The heart is the first organ to form in an infant, so it should be of great concern to make sure that the heart of an addict is being transformed before attempting to rejoin it to another. Marital counseling will be a portion of the treatment, and the addict is not alone in the process, but practitioners, lay people, pastoral staff and support staff must understand the heart must be transformed before work on the marriage can be started. This is a marital problem in the sense that it causes myriad marital problems, but the solution does not come through marital counseling. If a betrayed spouse is told just to forgive and the unfaithful spouse does not do anything to repair the safety and trust, then it puts a Band-Aid on a gaping wound and the heart of the issue will not be addressed, thus causing more issues and high probability of continuing the sexual acting out behaviors. There’s no work left to be done on my part and my spouse must be over any hurt feelings my relapse caused.” In addition, there is no time to rebuild safety and trust which is the heart of the matter and can take years to rebuild. If a betrayed spouse always “forgives” their spouse immediately and quickly reconciles after relapse with no repentance from the unfaithful spouse, the message that is often received is, “They have forgiven and we are reconciled so I’m good to go. This is an issue of rebuilding safety and trust. However, this is not an issue of forgiveness only. Specifically, as it relates to forgiveness and reconciliation, the Bible is clear we are called to forgive as the Lord forgave us. Is there still a question to what is driving the sex trade in the world today?!?!?! This is why acting out escalates to more fantasizing, masturbating, or viewing of pornography or can evolve to more serious offenses such as strip clubs, affairs, and even to violence or child sexual abuse. The overarching belief of the addict’s brain is that sexual acting out is needed to survive. The addict is sensitized, meaning it takes less stimulation to encourage acting out. Addiction also causes a switch in the brain that causes the sex addict to be overly sensitive to anything sexual.
The addiction then escalates due to tolerance (the need for more to feel the same affect). Now the need to act is necessary just to feel normal. Only sexual acting out gives a normal sense of pleasure. Typical activities no longer give pleasure and reward the brain the way they used to. In an attempt to balance, the brain reduces natural dopamine production. This rewires the brain and causes abnormal functioning. With each choice to act out the brain’s reward system sends pleasure signals (dopamine) across the prefrontal cortex and overloads the brain. The limbic system is in control and common sense is “out the window.” Over time, though, the concept of “use it or lose it” is at play and because the addict has spent a significant amount of time allowing the limbic system to take over the prefrontal cortex and the connections in the prefrontal cortex have atrophied and they will have a significant struggle in making choices to avoid relapse, and in reality, the individual does not have a choice.
Their challenge is to engage the prefrontal cortex where self-control and critical thinking occur. When an addicted person has a pattern of medicating their pain through sexual acting out, a whole variety of feelings and circumstances may trigger the limbic system to believe it needs sexual acting out to cope.
Sexual desires are stored in the amygdala, the survival part of the brain (the limbic system-fight, flight or freeze). Because an addicted person has used acting out as a way of coping he/she has rewired the brain much like cocaine rewires the brain. While sexual addiction starts as sin and continues to be sinful, it also becomes a problem of the brain.