Addiction and adultery often go hand in hand, two compulsive behaviors aiding and abeiting each other. Everyone knows how addictive pornography can be and it certainly leads the user to have thoughts of more sexual partners. Now we have ˜internet sex in chat rooms and can’t wait to log on and talk to a stranger about possible sexual adventures. And any addiction is progressive and can have serious consequences.
Drug addiction and alcoholism often lead to compulsive adultery. Drinking and drug use blur thinking, moral values, and fidelity. It causes a person to have compulsions to feed ˜feel good feelings’, at least on a temporary basis. It causes selfish need for immediate satisfaction. It enourages thinking like ˜If I am not with the one I love, I love the one I’m with tonight. Let the good times roll. But during the binge of booze, drugs, and sex, precaution gets thrown to the wind. Loss of control is part of any addiction and when control is gone, conscience hits the street.
Any person addicted to sexual acts, pornography, drugs, and alcohol will tell the spouse that this is going to stop. It is not going to happen again. I won’t go out to a bar. I won’t get internet porn. I won’t go into the chat rooms. I won’t have another extramarital sexual escapade. But the promises fade once the addiction takes over and it’s ready, set, go! Inhibitions are vacated when the high begins. People have confessed to me that they could never have believed they were capable of such degrading behavior when they were sailing along on a ‘high’.
Who is likely to become an addictive personality? Often, it does run in families. How many people have known a family of alcoholics? Beyond the genes, there are definite traits which can suggest that the person you love will become an addictive person who is compelled to act in his or her worst interests. Impulsive people who act before they think and crisis or thrill seekers are likely candidates. Those who have no sense of direction or goals or commitment are likely to stray and get hooked. People who cannot postpone satisfaction and see themselves as˜needy’ tend to take what they want. Those who are constantly stressed, anxious, or depressed are ripe for addictions and have a hard time breaking these behaviors.
The person who has cravings which will not go away, which invade thoughts persistently, who feels a real absence when the cravings are not fed, who views the craved as the main source of pleasure, and who keeps at satisfying this craving despite blowback and negative effects and harm to loved ones is probably addicted.
Now, we all have our secret addictions. I love chocolate and tend to be grumpy in the morning when I don’t have my coffee. This kind of addiction does not tend to cause one to lose a moral compass. But people with dangerous addictive personalities meet that special something which gives them such a fantastic feeling that they do not want to give it up, for any reason. It’s the rush that cannot be duplicated with anyone or anything else.
If you are married to an addictive personality who ˜uses’ and then is compulsively adulterous, you have a real problem. You are married to someone who goes to extremes and can’t get enough. Adultery and addiction are double dangers and hard to fix. If you want to deal with this and be of assistance, you better accept you are in for a long haul and the outcome will be very ˜iffy’.
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