Why Addiction So Often Leads To Infidelity 💔💔

Unfortunately, addiction and infidelity go hand in hand. In fact, it's almost one and 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 gonna look at the five ways addiction and infidelity work. Work in the same psychological and biological ways in the brain and in the thinking. And secondly, we're going to 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 gonna need a lot of help, support, and guidance. So let's get started with that. So the first thing I really want you to understand about this issue is that inf. 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, 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 grandmama would have called a nerve pill. That's like a Xanax, Klonopin, Ativan, Valium, you know, that kind. The reason why you have less filter is because it actually slows your frontal lobe. And so that's the part where judgment is housed and decision making is 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 or 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 neurochemically 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 talk about so often in our addiction videos. That I'm doing this because so in the person's brain and their 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 going to look to justify why I'm doing that. One of the ways that I'm going to 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 going to 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 gaslighting technique. And if you guys haven't seen my video on gaslighting, 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 backslash gaslighting 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, maybe 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, maybe long before the infidelity happened, but just with the addiction. They have built this wall of secre 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, it's both about secret keeping. And even if you're 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. It's too many words to say 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 going to need a lot of help 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, the splitting. It's the getting people to 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 themselves 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 or 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 addiction is not being dealt with. Maybe the thing is, is that 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 going to 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 in regular couples counseling to fall into the regular couples issues. But if there's an addiction happening behind the scenes, you're just not going to get anywhere with that 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 going to link them both up here for you so you can watch them next.