Establishing confident recovery from sex and porn addiction – Part Two

In Part One of our ‘Establishing Confident Recovery’ series, we looked at slips and relapses, and how to overcome them by developing a fulfilling lifestyle full of connection and healthy activities. This time, in Part Two, we’ll be discussing how to get comfortable with our uncomfortable emotions so we can avoid falling back into old, damaging behaviours.

Managing emotions

A common saying in recovery groups is, “the good news is you get your feelings back, the bad news is you get your feelings back.” So, whilst you may enjoy the benefits of recovery through feeling a more authentic sense of peace or happiness, this also means your difficult emotions are sharper and perhaps more painful without your addictive behaviours to soothe them. This is why it’s crucial to develop a stronger grasp of emotional intelligence where you can identify your emotional needs, ask why you are feeling that way and finally, work through and resolve those feelings in a healthy way. The problem with out-of-control emotions is they don’t just affect the individual; they affect everyone around them. So, whilst this may be positive if the emotion is happy, like the infectious nature of laughter, this also means anger, depression and low self-esteem have an impact on others. Addictions are a method of emotional regulation, they either create a positive emotion or eliminate a negative one, and so we need to learn how to regulate our emotions without using harmful behaviours, in the same way a recovering alcoholic will learn how to unwind after a stressful day at work without pouring a drink.

We will all experience uncomfortable and difficult emotions throughout our lives, from anxiety to anger, and it is important to remember that this is perfectly normal. In fact, sometimes these emotions serve an important purpose in our lives. But to establish confident recovery from sex and porn addiction, it’s essential to improve our ability to identify, manage and express those emotions in a way that is balanced, appropriate and helpful.

Anxiety and depression

We all get anxious from time to time when life feels unsettled. Perhaps we’ve just changed jobs or we’re moving home, or maybe there’s conflict in our relationships which has made the future seem more uncertain. Of course, there is one end of the spectrum where anxiety becomes almost debilitating and if you’re struggling with severe anxiety, it’s important to speak to your doctor. But for those with milder symptoms, there are some things you can do to ease your anxiety. Firstly, (and I know this may seem obvious), it is essential that you prioritise self-care and that means getting a good night’s sleep, regular exercise and paying attention to your diet. It’s well documented that certain foods and drinks can heighten and exacerbate anxiety, particularly caffeine, sugar and alcohol. If you’re noticing yourself feeling more anxious, try to limit or even cut out these food groups entirely. We should also make time to actively relax, and when I say ‘actively’, I mean blocking out time in your diary to consciously and proactively choose to relax. Because when we very deliberately tell ourselves that this is our relaxation time, it tends to have a greater effect. Practicing mindfulness is also a tried and tested method of reducing our stress and there’s a reason apps like Headspace and Calm are so successful. Mindfulness has converted many a skeptic by significantly reducing their experience of stress and anxiety.

Anxiety and stress are closely interwoven and not one of us can say we’ve never experienced feeling stressed. However, what’s interesting about stress is that we often talk about ‘managing’ or ‘coping’ with it, but first and foremost, we need to ask ourselves if we can actually reduce it. It may be that your stress is a result of temporary circumstances like a big deadline at work, and perhaps you can ride this out and manage. But if your stress is feeling somewhat constant and unwavering, there’s a good chance that, by anyone’s standards, there is far too much on your plate. If you can, this is the time to start delegating tasks to others, establish boundaries and say no. Your recovery must have a prominent seat at the table of your life, and it is important to protect its place.

Like anxiety, depression (on the milder to moderate end of the scale) is simply part of being human and we all experience low points in our lives. Many things can affect our mood from the changing seasons, periods of repetition and boredom, to the more unexpected and upsetting life events like ending a relationship, an illness or losing a loved one. Again, during these difficult, low points, it’s important to try and maintain self-care routines and avoid eating ultra processed foods or drinking too much alcohol. When we’re feeling depressed, it’s an unfortunate fact that the last things we feel like doing are the very things that will help us the most, like getting outside in nature, exercising and socialising, if only in small doses. What we also need is an awful lot of self-compassion and patience, especially if we’ve experienced an upsetting or traumatic event. Give yourself permission and time to grieve if you need it and don’t rush or judge yourself harshly for your emotions. And if you experience symptoms of depression consistently for more than a few weeks or have any thoughts of self-harm or ending your life, please contact your doctor urgently. There are many treatment options available, and you don’t need to carry this alone.

