In recent weeks a few concerned contributors to Eden Fantasys have bombarded us with treatises about sexual addiction. I prefer to think that it is done out of a sense that this is a sex positive community and as such everyone should be aware of the negative side of any behavior. I thank them for their concern but as a person who has vast experience with addiction I would like to also ease their minds about this supposed bug-a-boo lurking in the shadows. I could throw around some cobbled up definition of sexual addiction from Wikipedia but I think everyone can agree that this ‘addiction’ is filled with too much shaming activity to be rationally defined by the general populace so instead I will give a gentler and more pointed definition of the condition and discuss ways a person who has addiction in their lives can get help.

First my credentials: I am the adult survivor of a long history of addiction. My maternal Great Grandfather was an alcoholic, a sweet genial drunk who couldn’t keep a job and frequently needed my Great Grandmother to plead with his bosses to hire him back after a bender. He showed the typical irrationality and violence of an addict and my Grandmother grew up placating and excusing his behavior as her own or her mother’s fault. This is typical behavior for a child. She then married a man who while not an alcoholic was, in fact, the child of a dysfunctional family, again continuing the pattern of addiction. My mother continued the pattern by marrying a violent alcoholic whose entire family of 16 kids was devastated by alcohol addiction. After 30 years he finally sought and received help dealing with the alcoholism, but not the underlying problems causing the addictive behavior. My mother is still struggling with her emotional problems and it is showing in her physical health.

Which leaves me with myself; I continued the pattern by choosing first a man who had a devastating childhood and then choosing a man who had an alcoholic sister. Yes the maxim is absolutely true: Misery does love company! We chose to get help and have begun to break the cycle as a unit, but as you can see I have pretty vast understanding of addictive behavior. To begin to break this cycle I have had to do research and attend support groups.

So with all that said let me first ease your mind; sexual addiction is not an addiction to the chemicals released in the brain during sex. Sexual addiction is not a physical addiction at all! Most sexual addicts have a co-addiction to substances and have used the currency of their bodies to obtain the substance be it alcohol or drugs or even money. Not all sex workers are sex addicts, a sex addict may be able to function as a member of your church and you may never know the depths of their self loathing. Sexual addiction is never about the physical side of sex. Having a high sex drive doesn’t put you ‘at risk’ of becoming a sexual addict. Having a history of shaming practices surrounding the healthy enjoyment of sex can put you at risk. Being abused as a child sexually can also put you at risk for this addiction. If you add in some substance abuse then you have the perfect storm for what is essentially an emotional problem to become a physical addiction.

What exactly IS sexual addiction then? Sexual addiction is the practice of placing oneself or others at risk to obtain a ‘fix’ or receive a reward for behavior that causes shame. This shame, then, drives the addict to seek another fix, and another and another. This behavior must affect the addicts work performance, disrupt the normal activities of life, and be more persistent than lapses of judgment. In other words not getting enough sleep and being chronically fatigued can lead to lapses in judgment but it does not constitute a risk of becoming a sexual addict.

At the root of sexual addiction, and indeed any addiction, is the psychological need to punish oneself for real or imagined faults. When this pressure becomes too much the addict will seek to alleviate the need to consciously be aware of the shame and will choose the most expedient method to both punish themselves and trigger the pleasure centers of the brain. The cycle begins and remains psychological; pressure to build shame and then trigger the pleasure centers of the brain to obtain a temporary relief, or just numbness from the pain. The cycle will continue until it reaches critical mass or the addict hits ‘rock bottom’. The cycle will continue until the addict deals with the underlying issues that are causing the need to inflict shame upon themselves. This is a disease of the spirit that affects everyone around the addict but can only be treated by the addict. A major pathology of addiction is the intense desire of the addict to deny responsibility for their actions or their actions consequences. For this reason the addict must become aware of their addiction and seek help for themselves. This is the aim of any intervention, not to shame the addict into changing their behavior but to make them aware of the consequences of their intense desire to hurt and shame themselves.

