Gerald G. May writes in "Addiction and Grace: Love and Spirituality in the Healing of Addictions":

“Addiction exists wherever persons are internally compelled to give energy to things that are not their true desires.”

Sobering, huh?

Do you give energy to your true desires?

People continue to show up and weigh in on porn addiction.

Astrologer, Kathryn Cassidy of Collaboratingwithfate (great name for an astrology blog) offers insight into horoscope writer Patric Walker’s method

And reader ginnydare sounds off, calling the guy who sides with his family over his wife, “Casper Milktoast“…

Dear Sinking,

The issues here are yours and I don’t say that to attack you. It is you writing me for advice, so it is you I am going to try to assist and empower, first with the addiction question.

I am sorry to tell you, but I agree with your partner. He is an addicted person and you are an addicted person. You are addicted to cigarettes but I would venture to guess you are addicted to him as well. Just think about it, okay? Don’t you crave him? I think you do.

And my point is this: You are a mess. He is a mess. I am a mess and so is everyone else on this planet! And if you’re going to love someone you are going to have to deal with them as they are. With their messes, this is. And it seems you are willing and wanting to do this. You are not saying “get rid of the porn!” If would be fine with me if you did, but you are asking for ways to cope, and grow and transcend, so I am going to try to help you with that.

First, around getting upset over his masturbation, you can change your perspective. Because the fact is, it is his dick. And what he does with his dick is his business.

If this confuses you, just consider your lungs. Whose lungs are they? They’re your lungs. Do you need me telling you what to do with your lungs? Of course not. And he does not need your advice about his dick, either. So just see if you can detach from this. You like to smoke and he likes to beat off. Do you still love him? I bet you do. So just go with that. You love a guy who likes to beat off. He loves a guy who smokes… and none of this makes the sky fall.

Next question: How to change the way you feel about porn…

Well, judging from your chart, with Pluto and Uranus square your Moon and Mercury, I think you may be secretly very interested in all this taboo but repressing it. And this is probably one of the reasons you are so enamored with this man. He experiments! He goes where he is not supposed to go!! And I am suggesting in trying to control him you are actually trying to control yourself.

Try to think along these lines… if you can. And you can. But you’ve got to be willing to innovate here. And to grow. Because it sounds to me like someone tried to control your dick at one time and you are now inflicting this same trauma on your partner.

Is there a way you love each other and both be free? I’d say yes.

Good luck.

~~
Have a question? Need advice? Ask here!

Just to illustrate the variety of levels on which a transit manifests, check this on my Saturn transit to Venus:

I am coming off sugar today. I am one of those people highly extremely sensitive to sugar. I would be with Venus (sweet) square Neptune (sensitive). So anyway, I have figured this out and avoided sugar for some years until… I fell off the wagon! Again with the Venus Neptune, there is a sugar addiction and I have to get control (Saturn) of it!

So anyway, I lost my sobriety! And I have been eating ice cream right and left over the last couple months. In an effort to keep up with my out-of-school kids for the most part, along with the stress of missing my regular workouts during the summer break.

But enough of that! I’m going cold turkey now and man oh man, am I ever TIRED. I am just exhausted. Saturn, right? I feel completely oppressed. Nothing a bowl of ice cream wouldn’t fix, but you know. That’s out of the question. That is not allowed!

So I just think this is funny. Because if you’ve ever done this, then you know how it feels. If your body is used to running on sugar and you deprive it? Well it feels like someone beat me up!

So I’m sitting here trying to stay awake while I show up to make various commitments in various relationships. “Yes, I will be there, yes I am committed, yes I am serious…” Blah, blah, blah! What I really want to do is hide under the bed!! Neptune, escape!!!

But noooooooooooooo! Instead I have to face, ponder and process 28 years of relationships, in my face, and I have to do it sober!!

It’s 3:15. I have roughly 7 more ice cream free hours in the day. Root for me, would you?

Dear Partner,

I am going to be very candid with you. Your partner is an addict and as long as you take a powerless position – “I can’t stand the thought of being without my baby” – nothing is going to change. In fact, it’s going to get worse. And worse. And worse.

