Is there help for the sex addict?

There are many recovery resources available for the treatment of sexual addiction.  The resources one pursues unusually depend on how dire the situation has become. Consequences to an addict’s behavior can range from mild to severe.  He or she may be facing the loss of a job, divorce, disease, arrest, or criminal charges. A partner or family members may be insisting that the addict get help.

The addict often feels hopeless, desperate, depressed, or suicidal.  This is what we call a “bottom,” meaning the consequences of a behavior outweigh the pleasure of the high it brings.  This crisis is usually what motivates an individual to seek help.  The level of support sought typically reflects the level of crisis or pain the individual is experiencing.

There are outpatient therapists throughout the country who specialize in sexual addiction treatment.  They may facilitate therapeutic groups that focus on sexual compulsive behavior.  Twelve Step groups, such as AA, utilize group support from like-minded individuals.  Additionally, there are intensive weeklong workshops that educate, explore the origins of the disorder, and provide tools for recovery. In-patient treatment is the most comprehensive, requiring the individual to check into a facility for a period of time, usually 30 days or longer.

How does sex addiction affect families?

Sexual addiction, like all addictions, can cause a profound disruption within a family system.  Because sexual addiction is tied to emotional and physical intimacy, partners often feel a deep sense of betrayal.  Sometimes inappropriate disclosures occur; the partner or family member may find receipts, a hidden stash of pornography, or sexual material on the computer. Or there may be an arrest. Sometimes a partner has had no idea of this secret life; they may feel outrage, despair, depression, and rage.  Often partners blame themselves, feeling that they caused the behaviors.

Children, perhaps not old enough to understand, become overwhelmed and confused by what the family is experiencing.  They, too, blame themselves.  They may become depressed and moody, act out, or isolate. Their grades may drop, and they may lose interest in hobbies or friends.

Education for the family can be helpful in dealing with the stigma of this disease.  Gaining insight and understanding can reduce the blame, guilt, and shame that often accompany this disorder.  Having an outlet to express anger and pain is crucial for family members.

The good news is that there is help — for the addict, partner, and family members.  It is important to seek out resources that allow each member to gain support. It also is important to realize that no one is alone in this process; many people suffer with the same issues.

How are women different from men in terms of sex addiction?

Many women act out through the same behaviors as men. They have affairs, one-night stands, look at porn, read sexual literature, compulsively masturbate, become sex workers, or engage in even more socially unacceptable behaviors, such as bestiality.

But many women are overlooked as sex addicts because their means of getting high is through seduction. Oftentimes, seduction is not seen as sexually addictive because it may never lead to the act of intercourse. The woman flirts and seduces, puffing herself up with a sense of control, power and allure. But once she has seduced the object of her attentions, she cuts him off; this is when she feels powerful, and this power is addicting.

What is often overlooked is the paradoxical irony that all sex addiction generates: the push/pull or fear of emotional intimacy. Most sex addicts, no matter their behaviors, are terrified of emotional intimacy — even though it is exactly what they crave.

The seducer who is overtly looking to force herself into a sexual relationship is ultimately frightened of the consequences. She believes that, if she gives a man sex, he will leave her. She will lose control and power. What lies behind the push/pull is the fear of being abandoned, and this fear can have deep-seated origins.

Such an individual may have had a father who was emotionally unavailable, or who sexually acted out with women he used and tossed away. The daughter tries to seduce her negligent father into intimacy, but she fails. To further her cause with him, she examines his taste in women. She sees that he’s attracted to sexually seductive women, and she sees that he abandons them. So she is caught in a bind. When she wants a man, she thinks she must be seductive. When she gets the man in her clutches, she must flee from him in order to avoid abandonment.

The dysfunctionality of this emotional catch-22 is blatant, but the seductive woman often deludes herself into believing that because “she can get anyone she wants,” she is in control, powerful and desirable. She fails to recognize that her sexual seductiveness leaves her not only sexually unsatisfied, but filled with shame and fear.

Sex Addiction Recovery Workshops at The Meadows

Sexual Recovery is one of a series of cutting-edge workshops we offer at The Meadows. These workshops are designed both to meet the needs of those who have not experienced our inpatient treatment and as a source of renewal for our alumni.

Sexual Recovery is a five-day workshop that examines sexual compulsive issues and behaviors. Often we do not talk about our sexual experiences because the subject carries too much shame. This workshop helps to lift the shame and resolve sexual dilemmas and self-destructive behaviors. Chief among these compulsive behaviors are:

• Sexual obsession and intrigue
• Compulsive masturbation with or without pornography
• Compulsive use of cybersex
• Use of prostitutes, strip clubs, peeping or sex bookstores
• Exposing oneself
• Multiple or serial relationships

The Sexual Recovery workshop is best for those who want to

• Jumpstart their recovery process
• Prevent relapse
• Acquire tools to support continuing recovery

These workshops are scheduled as “men only” and “woman only” and are offered periodically throughout 2010. More detailed information about the Sexual Recovery workshop is available by visiting our website or by emailing our Intake Department.