Anger and resentment

Feeling angry or resentful sometimes is a normal part of life but there are many of us who, for various reasons, haven’t learned how to manage or express our anger. For some, their childhood exposure to anger may have been non-existent with family members never expressing their frustrations and instead, choosing to pretend that all was well. These people may have learned to internalise and repress their anger for fear of being ostracised. On the other hand, regrettably, some have grown up in homes where anger, and perhaps violence, were a common occurrence and so explosive expressions of rage were the norm. For many men in particular, anger becomes the default emotion in which to express any difficult feelings.

There are certain thinking patterns that fuel anger such as ‘black and white’ thinking where there is no room for a middle ground, or jumping to conclusions and making assumptions where no one is given the benefit of the doubt. To better manage our anger, we need to change these thinking patterns. Think of anger like a firework. Our triggers are the matches that light the fuse, the fuse is our thinking patterns and the firework itself is our expression of that anger or resentment. Whilst we can’t always avoid triggers (i.e. the fuse being lit), we can change our thinking patterns and thus significantly extend our fuse or even diffuse it altogether. When we feel angry, it’s important to do these three things:

1. Maintain perspective – is the situation really worth this level of emotion?
2. Give people the benefit of the doubt, at least until you’re proven otherwise. It’s often impossible to guess other people’s intentions or circumstances.
3. Ask who this anger is benefiting. Are you causing yourself and others more distress? Will it help?

Sometimes our anger is indeed justified, and, in those situations, we only need to pause and consider how much anger is appropriate and how we should express it in a productive way. It may be that expressing your anger to the individual in question is impossible or inappropriate and, in those circumstances, it can be helpful to expel that energy in other ways. For example, you can exercise rigorously to the point that you’re exhausted (worn out rather than ‘pumped up’) or you can share your frustrations with a trusted, outside party who will allow you to vent and get it out of your system.

Low self-esteem and loneliness

Low self-esteem and loneliness are closely connected and can be extremely corrosive. Low self-esteem not only causes difficult emotions like the ones we’ve already discussed, but it’s also a by-product of them and so, we can easily get trapped in a vicious cycle that makes us feel bad about ourselves. Furthermore, this low self-esteem often makes us want to isolate ourselves and so we feel lonely in a time when we need our family and friends the most. In relationships, low self-esteem can also cause conflict as it may result in feelings of jealousy or paranoia as we struggle to believe our partner would not leave us for someone ‘better’. It can also translate into imposter syndrome where we constantly feel anxious about being ‘found out’ and rejected for not being good enough.

Low self-esteem starts developing in childhood and adolescence where we absorb the messages we receive about ourselves from our family and friends. For example, despite all their best intentions, parents can often praise their children purely based on their achievements and what they ‘do’ rather than who they are, which becomes a catalyst for developing crippling perfectionism in adulthood. The good news is that it’s never too late to improve self-esteem, but the bad news is that to really see a difference, we need to work on it in the context of relationships and connection with others. Standing in front of a mirror and repeating self-affirmations, whilst helpful and motivating to some, will only get us so far as we need people in our lives to reflect our value back on to us. Put simply, to improve your self-esteem, wherever possible, surround yourself with people who make you feel good about yourself.

Ultimately, the greatest and most life-changing cure for low self-esteem is a deep-seated understanding and acknowledgment that none of us are perfect. It may sound cheesy or cliché, but it is overwhelmingly true. We all make mistakes and we’re all simply trying our best in this world. Perfectionism is an ever elusive and unobtainable state of being that is bound to give us low self-esteem and when you’re trying to recover from sex or porn addiction, it will only be a constant stumbling block to your recovery. Very few people establish long-term recovery from any addictive behaviour without some slips and even full-blown relapses, and each one is an opportunity to learn and grow stronger.

There is so much more to say about managing uncomfortable emotions and this blog can only scratch the surface. If you want to learn more tips and tools, we cover this in greater depth on Days 51, 52 and 53 of the Pivotal Recovery programme. To try our taster session and see if you want to sign up, please click here.

See you next time for Part Three where we’ll be looking at overcoming blocks and triggers in recovery from sex and porn addiction such as unresolved psychological issues, unforgiveness and opportunity.