Triggers

By Recuore, February 12, 2012

When it comes to triggers, those things that prompt us to act our on our addictions, a sense of failure — or inadequacy — is one of the most powerful.

And one of the major signs of healing for porn addicts is when they don’t run to pornography, lustful fantasy or masturbation to soothe the emotional pain caused by that sense of failure.

For men, the need to feel successful and competent is extremely strong. And when we are in situations where we feel incompetent, we will reach for something that eases the ache of that feeling. Moreover, we will look for something to tells us that indeed we are successful. We long to for the security we get from believing that we are good at something.

We search for significance.

Pornography fills this need. In many ways, it is tailor made for the job. Looking at porn, or getting lost in lustful fantasy, is the thing we do to feel successful. It is a lie we are very ready to believe because the payoff is huge: we feel adequate and significant.

One of the greatest moments in an addict’s journey toward healing and redemption is when running to porn no longer works for him; when it doesn’t pay off with a sense of success or significance and it is exposed as inadequate in itself.