Hey, I fit my entire question in the subject!

I'm just trying to figure out how addiction and free will go together or if they don't. Would love to hear how others view this.

Great question.......this will probably generate some good discussion and I am sure has been batted around before...I think there is an "addictive" component to this all.....emphasis on the word "component", but IN THE END, to have an affair is all about choice and free will......and personal accountability.

I could get into a long drawn out rationale for my views..but what would be the point...most people believe what they believe.....I look forward to other responses.

Lem

I think that the word addiction is often used with something that is difficult to give up or someone is unwilling to give up. One of these seems to be the case quite often with an A. After a person has committed to indulging in something they want, there is little motivation to give it up unless they place more importance on what they will lose if they don't. It is all free will. Even with REAL addictions people still choose whether giving something up is worth the price to them and to me makes all addictions seem like selfish choices. I can't think of many damaging addictions I have (except maybe soda) so I'm sure you'll get a different view from those who have given up something difficult.

For my FWH, the relationship with the FOW began by choice/free will. Then, he became ADDICTED. He thought, at first, that he could just play around with her...

Said very well... <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/pfft.gif" alt="" />

I think some of the thinking of an affair as an addiction comes from the research of Dr. Helen Singer, who did MRI's on people in love and found that areas of the brain associated with addictions "lit up" when people looked at pictures of their beloveds. (I've got the book at home so I can't look up the exact details right now.) She wasn't specifically studying people in affairs, though, she was studying people in love and many of them if not most may have been in perfectly legitimate relationships.

The other problem I have with using Singer's research to define affairs as addictions is that I think the whole love as addiction concept gets neurochemistry backwards. It makes far more sense to me to think that we have brain receptors for certain neurochemicals specifically so that we can fall in love, and the reason we can become addicted to substances such as cocaine is because the substances mimic the effect that falling in love has, not the other way around. IOW, I don't think people get hooked on affairs because they are addictive like drugs, I think people get hooked on drugs because they are a quick way to get the high that being in love provides (and you don't need a partner, although I suppose you do need a dealer). I think this because there is a biological purpose to falling in love, but not to substance abuse, so I think the behavior with the biological purpose must be what nature intended.

But that's just me.

Isn't it like those who think they can just "try" cocaine?

Mimi...Absolutely....if the free will loses out in the beginning...God save the poor slob. Brain chemicals are so incredible overwhelming, it is hard to get the free will back into play. I know personally the agony of dieting....even after I look into the mirror and hate what I see, after the first bite of chocolate decadence it's all over. That is also why WS do the withdrawal thing after the A ends

For those who have ever dealt with an addiction they know what a struggle it is to stop whatever it is they ae doing. It's more than just a choice to stop; it's a battle where the brain is saying to give this up I'll die. Free will exists prior to the addiction to say no and stay clear of the whatever may trigger the addiction. Once the addict is on the right track then they can put the right tools in place to exercise free will to make the right descisions.

Interesting. The trouble with likening this to addiction is that it somehow "pardons" the behavior a bit....shifting the responsibility of the WS. "I couldn't help but hurt you and lie to you--my brain had no control over my actions."

Plus, it seems to me there really IS a difference between addction to drugs and just doing something that feels good even if it is bad for those you love (and yourself). The difference with addiction like cocaine for example(medical experts correct me if I am wrong) is that the neuro-chemical functions of the brain actually change...the chemical levels in the brain actual change. This is no longer just feel good stuff--but a physiological alteration of brain functions...this isn't just stimulation but a physiological dependency. (There is probably a name for that).

Ahuman:

YOu say it so well there. That has always been my main problem with the "additcion" theory...it almost "pardons" the WS...and that is something that I cannot suscribe to in full. However, there must be an "addiction" component to this all, becasue I just cannot belive that there are people who could leave their own family starving and on welfare for an OW, or knowingly expose their spouse to a disease that could potentially kill them.....Some of the things that we read on here about WS doing are so mean, and spiteful and full of hate that I cannot belive that a "sane" person could willingly do these things.

It is all so disturbing to me. When I read about a pregnant BS being abandoned by a cheating spouse, I physically feel nauseous ans seethe with anger.....this event has no tangible effect on my life, and yet I sit in my office and read this and get in a bad mood....ughhhh.

So sad all of it.

Lem <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

There is a strong contingent of people that belive the same also happens with affairs....someone once posted some research on this....not sure how much I "buy it"...but there is at least some scientific validation for this theory.

Lem <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Yes, but IIRC, according to Dr. Singer's research, the same thing happens to people falling in love, and the same areas of the brain are involved. The book is Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love

An addiction does not rule out free will. An alcoholic still makes a conscious CHOICE to pick up a drink. They do not drink against their will, they simply have a strong compulsion to drink. And are ALWAYS responsible for the choice to pick up a drink.

I agree that having an addiction does not remove responsibility. I do not agree that the affects of "Love chemicals" excuses the WS's actions.
Lemonman: I am one of those people that believe the science behind it all. Just as "depressed" people have an out of whack serotonin system (and alcoholics too by the way), people in the early throes of an affair also have altered brain chemicals. Doesn't justify anything, but as a BS it helps me understand. Everyone here on this board knows how awesome rebound SF with their WS is. The chemicals have changed, the response to each other is different, everything is enhanced. It doesn't just "Happen", there is a lot going on physiologically.