So that’s the first thing to get loud and clear. If you are not willing to make adjustments… well I wouldn’t be waiting on him to make them, okay? It’s not going to happen and you may have an easier time seeing this if you take the “porn” out of the equation. See, you are thinking porn, and sex and how can I please him. But this is not the issue. The issue is addiction.

So stop with the sex and just think of a woman married to an alcoholic. What’s he say? He’s drinking because she’s a shrew? She doesn’t understand his problems? She just doesn’t get his special pain? He’s not drinking, she just thinks he’s drinking?

So she tries to be better. She tries to better understand; meanwhile having successfully distracted her momentarily, he continues to drink unfettered.

Can you see how your situation is the same? It’s not similar, it’s the same. And what that alcoholic wants to do is drink. Nothing is more important. An addict will do or say whatever to whoever with no regard for the pain they inflict, as long as nothing interferes with them getting their drug.

So this is your situation, see. And addiction is progressive!! Always! All addiction, every addiction. So it’s going to get worse. This is inevitable, so if you want a new movie, you are going to have to stop saying “I can’t” and start saying, “I can” and then “I will.”

You are going to have to take steps to make a better life for you and your child, and leave this guy in front of his computer with his dick in his hand. Meanwhile, go find a man who can appreciate you. Because an active addict is way too busy tending his addiction to worry about what you need and want. I’m sorry, and good luck.

~~
Have a question? Need advice? Ask here!

Dear Confused,

You have a few questions here, and I can see why you’re confused, so I’m going to try to clarify this for you.

First, your boyfriend is obviously going to look at porn, regardless of how you feel. So on that front, you have two choices. You can either leave him, or change the way you look at his behavior. And this is entirely up to you but I would point this out:

You say, “What’s the big deal about porn?” as far as he goes. But have you asked yourself the same?

And I’m not judging you. If porn is a big deal to you, then it is. And you’re obviously having a gut reaction to it, but have you thought about this with your higher mind? Because if you do, you may find a way out of your predicament.

For what it’s worth, when I was younger I felt very much like you do about porn. But these days, I am very neutral. I just could care less. Dicks and asses, asses and pussies… asses, asses, asses and pussies. Big deal. Porn is common! It’s boring, even. It’s a dick, another dick, another dick and yet another dick. It’s an acrobatic girl sucking her toe with her eyes rolled back in her head, and a false look on her face. So whaaaat? What’s that next to a warm body and a beating heart? It does not compare.

But if someone wants to sit in front of their computer and look at this stuff, well go right ahead. And if you happen get addicted to it… if you happen to sit in front of your computer hours on end looking at the sea of flesh out there, while other people live free, well that’s your problem, not mine. You’re the one who can’t get up from the computer! And if you’re my boyfriend and doing this?

Well, obviously, I’m going to walk! I’m going to leave you to your business and go find myself a man who focuses on my body and my need for sex.

But what if my boyfriend looks at this or that, now and then? Well that’s a different story. I don’t this is that a big deal. We’re all curious and it’s just pictures. Would I want him telling me what I could and could not look at? Of course not.

But I only got this way by examining my strong reactions years ago. And in my case, it was my insecurities being triggered. And when feelings like that come up inside, they can be very overwhelming. Especially to a triple Scorpio like you! So obviously a person will move to try control the cause, but this is not a path to freedom. So here’s my advice:

Ask yourself, “Why does this bother me so much? Why???”

Focus on YOU, not him and his behavior. Examine why this bothers you so much, and you may just stumble across a path to freedom. Good luck.

~~
Have a question? Need advice? Ask here!

Dear Venus,

With all due respect, you do not sound as if you are in love. You sound as if you are addicted and in the denial that goes hand in hand with that. Here is a fact:

When a person is good for you and a relationship healthy, you do not lose weight and become disabled on the job. It’s exactly the opposite. A good relationship feeds you like water and nutrients to a plant… to which you respond with vigor.

And though I believe your attachment to this man is “unrivalled’, all that really means is you are more addicted than you have ever been before. And you’re twenty, you know. You will probably be thirty, forty, fifty and sixty. And you’re going to meet scads of men – so stop telling yourself this guy is the be all end all. Because who is he really?

He is someone who cheats on his wife and lies to his family! To be honest, he sounds like a baby-man to me. He is not concerned with his children! He is concerned with himself. He’s not concerned with you either. That’s a head fake. What he’s concerned with is his own needs, and he is willing to hang your life up like this to have them serviced. He’s willing to have you writhe around at night missing him while he sleeps with another woman. And you’re willing to allow it!

