addictions

http://www.health.harvard.edu/press_releases/drug-addiction-brain.

At times throughout my adulthood I have masturbated and had visceral fantasies for hours per day. I've always felt the compulsion but thought it was an emotional force, not a physical one.

I also always thought that 'bad luck' would come to me for 24 hours afterward and noticed that when I refrained completely from either my fantasy or masturbation behavior for days or weeks that things seemed to go my way more.

i now realize that I was essentially unruly and anxious like any addict, coming down of their buzz, feeling the frustration for another fix and trying to hide it at the same time. Naturally, that affected my relationships and probably my career, marriages, and other highly consequential situations. I am confident this is a major reason why i get frustrated at others so quickly and why i have raged against my wife in the past.

I am also confident that the 'invisible force' I blogged about years ago is my unconsious dependancy on dopamine.

There have been many times that i've sat down to work or concentrate, but couldnt because i was experiencing dopamine dependancy. i was totally distracted as if i was intoxicated.


but, meditation appears to be the answer - both in my experience as well as from this report (and others) i found online:


Achieving an altered state of consciousness makes addictive behavior unnecessary. Experience of a higher nature emerges during meditation bringing a new sense of purpose and meaning to life. This new way of being assumes urgency and priority over the desire to indulge in compulsive sexual behavior.

I think the big change is that I am finally cognitively aware of the emotional and physical process that I've been experiencing and i am inspired to change it. I anticipate a few weeks of 'withdrawal', which is actually good news since I have never fully understood what compelled me to want to masturbate and viscerally fantasize. I always saw this as losing or failing on a deep level and beyond my understanding. I always thought of it as a spiritual and emotional issue, but now that it's physical, i think i may have more control over how i respond.