{"id":19157,"date":"2020-03-04T09:00:01","date_gmt":"2020-03-04T17:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=19157"},"modified":"2020-02-29T12:40:51","modified_gmt":"2020-02-29T20:40:51","slug":"freedom-from-addiction-connection-or-addiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2020\/03\/04\/freedom-from-addiction-connection-or-addiction\/","title":{"rendered":"Freedom from Addiction<\/em>: Connection or addiction?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Central to the quest of a sex\/love addict is connection to another. Whether fleetingly, through pornography or sex, or longer-term, via the promise of a committed, fulfilling romance, connection\u2014or rather the great imitator of connection, addiction\u2014makes us feel alive and powerful and free. That is, until it leads to inevitable disappointment and emptiness.<\/p>\n

Some sex and love addicts have decided (often unconsciously) that connection\u2014or, rather, the loss of it\u2014is too risky and opt to avoid intimate relationships altogether, while others pursue it with like the Dark Riders pursue the One Ring that promises to conquer the world.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Freedom from Addiction<\/em> is a column exploring issues relating to addiction (photo by Katie Mondey\/Nexus<\/em>).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In any case, a desire to connect is there, some number of layers deep beneath our compulsive, addictive behaviour. This is true regarding any addiction.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I have said this before, and it\u2019s worth saying again: we cannot and will not recover from addiction without, first and foremost, compassion for ourselves. Blame, shame, or self-condemnation only fuels the cycle.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Unfortunately (or, fortunately) addiction and connection are not the same, though the former can pose as the latter quite convincingly.<\/p>\n

Through addiction recovery, I am learning how to truly connect to others in friendship, work, and school relationships, with my family, and\u2014especially\u2014in intimate relationships. The work is slow and can be very difficult. It requires vulnerability, honesty, and openness. This work can feel extremely intense, even acutely terrifying or painful. But I am learning.<\/p>\n

What is true connection, then?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As an addict, it isn\u2019t obvious, as many of us didn\u2019t experience very much of it growing up. Like an addictive or false connection, it does feel very good. However, in a real and healthy connection, we know we can live without it if we need or want to, or if it becomes unhealthy or harmful. Our lives are not wholly dependent on it. We do not bubble inside with resentment when it is unavailable. Instead, we communicate our feelings and thoughts honestly, without fear of being shamed, abused, or ignored.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In healthy connection we do not lose ourselves, nor do we wish to be lost, or to escape our lives. We respect the other\u2019s boundaries and are able and willing to set our own. Nothing is perfect, but, overall, we feel valued, respected, and appreciated, although we don\u2019t depend on continual reassurance due to our lack of valuing, respecting, or appreciating ourselves.<\/p>\n

We can also recognize our normal desire to connect with others and the ways that we seek connection through addictive behaviours and relationships, and that those ways will never, ever lead to feeling connected. This is the formula for recovery: willingness to see the world and ourselves objectively and fully, plus the ability to have compassion for ourselves and for others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Central to the quest of a sex\/love addict is connection to another. Whether fleetingly, through pornography or sex, or longer-term, via the promise of a committed, fulfilling romance, connection\u2014or rather the great imitator of connection, addiction\u2014makes us feel alive and powerful and free. That is, until it leads to inevitable disappointment and emptiness. Some sex […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18168,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,249],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","category-march-4-2020"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19157"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19157\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19158,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19157\/revisions\/19158"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}