What is Sex Addiction?

Sex addicts use sex in the same way an alcoholic uses alcohol. Sex or lust is used to numb feelings and escape from the painful parts of their lives. The sexual experience becomes mood altering and in time becomes central to the sex addict's life.

The fact that the addict has no control over their behavior is a difficult concept for non-addicts to grasp. This is particularly with regards to sex addiction and in aftermath of the many damaged relationships, ruined marriages, parentless children, and even worse, victims of sexual misconduct or crimes. There is little neutral response to sexual improprieties.

It is important to understand that addiction is a "solution" to pain, past trauma, and anxiety - addiction literally becomes a coping mechanism. If somebody starts doing something to cope, and if they do it long enough, the body adjusts to the point that it needs that level of activity just in order to feel balanced.

"Addiction is an illness of escape. Its goal is to obliterate, medicate, or ignore reality. It is an alternative to letting oneself feel hurt, betrayal, worry, and-most painful of all-loneliness." (Carnes, 2001)

The sex addict has removed himself out of the whole context of what is right or wrong. He has lost control, no longer has the power of choice, and is not free to stop." (SA, p.3). The sex addict's situation has become like that of the alcoholic who can no longer tolerate alcohol and must stop drinking altogether but is hooked and cannot stop. The addiction eventually takes priority over everything else and it now brings more pain than pleasure into our lives.

A person who is addicted to sex is living in an imaginary, self-created world that avoids the possibility of experiencing rejection or the risk of pain that a real relationship can offer. It is a person's attempt to avoid the pain often caused by real intimacy. The sex addict is essentially creating a pseudo-relationship with someone/something that can be controlled and manipulated; such as a picture, a video, or a prostitute.

The main issue of sexual addiction is not the need for more sex, rather, it is to control and avoid relational pain. This is similar to how an alcoholic or drug addict uses alcohol or drugs to avoid their pain.

Sex addicts are some of the loneliest people on the planet. The term "crowded loneliness" fits their experience. Sex addicts desire to connect with others but due to childhood disconnection (or detachment) with their Caregivers (due to divorce, abuse, neglect, abandonment, death, addictions, etc.), the addict attempts to fill the connection with by bonding with/attaching to something/someone "safe" and controllable. The sex addict tries to connect with the "unreal" (or an illusion) than the real connection (God and others).

Typically what happens is that an addict responds to stress by using sex, alcohol, food, drugs, etc. and when the stress goes away the behavior is reinforced. In the above drawing, addiction really isn't about alcohol, drugs, gambling or sex - it's about a solution to pain. It is a maladaptive response that has become part of the system and has reached the point where it has become pathological. The addict will use whatever works to take away the pain.

The addictive behaviors produce guilt, shame self-hatred, remorse, emptiness, and more pain in the addict and he is driven to more isolation, ever inward, away from reality, away from relationship with others, lost to a world of loneliness. The compulsive behaviors make true intimacy impossible for the addict. True union with another becomes impossible because addicts become addicted to the unreal.