What is Escalation?
Addicts new to recovery often face a whole world of new terminology. Sometimes when they enter treatment or start attending 12-step meetings, it seems as if the people around them are speaking an entirely different language. One of the new terms that many addicts are confronted with is “escalation.” Escalation is common to all types of addiction – alcoholism, drug addiction, gambling addiction, compulsive shopping, sex addiction, etc. It is caused by an increasing tolerance to the mood altering effects of the addict’s drug/behavior or choice. (There is a very specific neurophysiological process to the development of both tolerance and escalation, but that is not the subject of this blog.) Suffice it to say that addicts, over time, nearly always find themselves doing more of their drug/behavior of choice, and/or turning to more intense substances/experiences to achieve and maintain the neurochemical “high” that they seek.
Teen Girl Addicted to Sex Has 200 Partners Before Seeking Help
Angie grew up in a close-knit Italian neighborhood just outside Chicago. Her working class family, which was always laughing, was bold and big. Angie had seven siblings – four of them stepsiblings. Her stepfather drank his spiced rum and played poker with his buddies every Wednesday night, which was a fun night because her mother cooked her best and biggest meal of the week. The wives and girlfriends came down the block and joined them, and the older kids got to have a glass of wine (although they usually snuck more). Angie’s mom had declared that since they could have the wine at church, she didn’t see why they couldn’t have one glass on Wednesday night too. It was a celebration.
Sex Addiction in the Military
Our very own Founding Director, Rob Weiss, who is on his way to Japan this week to provide training for military clinicians over there, recently spoke to a group of psychotherapy and addiction treatment professionals regarding sexual addiction and porn problems in the military. The purpose of his presentation was to shed light on why the military is seeing the problem of sex addiction on the rise as more troops return home. One of the papers he presented during the event was “Escaping the Pain: Examining the Use of Sexually Compulsive Behavior to Avoid the Traumatic Memories of Combat” by Michael D. Howard. CLICK HERE for an abstract on the paper or read it below:
