October, a Thursday, 4:30 p.m.
I receive a message on my Linked-In professional profile from a high school classmate I hadn’t seen in 18 years, exactly the same number of years I had lived when I last saw or spoke to him. He sees that I live in Atlanta and is coming to town on a business trip. He wants to meet. Tonight.
There are many tools useful to recovering sex addicts. Three of the most basic and commonly used tools are “HALT,” the “Three Second Rule,” and “Bookending.”
HALT
HALT is an acronym for “Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired.” Any of these four of conditions can leave a sex addict more vulnerable than normal to acting out. Even healthy, non-addicted people get cranky, lash out, and behave in ways they later regret when their judgment is clouded by hunger, anger, loneliness, or exhaustion. For addicts, the potential for relapse increases exponentially if even one of these basic needs is not being met.
Unlike recovery from substance abuse, sexual sobriety does not entail ongoing abstinence. Instead, recovering sex addicts – working in conjunction with a knowledgeable sex addiction therapist or a 12-step sexual recovery sponsor – define their individual goals for recovery and a healthy life. Then, based on those goals, they craft a three-part boundary plan that defines what sexual sobriety means to them. This written commitment is broken down into inner, middle, and outer boundaries, each of which is specific to the individual in question. The inner boundary is the addict’s bottom-line definition of sexual sobriety, specifically listing the sexual behaviors he or she wishes to stop. The middle boundary lists warning signs and slippery situations that could lead the addict back to his or her inner boundary behaviors. The outer boundary lists healthy activities the addict can engage in as enjoyable and fulfilling alternatives to acting out.
Oftentimes sex addicts entering recovery fear that sexual sobriety requires total sexual abstinence in the same way that recovery from alcoholism or drug addiction requires total abstinence from alcohol and drugs. This is not, in fact, the case. Instead, sexual sobriety is defined differently for each individual. Working in conjunction with a certified sex addiction therapist or a knowledgeable 12-step sexual recovery sponsor, the addict defines the sexual behaviors (not thoughts or fantasies) that do and do not compromise his or her core beliefs and values (fidelity, not hurting others, not breaking the law, etc.) The addict then commits in a written sexual sobriety contract to not engage in problematic sexual behaviors (inner boundary behaviors, described below) and to only engage in other, healthier sexual behaviors moderately and appropriately. As long as the sex addict’s sexual behavior coincides with his or her concrete boundaries, the addict is sexually sober.
