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Have you ever heard of Rat Park? Canadian psychologist Bruce K. Alexander built it in the late ’70s to test a theory about drug use.
You’ve probably heard about rats that will ignore plain water and keep drinking water laced with heroin or cocaine until they overdose and die. But Alexander noted these rats were living alone in small cages – a very depressing situation for a rat. So he built a large area with abundant food, balls and running wheels for play, places to sleep, and enough space for mating. Then he placed 16 to 20 rats of both sexes in the park. What he found was that these rats rarely drank the drugged water, only did so in small amounts, and never overdosed. He also found that formerly cages rats that had been drinking drugs kicked the habit when moved to Rat Park, while those who grew up in Rat Park and were moved to small solitary cages drank the drugs till they overdosed.
His conclusion was that rats became addicted to drugs when they were living in bad conditions, but not when in a good living situation. This suggests that high drug use in poverty-stricken areas is a reaction to poverty, not the other way around. It also suggests that social isolation leads to more addictive behaviour.
I’ve long been of the mind that porn is more about self-medicating pain than sex. If you need porn to masturbate, you don’t actually need to masturbate. The reality is we get a high from porn. It makes us feel good and it makes us feel manly.
Now obviously, being refused sex is a downer and we may turn to porn to medicate that disappointment. We may also feel somewhat justified because we’ve been refused sex. But the reality is we could accomplish the same thing by getting drunk or high.
There are men who get plenty of sex who use porn. For them, the trigger is something else. It might be marriage issues, problems at work, or worries about money, family, or their health. Research on this is limited, but there are several studies that show depression and anxiety to be predictors for problematic porn use.
Like any self-medication, porn doesn’t help. You feel better for a bit, but the problems are still there. The solution is to figure out what is pushing you to use porn and deal with it.
Resource:s
What Does “Rat Park” Teach Us About Addiction?
Be Broken Ministries – Best help I know for getting past porn
Image Credit: © Ivelin Radkov | stock.adobe.com
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We can learn a lot from rats,
and Rat Park is the proof.
Maybe it sounds odd but that’s
the honest gospel truth.
Rats are meant to socialize,
to run and play and fuss,
and it should be no surprise
the same applies to us.
But when did you last see a neighbour?
When did you call a friend?
It’s a point so many do belabour,
but have not stopped the trend
of life lived ‘twixt screen and mind
where front porch days are left behind.
I do think that our society took a downhill path when lives stopped being lived in public. The demise of the front porch was and is a tragedy.
The front porch is very much still a thing in my town. All manner of people are out on their porches visiting all hours of the day