Quit Touching Your Sex Parts
Interrupting addictive thought
patterns is part of recovery. Opportunities to make those choices come up many
times each day. Depending on how you have defined sobriety for yourself, you may
interrupt yourself when you fantasize, replay episodes of acting out, and so
forth. There's a good reason for this practice of interruption. Each time you
repeat any act, whether it is a physical act or a mental act, you strengthen the
underlying web of associations in your brain. Each time you activate the web of
associations, you increase the likelihood that it will repeat. On the other
hand, each time you interrupt the pattern of associations you weaken it and so
decrease the likelihood that it will repeat. Don't be deceived. It takes
repeated choices, time, and determination to create that change. It is one thing
to decide to overcome your addiction. It is another to make the choices many
times each day that actualize your recovery. It is those small, daily choices
that are the mechanisms of recovery.
Sex addicts devote too much of their psychological space to sex. That is
part, but not all, of the problem. It is the thinking platform on which
obsession is built and obsession is the energy that launches compulsion.
Compulsion to behavior is acting out. So it is a simple equation. The more you
have sex in your mind, the more you risk getting into your obsessive thinking
and when you get into your obsessive thinking, you are at risk of acting out.
Getting sex to take up the right amount of space in your brain is an important
goal.
One way that sex addicts allocate disproportionate mental space to sex is by
excessively touching or otherwise stimulating their sex parts. Sometimes this is
during sex acts, with another person or alone. Other times, the stimulating is
more on the order of what one might call "Idle Tom Foolery". Many sex addicts
find that they rest a hand on or fiddle around with their sex parts when they
are resting, sleeping, driving, and at other times when doing so would not raise
the eyebrows of those around them. In and of itself, such behavior is probably
harmless and natural and I don't want to sound judgmental about it. Non-addicts
can probably do that and have no untoward effects. But for sex addicts, these
habits keep the sensory nerves associated with their sex parts revved-up.
Keeping your sex parts revved-up keeps the brain patterns associated with the
sensory nerves activated. And keeping those patterns activated, helps to
maintain the surplus mental space allocated to sex. So make an experiment.
For a week, keep mental track of how often you touch your sex parts. Of
course you need to touch your sex parts to go to the bathroom, dress, bathe, and
scratch really urgent itches. And, when you are having a sexual experience that
is inside your bottom lines, you need to touch your sex parts. But pay attention
to the other times you touch your sex parts. If, after an honest week's
attention, you haven't noticed that you have an excessive sex part touching
habit, then let it go. However, is you notice that you do touch yourself more
often than you need to, you may decide to include in your recovery the goal of
reducing how often you touch your sex parts.
Remember that there is nothing puritanical about this exercise. The goal is
to reduce the amount of space sex occupies in your brain. This practice is
another tool in your recovery toolbox.