What is sexual aversion?

Those who “act out” express their sexuality overtly. Those who “act in” suppress their sexual energy. As with the acting-out cycle, the acting-in cycle is motivated by the desire to gain power and control over traumatic memories in order to avoid the loss of control, fear, and shame that the memories provoke.

When those who act in are provoked by memories of their original wounding, they become obsessed with strategies to protect against losing control over their bodies. These strategies distance them from sexual involvement. They can become so preoccupied with keeping their sexual distance that they become hypervigilant, fearful, and almost panicky.

They develop distancing strategies, such as coming home late from work, so that they do not have to face their spouses. At the sign of any sexual signals from their partners, they may pick a fight. When it is time to go to bed, they may make up a project that demands their attention or find a book that is too engrossing to put down. They may get too drunk for sex. They sometimes make themselves physically unattractive by dressing badly. Men will not shave; women will not wear makeup. They do not bathe or use deodorant. They wear their unattractiveness like body armor.

It is a sad irony that those who act in take pride in these sexual deprivations. They are in denial that their distancing and self-abnegation are founded on a basis of shame. So instead of feeling one-down, they go one-up by convincing themselves that they have developed an admirable discipline that makes them superior to the loose, immoral, irresponsible sexual indulgences of those who act out. They are like food addicts who can keep themselves from eating but think that all fat people are disgusting. Their one-upsmanship is really a projection of their own low self-esteem and fear of losing sexual control.

Acting out sexually, Acting in Sexually

“I have periods when I am out of control sexually and other times when I don’t feel the need for sex. Is this a problem?”

Periods of acting in and acting out can alternate with one another. A client may tell me that he doesn’t act out for six months, but then he binges on cocaine and pays a dozen prostitutes in a weekend. These extreme swings provide addicts with the feeling that they are in control of their excesses, and they prove it by their temporary returns to deprivation. Moderation, an essential part of a healthy emotional life, is beyond them.

Acting-out individuals are subject to long periods of alternating between acting out and “false recovery,” which is acting in masquerading as recovery. After a period of destructive acting out, individuals will come to a recovery facility and accept a celibacy contract. After treatment, they rigidly adhere to sexual deprivation and do not have sex for sometimes years. In another scenario, a woman leaves a marriage in which both partners had sexually acted out. For the next five years, she has no sex. Now, instead of acting out, she is acting in. The goal in recovery is to be moderate, to learn to live neither in excess nor in deprivation.

As addicts, we have learned to live with extremes: extreme behavior, extreme thoughts, and extreme feelings. We live this way because unconsciously we are attempting to gain control or achieve moderation. It is much like a pendulum that swings from one side to the other, never stopping or finding a sense of balance or moderation. The life of a sex addict can be a roller coaster of emotional imbalance. The goal of treatment and sexual health is learning to live a moderate, balanced life.

UKESAD 2010 Conference

I am pleased to be presenting in a few weeks time at the 7th UK / European Symposium on Addictive Disorders (or UKESAD) conference, which is being held in London. The conference is scheduled for May 13th – 15th.

The presentation title is LUST, LOVE, ANGER: INTERVENING ON SEXUALLY ADDICTED CLIENTS and the session is graciously sponsored by The Meadows.  The session is summarized within the conference brochure, along with details for registration.

Why is it so difficult to overcome sexual cravings?

With all addictive behaviors, there is a cycle or pattern that is predictable and ritualized. For the healing process to begin, it is paramount for the individual to understand and intervene in this cycle.

As addicts, we have learned to live in extremes: extreme behavior, extreme thoughts, and extreme feelings. We live this way because unconsciously we are attempting to gain control or achieve moderation. It is much like a pendulum that swings from one side to the other, never stopping or finding a sense of balance or moderation.

This is the life of a sex addict, a roller coaster life of emotional imbalance. The goal of treatment and sexual health is learning to live a moderate, balanced life.

Those who “act out” express their sexualized anger overtly. Those who “act in” suppress their sexualized anger. As in the acting-out cycle, the acting-in cycle is motivated by the desire to gain power and control over traumatic memories, in order to avoid the loss of control, fear, and shame that the memories provoke.

