Arousal Addiction: Here’s What You Can Do About It

You’ve heard the saying, it’s about the journey, not the destination. So it is with arousal addiction, as the pleasure is ultimately in the anticipation. For those of you who struggle with arousal addiction, the anticipation can create a euphoric high in your mind and body. 

But when you’re trying to overcome this form of compulsive sexual behavior, you can actually experience arousal addiction withdrawal. When this happens, you need to know how to get through it. Otherwise, it’s all too easy to go back to your addiction to find relief. 

What is Arousal Addiction?

Of all the forms of hypersexuality disorders (including sex addiction, porn addiction, and masturbation addiction), arousal addiction is more likely to develop in young adults, especially young men. But what exactly is arousal addiction?

Rather than the sexual release itself, people with arousal addiction are addicted to the buildup of sexual tension that occurs before a sexual activity takes place. Ultimately, you end up craving any kind of sexually stimulating experience. Over time, you seek out more intense sexual situations to arouse you in new ways, often trending towards the extreme. 

If you have arousal addiction, you may desire several different kinds of sexual experiences, including:

• Pornography
• Masturbation
• Reading sexually explicit books and materials
• Specific types of online gaming
• Watching live sex web cams
• Sexting
• Going to strip clubs

Arousal Addiction and Your Brain

Arousal addiction usually starts at a young age when you’re exposed to porn or other sexually explicit imagery while your brain is still developing. Similar to eating a lot of sugar as a kid, your brain on porn or other sexually explicit activity at a young age may go into overdrive with excitement. But it inevitably “crashes.” In this case, when you take in explicit material, your brain releases large amounts of dopamine. Dopamine is considered the “pleasure chemical,” and is released when you do things that make you feel good, like eating ice cream or steak, taking drugs, or having sex. 

The “crash” occurs in the developing brain because the amount of dopamine released during arousal associated with explicit material is more than your brain can handle. As a result, your dopamine receptors shut down to protect your brain from this overload of feelings and make future dopamine releases more tolerable. 

However, the pleasure you’ve experienced from your arousal (and intense dopamine release) makes you want to seek more sexually explicit experiences to arouse you again. However, the dampened dopamine receptors in your brain make the euphoria of your arousal less exciting next time, so you keep chasing more arousal opportunities to replicate your initial high. 

Over time, repeating these experiences over and over leads to an addiction. And when you add trauma into the mix, you seek out dopamine-boosting activities to cope from your trauma, whether it’s difficult experiences, emotions, or memories. This means using hypersexuality as a coping mechanism, and pursuing more explicit (even risky) sexual experiences, such as:

• Having sex with prostitutes
• Having sex with strangers 
• Engaging in voyeurism
• Having sex with multiple people at one time

Symptoms of Arousal Addiction

If you’re struggling with arousal addiction, you may try to stop seeking these sexual experiences constantly, but you’re unable to quit. This can become even more devastating when your addiction causes harm to your or your loved ones, yet you still keep pursuing your desires. 

Sometimes, symptoms of arousal addiction will remain unseen, especially out of shame, guilt, or fear of discovery. If you are concerned that you may have arousal addiction, here are some warning signs to look out for:

• A constant drive to engage in specific sexual behaviors
• Regular, intense sexual fantasies
• Using sexual pleasure as an escape from reality
• Being unable to rein in your sexual fantasies or behaviors
• Choosing self-pleasuring activities instead of sex with your partner
• Challenges in maintaining healthy relationships

Arousal Addiction Withdrawal: The Hurdle to Recovery

If you think you may have arousal addiction, taking steps to overcome your addiction is critical to reclaiming your life. Yet addiction recovery isn’t just about stopping behaviors. In fact, your attempts to stop are usually followed by arousal addiction withdrawal. After all, your brain gets used to the steady amount of dopamine it’s received from your constant arousal pursuits, so altering this chemistry in your brain can lead to difficult withdrawal symptoms when you try to break your addiction. Expected arousal addiction withdrawal symptoms can include:

• Headaches
• Fatigue
• Insomnia
• Joint pain
• Mood swings
• Nausea
• Panic attacks 
• Agitation
• Brain fog
• A temporary lack of sexual desire, called “flatlining”
• A temporary inability to feel emotion, called anhedonia

 

Looking at this list, it’s easy to see why many people have difficulty quitting their arousal addictions. When these symptoms arise, it’s often too tempting to go back to the dopamine hits you’re used to and seek out more sexual activities that produce arousal—just to find relief. So what can you do to stay the course towards recovery when you begin experiencing arousal addiction withdrawal?

Struggling with Arousal Addiction? Getting Professional Help Matters

If you want to quit your arousal addiction, it’s usually not something you can do alone. You need vital support along the way. And the best support to help you overcome your addiction (and successfully navigate your addiction withdrawal) is professional treatment. Partnering with a CSAT therapist or a treatment center that specializes in arousal addiction are your best options to achieve the long-term recovery you’re seeking. 

At Integrative Life Center in Nashville, TN, we help people like you overcome a variety of intimacy disorders, including arousal addiction (as well as any co-occurring disorders like anxiety or depression). Personalizing our treatment approach based on your needs, we’re able to directly address the root causes of your addiction and help you restore your life with evidence-based and experiential therapies. To learn more about our intimacy disorder treatment programs, call our team today. 

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