For those with sexual addictions, the brain chemical changes that take place are similar to those addicts who have cocain addictions. There have been some studies using brain scans that show those results. There is a definite high the sexual addict gets and I'm not talking about sex, I'm talking about the seeking out of the affair. There is a drive going on that is definitely produced by brain chemicals with heart racing, etc. I have been in the grips of that feeling before and when that high has you, you just want more of it. It kills off all the anxiety and depression you are feeling at the moment and fills you with this wonderful upper feeling. Hence, the addiction, and it's why sexual addiction is not about the sex, but about the emotional high you are getting leading up to the sex. The sex is a bummer because then the high is over and you feel shame, you feel depressed and you feel lost.

For addicts they need to make a choice prior to the trigger, or immediately after the trigger that sets them in motion of the addiction. If they wait their mind becomes too consumed to make a choice. They fall into their rituals and it's almost like they have commited themselves and have told themself a lie that they cannot stop once in the ritual. I have stood in line checking into a hotel praying that God would not let me find a room that is how much I wanted to stop, but felt driven to continue.

Loy/Lemon and others:

My H was going through many life crises and started a "secret friendship" with the FOW. He made this choice with his own free will and needs to be held accountable for this. Their talks became sexual... the rest is history.

He started "using" her as an upper..to relieve his depression. It worked..became a habit..became an addiction...

I actually saw this after D-Day..After talking to her or seeing her, he would actually get giddy..like on a high... he would get this STRANGE look on his face that I can't describe and don't ever want to see again...YUCK....

At first he wouldn't admit it...but towards the end when I was asking him how could he keep doing this to me..the back and forth, cakeeating stuff..he acknowledged, "it's the addiction..makes me feel "ecstatic" to be with her although I know it's "wrong" and I don't want to be with her... YUCK...

Isn't it like an alcoholic or druggy that you beat the habit when you acknowledge it? Isn't that what is done in 12 STEP Programs? I think this was the BEGINNING of our RECOVERY.. When he acknowledged his ADDICTION..

He hasn't turned back from this since...he is OBSESSIVE about not going anywhere NEAR her..where she might be, etc. This is where FREE WILL comes in again..His choice to continue to fight this addiction...

Interesting that this is being brought up today because it is starting to bother me..it affects our lifestyle so much that we are thinking about moving.... For example, there's certain parts of town that my FWH doesn't want to travel through on the weekends...YUCK

The addiction theory fits our situation perfectly...I can't speak for all others here....

Makes perfect sense. And if he has an obcessive compulsive personallity or possibly some OCD anxiety even more so.

An affair for some people becomes an addiction. I have found that many people who have affairs are addictive personsality types. They may turn from one addiction to another. The OM in my case used to have a bad driking problem and has been cold turkey for years. Likened unto the high you get from alcohol.....the neuro transmitter response towards attraction to the opposite sex is the same. Free will has to do with what constraints, boundaries and safe guards are in place for a person so that they will not step over the mark, lay down their integrity and morals to have an affair. Free will plays a part in having an affair. But I think the boundaries we enforce more upon our self and are safeguards keeps us in check more that saying we have free will to do something or not. From a christian perspective we all have free will. We are not puppets of God to do the right thing. He allows us to choose the path we seek.

Sometimes people can become under the power of another and actually lose their self will and become much like a puppet doing what the other person wants and desires even though it is not in their natural realm to do so.

I'm looking at Helen Singer's book, Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love, and refreshing my memory for some things I had forgotten.

1) Her research involved using MRI's to scan the brains of 40 subjects, 20 of whom were happily in love and 20 of whom had recently been jilted, while they looked at a picture of the beloved versus a picture of a neutral person, with a distraction task being given between. There is a questionaire they had to fill out first, The Passionate Love Scale, which is shown in the back of the book. It doesn't ask about the marital status of either the person filling out the questionaire, or the beloved, so it is not known whether any of these people were in affairs or how they compare to people who weren't. Singer also does not refer to any other research done specifically on affairs and addiction. So Singer's research may not be the research people are referring to when they say affairs are addictions. (Other interesting note-all of her subjects were right handed, because she says brain wiring is different in people who are left-handed, so they were screened out of the study.)

2) The brain chemical that Singer found to be involved in romantic love is dopamine. Singer also theorizes that norepinephrine is involved but hadn't devised a way to test for that hypothesis as of the writing of Why We Love.

3) Comparison of those subjects who had been in their relationships longer with those who were in their relationships for a shorter time found that those in longer relationships showed additional brain activity in two areas of the brain, one "where emotions, attention, and working memory interact" (the anterior cingulate gyrus) and another , the insular cortex, that "collects data from the body".

4) Another conclusion that Singer and her colleague Art Aron, reached on the basis of this research is . . .that romantic love is a primary motivation system in the brain-in short, a fundamental human mating drive."

(So to answer the question that often gets kicked around here-is love a feeling or an action-it's neither. It's a drive.)

Singer does discuss three different emotion systems-"lust, romantic attraction, and attachment", which are related but indeendent of each other, and it is that independence which makes adultery possible, as they "enable men and women to maintain several relationships at once". (In case anyone is wondering, she's not a big fan of adultery.)

So that's Singer's research, and it's contribution to the viewing of romantic love as a form of addiction, although as I said before, I think that's a backwards way of looking at it. Is anyone aware of research done specifically on the brain chemistry of people in affairs, who did it and where it is published?