The sexually compulsive person may think this is what he or she is experiencing. However, the opposite is true. Sex for the addict is about intensity, danger, power, and control. It is about emotional numbing, conquering, and getting high. Sex becomes a commodity to be manipulated, a means to a self-defeating end. Sex and love become a game to play, an avoidance, a push/pull, or a hunger so powerful that the addict will risk everything to reach that sexual high.
No risk or consequence has stopped the addict: disease, financial ruin, lost relationships, legal injunctions, career setbacks, or self-respect. The addict is caught in an intoxicating dance that has induced a delusional reality.

This is the cycle of sex addiction, and it is deadly—not always in physical form, but most assuredly in emotional experience. This “soul” death is temporarily allayed when the addict is on the “hunt” for sex or, at the other extreme, is avoiding sex at all costs. At either end of the spectrum, the addict feels in control and powerful. This is the high, a chemical release that is as addicting as any drug. When these chemicals—or the high— are induced, euphoria washes over the addict, creating the illusion of complete immunity to the realities of his or her internal ache.

What does healthy sexuality look like?

Sex is one of the most powerful forces in the human condition. It can drive individuals to the pinnacle of emotional and physical ecstasy or, conversely, spiral other people into depths of despair and anguish. The power of sexual energy and expression exists because our sexuality is tied, or connected, to the core of who we are; it is our essence, our life force, our creativity, and our passion.

A sense of self means an inner knowing, a clarity of our true nature or authenticity. In healthy sexual expression, there is desire, connection, and a sense of well-being. The act of expressing one’s self sexually results in a positive, life-enhancing experience; it is an expression of love, an exchange of mutual pleasuring and respect that leads to an intimate connection.

Healthy sexual expression is found when you feel safe, connected and affirmed in the act of sexual expression.  We create emotional connection when we act with integrity, our values and beliefs intact.

An effective way to measure whether you have reached this point is to ask how you feel after being sexual.  Is it life-affirming and positive? Or is it what sex addicts have always felt, the feeling of shame?   In recovery our sexual experiences slowly become acts of affirmation and right intention, ultimately promoting and overall feeling of well being.

Why do people question if sex addiction is real?

There are two main factors that raise questions of sex addiction being authentic. The first  being, there is not a “legitimized” diagnosis for sexual addiction.  This causes some mental health practitioners to question its validity. This situation leaves the possibility that those who are suffering will not be diagnosed or treated for their disease—a disease that can be fatal.

The diagnostic criteria most commonly used by those who treat sexual addiction are similar to those applied to chemical dependence. They include:

• Loss of Control. Clear behaviors that go further than intended, such as having unprotected sex, meeting someone as opposed to just talking to them online, and having sex in dangerous conditions, such as with a coworker in the office storage area during business hours.
• Compulsive Behaviors. A pattern of out-of-control behaviors over time, such as masturbating to the point of injury.
• Efforts to Stop. Failed attempts to stop the behaviors, such as broken promises to self or others, or bargaining with oneself (e.g., “I will only flirt with someone at the bar instead of having sex”).
• Losses. Significant losses due to engaging in behaviors related to acting out sexually (e.g., sacrificing hobbies, commitments, and financial, career, and family obligations; not meeting deadlines; or forgetting special occasions).
• Preoccupation. Obsessing about behaviors, leaving the addict disengaged or disconnected from the present moment. This allows for emotional numbing but will never provide or promote personal intimacy or connection with others.
• Progression. The need to make the behavior more intense, frequent, or risky. Like an alcoholic, the sex addict will reach a threshold or plateau that needs to be amplified in order to maintain the desired high.
• Continued Behavior despite Negative Consequences. The inability to stop a behavior that creates problems, including legal, physical, financial, or relational problems. The addict is usually in a great deal of denial as to the extent to which his addiction has permeated his life.
• Withdrawal. Stopping behavior causes physical and/or emotional discomfort or distress, including mood swings, depression, irritability, headaches, nausea, dissociation, interrupted sleep patterns, anxiety, or intrusive thoughts.

The second factor impacting the legitimacy of this disorder is that sex addiction is a process addiction.  Unlike chemical dependency the individual does not have to ingest anything in order to get high.  The high comes from the thoughts, anticipation, planning and implementation of the behavior.  I like to compare this to eating your favorite food.  Let’s say that is chocolate.  When you actively think about eating chocolate notice what happens in your body.  You might be feeling pleasure, your awareness is heightened, and your mood has lifted.  The reason is because just thinking about chocolate has released chemicals in the pleasure center of the brain that cause euphoria.  Those chemicals can include, seratonin, adrenaline and dopamine.  These chemicals are powerful and for the sex addict they are like a 24-hour IV drug,  just like a junkie getting a hit of heroin.