Whatever trips your "trigger"

Sex addiction is clinically classified as a "Process Addiction". I learned this because I spent 42 days in a treatment facility working on my sexual addiction as well as drug and alcohol issues. But in my sex addiction treatment I was informed what a process addiction is. It starts with a trigger. Triggers can be emotions, memories, people, pictures, objects.....the list can keep going. Essentially triggers are what ever sets you off into to destructive patterns. Once we feel it we have to have it. We start to plan, we begin to set things in place that will cover us, we start to act, we become so focused that life is about the gratification of that need. We really get a lot out of this feeling. Almost like we want to feed off it. It is the obtaining that creates a bigger high than actually getting it. For me it was all the steps leading to sex. After awhile it wasn't necessarily even the sex because it all felt the same for the most part. However, after the sex, or obtaining the porn, or going to that club..I was still left with me. Just more ashamed and feeling more desperate which in turn caused me to want to get the high going again to avoid feeling those negative feelings. Thus the "Process" started all over again.

Tonight I watched a video tape of VH1's celebrity sex rehab. I got triggered and I had a hard time staying focused on what the problems of the people were. I remember getting angry with them for showing the images they did. I thought to myself "are you kidding me?...You can cover images with a computer all you want, I still know what it is". Then the people showing their personal lives before rehab. The sex parties, the toys. I thought "C'MON!" It is a wonderful idea they have and I truly hope that the participants get alot out of the treatment they receive. I just thought alot of the content, the commercials, and the PG Porn was in rather poor taste. This disease takes alot from the average individual not just the celebrities. I would like to see true revealing symptoms that all can relate to and get something from for their own recovery.

Just be careful of your triggers. Because if you don't the whole world can come down on you quick in a great deal of ways. Whether it be just negative emotions or full blown acting out. They are dangerous and need to be labeled and watched for. I failed tonight and it caused me to act in such a way that was counter productive to my recovery.

The world is out there full of triggers. Triggers that will take us down if we choose to pull them. The truth is, God created sex and all if it's wonders. But with this gift, he also gave us boundaries in which to engage in it, the last thing we should do when attempting to enjoy this gift is shoot our foot by pulling our "trigger". We can honor God and bring glory to His Kingdom by walking away from our triggers and seeking His deliverance.