Why Do You Keep Relapsing to Lust No Matter What You Try

How your brain is sabotaging you and how to heal it

Image created by the author using NightCafe.

“I keep relapsing. I’ve tried everything. I don’t understand why I can’t just stop…”

I’ve heard this from dozens of men.

And almost every one of them is using the same solutions that don’t produce results.

• Asking God for strength;
• Telling a friend about the struggle and asking for prayer;
• Installing adult content blockers.

All of these techniques would be well-meaning and good tries to get rid of some undesired behavior but… when it comes to lust, they’re ineffective.

Why?

Because of the impact of lust at the neurological level.

Lust isn’t a bad habit. Much worse. It’s a neurological disorder.

The reason the usual methods don’t work is because they’re built on a wrong assumption.

What is pornography addiction?

For most of church history, addiction was treated as a moral failure. Sometime as a possession. Inability to control one-self. A character defect that’s hard to change.

Countless of studies has corrected this.

The American Society of Addiction Medicine defines addiction as “a treatable, chronic medical disease involving complex interactions among brain circuits, genetics, the environment, and an individual’s life experiences. People with addiction use substances or engage in behaviors that become compulsive and often continue despite harmful consequences.”

A disease.

Regardless of the type of excessive self-damaging actions whether it’s substance abuse or compulsive behavior, they all create a similar neurological impairment. Pornography, alcohol, gambling or drugs.

Something in the brain no longer functions as it should.

The definition matters because it calls for a new approach to conquering lust.

No more “I need to do everything to stop acting out,” but “I need to heal.”

You cannot fix a disease with brute force. At best you’ll temporarily manage appearance of symptoms. But the disease will remain and eventually will resurface making you feel like is something completely wrong with you.

Here’s how it works in the brain.

How an addicted brain works

Your brain has a reward system.

Its primary function is to reinforce behaviors that help you survive.

Some examples:

• eating,
• working,
• socializing,
• exercising,
• rest…

When you do something that serves survival, the reward pathway releases a small burst of dopamine. You feel satisfied, happy. Activities that leave you feeling good, encourage you to do it again.

It’s an elegant system.

But pornography breaks it by abusing it, to say the least.

Lust produces a dopamine surge far beyond what any natural reward hits you with. Such activity signals the brain not only to encourage but insist on repetition the behavior.

The brain overwhelmed at first, adapts to the dopamine explosions over time. Since it’s not natural to experience so much excitement your brain reduces the dopamine receptors and lowers overall dopamine release to balance itself.

The result? Everything that produced a normal amount of dopamine becomes less satisfying. Food, friendship or progress at work start to feel dull and boring. Your brain begins marking those activities as not worth pursuing.

Only the addiction still produces anything close to a reward. So the brain makes you crave more.

That’s the danger of any addiction in a nutshell.

What initially produced a massive spike after adaptation begins producing “normal” amount of dopamine. The person at this stage no longer engages in addictive substance or behavior to feel ecstatic but somewhat normal. The baseline has moved up.

Eventually he can’t feel the high at all. But he can’t stop either, because now everything else feels tasteless.

Signs of an addiction

The addiction will try to convince you it isn’t addiction.

It hides behind denial.

Some of the actual signs of the addiction disease are here:

a) Using pornography to escape undesired emotions, pain or stress. b) Needing more intensity than before to get the same effect. c) A strong compulsion or mental preoccupation with it. d) Engaging longer than you initially promised yourself. e) Hiding the behavior. Irritability when you can’t use. f) Losing interest in normal daily activities. g) Relational, financial or health consequences you keep ignoring. h) Continuing despite knowing the consequences, while blaming other factors. i) Neglecting your responsibilities. j) Repeated failed attempts to reduce or stop.

Facing the reality doesn’t have to make you fearful or discouraged. Choose hope and joy knowing the time for victory is closer than ever.

Now the practical solutions.

How to fight the addiction

Your primary goal isn’t to stop the activity at any costs but to recover and heal.

There are activities that help you to recover and those that continue to damage you.

You can make a distinction yourself by asking if an activity leads you to instant or delayed gratification. The bottom line is to avoid the activities that drain you and pursue what fills you up even if in the beginning that joy and contentment isn’t emotionally strong.

Understanding the disease but don’t accept defeat. Start fighting the right one.

A few things that matter:

1. Understand what you’re dealing with. It’s a disease that damaged your brain reward system, not a bad habit.
2. Get help. Best, get in an accountability relationship with someone. The goal shouldn’t be confession of sins as much as an invitation for transparency. Being known by someone and walking with will give life to your heart and destroy the desire to isolate. (Isolation is one of the biggest driving factors for lust)
3. Work on the life you desire. Best, to do smallest daily steps towards the goals. The smaller the better. Big commitments are hard to uphold and the progress seems slow. Smallest steps will motivate, help you stay consistent and encourage you since you’ll feel like you’re doing something meaningful.
4. Focus on the life God called and stop reminding yourself of the past failures. This will make you feel better about yourself and increase the desire to see the future you’re made for.

Recovery won’t happen instantly. The process will take time. There’s initiation — the decision to fight seriously. Then the early months, where the recovery and healing begins but the pull is still strong. Then maintenance, where the new established patterns are tested. Then, after sustained time, the new lifestyle becomes the second nature.

The brain actually rewires and heals and true recovery from addiction takes place.

Reach out to me for a confidential 1-on-1 help: vitus@righteouslegacy.com