Sex Addicts

If you answered yes to these questions, you’re not alone. But "yes" answersdon’t necessarily mean you have a problem (in my view). There is much more toexplore. For those of you thinking this is just one test and there are betterinventories, what I’ve found is you can change the words and put different wrappingpaper on the gift, but it’s still the same message. Many sex-addition treatmentprograms focus on exploiting people’s fear of sex and their difficulty controllingtheir sexual impulses. Treatment aspects can range from encouraging sexual or masturbatory abstinence,suppressing sexual desire and behavior, feeling powerlessness against their sexualdesires, and facilitating victimizing. Addiction treatment for substance use is the modeland inspiration for sex addition treatment, but can we really apply the same treatmentmodalities to something like sex, which is a basic need and desire for humans? Iunderstand abstinence from use is important for many people in substance recovery, butcan we use similar models for sexual expression? I wonder what’s next in theevolution of addiction models: love addiction, food addiction, Internet addiction, andheaven forbid, Facebook addiction? Welcome to the addicts club. We take cash, check,credit card, and Paypal. I’ll never forget the first client (no names,as it's still confidential) who was a graduate of sexual-addiction treatment. This person suppressed any sexual involvement, didn’t date and refused to masturbate.He followed his sex-addiction program perfectly and was one of the most guilt-ridden andunhappy persons to ever walk into my office. Never have I felt more empathy for a clientthan the pain described when he masturbated and broke his masturbatory abstinence. Ten months later, he terminated treatment as a happy, regularly masturbating guy (2-3times per week) who was able to manage his sexual guilt and was dating a woman. He hadall the answers inside of him and just needed a safe place to recreate his sexualidentity and expression. There are other ways besides traditional sex-addictiontreatment. As biased as I’m being, it’s to demonstrate something.We need to question the hot-topic treatments of today because tomorrow we may look backand wonder what we were thinking. To be fair, some sex-addiction models and treatmenttechniques work for some people. Some people respond to 12-step sexaholics-anonymoustreatment or sex-addiction therapy. Other sex-addiction programs modify their models to add or remove certain questionable techniques to improve their treatment. But what aboutthe masses of people sex-addiction treatment doesn’t work for? My point is thereare other avenues to take should one decide their sexual expression is problematic andaddiction treatment isn’t their cup of tea. The sexual-compulsivity model, whichuses a sex-positive lens to view out-of-control sexual behaviors or compulsive sexualbehaviors, has shown with research to be effective when using cognitive-behavioraltherapy and/or pharmacological treatments (medications) that may help individuals withobsessive-compulsive-like sexual expression. Basically, the model views sex as anintegrated part of the human experience and acknowledges that a person is a sexual beingwhile working on the problem. Do you think if we had early comprehensivesexual education in America and gained more knowledge about relationships, sexuality andthe tools and skills to enjoy them, we as a society might be better equipped to mangeour sexual lives? Just food for thought.(Ah, I went nuts and overwrote. Ithink I drank too much coffee beforehand. Coffee addiction? Start up a coffee-addictionclinic? Nah, Starbucks would crush me.)Part 2: Why do rich and powerful men cheat?All right, I went a little overboard on the last question, so lets lighten the mood. Whydo these men of power and fame cheat? That’s the million-dollar question. Everyonehas their opinion as to why the countless politicians, movie stars and people in powerpositions cheat. Are they sex addicts? Narcissists? Suffering from a personality disorder?Just plain careless? What you’ll find is each person does it for his own reasons,and everyone has different motives or roots for infidelity. Cheating does not equatewith sex addiction. Depending on the study, approximately 20-50% of people reportedcheating, and it’s foolish to think we live in a society where the majority ofpeople are sex addicts. In addition, studies have shown that people’spersonality-disorder traits impact their interpersonal relationships. That could explainsome of the personality/narcissistic-based cheating. But can’t people cheat thesedays because they’re simply cocky, a liar or insecure? How did they cheat in the olddays without all these postmodern terms, diagnoses and theories?Dr. Chavesexplains more about sex addicts and cheating, next...

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