Sexual Addiction: Wisdom from The Masters

By Compiled by Carol the Coach

This ebook shares the wisdom from the most prolific sexual addiction experts in the world talking about sexual addiction, shame, trauma, trauma reenactment, partner betrayal, partner pain, love addiction, and other issues that contribute to compulsive sexual acting out.

Two of the chapters include Patrick Carnes who founded the Sexual Addiction Recovery Movement and Claudia Black who helps Partners of Sex Addicts regain their equilibrium from this traumatic disorder. This book simplifies the principles that make recovery possible for anyone who has been affected by sexual addiction.

If you believe that you have a sexual addiction or you love someone who suffers from this addiction, you will benefit from reading the recovery tasks that will take your life to the next level!

• Language: English
• Publisher: eBookIt.com
• Release date: Jul 12, 2016
• ISBN: 9781456626907

Book preview

978-1-4566-2690-7

Editor’s note: These chapters have been taken from transcripts from the Sex Help with Carol the Coach Internet radio show. I have taken the liberty to edit these narratives so they make more sense in the written form. Each show has a date attached to them so that you can go to www.blogtalkradio.com/sexhelpwithcarolthecoach and listen to the show. You can also download them at iTunes.

PREFACE

Preface

I created this ebook because sexual addiction is not yet recognized in the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5). The DSM-5 is essentially a classification and diagnostic tool for health care providers. The APA’s reasoning? We need more research to prove that it is an addiction. There is an organization out there that is doing just that.

The American Foundation for Addiction Research (AFAR) was created by Dr. Patrick Carnes. It exemplifies personal, social, and professional responsibilities; globally encompassing all disciplines and addictions through a collective partnership between science, clinicians, public policy, and the recovery community. AFAR continues to be a catalyst of social change, promoting dignity, integrity, and service to others. I have long wanted to contribute to AFAR in a meaningful way and I knew my listeners know that sex addiction is real and they would want to help AFAR too. I decided to use the transcripts from my Carol the Coach radio show to create a book where all the proceeds could benefit AFAR. I have cherished bringing you the experts in this field through my radio show and now I hope you will enjoy reading their theories and experiences.

For our first edition of this ebook, I have selected a group of experts I consider masters who have contributed significantly to the field and made a positive difference in the lives of so many people affected by sexual addiction. I hope each chapter will share information that will help you better understand this disorder.

I want you to walk away from this book with a better sense of yourself and what tools and resources are out there to support you and your recovery. If you are a partner of a sex addict, please know that there is specialized help for you too.

Every time I interview a guest, I learn so much and feel so blessed to share it with my listeners. Now we can pay it forward by helping the field get the recognition it deserves by legitimizing a very real problem that many still believe is a lack of moral character.

I want to thank each master who agreed to do the show and then allowed us to use the transcript to support AFAR. I want to also thank Corrine Casanova, the senior editor for Gentle Path Press, for her insight and wisdom. Her compassion and helpfulness was instrumental in the writing of this book. I also want to thank Kim Cook, who has transcribed every show and was my go-to girl in getting this book formatted. She has encouraged me every step of the way!

And most important, I want to thank the thousands of listeners who open these podcasts religiously and send me emails letting me know that I have been instrumental in changing their lives. And that is exactly why I wanted to do this show and use it to create this ebook. I want your lives to be better and I want you all to find hope, strength, and recovery so that you can create the life you deserve!

Carol the Coach

CHAPTER 1

Sex Addiction: Suffering into Meaning

Sex Help with Carol the Coach

April 20, 2015

Dr. Patrick Carnes

Carol: Tonight, I am thrilled to be talking with the guru, the founder, the master of sexual addiction. This is a man who has put his whole life into sexual addiction recovery. You’ve heard me talk about him before. There’s no doubt about it that he has influenced me. I took the training to become a certified sex addiction therapist (CSAT) through his institute. Dr. Patrick Carnes is a nationally known speaker and writes on sex addiction and recovery issues. He’s the founder of the International Institute for Trauma and Addiction Professionals, and he’s the founder of Gentle Path Press, probably the most phenomenal publishing company regarding sexual addiction. The folks there are stellar, and I just so appreciate being associated with this group of people.

