unfortunately addiction and infidelity go hand-in-hand in fact it's almost one
in the same issue which is exactly what I'm going to explain to you in this
video you know over the past several months I have gotten a few requests for
this topic and I gotta say it is quite a difficult heavy issue to address but
we're gonna separate this out into two major sections first we're going to look
at the five ways addiction and infidelity work in the same
psychological and biological ways in the brain and in the thinking and secondly
we're gonna take a look at what does all that mean for you personally for those
of you who are new here welcome to put the shovel down the YouTube channel
dedicated to helping families recover their loved one get their sanity back
and stay always five steps ahead of addiction so I guess the best place to
start is why addiction and infidelity so often occur together at the same time as
if one is not bad enough without the other trust me either one of those
issues can send you completely over the edge but both together it's a double
whammy if you're having to deal with both of those issues at the same time
you're going to need a lot of help support and guidance so let's get started with
that so the first thing I'm really want you to understand about this issue is
that infidelity works in the brain almost exactly the same way as addiction
works you see when people have affairs there's this issue with the dopamine
desire brain chemicals start to change and the thinking becomes skewed pretty
quickly and just like with addiction you know regardless of what most people
think almost any relationship is susceptible to infidelity but if you're
dealing with an addicted loved one I think the chances of that go way up
let's think about it for a second here if you have problems with addiction
you're probably more of a risk-taking type person you probably
have less filter going on than the average person particularly if you are
addicted to something like alcohol or benzodiazepines which is what my grandma
would call it a nerve pill that's like a xanax conovan ativan valium you know
that kind of thing the reason why you have less filters because it actually
slows your frontal lobe and so that's the part where judgment is housed and
decision-making his housed and critical thinking all of which are very important
when it comes to issues of fidelity and loyalty in a relationship
we definitely need that front brain to be working in this department and there
are some addictions are some particular drugs that people are addicted to that
increase the rate of infidelity because the drugs themselves actually stimulate
sexual appetite like methamphetamines for example okay now that we've talked a
little bit about how that works sort of neuro chemically in the brain
let's take a look at how that works psychologically in the brain you see
when someone's being unfaithful they do that very same self-justification thing
like we talked about so often in our addiction videos that I'm doing this
because so in the person's brain and they're thinking they are justifying
their actions and in order to do that they're going to be filtering in
information differently than normal so if I'm doing something that I know in my
heart of hearts is the wrong thing to do I'm gonna look to justify why I'm doing
that one of the ways that I'm gonna do that is I'm going to justify how my
needs are not being met by my spouse maybe those are emotional needs maybe
those are sexual needs but in my mind I'm going to convince myself that this
is what I need to do but in the person's mind they're gonna justify to themselves
why it is that this behavior they either have to do or it's okay
or even just that they're gonna do it anyway now that doesn't mean that the
spouse or the partner isn't necessarily meeting those needs but in the same way
as addiction a lot of times a spouse that's
having an affair will do things in a certain way to make sure that you don't
or can't meet their needs like for example they may use a lot of gas
lighting techniques and if you guys haven't seen my video on gas lighting
basically what that means is it's like I'm gonna do things and I'm gonna trick
you and make you think you're the crazy one like if I'm late coming home or if
my phone rings and you question me about it I'm gonna turn that on you pretty
quickly and I'm gonna say why are you so controlling don't you trust me I'm gonna
immediately make you think that you're the one out of bounds there it's
basically a way of deflecting and throwing you off track now this whole
self-justification - gas lighting thing can happen on many different levels
sometimes the person realizes they're doing this but oftentimes the person is
doing these things on a somewhat may be what I call like a semi-conscious level
so other things people having affairs might do which is very similar if not
the same as people with addictions is that they will interact with you in such
a way to trigger certain negative behaviors so essentially if they're
telling themselves that you're not this or that you're too this or you're more of
this they're gonna interact with you in a way consciously or subconsciously to
trigger more of that because that provides even more self justification
for the behavior that's going on and lastly on the psychological frontier if
you're dealing with someone that has an addiction and also that's struggling
with infidelity they have built this wall may be long
before the infidelity happened but just with the addiction they have built this
wall of secrecy and lies between themselves and you they feel very
disconnected from you and a lot of that is because of all the secrets that
they've been keeping in fact infidelity is often described as keeping secrets
from one's partner can you see how that's pretty much the same as addiction
yeah is both about secret-keeping and even if you
dealing with a loved one who has an addiction who's not had an affair you
may feel as if they have because you can see that their primary loyalty is not to
you it is somewhere else you can see that they're turning it on you you can
see that they're disconnecting from you so all of the very same processes happen
in addiction as they do with infidelity seriously it's almost the very same
problem and unfortunately infidelity and addiction happen together pretty often
now because the addicted person and you guys know when I say addicted that
includes alcohol alcohol is a drug I just don't want to say alcoholic addicted
to me they're the same when the addicted person has done this push you away
because I'm keeping secrets I'm also looking to medicate my own shame and
guilt by finding someone else to validate me so not only do I have all
these psychological processes set up where I'm sort of self-validating but
I'm also wanting and seeking that from other people and the reason is because
deep down inside the person knows that they're not doing right and so they're
gonna need a lot of validation to keep that at bay so they find this other
person maybe this other person uses substances so this other person is like
a drinking buddy or a using buddy but even if it's not that kind of
situation I guarantee they have told this other person about this much of the
story and just like in the other videos where we talk about splitting they've
pulled this other person into the scenario by spinning this story to them
about how you know you're controlling you're not fair you know they do all
this and do all that you know this whole victim story that they're not only
spinning to themselves but they're spinning to this other person this other
person is probably consciously or unconsciously falling right into all
those lies deceit all of those traps because you got to remember addicts and
alcoholics are just so good at this it is absolutely survival for the addiction
it's the splitting it's the getting people validate me in fact they do this
with therapists all the time not necessarily have affairs hopefully not
that is absolutely out-of-bounds now as I
promised earlier we are going to talk just a little bit about what all of that
information means the most important thing that I really want you to know is
it doesn't necessarily mean something about you as a person it doesn't
necessarily mean all of these lies that this person is telling themself are
accurate in fact they have really spun the situation in their brain to be very
different or maybe some of them are true but they've created that scenario to
some degree here they've at least contributed to it a lot now it could
mean something about the relationship but I want you to understand that
doesn't mean it means something about you what it probably means that there
are things not being dealt with in the relationship maybe the thing is the
addictions not being dealt with maybe the thing is is that both one or both of
the partners is very much avoidant and not dealing with things and this is
probably the most important part of what I'm about to tell you the addiction to
the affair and or to the substances absolutely must be broken if your
relationship is to continue can your relationship survive both of these
things yes it absolutely can but it is going to be very very difficult
and if there is a substance abuse problem in this mix meaning drugs or
alcohol that factor absolutely must be dealt with the drinking and the drug use
has to stop because if the affair is gonna stop that's got to stop because
this affair is all wound up in that self-justification process now if this
is happening to you this video is really just a drop in the bucket about the
information and support that you need so I strongly encourage you either as an
individual or as a couple to seek help from someone who is an expert in this
issue either addiction or infidelity or the best situation would be both and I
want you to be really careful about just going to regular couples counseling
because it's so easy and regular couples counseling to fall into the regular
couples issues but if there's an addiction happening behind the scenes
you're just not gonna get anywhere about who should do the chores and who's
this and who's that you're not going to get anywhere with the addiction going on
because the addiction is running the show now if you haven't already the next
thing I want you to do is watch my video on the trauma of living with addiction
and also the video about emotional abuse I'm gonna link them both up here for you
so you can watch them next