As I went through my recovery process, I quickly found out that I was starved of many foundational resources that I needed to succeed. One of those was sleep. My sleep schedule was irregular, my sleep quality was bad, I took pride in the ability to stay up to all hours of the night, and I supplemented my sleep with tons of caffeine. My “push through” mentality was killing me. As I healed, I realized pretty quickly that a lifestyle like that would not work. Moreover, I eventually discovered that my sleep schedule was the best way to predict if I was going to act out. For this simple reason: if I had the resources to resist and keep my commitments, then I generally did! Sure, there were plenty of other facts that came into play, but it was undeniable that when I didn’t take care of my need for sleep, I had a dreadful time trying to resist the call of temptation.
As I have become counselor, I have realized that I am not alone. About 70% of the men I work with struggle with sleep in one form or another. Usually, it comes out this way… I’ll ask, “how are you doing man?” and they reply, “Oh I’m just really tired…” That small interchange makes my ears go up, because men that I am working with should not be finding themselves constantly on the back end of weary. Instead, a proper sleep schedule will keep us generally rested and able to commit the time and mental energy to recovery. So I begin to watch, and if that man comes back over and over worn out, I begin to talk about sleep. Now, you might say, why not talk about busyness. Well, I do, but I have noticed that busyness and sleep trouble go hand in hand because the are both spawned out of a mindset. here are three examples of a mindset that may spawn both sleep trouble and busyness:
- The Hustler: People who think that “getting after it” is how they are going to be successful in life often run into this problem. Unfortunately, they get in a rhythm of stretching beyond their capacities, damaging themselves, and then not taking the time to heal from those damages before they try to stretch again. Like a powerlifter who rips a muscle and returns to the gym too early, they compound the issues hey face until it steals from their sleep schedule and manifests in to do lists longer than your arm. In the end, they become weaker and weaker because their muscles of recovery can’t do their good work.
- The Procrastinator: A person who procrastinates uses the energy derived from anxiety to get things done. Because of this, they constantly are in a pressure cooker and are in fact reliant upon that cooker in order to live life. You can see how, through procrastination, life would constantly be elbowing sleep out of the way. Moreover, life will constantly elbow to dos into too small a time, making all their non procrastination time into busy time. Soon, the procrastinator feels like they never have any time, and when they do have time, they struggle to use it appropriately.
- The Supplementer: Our American culture has long emphasized the use of supplemental products to create “more energy” or be “more awake” or to “make up for lost time”. IN the end that leads to a large percentage of people thinking that they can get by with no ill effects with the right “boost” throughout the day. From caffeine to overeating to exercise to prescribed drugs to over the counter solutions and more, they choose to live beyond their means artificially. Instead of getting the good and natural sleep they need, they deny their body fundamental resources, thinking they can get a just as good alternative elsewhere. Unfortunately, while this strategy might work for a short time, soon they are experiencing long term weariness and a genuine loss of capacity, mental ability and more until they make the hard choice to get their sleep hygiene under control.
Now, if you’re anything like me, you see yourself in all of these descriptions. The truth is these themes and more are replete in our culture and have led to an entire generation of sleep starved people. But for us, we have to recover. Which means we have to go against this culture of madness and attend to our sleeping. Hence, the 20 Steps to Better Sleep for You and Your Recovery. This PDF is a set of principles that should bring you a great deal of success in pursuing sleep health.
Why is this so important for the sex addict? Well, for us who struggle with sex addiction, it becomes pretty clear that we can develop a strong relationship between that addiction and sleep. Let’s explore some of those relationships a little and see if we can understand some common patterns. For the sake of this blog, I’ll call the patterns Excusers, Reducers, Users, Confusers, and Abusers
Excusers are those who use the stress that they build up from lack of sleep and capacity to act out over and over again. As part of their justification system, they lean on lack of sleep to say, “I need this in order to be able to perform.” If you’ve been paying attention, you will once again see the tight knit relationship between busyness and sleep trouble. In the end, they do not admit the reality that resolving their sleep issues would significantly improve their ability to access a balanced recovery. I this is you, ponder if you feel as though being a victim (oppressed by lack of sleep) is valuable to you for some reason. What justification to your value do you get from being oppressed by this lack of capacity? Do you, like I used to, think that the ability to keep going makes you a better person somehow?
