Sex Addiction

Watching a loved one battle with addiction is painful, and often baffling. Seeing someone continue to drink and/or use in the face of losing everything worth living for creates confusion and frustration, especially among those who have never experienced addiction personally. If you are struggling with the fear of losing someone you love to addiction, you’re not alone. While the addict may think they are only hurting themselves, the reality is that their addiction impacts everyone who cares about them.  Pain from seeing you’re loved one in active addiction may lead you to wonder if you could have stopped it somehow, or if you can fix it now. Maybe you don’t understand how it could have gotten to this point, and you’re wondering if it will ever get better. Feelings like these are normal. Therapy coupled with support from others who have gone through similar experiences often provides the insight necessary to navigate these emotions healthily. Seeking out your support system and educating yourself on the disease of addiction is the best way to understand and help your addicted loved one.

Sex addicts in recovery from sex addiction can still continue to have sex in their recovery. Sex addiction recovery does include abstinence. Many treatment programs and twelve step programs advocate abstinence for at least six months. What that abstinence entails, however, is up to the individual in recovery and most often their therapist as well as sponsor. Even with sex addiction, no two people are alike. The sexual behaviors one person used to act out will not necessarily be the same as the ones other person used to act out. Therefore, there is no generalized definition of what abstinence from sex and sex-addictive behaviors should look like. Sex Addicts Anonymous explains, “Most of us have no desire to stop being sexual altogether. It is not sex in and of itself that causes us problems, but the addiction to certain sexual behaviors.” All of sex and any idea of sex might not be the issue in someone’s sex addiction. This approach is unique to sex addiction because sex is a natural part of life. Alcohol is a choice. Drugs are a choice. Even gambling is a luxury. Sex, however, is a form of bonding, reproduction, and human activity for survival. Some people do choose to remain completely abstinent from sexual activity. However, many people to find that not to be sustainable. Unlike alcoholism or drug addiction in which a person truly cannot have just one drink or drug, people with sex addiction can have healthy sexual interactions. What they learn to do through therapy, treatment, and working the steps of twelve step programs like SAA is decide which behaviors are the ones they can participate in and which ones are not. SAA uses a three ring model to illustrate this. An inner circle, a middle circle, and an outer circle, help highlight the sexual behaviors which are manageable and the sexual behaviors which lead to the behaviors of someone’s addiction. The inner circle represents the behaviors which have been decided should absolutely be abstained from. The middle circle is designated for the trigger behaviors, the ones which could be managed but will likely lead to acting out sexually. Lastly, the outer circle includes the healthy behaviors which positively contribute to sex addiction recovery.