The Forums › Forums › Ask The Community › Question about my boyfriend (ADD)… › Re: Question about my boyfriend (ADD)…
Check the list of pratfalls, symptoms, whatever you want to call it for ADHD – ADDICTIONS are one of the biggies that most experts agree will be on the short list of many many folks with ADHD.
And among those addictions most commonly listed? SEX.
And for men, pictures and talk can be stimulating. Some docs call it “self-medicating”. The stimulating effects release chemicals in the brain that are like a medicine, like a stimulant med. I dunno how to explain it well other than it’s sort of like if your toe hurts bad, you’ve noticed some folks will bite their thumb? The toe no longer hurts so bad……..
For me, the addictions are soda/pop/cola, chocolate, or can be anything with strong flavor. I go through anywhere from 2 or 3 to 6 cans of soda a day, plus coffee, flavored water, whatever. Yes, I am indeed addicted, and I get a bit goofy and anxious feeling if I try to not have a couple cans of soda – even DECAF makes me feel good now!
HOWEVER, I also am one who could find myself in a situation of thatr “other” addiction if I let it happen. Frankly, I believe that I’m at a place where I’d be more resistant to becoming so addicted with the meds I’m on for ADHD – that’s one of the things it’s controlling just a bit.
Sort of funny, my first wife and I, well, she wasn’t ADD/ADHD, but, well, any excuse, any place, at the drop of a hat which matched my ADHD “desires” very well. Then we divorced and I started dating again…… and got married again, and it lasted just weeks. Funny, as after #2 and I divorced (she was a bit crazy, I found papers in her stuff as I helped her carry things out showing that the very week we got married, she’d bought a house in another city and was kind of creepy and a bit off in a few ways) -I started dating again, and my 2nd ex found out who I was dating and wrote her a letter attempting to scare her away from me, telling her that I was, well, addicted……. anyway, the letter didn’t work.
#3 and I will celebrate 23 years this weekend. in MY case, I’d read enough, learned enough, I learned to recognize some of those things about me, and it’s oddly enough, one of those things about the ADHD and myself that I CAN control therough logic and will-power at most times, so she’s not got to worry. I’ve put sort of a control on the computer if you want to call it that, by literally teaching her everything about it, having her do email, pictures and documents and knowing where and what everything is on the computer.
Anyway, again, the med stuff wears off about 5 or 6 pm, and it’s almost 10 here so the posts are growing long again……. ahem….. that’s a long way to say – addictions are not unexpected with ADHD, and among those addictions – yup.
I’m not a doctor, but having lived nearly 55 years with this stuff – in MY personal opinion as one who’s been there, done that, and knows how life with ADHD can be, the addictions, the needs/wants/desires, my first instinct is that he’s ADD, and he has addictions, that he’s “addicted to sex”, even if it’s just talk and pictures, (for a male, that can be a big deal) and needs help, and may actually want help. That’s the first step – and usually the hardest.
REPORT ABUSE