by Michael Taylor
This post is a continuation of last week's post on acting out behaviors that may continue after a man has entered into recovery (or says he's stopped the porn use).
Two Traps
There are two traps that are very easy to fall into in early recovery. One’s relationship with pornography and fantasizing will determine which trap you are more likely to fall into.
Men who have used porn and/or fantasy as a favored form of recreation, may admit that there is a problem, but they may not be ready to admit the full scope. In those cases, they often want to find a line which divides what is bad from what is acceptable. This can degrade into a reverse tug-o-war where the spouse and the addict are trying to push the line in opposite directions amidst a fog of minimizing, justification and gaslighting. In the meantime, the neural pathways around objectification continue to be strengthened, freedom remains elusive, and the relationships suffer. William Struthers suggests that, instead of asking “where is the line,” we should be asking does this “bring me closer to sanctification?”
The second trap is more commonly experienced by men that have a more negative relationship with porn and fantasizing. This is the trap that I (Michael) fell into. I always saw porn as ugly, but it had an immense pull on me. Before my marriage to Lisa, I openly confessed my porn use and happily gave it up. What I didn’t realize was that it could be (and was) an addiction. Eight years later I finally confessed that I had fallen back into porn use, lusting, and fantasy. At that point I went into recovery and fell into the second trap.
I earnestly wanted to be rid of porn fantasy and lusting. Equally, I was afraid of losing my marriage and family. So, I began an internal war on lusting and all forms of objectification. However, the second trap was to treat women as the enemy. This resulted in another “narrowing” of focus. In this process, my brain learned that such women were a threat. This, when combined with my habit of sexualizing women produced a toxic cocktail of brain chemicals. I became hyper-focused on avoiding all sexual stimulus outside of my wife. This produced some positive results, but quickly became a stumbling block. Jim Wilder tells us that if we focus on the mistake we don’t want to make, we are more likely to make that mistake. It became much more difficult to “see” women as God sees them.
Early recovery can be a sort of perfect storm for couples, even when the man is earnest about getting free. Each time the man bounces his eyes, or uses some obvious grounding technique, it is a reminder to the wife of deep wounds of betrayal and comparison. For the man, seeing the wife react with pain or anger can trigger feelings of toxic shame, hopelessness and rejection. Each time this happens, it must be grieved by both. It is easy for one or both of members of the couple to end up in enemy mode instead.
Relational Mode and Enemy Mode
Jim Wilder, a neuropsychologist, has spent decades studying how the structure of our brains affects our relationships. Over the last few years, he has been studying how our brains can enter into an “enemy mode” in which we treat the people around us as problems to be solved. Jim and retired US Army General Ray Woolridge have written a book called “Escaping Enemy Mode: How our Brains Unite or Divide Us.” In that book, they lay out the following three different forms of enemy mode:
Simple enemy mode – this is a low brain state in we are tuned out relationally. It is often compared to a mobile phone in “airplane mode.” We have no idea how the people around us are feeling.
Stupid enemy mode – a high energy dysregulated brain state in which we are likely to say and do things that we will regret.
Intelligent enemy mode – a cold calculating mode in which we are trying to make the other person lose.
You can learn more about this on the Enemy Mode podcast.
The alternative to enemy mode is relational mode. To truly be our best selves, we need to be operating in relational mode. That is where both halves of our brain are active and working together. In that state, we can tell whether people are for us and we can empathize. We can use the “mirror neurons” in our brain to share the brain state of people that we connect with. We can still use reason and logic in a relational state, they are just balanced with our relational perspective.
When someone is in addiction, they frequently ping-pong between all three forms of enemy mode. We spend much of our time numbed out or disconnected, which is “simple” enemy mode. The search for a high or escape is typical of “intelligent” enemy mode. And, when our shame is triggered (and we can’t tell who is on our side), then it is easy to fall into stupid enemy mode.
Next week we'll continue this post on struggles in early sobriety.
