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In my previous post I wrote about distinctions in addiction patterns, specifically addressing biological, psychological, and trauma-based addiction.  One reason you or someone you are helping might be “stuck in the confessional” is that there is a psychological wound or trauma that needs to be addressed by a trained therapist.  Another reason people get “stuck in the confessional is that going to confession and receiving absolution has, in fact, become part of their acting out ritual.

When a behavior is compulsive, there is a pattern of out of control behavior that occurs over time.  A typical ritual involves the following:

Recognizing Rituals

Vulnerable time.  This is simply a time period or circumstances in which a person is more likely to give in to sexually acting out.  It could be the anniversary date of a traumatic event like the death of a parent, or some other kind of trauma.  It could also be when someone has not had enough sleep.  HALT and BLASTED are two acronyms used to identify vulnerable times (Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired, or Bored, Lonely, Agitated, Stressed, Tired).  The vulnerable time makes a person more likely to be affected by triggers.

Trigger.  A trigger is an event, situation, or interaction that has been habitually paired with sexually acting out.  Being alone with unmonitored internet access, a difficult interaction with a supervisor or a girl in an internet ad can all be triggers for different people.

Emotional response.  After the trigger there can be an emotional pull toward acting out, and physiological arousal may begin

Thought. Then the person might start thinking about acting out.  They also might start thinking about not acting out, “I hope I don’t act out!”

Chemical dump.  Next comes the flood of chemicals that get the brain ready and focused for sexual behaviors.  Dopamine is released in anticipation of acting out.  Dopamine actually helps the brain to focus on one thing.  At this point it is very hard to break the pattern

Second thought.  This would typically be something like “Well I guess I can start again tomorrow, this will be the last time, I kind of deserve this” etc.

Behavior

Remorse.  Now the person feels great guilt, shame, and remorse

For a deeper look into Recognizing Rituals, watch this video.

Typical Ritual

Typically this plays out according to the following narrative:

Bob gets home after a long day.  He didn’t schedule any activities for the evening because he wasn’t sure exactly who he would want to hang out with or what he would want to do.  Now he has the entire evening ahead of him but no one to spend it with so he feels a bit lonely.  In response to his loneliness, he checks Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and a couple of different email accounts.  Each time he discovers that no one has reached out to him or messaged him.  Some of his buddies have posted a picture of themselves at a bar, but they didn’t invite Bob.  Now he feels lonely and rejected.  So he rechecks his social media accounts just to be sure that he didn’t miss anything really amazing in the past 45 seconds (ironic sarcasm intended).  This time there is a trigger.  A girl from his high school posted pictures of herself at the beach.  She has friends too.  So he checks out the profile of her friend.  Then he sees that his friend’s friend also has a pretty friend.  Soon Bob is mindlessly scrolling through a friend of a friend of a friend’s bikini pictures on social media.  After a while this gets old so he checks out YouTube.

At this stage Bob knows that he doesn’t want to go to a pornography site.  So he sticks to YouTube and starts watching steamy scenes from movies that he remembers from the past.  Then he moves on to the 10 most inappropriate commercials of 2017.  He thinks to himself “At least I’m not looking at porn.”  Then the chemical dump comes.  Bob continues watching inappropriate videos on YouTube and after about 5 more minutes, he thinks “I might as well be looking at porn.  I think I crossed the threshold of sin a few minutes ago.”  Then he asks this question:

CAN I GET TO CONFESSION? 

Asking this question is part of the ritual.  If the answer is yes, then he will go on to the next step.  He acts out with porn/masturbation.  Then he thinks, “I fell once so I might as well keep going until I can go to confession since I’m already in a state of mortal sin.”  There is more behavior, accompanied by lots of negative and shameful self-talk.  Until he gets to confession.

Bob goes to confession which is actually the end of the ritual process for him.  He resolves to never act out again.  7-10 days later he’s feeling vulnerable…….

The main lesson here is that for Bob and many others, going to confession has become blended with the acting out ritual.  From the addict’s point of view, it isn’t the thing that pulls him out of the ritual but it is the final step in the ritual.  Some young people even report that they “never feel loved except when going to confession after sexually acting out.”  Another piece of anecdotal evidence for this link is that when addicts get sober, they don’t go to confession.  The only time they have ever gone to confession in the past is when there was a sexual sin to confess, and oftentimes the only reason they went to confession was to be sure that they would be able to receive communion on Sunday.  The primary reason that they wanted to receive communion on Sunday was so that a parent, wife, or girlfriend would not notice them absenting themselves from communion—which would draw suspicion about why they didn’t receive.

Breaking the Pattern

So another reason confession may not be helping is that it’s part of the ritual.  We need to get the Ritual out of the ritual.  We need to do something different.  If you or a person you are working with identify with this cycle here are a couple of things you can do:

Non-sacramental confession.  Find a priest, mentor, parent, 12 step fellowship sponsor, or good friend to talk to about your struggle with pornography and masturbation.  Eventually, you will tell your story in its entirety and this will help you to be more honest with yourself and others.

Get the Ritual out of your ritual.  Go to confession weekly for a while.  There are many graces obtained there.  You also need to learn to experience the sacrament of reconciliation outside of the context of confessing sexual sins.

Make phone calls during your vulnerable time.  When I was young and we were bored or wondering what our friends were doing, we made phone calls (it was the best we had).  But we always found someone to talk to which immediately answered our feelings of loneliness.  Checking social media when you are lonely oftentimes leads to further feelings of rejection when someone realized that “no one has messaged me, tagged me, or liked my posts.”   This perception of rejection will only reinforce the addiction ritual.  Phone calls will break it.

The big three:  Successful people do three things.  Find a good spiritual director, Find a good counselor, and find a good group.  People who do all three have the most success.  If you want to get “unstuck”, beef up your plan.

For more information on rituals consult Dr. Kevin Skinner’s book Treating Pornography Addiction.