In the digital age, hardcore porn and other sexually oriented material is widely available and instantly accessible to anyone who’s looking – and even to people who aren’t looking. (The number of seemingly benign words you can type in Internet search engines that bring up porn and other “adult” sites is actually kind of shocking.)
It’s not uncommon for recovering substance abusers to struggle in their personal relationships. This is because chemical dependency has been their true love, making it difficult for them to invest in other people and experience real intimacy.
Many recovering addicts substitute the high of falling in love for the void left by drugs or alcohol. But sex and love addictions have the same sort of root cause as substance abuse. According to information presented by PsychCentral, individuals working through dependency often use one of several methods of denial to avoid dealing with intimacy and sex issues.
Identifying a teen with sex addiction, and knowing how to help that teen, may be incredibly tough for parents or adults in the teen’s life – but worth every effort to prevent lifelong consequences, suggest several recent articles.
Experts believe that as many as 40 percent of adults seeking professional help for sex addiction began as teens or preteens with early exposure and excessive pornography use. Recent articles are also circulating with information for the signs and symptoms of sex addiction among teens, such as obsessive thoughts about sex that disrupt daily living; inability to stop viewing online pornography or engaging in sexual behavior; and stopping or avoiding “typical” teen activities to pursue private computer time or sexual encounters.
In years’ past, many teens’ exposure to sex occurred through school sex education programs and the occasional access to a pornographic magazine.
Today, reports cited in recent articles say that about 50 percent of individuals who receive professional treatment for sex addiction say their challenges with sex began prior to their 16th birthday. Experts say round-the-clock ability to view sexual material online, and a general decrease in knowledge and parental discussions about sex, may be contributing factors.
Many teenagers, and even pre-teens as young as age ten are involved in sexting. Most of them, as well as their parents, don’t fully realize the possible consequences.
For millions of people, sex addiction is less about sex, and more about emotional pain, wrecked relationships, lost careers and the pain of a serious, progressive, ongoing secret.
Stories featuring interviews with people living with sex addiction point to common patterns for the pain sex addiction causes – years of feeling shameful, guilty and hopeless, ruined marriages and the destructive hope that the addiction will get better. In reality, sex addiction is similar to alcohol addiction or drug addiction, requiring professional help for treatment and in some cases, a lifelong effort toward recovery.
Fact: A person living with sex addiction can have sex with numerous people and never view online pornography. Similarly, a person with porn addiction can spend hours viewing sexual material online and never have real-world sex with another person.
Amidst the bright lights and joyful faces, for thousands of people living with sex addiction, there can be a fast slide into addictive behaviors. The holiday season can be especially trying for people who live with sex addiction or are in recovery, as it brings to the forefront emotions they may want to hide from or reminds them of their struggles in maintaining intimate, quality relationships.
"Our lives begin to end the day that we become silent about things that matter." – Martin Luther King, Jr., American clergyman, activist, and prominent leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement (1929-1968)
"The ability to convert ideas to things is the secret to outward success." – Henry Ward Beecher, prominent liberal American Congregationalist clergyman, social reformer, and abolitionist (1813-1887)
