Sex Addictions

There are many things I haven’t talked about yet, anger, primarily, probably since I’m an anger-phobe, but I’ll get to that when the time is right.

Sex addictions is another.

I’m going to loosely define a sex addiction as a compulsion to seek out sexual relationships with strangers, knowing that the relationship will in all likelihood never be more than a sexual relationship.

Like the other addictions, sex with strangers is self-medicating and compulsive in nature. The high people get from the excitement of new relationships, the hope against hope that the sexual relationship will become much more, and the act of physically connecting to another human being fill voids in the psyche, emptiness.

Docs who are more psychoanalytic than me will pontificate about replacing lost love objects in childhood, meeting unmet dependency needs, and the like.

You know that’s a bit abstract to be practical.

Oh, and it doesn’t explain our example.

Here’s a story I’ve heard a dozen times (probably, which isn’t bad over 25 years, is it?).

A guy comes in with a broken marriage. He knows it’s over. She knows about the sexual abuse he suffered as a child, but hasn’t a clue that he seeks out relationships with men and never refuses sex when propositioned. The marriage is conflictual and unaffectionate.

He considers himself a hopeless case. He’s a nice looking man who thinks he’s unattractive. He showers twice, even three times a day. He’s sweet, soft-spoken, non-violent. In his marriage this type of patient has been exploited in some way or another by his spouse. Perhaps she married him to gain citizenship or because she knew she could get him to pay off her Visa. He’s the one who does EVERYTHING in the family, including the carpool, the laundry, the work outside the home that brings in the money. Inevitably, he hands over his paycheck to her.

His self-esteem is trash, of course. He hates himself and has never recovered from the stain of childhood sexual abuse. He’ll always remember how he “performed sexual acts” on his abuser and was sworn to secrecy. He’ll describe these acts in therapy and he will feel a little better having shared this (he’s not told anyone else). But at the end of the session he goes home, self-esteem no better than it was the day before, looking for love.

These are tough cases and a doc like me can work with a guy like this for a year and it will help. No question, therapy really will help. ANY therapy that does not exploit him will probably help.

But remember, those of you either with this problem or those of you who are going to become therapy docs, there are OTHER RESOURCES out in the world that can be extremely effective, that can provide EVEN MORE SUPPORT THAN INDIVIDUAL THERAPY.

I’m talking, of course, once again, about the 12-Step programs. The one for sex addictions in the Chicagoland area is called Sex and Love Anonymous. There are dozens of local chapters all over the U.S. Sex Addicts Anonymous is great, too.

If you’re on-line, you can use a search engine to find the nearest chapter. If you’re a social worker with a client and you have Internet access in your office (and if you don’t, you should) then go there while you are with your patient and don’t let him leave without a piece of paper and a chapter meeting time and place in hand.

Here, I’m giving you the link, saving you the work. Bookmark it or put it in your Favorites. Welcome to my world. I cannot vouch for the effectiveness of any particular group, and watch out for the For Profit websites using similar names.

The word on groups is that if you don't like one, look for another. Try up to 6 different groups before you give up.

Sex Addicts Anonymous

Sex and Love Anonymous

Hopeless just doesn’t make it into the vocab, okay?

Copyright 2006, TherapyDoc