Why fixing one addiction sometimes leads to a new one.

Added: 2026-05-16

[00:00:00]And the moment you fix one, those negative emotions that were suppressed by the addiction come roaring back. And as those emotions come roaring back, we start to engage in other things. And that's what we see in this situation, right? So, the person stopped watching pornography or dealt with their porn addiction, and their impulsive buying behaviors increased. So, for any given person, it may be like, you know, some combination of all of the above, right? So, some people engage in self-injurious behavior, some people engage in video games, some people engage in pornography, some people engage in impulsive buy buying, some people engage in even like emotionally manipulative tactics to feel loved. So, this is like a common thing that, you know, people don't really think about, which is when I feel bad, in order to get a sense of emotional comfort, sometimes what I'll do is like lean on someone else to provide that for me. And sometimes that can be frustrating for the other person, or I don't know how to ask for it, I'm not really aware of it. So, I'll engage in like emotionally like manipulative behavior to evoke a response from someone else.

[00:01:09]So, the key point here is that those underlying emotions that you're using to cope, you can get rid of the coping mechanism. And when you get rid of the coping mechanism, you may recalibrate your neurons after a period of of withdrawal, right? So, this is what neuroscience will sort of tell us. So, like, um, you know, we talk about this when we talk about neuroscience, a lot of neuroscientists will sort of talk about this stuff, right? In terms of like your receptors and stuff like that.

[00:01:34]But, clinicians will also appreciate like that there's a there's kind of a personal, individual, psychological component to this. And that component is what causes the whack-a-mole sort of thing to pop up, right? Because now like you used to deal with this with pornography, and now the porn isn't there anymore, so like how are you going to deal with it? We're going to start buying more.

[00:01:53]Now, the other thing that we tend to see, which is also very common, is this person is saying, "As I've quit pornography, it's harder for me to exercise, harder for me to study, harder for me to focus."