Free Viagra

QI’M a 26-year-old male and every time I have sex, it is over much too quickly. This has always been the case. About six months ago, I got a Viagra tablet from a work colleague. It was the best sex I ever had. The tablet also made me feel more confident in the bedroom. And that made it easier to chat women up. Since I always seem tired and stressed from work, I’ve continued taking the Viagra at least once a week. Now I feel I can’t stop. That has me worried.

AI’VE absolutely no idea whether taking Viagra once a week is harmful for you. You need to ask your doctor about that, if your worry is about your health. In fact, now that I think about it, you should talk to your doctor anyway, because, by the sounds of it, your Viagra hasn’t been prescribed. So there’s nobody monitoring what it’s doing to you, if anything. This is not my area of expertise, so that’s just common-sense advice.

If you’re asking me are you addicted — and if you are, what you should do about it — then that’s a different matter. And just for the record, I am not for one minute suggesting there is anything inherently addictive in Viagra as a chemical substance, or as a form of medication, or in any shape or form.

Addiction is seldom about the substance itself, anyway. Even when, say with alcohol, someone suffers severe withdrawal symptoms, that’s just the body trying to cope with the fact that it’s no longer being fed alcohol. It’s a physical re-adjustment process. It doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve become dependent on alcohol. It just means you’ve taken too much, over too long a period, and the body — which includes the brain — finds the going tough when the booze is withdrawn.

Addiction, or dependency, is always psychological. Look at you. You’re taking something ordinary like Viagra, and feel you can’t do without it. That’s not because of Viagra itself. It’s because you now feel self-confident in bed. You don’t continue to feel the need for it because it’s addictive. You’re using it as an insurance policy.

What you’ve really done, of course, is take an emotional short cut. You tell me yourself that work is tiring and stressful and has a knock-on effect on your sexual performance. I don’t know if that’s actually true. What matters, however, is that instead of tackling work stress, which you believes cramps your style, you’re pill-popping.

Myself, I think your sexual difficulties are due to lack of self-confidence as a stud. Because a stud is what you’ve set yourself up as. You’re not sleeping with a woman you love. There’s no real emotional element in your encounters, not as you tell it anyway.Where’s the psychological dimension to your sexual needs, the desire for closeness, human warmth, reinforcement as a human being?

You don’t seem to see your body as part of your whole being. That’s sad. It’s also soul-destroying. And it saps self-confidence. Think about it.

- Patricia Redlich