5 Tips for Recovering Sex Addicts
While there are many forms of sexual addiction, nearly everyone who comes into sex addiction recovery arrives at it by encountering something singular and vital in the recovery itself—he or she experiences a moment of illuminating clarity that his or her behaviors are out of control and creating consequences no longer tenable to a healthy life.
This initial sense of clarity inspires the desire for further clarity, an ability to truly see oneself and one’s behaviors for what they are—without judgment, condemnation or the shame that may be keeping the behaviors cycling in a compulsive pattern. Because this clarity is so vital to the process of freeing individuals from addictive thinking, a first step might be:
1. Be willing to look at yourself clearly—not with judgment, but with compassion
As long as we feel deeply ashamed of ourselves, we are more likely to engage the defense mechanism called denial. Denial is a tremendously powerful psychological ability. And as long as we are engaging in denial, we are more likely to continue harming ourselves and possibly others with our addictive behaviors. Clarity comes from the willingness to look honestly at oneself. Clarity through self-acceptance brings us to the place where we recognize that we need help, and it continues to help us develop in emotional, psychological and spiritual ways.
2. Seek the help you need
When we fear our problem is too difficult to share with others, it can be easy to make ourselves believe that we can face it alone. Getting the help of a professional and seeking support from peers who face or have faced similar addiction issues are both vital steps in the healing process. They allow us to gain clearer perspective on where we stand in relation to our addiction and show us that we are not alone.
3. Be willing to investigate the roots of your addiction
No addiction surfaces without underlying cause. While it’s important to do the work to get your addiction under control, it’s just as important to be willing to do the psychological work to root out the reasons you created the compulsions in the first place. For some people, addictions serve to numb the pain of past trauma, and for others, they fill the void of an insecure, unformed identity. There are as many reasons for addictions as there are people who cleave to them.
3. Be willing to be more honest than you’ve ever been
Be willing to be deeply honest with yourself and with the people in your life. Learning to see the truth, to speak the truth, and finally, to bear the truth (in the words of Louise Erdrich), is perhaps one of the greatest people-growing processes inherent to recovery.
4. Understand that stopping a behavior doesn’t necessarily stop addiction
People in recovery frequently find that ceasing one set of addictive behaviors does not necessarily change the overall problem, which itself is more accurately a “problem of addiction.” The image of a person in AA who chain smokes, drinks coffee by the pot and fails to adhere to the advice around waiting a year into recovery before dating is the perfect illustration of the ways this can happen without people realizing.
5. Become adept at recognizing what triggers you and what supports you
Getting sober was perhaps the hardest thing you’ve done so far, but staying sober from your addiction will take even more effort. It will be up to you to pay attention to the things that trigger you into slipping back into your old patterns or the negative states of mind that can harm your recovery. And it will be up to you to avoid them. It is also up to you to determine who and what supports your best chance at recovery and to seek those people and things out in ways that reflect your best integrity.