What Is Sex Addiction?
There is a lot of debate about the term “sex addiction.” Although it doesn’t appear in the fifth edition of the “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders” (DSM-5), “compulsive sexual behavior disorder” does appear in the World Health Organization diagnostic manual, the ICD-11.
Just like drug or alcohol addictions are used to cope with negative emotions and stress, many people turn to sex as a method of coping from or avoiding uncomfortable feelings, and it can have a negative effect on a person’s physical and mental health, relationships, quality of life, and safety.
By getting the right tools and information, people can permanently overcome their addiction or habit and live a life with strong marriages and families, feeling peace, confidence, and satisfaction.
What Happens With Sex Addiction?
It’s thought that people who have a sex addiction will want to have a lot of sex partners. This isn’t the main indicator of a problem or addiction.
The main sign that someone struggles with a sex addiction is if their time, energy, and focus are primarily centered on seeking or thinking about sex as a means of coping from negative emotions, and they are unable to control their urges and behavior.
Someone with a sex addiction may become good at hiding their behavior and even keeping the condition from their spouse or partner and even their family members. They might deny acting on these impulses or do it and in places where they won’t be found out.
What Are the Symptoms of a Sexual Addiction?
If a person shows some or all of the following signs or diagnostic criteria, they may have a sex addiction:
- Obsessive sexual thoughts or fantasies
- Compulsive relations and with multiple partners, including strangers
- Lying to cover their obsessive behavior
- Always preoccupied with sex to where it interferes with their daily life and work performance
- They lack the inability to stop or control behaviors
- Sex addicts put themselves and possibly others in danger because of sexual behavior
- Compulsive masturbation or sexual dysfunction
With infidelity, for example, compulsions can strain relationships. Some people may say they have a sex addiction to explain infidelity.
It’s important to remember that having fun with or enjoying sex doesn’t mean that you have a sex addiction. Sex is a good thing for people, and having fun with it is normal. Likewise, the level of sexual interest between two people does not mean that one of them has a sexual addiction.
What Causes Compulsive Sexual Behavior?
Compulsive sexual behavior is sometimes called hypersexuality, hypersexual disorder, or sexual addiction. It’s an excessive preoccupation with sexual fantasies, urges, or behaviors that are difficult to control that cause you distress or negatively affect your health, job, relationships, or other parts of your life.
It’s important to understand that a sex addiction isn’t caused by a high desire for sex. Rather, sex is used as a coping mechanism for unresolved negative emotions.
When someone feels depressed, low self-worth, inadequate, lonely, anxious, or stressed, they get an endorphin and dopamine rush from sex, which helps them to feel better in the moment.
So if you turn to sex or other compulsive sexual behavior to feel better and escape your negative emotions, the more it’ll develop into a habit because of the pleasure you receive. It gets difficult to break the habit unless you have new ways of coping AND actually deal with the underlying feelings that you are trying to escape.
Here’s a resource to help you more clearly identify the specific underlying cause that are causing your addiction or habit and actually resolve them so they don’t continue to affect you.
Compulsive sexual behavior may involve a variety of commonly enjoyable sexual experiences. Examples include excessive masturbation, cybersex, multiple sexual partners, phone sex, porn addiction, or paying for sex. However, when these sexual behaviors become a significant focus in your life, are difficult to control, and are disruptive or harmful to you or others, they may be compulsive sexual behavior.
Can You Get Addicted To Sex?
If you have repetitive sexual impulses or compulsive sexual behavior, then you can find taking part in sexual activities releases endorphins and pleasure chemicals like dopamine in the brain; the same effects can be found if you drink or take drugs.
Following this, the search for multiple sex partners can put lots of pressure on people with sex addiction. They may seek repetitive sexual activities, yet the ultimate act of sexual intercourse may not always be possible.
What Is The Best Treatment for a Sex Addiction?
The best approach for treating sexual addiction is to resolve the root problem of the behavior. This can be done by a trained professional who specializes in sex addiction to identify and process the negative feelings that drive the behavior.
A sex addict often struggles with feelings of low self-worth, depression, inadequacies, or other negative emotions that fuel their sexual behavior, so addressing and resolving these issues is critical to finding freedom and control over their sexual behavior.
Eliminating Your Triggers and Urges For Porn
The best type of individual counseling focuses on helping men effectively deal with their triggers, because without knowing how to identify and eliminate them, you’ll always be vulnerable to another relapse.
For example, let’s say you see an attractive woman at the gym and it triggers you to think sexual thoughts about her. Later on at night it can turn into scrolling on your phone looking at pictures, which eventually leads you to porn. Before you know it, it’s already too late because the temptation is so strong and you mess up again and feel guilty about it.
The key to finding freedom after you’ve identified the trigger is to reprocess it internally in a way that eliminates the power it has over you. You might have any number of different triggers, but the process is the same.
Developing the ability to remove the intensity or emotional pull of your triggers is the only way to become free, because you can’t just avoid stress at work, quit going to the gym or grocery store, stop watching TV or seeing attractive women when you’re out. So if those external triggers don’t stir up the urge or desire to watch porn or compulsively pursue sex, you won’t ever begin the search in the first place.
