By all accounts, Pierce is a creative, funny, intelligent 30-something who owns a freelance business doing what he loves. He’s genuine and generous with his friends; he likes to surprise people with small finds and fun get-togethers. Pierce is known for his great stories and absolute loyalty. People describe him as, “a teddy bear,” and “a big-hearted guy.”
Until a couple of years ago, Shannon felt she was like most successful Morehouse graduates. She’d come from a successful Atlanta family and had attended her parent’s alma mater. She’d landed a great job in her chosen field right out of college despite the economy, and there, she’d met Marcus, a young but highly influential Atlanta minister. Shannon was swept away by Marcus’s charm and intelligence, and was curious about his success. Marcus proposed to Shannon after a year of dating, and she was delighted to say yes. They were wed by his father in his enormous church, with hundreds of guests in attendance. Shannon felt like she had become the bride every little girl dreamed of.
Sexual sobriety, unlike sobriety from drugs and/or alcohol, does not require total, ongoing abstinence. Instead, sexual recovery addresses sobriety in much the same way it is handled in the treatment of eating disorders. (You can’t very well permanently abstain from eating!) Ultimately, the goal of sexual recovery is to define which sexual behaviors are problematic and which are not, and to thereafter engage – moderately and appropriately – only in the non-problematic activities. In other words, sexual recovery is about learning to be sexual in life-affirming rather than life-destroying ways.
As sexual addiction is a growing topic for those providing treatment in the mental health realm, therapists are still trying to navigate the complicated dance of treating the sex addict. For many sex addicts, their goal is to change the nature of a relationship to ensure they have control–a tendency that can cause conflict during therapy.
People with sex addiction often describe the same types of feelings – hopelessness, trapped, angry, frustrated and depressed. In contrast to stereotypes or movie portrayals of sex addiction, the condition is anything but funny or pleasurable. For the nearly 16 million Americans believed to have sex addiction, it’s a life-destructive problem that’s progressive in nature and difficult to talk about. It also occurs with rising frequency among both genders.
A new Facebook app is causing alarm, with experts expressing concern about its potential to promote random sex and sex among acquaintances. It could also help create an environment where sex is the focus, rather than real intimacy or communication, thereby feeding the foundation for sexual addiction.
There are many tools that are useful to recovering sex addicts. A few weeks ago we presented information on three of these: HALT, the Three-Second Rule, and Bookending. Today we discuss three more tools that sex addicts often find useful: Boundary Plans, 12-Step Meetings, and Gratitude Lists.
We don’t have sufficient data on the precise number of female sex addicts seeking treatment for hypersexuality or pornography addiction, but the number of women falling into this group is believed to be growing. As more is learned about female sex addiction and the needs of female addicts seeking treatment, more women are coming forward.
While love and sex are certainly not inseparable, romantic love only rarely exists without sexual involvement. For many people, sexual attraction is a critical component of loving their romantic partner. Sex and love are certainly both intense physical and emotional experiences, and, like many such experiences, they can give rise to obsession and addiction.
