signposts of where we're at. I think it's helpful if loved ones are not seeing acting out behavior, they can still see these symptoms of an addiction that's not in good recovery, right? Again, the victim mindset, withdrawing, being manipulative, being resentful. And this is really helpful for betrayed spouses because while you may not see actual acting out, you can set boundaries around these behaviors and that's empowering.

We're gonna have lots of discussion down the road about boundary setting. This can be really challenging, but when someone who has been betrayed recognizes, I don't have to know what the acting out behavior is, if I'm seeing these behaviors, I can have boundaries that can provide safety. for myself and for my family. We can also flip that question and ask, what does addiction look like in recovery? And it looks like honest, humble, accountable, connecting with God and others.

So we can have those 2 to compare and contrast when there's a question of, do I have an addiction or is my partner in active addiction? Or are they really working their recovery? Awesome. Well, thank you to our listeners for being here with us on this Q&A. We'll see you next time.

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