Stop the Addiction Cycle – Sex and Relationship Therapy

Addiction: When you can stop, you don’t want to stop; when you want to stop, you can’t.

The sex and porn addiction cycle has six stages:

1. trigger
2. fantasy
3. Ritualization (bringing fantasy to reality)
4. show it
5. Numbness (emotional alienation)
6. Despair (Shame and Regret)

Usually, it’s best to interrupt the loop during the trigger phase. When we learn to recognize triggers, we can take opposite actions to deal with those triggers in healthy ways. We can also stop the addiction cycle during the fantasy and ritual stages, but doing so becomes increasingly difficult. As we move deeper into this cycle, our addiction gathers momentum like a boulder rolling down a mountain.

today’s task
Identify the turning point in your addiction cycle—your point of no return.