Reducers are those who use acting out as a way to reduce the sense of being tired at all. The adrenaline rush we receive from acting out can offset feelings of losing steam, just like slamming an energy drink. The sex addict, then, is acting out because his addiction in some sense sits underneath other bad habits in life. This is very good news! It means that he can significantly affect his addiction if he offloads the poor sleep for something healthier. Make no mistake, this will feel very strange, and that energy is going to try to find another outlet, but you will see immediate change in your addiction patterns as a result. It’s important to note also that this man is in a performance reality too. If he feels to pressured to stay up that he will act out to keep from sleeping and “wasting time”, then priorities are out of wack. If this is you, it’s time to ask you what is so dreadfully important that you have to be able to keep going? Why does it make you a better person to not get tired? What priorities need to shift so that you can give yourself a break and sleep?
Users are those who use acting out in order to be able to sleep. One of the most common relationships between sleep and sex addiction is that the addict cannot calm down at the end of the day and get to sleep. The anxiety of the day, future worries, or just pent up energy is looking for a place to go. And so, the addict will act out to release that energy and be able to calm down for sleep. In addition to the release of energy, the addict also receives a whole host of calming chemicals inside the body. This makes the behavior a powerful way to temporarily route the tension that the addict has felt all day. This person will benefit greatly from asking what replacement behaviors they can implement to calm down. If they are resistant, it’s time to ask what sense of safety comes from these behaviors. Is it a sense of security? Is it a sense of pride? Why does the idea of doing something different offend you or seem so difficult?
Confusers are those who use the disinhibitor of sleepiness to act out on a regular basis. Genuinely, being sleepy can influence our decision making, turning sleep hours into a potential recipe for disaster. The body that learns that acting out happens in this stupor will lead a man there even though he has done well all day. It can be terribly frustrating. Luckly, there are a lot of practical ways that a man can fight this good fight of freedom if he is willing to get humble about it. Allowing oneself to go to sleep at the first sign of drowsiness rather than spending time in in between states is one. If you are feeling resistant to solving this middle state problem, ask yourself if you would be more or less productive once it is resolved? Would working while fresh rather than sleepy be a benefit? What would it do for your relationships? Also, do you want to be the type of person who’s body is betraying him to sin?
Abusers are those that tie together their binge purse cycles with sleep, which essentially makes sleep a form of acting out alongside sexual addiction. These addicts will use sexuality of either extremely high risk or for an extreme amount of time before succumbing to the physical reality of sleep, which they binge for a long time, or even combine with other factors like drugs and alcohol to medicate the depression and shame following acting out so egregiously. These types need to make dramatic changes immediately to prevent potentially life threatening destruction of either a socio-economic or physical nature. If this is you, it’s time to ask the question, “am I willing to admit that I am in danger because of this? Can I admit I am powerless to this frustration? What am I willing to do to make sure, to guarantee success, that I will not do this again?” Once these questions are answered, waste no time in putting a plan into action that involves other people so that you can’t convince yourself later that it’s a bad idea. You need to get out. Now.
Sexual Addiction and sleep are tired together in a huge number of ways. We could take a whole book to map these out and more. But in the end one thing remains true: the time and effort you put in to regulating your sleep patterns are not wasted! They can be a large part of the foundation for recovery that you need! if you are having trouble with these issues, reach out to a trusted friend to help you make a plan of action. Or, schedule an appointment with Warfare of Grace to talk about how to get your sleeping in line. Whatever you do, we wish the best, and more restful recovery possible!