You’re akin to a heroin addict with this guy, you know. Oh God. My body is skinny. I can’t work! I am emaciated on this drug and probably nothing good can come of it, but I guess I’ll stick this needle in my arm one more time and see if that helps…

Obviously, you need to put the needle down. Get support wherever you can. Good luck.

~~
Have a question? Need advice? Ask here!

Dear Girlfriend,

Your man is a PREDATOR. Try to let that sink in.

You have stumbled on this, and you have stumbled on that. But what makes you think you have stumbled across everything there is to stumble across, especially when you are what you call “naÆ’

Dear Girlfriend,

The Hail Mary play is to leave him, since you’ve tried everything else. But I’m not sure I’m the person you should be talking to. I’m not sure I can give you the motivation to leave your boyfriend, but I have an idea where you might find it.

Why don’t you talk to some of these gals who write me, who have spent twenty and thirty years with some guy who can’t or won’t meet their needs? The women who have starved themselves for decades instead of just a mere eight years like you? Ask them what they advise. Because I did something similar and it sure worked for me. Here’s the story.

I had let myself go, pretty severely. Never mind why, it’s not important. Fact is this happened, and one day I decided to try to do something about it, so I went (back) to the gym.

I used to work out, see. But I’d quit after I had children and by the time I walked back in there, I was a real mess. And I felt ashamed… sort of like you might feel if you left your man tomorrow. You know. “Look how old I am and just look at the shape I’m in…”

But I went in there and first thing I did was look around. I looked specifically at the women who were ten or fifteen years older than me and you know what I saw? I saw women who took care of themselves and some of them looked damned good. I saw other women who looked nothing less than desperate. You know. Like their doctor had just told them, “Get your ass in the gym, or you’re going to die.”

I decided right then, which group I wanted to be part of it and the rest is history. I am a gym rat now. And this is my Capricorn talking to yours: I know you’re standing at the bottom of a very tall mountain. But you were born to climb. And I saw a movie this weekend, ‘American Flyers”. It was about bicycling and extreme sports in general, but there was a slogan featured in this movie, emblazoned across a T-shirt: RES FIRMA NITESCERE NESCIT.

According the movie, roughly translated, this means “When You Get It Up – Keep It Up,” and this sounds like a pretty good philosophy to me, so I’m going to pass it to you as my advice: Get your life moving and once you do, keep it moving. If you are meant to be with this man, he’ll catch up.

Good luck.

~~
Have a question? Need advice? Ask here!

Dear Married,

I think you have your work cut out for you if you want to maintain your relationship but it is as much because of you, as it is him. This is where I am going to focus since you’re the one writing.

I don’t want you to feel blamed. It goes without saying he’s betrayed you. I also don’t believe his problem is in the past. If this were true, he’d have dumped the porn for sure, knowing how you feel about it and all. I think he’s deceitful, but doubt he’s malicious. More like a person hiding their drinking from a spouse who thinks they’re sober.

That said, you have a very large problem yourself and it’s independent of him. For one thing you called him “perfect” – this is a total figment of your imagination. Nobody is perfect. And to throw him up like that is a set up. He’s bound to fall at some point… leaving you, the Pisces to say “look what happened to me…”. Or in other words, play victim.

You are not dealing with a REAL man. You want this fantasy man. You want this special man who is not really a man, but something you dreamed up and if you don’t get a handle on this, you will surely leave this guy… feeling wronged, disillusioned and victimized and then what?

Well, you’ll go right back out there and do it again. You’ll find another man and pretty soon, you’ll have all his bad qualities erased or denied… you’ll be in dreamy love with Prince Charming again, for about three months, before he too reveals himself as mortal…

If you want a real relationship (and you may not), then you are going to have to let people be people. And people are jacked up all over the place. ALL people, this is. So do you want a man, or a hologram you dreamed up?

If you want an actual man, he is going to have to be able to tell you who he is, good, bad and ugly, and you’re going to have to deal with it. If you can’t do that… if you insist on making a man a God and then playing the victim when he acts like a human, then obviously all roads will lead to Rome.

Good luck.