The symptoms of sexual addiction are as varied and as nebulous as the symptoms of any addiction. There are varying degrees and usually unique presentations that may baffle even the best trained counselors. Usually sexual addiction is characterized by an intense need to have sexual encounters that are not satisfying or even enjoyable. These behaviors can start off small and snowball into behavior that is risky enough to affect personal freedom or ones health. The disease is an affliction of the emotions, therefore ‘ordinary’ sex doesn’t feed the shame cycle not trigger the release of enough chemicals to anesthetize the pleasure centers of the brain. The addict is, then, forced to seek other ways to achieve their high. The hallmark of sexual addiction is the knowledge that what one is doing is risky, threatens what one holds dear and isn’t enjoyable because it is filled with shame. So if you have a high sex drive, enjoy moderately risky sexual behavior, and practice safer sex are you on the ‘slippery slope’? Not at all! If you persist in activities that are clearly shaming in nature such as cheating on your partner(s), using prostitutes who are clearly in need and pain, spending all your money to fuel your never ending need for the sexual high, practicing inappropriate sexual behavior at work, using porn as an escape from your problems, denying your partner(s) sexual release that you cannot deny yourself and an inability to curtail any sexual activity that causes you shame then you are in need of help and MIGHT be a sexual addict.

What should you do if you suspect a family member or a partner is a sexual addict? First of all only and addict can properly diagnose their addiction. The first step to any addiction recovery plan is for the addict to admit they have a problem! The key here is for the ADDICT to admit they have a problem and that their lives are unmanageable. Most addicts believe they are doing fine and can stop when they want so this is the hardest and trickiest part of addiction recovery. Remember that this is a disease of the emotions and is shame filled, since no one LIKES being ashamed of themselves you can see the problem. For an addict the problem goes even deeper; the addict is no longer ashamed of their actions, they are ashamed of their very core being. They are defined by their actions, in their own eyes, complicating the recovery process and leading many addicts to resist prodding and shaming tactics from outsiders. As many addicts put it: “What can you do to me that is worse than what I do to myself? I expect you to leave so that is no threat. I expect to do jail time so that is no threat. I’m already in hell so not even God’s threats can change me.”

The ONLY thing you can do if you suspect your loved one is an addict is get help for yourself! You must take care of yourself at all costs even if that means seeing a counselor, getting tested for STDs, or even quietly and quickly leaving if the situation is too risky. You cannot cajole, threaten or love your addict into recovery, you can only love yourself and hope that in your reflected love for yourself your addict begins to desire your serenity. That works, people, it is the ONLY thing that works. Any 12 step program has an auxiliary meeting for loved ones of addicts to gather and support each other.

Sexual addiction should not be confused with high sex drive. A person who loves sex, enjoys pornography, relishes outdoor sex and group sex is not a sexual addict by definition because their behavior isn’t rooted in shame. They have a healthy desire to pleasure their bodies and can, at times, embarrass themselves or act inappropriately. A social drinker can ‘tie one on’ and embarrass themselves without being an alcoholic! The key lies in the ability of the person to rationalize their shame without internalizing it. I can admit I have done shameful things without believing I am a shameful person or worthless person. A healthy person doesn’t see themselves as fatally flawed.

If you feel that perhaps your ‘high sex drive’ is more than just a desire to have enjoyable sex then there is plenty of help out there. The key is to find a program that will not heap shame on you, the program should instead seek to help you discover the root of the same that is already crippling you. It should be loving and supportive even if you ‘fall of the wagon’. It should be a place where you can discuss and unfreeze those parts of yourself where you have stashed your shame. It should be a network of support that can prop you up when your knees go weak and you back is bent from the emotional pain. You should be in a program that mirrors to you healthy shame, shame that says “I have done things that are horrible but I am worthy of forgiveness and I am worth forgiving myself. I have value even if I do shameful things.” The program should give you techniques and exercises aimed at uncovering the why to your actions and also ways to feed the needs that go along with the why. A good recovery program should never shame, blame or heap insults on the addict. It should be there to gently redirect the shame, blame and insults the addict will hurl at themselves.

Sexual addiction is as complicated an addiction to diagnose and treat as any addiction and may be wrapped up in various other addictions such as drugs, alcohol, risk taking, anorexia and bulimia. One cannot and should not ever point at any groups of sex positive individuals and begin diagnosing sexual addiction. Though, for certain there might be a few people in the group who are struggling it never helps to heap shame and labels on an addict. For the others who are simply, exuberantly, expressing their joy and satisfaction it is insulting and at worst you run the risk of creating shame where there wasn’t any.