Methods of Denial Used by Addicts to Avoid Confronting Sex and Intimacy Problems

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.

Some popular denial methods include intellectualizing, rationalization, and minimizing. Any of these can be destructive and can serve as a stumbling block to developing relational skills needed for intimacy.

The process of intellectualizing entails trying to reason why the addict can’t or doesn’t need to address her lack of intimacy. For instance, she may argue that she’s already been through a treatment program before and it didn’t help.

Rationalization involves the alcoholic/drug user justifying why it’s not so bad that she uses sex as a drug. The explanation might be something to the effect that sex addiction is acceptable because it keeps her from doing worse things or engaging in illicit activity. People in this group may put forth the argument that being hooked on “love” is natural or ok.

Those who minimize actually downplay the negative impact of unhealthy sex or relationships as victimless or legal. The recovering addict may allege that the effects of substance abuse are much worse than trivial Internet hookups, frequenting a brothel, or repeated use of porn.

Regardless of the type of denial mechanism used, problems don’t just go away if we pretend they don’t exist. Sex addiction experts say it’s important to collaborate with substance abuse professionals to help clients develop healthy relationship skills so they can enter into real, meaningful relationships.