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"I call myself a recovering sex addict. I have been in 'recovery' for a little over two years now and am near the halfway point to becoming stable. That means that my sexual acting out (for me, indulging in Internet pornography and lusting) will be largely in control. When it was out of control, I wasted hours on the Internet and lost many income-generating opportunities, not to mention feeling personally isolated with incredible feelings of shame. If unchecked, my disease would likely have spread to directly involve other people. I have read that the end point of an untreated addiction is death. I believe it.
When did it start? I'm not sure. Readings in addiction literature suggest the patterns of what is called co-dependent behaviour (unhealthy, enmeshed involvement with family members and others where they are few healthy personal boundaries) are often set by age three. How long have I been aware I had a problem? Since my early teens. What contributed to keeping it going? It would be easy to blame the readily availability of pornography, but it only nurtured the addiction; it didn't create it. The real problem was much deeper.
My recovery process began with a call to the Counselling Centre in Hamilton where, during the intake interview, I was advised of a physician who specialized in treating people who were preoccupied with sexual issues. After meeting with him, I was informed of a 12-Step recovery group (Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous) and began attending their weekly meetings. Soon I got a sponsor and became part of another process group, led by this physician, which worked on recovery in a more intensive fashion. After about a year, I realized that these groups were not enough for me as I recognized I had some much deeper issues concerning personal shame (called 'toxic shame' in some readings - I felt continuous shame about who I was, not just because of what I had done.) This led me to some one-on-one counselling to deal with what seems to have been the heart of my problem, something I inherited from my household of origin; a dark legacy passed on from my parents. They weren't sex addicts, but they had other problems.
Healing has been slow and painful. I have found therapeutic support through the groups I attend where I was 'accepted' and understood in spite of my behaviours, which I found loathsome. During recovery, some important insights surfaced which have helped in grounding me and provided a new foundation for rebuilding my life. While the list is rather long, a few highlights might set some perspective.
- I had no control over my addiction - it was bigger than I was. Resistance was futile.
- My addiction was a response to personal pain; it was my attempt to relieve the pain.
- The real problem was an inability to effectively relate to people with emotional honesty.
- I confused healthy shame (appropriate and necessary to correct destructive behaviour) with toxic shame, believing I was NOT OK, no matter what I did.
- My problem with personal dishonesty is a social problem - we build our social lives on lies and half-truths, then manipulate each other through the deceit.
- I was raised to believe family secrets were important to keep hidden; the truth is, they can kill if not exposed.
- I did not have early models for healthy intimacy; my parents were effectively emotional invalids who could not teach me what they did not know themselves.
Many books have been written which describe the convoluted ways we behave that contribute to addictive behaviours. Our North American society has been called an Addictive Society by some. While chemical addictions (alcohol; narcotics; street drugs, prescription drugs) are readily recognized as common 'social diseases' and receive intensive treatment, what is only recently being recognized is that some 'behavioural addictions' (e.g. sex addiction, romance addicts; gambling; stealing; spending; power seeking) may be just as potent and destructive. Our brains have the ability to manufacture their own chemical 'hits' which are just as addicting as ingested substances, perhaps even more so.
In my recovery groups, I have had the opportunity to meet people with multiple addictions (which tends to be the norm - I am addicted not only to sex, but to love (relationships), lust and food). I have heard that addiction to crack cocaine is extremely difficult to overcome. Yet, there are several who have recovered from that who have told me they still have greater difficulty with sex addiction.
Is there any help out there? Absolutely! Several excellent books have been published in the popular press, which can assist in both identifying the problem and in facilitating recovery. To name a few:
Patrick Carnes: Out of the Shadows, Don't Call it Love, A Gentle Path Through the Twelve Steps, In the Shadow of the Net.
Ralph Earle: Lonely All the Time: Recognizing Understanding, and Overcoming Sex Addiction for Addicts and Co-Dependents."
There are support groups to help those recovering from sex addiction (Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous - SLAA; Sexaholics Anonymous - SA) and those close to them (S-Anon). A search of Internet resources using the above search terms will yield hundreds of sites with helpful information, including self-tests to assess your own potential addiction and the unhealthy enmeshment with those who may be close to sex addicts.
In closing, I guess I see pornography in our society as a distorted perversion of sexuality. It removes the 'human' from the experience. As an addict, I used people to feed my fantasies, which I believed would bring me comfort. I did not see people as they were; I saw only my own distorted image of how they could bring me pleasure. It was a lie. My new reality is, healthy relationships based on truth may be painful at times, but they bring quality to life and deep satisfaction. My old ways left me empty, alone and dead inside.
Hope this helps, 'Dave.'
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