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Just curious about this. Does your wayward have any other addictive and/or escapist behaviours, drugs, booze, gambling, shopping, etc?

In retrospect, I kick myself for not picking up on the connection betwixt XH's love of smoking pot and other escapist behaviour.

I'm wondering if this is an anomaly or not.

Spending money is definitely weakness for mine. Interestingly he was very damning of his mothers addictive behaviors such as alcoholism and spending issues that they found after she passed unexpectedly. Hoping his IC will help him see that just avoiding alcohol and giving into other addictive behaviors that are just as destructive is not a good choice. Just a different form of the same thing. Edited to add gaming which I can totally deal with in moderation in comparison.

[This message edited by Conflicted1 at 8:58 PM, June 13th (Thursday)]

He's a diagnosed sex addict.

His escape now is online gaming, via world of warcraft. If he lets himself he can be online for hours upon hours. This has caused severe problems in the past. He is addicted to it, though he tries not to be online as much as he used to be. However, I'd rather him game then be watching porn. I do game with him a bit, I know who he plays with.

However, its like trading one addiction for another, albeit not as bad.

My SAWH is a recovering all around addict. Workaholic, opiate addict, sex addict. He can easily get addicted to technology and anything else! That is why working a recovery program is essential. Addicts will just change one addiction for another, without hard recovery work.

[This message edited by Missymomma at 8:58 PM, June 13th (Thursday)]

After my ws got out of rehab for alcohol and cocaine several yrs ago, he never fell off the wagon....but I saw this new intensity with whatever thing he was into. He raced boats, played baseball, weight lifted, online gaming even church. Whatever he did it was balls out and nothing else mattered. I called him intense but upon reading about recovering addicts I realized he's got the addictive personality. The ow however is not one addiction he's replaced with another yet...oh yea porn too, and I mean massive amounts of viewing.. I think he also has a vicodin issue but "he gets them

from the doctor" so that makes nodding off ok, right?

Yeah, my xWH is a drug addict, which I didn't know until after our D.

It makes shutting him out of my new life much easier, that's for sure.

Yup. 22 year sober Alcoholic and recently determined to be SA.

Yes. Porn. He's whiteknuckling it now.

Sex.

Porn.

A particular hobby which everyone thinks is just so healthy and wonderful and which he uses to be alone & isolated from other human beings.

I think he's headed towards alcoholism. He has a family legacy of alcoholism going back many generations. He drinks every night of the week but denies it.

My FWH started out with a huge addiction to porn, followed by his affair with a piece of trash that looked like she stepped out of a porn movie.

He is also an alcoholic and now he's obsessed with toy trains. Spent $$ on it behind my back, so now dealing with the fall out from that.

My FWH is an addict (drugs, before I met him). During the A he began gambling excessively and began abusing prescription medication.

My fwH had been sober for 12 years when all of a sudden he decided he wanted to drink a glass of wine. Within 6 months he was drinking jack and coke and having an A.

He is also OCD and is working with his IC to overcome his porn addiction.

It is pretty common for addicts to have multiple addictions.

Sometimes they escalate one additction while trying to control another. Sometimes they all go haywire in a perfect mess.

Addictions are yet another symptom of unhealthy coping mechanisms for some inner brokeness. They aren't usually the problem, per se, but a manifestation of it.

That is why good IC is important, particularly with someone who is trained to treat addiction. We've all heard of dry drunks, right? Stopping the addictive behavior doesn't fix the brokenness. The addictive behavior is lousy self-medicating and coping of a deeper issue.

My first husband did. He was an alcoholic (died of liver failure 6 years ago). Our sons and I lived with him covering up for him etc for around 6 years, trying to persuade him into rehab etc. He lost job after job and I supported the family financially (and sadly fueled his alcohlism by financing his drinking). One day, I lost my moble and he lent me his old one. In it I found 100s of texts arranging sex in toilets etc with both men and women. I confronted him and he finally admitted that he was gay or bisexual, he wasn't sure.

We tried to R but it was all fake. He was still seeing prostitutes. I filed for divorce and when he finally left, I found hundreds of notebooks recording sexual experiences he had had with male and female prostitutes going back over 20 years (starting before we married). They were rated and coded according to position, who did what to whom etc. He had dated and recorded for 20 years. He even had been with these women, the night DD2 was born and the day I was miscarrying and waiting for him to come hom to take me to hospital. Clearly he had a deep seated sexual addiction that I had never known about. I believe that this fuelled his alcoholism and that he drank to cover up his guilt regarding his sexual behaviour.

He never showed any remorse towards me for what he had done or to our children for failing them.

I believe that there is a strong link between addictive behaviours. I also believe that I tried everything to save outr marriage to help him get over his alcoholism but it was a hopeless cause. Knowing what I later leaned, I so wish I had left him as soon as I suspected the drinking.

Alcohol.

Porn.

Now, it's me. :)

Yes we both do unfortunately.

Well, I'm not sure this counts - but XWH always had a project he'd obsess over to the exclusion of EVERYTHING else, (except work): working out, health food, home renovation, boat renovation, music. I'm talking obsessed 16 hours a day on his days off and only ever one at a time. Once he was done with it - he walked away like it didn't matter, never mattered... on to the next thing...

Not sure how it pings as an addiction - but he definitely used it to escape.

[This message edited by Take2 at 1:11 PM, June 14th (Friday)]

My SAWH just seems to be hyperfocused on what ever he's doing. Right now it's me, his recovery and our family, and I'm ok with that!

Food, particularly of the sugary kind. He'll inhale a couple THOUSAND calories of cookies or donuts in a sitting most days.

Porn

Alcohol

Food

Gambling

god only knows what else

He's a mess and kept it pretty well hidden for the majority of the M. I'm glad he's now OWs problem.