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, Sam Tielemans, has developed a unique approach to help men reprocess their triggers to eliminate their urges and cravings for pornography, which is often the reason why men end up relapsing, despite their best efforts to stay strong.
If you want help identifying and reprocessing triggers so you find freedom from your compulsive urges, this podcast episode outlines the steps to this approach so you can try it for yourself.
Healthy Coping Mechanisms
Once you resolve the deeper-level emotions and insecurities that fuel addiction, it’s important to find new and healthier ways to cope with the stresses of life.
This could include meditation, exercise, sports, music, or any other activity that helps you to de-stress.
Do 12-Step Groups Help?
Programs such as Sex Addicts Anonymous (SAA) follow the same recovery model as Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). Though success rates for attending groups is only about 5-10% for those who participate because it’s more focused on support instead of resolving the root problem of the addiction.
Members aren’t required to give up sex entirely, but they are encouraged to refrain from compulsive and destructive sexual behavior.
Links Between Sex Addiction and Sex Offenders
It is disheartening, but there is an emerging science in the medical community through peer-reviewed studies, which thinks there is a connection between people who have a sex addiction and people who have sex crimes.
Sex addiction can be found in about half of people who have been convicted of sex crimes, as they can already have trouble with personal relationships and possess addictive disorders.
However, there isn’t a difference between the two groups. Some individuals think people become addicted to sex because of a chemical reaction or mental health condition. For sex offenders, it’s accepted that they don’t do it for sexual pleasure, but they do it anyway.
These people act out of a strange desire for power, dominance, or anger. Some people are addicted to sex, but not all people who are addicted to sex will be sex offenders.
Why Do I Feel I Am Addicted To Sex?
It is unfair to say anyone who feels they are a sex addict has a mental health disorder.
However, if you are unsure how you stand, and you may think about seeing a sex therapist, you can see signs in yourself.
Here are a few signs you may struggle to control sexual behavior:
- You have recurrent and intense sexual fantasies, urges, and behaviors that take up a lot of your time and feel as if they’re beyond your control.
- You feel driven to do certain sexual behaviors, feel a release of the tension afterward, and feel guilt or remorse.
- You’ve tried unsuccessfully managing compulsive sexual behaviors but failed.
- You use compulsive sexual acts to escape other issues, such as loneliness, depression, anxiety, or stress.
- You continue to engage in sexual acts and behaviors that have serious consequences, such as catching sexually transmitted diseases or other areas of life and work that suffer.
- You struggle to establish and maintain stable relationships.
When To See a Therapist
If you believe you’ve lost control of your sexual conduct, seek treatment, especially if it’s causing you or other’s issues. Compulsive sexual behavior worsens with time, so seek help from suitable mental health professionals when you suspect there is a problem.
When deciding whether to seek professional help, consider the following questions:
1. Is it possible for me to control my sexual desires?
2. Are my sexual habits bothering me?
3. Is my compulsive sexual behavior causing problems in my relationships, work, or personal life, such as getting arrested?
4. Do I attempt to conceal my sexual behavior?
Because compulsive sexual behavior is a highly personal issue, seeking treatment can be challenging.
Consider these things as you seek help:
- Set aside any feelings of shame or humiliation and concentrate on the advantages of seeking help.
- Keep in mind that you’re not alone if you’re dealing with obsessive sexual activity. Professionals in the mental health field are taught to be patient and discreet.
- However, not all mental health practitioners are trained to treat sexual addiction, so make sure you choose a sex therapist who specializes in this.
Keep in mind that anything you say to a medical or mental health professional is kept private unless you disclose that you’re going to damage yourself or someone else or other negative consequences.
You should also seek help if you feel your compulsive sexual behavior could lead you towards sexually abusing a child, or you’re going to carry out sexual abuse or neglect someone in a vulnerable position.
Seek immediate help for sexual impulses if:
- You are concerned that your unrestrained sexual urges conduct may bring harm.
- You’re having other issues with impulse control, and you’re worried that your sexual conduct is getting out of hand.
- Feelings of guilt, humiliation, and low self-esteem are challenging to overcome.
- Other mental health problems emerge, such as depression, suicide, acute distress, and anxiety.
- Neglect or lie to your partner and family, resulting in the harm or destruction of meaningful relationships through mood disorder.
- At work, lose attention, indulge in sexual behavior, or browse the internet for pornography, putting your job in jeopardy.
- Increase debt by purchasing pornography and sexual services.
- Contract HIV, hepatitis, or another sexually transmitted virus, or infect someone else with a sexually transmitted infection.
- Engage in harmful substance use, such as recreational drugs or excessive alcohol use.
- Become a sexual offender and be arrested.
It can be a challenge to go from sexually compulsive to sexual sobriety. Yet, it is possible to overcome these urges and find out the underlying issue with the right therapist and professional relationships before you face any adverse consequences.
