For most adults, healthy sexuality is an integrated life experience. Sex with partners, with self, or as a part of exploring new
relationships is usually a pleasurable act of choice. For sexual addicts however, sexual behavior can be most often defined by words
such as driven, compulsive and hidden. Unlike healthy sex that is integrated into relationships, sexual addicts use sex as a means
to cope, to handle boredom, anxiety and other powerful feelings or as a way to feel important, wanted or powerful.
While sexual
addiction is not defined by any particular sexual act, sexual addiction is defined by the feelings and activities surrounding sex.
Men and women who experience sex addiction often fail to understand the serious of their addiction.
Compulsive sexual thoughts and/or behavior leads to increasingly serious consequences, in both the addict's internal and external worlds.
The consequences may include severe depression, often with suicidal ideation, low self-esteem, shame, self-hatred, hopelessness, despair,
helplessness, intense anxiety, loneliness, moral conflict, contradictions between ethical values and behaviors, fear of abandonment,
spiritual bankruptcy, distorted thinking, remorse, and self-deceit.
As woth other types of addiction, many addicts have thought about suicide. Many sex addicts suffer from broken relationships. Forty percent experience
severe marital and other relationship problems. Sexual activities outside the primary relationship result in loss of self-esteem to both
partners as well as severe stress to the relationship.
Some sex addicts go to jail, lose their job, get sued, or have other financial and legal consequences because of their compulsive sexual behavior.
Financial difficulties from the purchase of pornographic materials, use of prostitutes and telephone and computer lines, travel for the purpose of
sexual contacts, and other sexual activities can tax the addict's financial resources, sometimes to the point of bankruptcy, as can the expenses
of legal representation.
The following are some other characterisrtics often found in the behavior of sex addiction:
Internet porn and online chat
Affairs
Pornography addiction
Compulsive masturbation
Exhibitionism
Voyeurism
Anonymous and casual sex
Spouse Education and Support
Sex addiction is an intimacy disorder. Family members, especially spouses, experience tremendous pain and betrayal by the sexually
addicted person. I am sensitive to the plight of the loved ones of the addict. Unfortunately, many spouses either don’t know where to go
to gain a better understanding of what their husband/wife’s addiction is all about or they experience such shame that they don’t reach
out for help for themselves as they try to work through their grief and anger.
Signs that your spouse may be a sex addict:
Unaccounted for time or money
Emotional withdrawal
Lack of interest in marital sexual activity
Abusive behavior
Keeping a supply of pornography
Staying up late at night on the computer
Erasing internet history
Arguments over sex;
When you as the spouse feel degraded or emotionally abandoned in and after sex
If you think you or a loved one has a problem with sex addiction, I can help. Please call for an appointment and we can take the first steps
towards the road of recovery.
Passion is the quickest to develop, and the quickest to fade. Intimacy develops more slowly, and commitment more gradually still.
~ Robert Sternberg
The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.
~ Albert Einstein
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
~ Reinhold Niebuhr
Randi Fredricks, LMFT, CHT, RAS, CCN, CCH ♦
1711 Hamilton Ave Suite A, San Jose, California, 95125 ♦
408-315-0645