Tonight we are going to be talking about how sexual addiction has changed in the last thirty to forty years and what he’s most excited about in terms of treatment, recovery, brain science, and all the things that are contributing to healthy recovery for sex addicts and their partners. We are also going to be talking about the need for more research to prove to others that sexual addiction is a real disorder/addiction and needs to be in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, which is the bible of mental health conditions.

You are going to be learning about the American Foundation of Addiction Research (AFAR), which is a group of people devoted to providing research on sexual addiction. All the proceeds from this book are going to AFAR because this research is so very important. It is important in substantiating the work we’re doing, important in helping sex addicts and their partners get healthy, and important in helping other people understand that this is a real disorder.

I was telling my group tonight as we were ending, Now guys, if you’re not doing anything, you might just listen to my interview with Dr. Patrick Carnes. I was so excited, and they laughed because, I’m telling you, these guys are from different places and go to different treatment centers and of course attend Twelve Step meetings in other cities, other states, and other countries. But when people find out that they’re from Indianapolis, they go, Oh my gosh, do you know Carol the Coach? That is the beauty of media and radio. But here in my own backyard … like Rodney Dangerfield … I get no respect. That is not really true, as I work with the greatest guys (and women) who are forever indebted to me and any CSAT who spends time unraveling their shame and pain.

What I know to be true is that there used to be so many stigmas when talking about this kind of stuff. People are hungry for the information. They want to get help. I had a young man call me today. He’s not able to drive. He had difficulty speaking, and he was talking about chronic masturbation. He said, I cannot stop and I don’t know what to do. Of course I said, Get yourself to a Twelve Step meeting. That’s when I found out he couldn’t drive. I said, There are telephone meetings day and night that you can be a part of. But I do want him to do some face-to-face meetings. I can tell that this man is incredibly lonely and is probably using chronic masturbation as a way of medicating the loneliness. I said what I would initially do is find a qualified certified sex addiction therapist. This man was from another state. He had actually Googled me and the show and listened to a few podcasts, and he was really interested in figuring out how he might be able to get help.

What I know to be true about sexual addiction is that whether you had trauma that contributed to the sexual addiction or you have trauma now as a result of the sexual addiction, it is imperative that you work on a recovery program that activates behavioral patterns that are healthy; that you work through the grief, the loneliness, the sadness, the anger, the rage; and that you connect to other people who are going through the same thing. That’s why we really believe in certified sex addiction therapists, because this is a niche. It’s not a one treatment takes care of all the issues. There are people who really do have expertise in trauma, people who have expertise in trauma reenactment, people who have expertise in Twelve Step programs, and people who have expertise in ministry and recovery. You need to assess what it is you need, but you need to go to the experts. That’s what this show is all about, and that’s what a certified sex addiction therapist can provide you. Go to www.sexhelp.com, click on find a therapist, put in your zip code, and find the closest CSAT or look for somebody who works through Skype or coaching.

I started my group therapy as a result of talking with Dr. Carnes. He has said that if you were going to offer good clinical skills, then you should offer a group to enhance the individual clinical work that you provided to them. Group therapy is a different type of experience than a Twelve Step meeting, because the clients in the group are working on therapeutic issues and resolving them. There is cross talk. The group members help each other work through issues. I do something in my groups called Mt. Vesuvius. That is where the men go through an anger exercise where they get to rage at their perpetrator or their neglectful mother or father. They use each other as a container for safety, because when you’re going to do this kind of work, you have to have safety and support. There has to be safety and there has to be containment, and that’s so important for any kind of trauma work. So the group provides that opportunity.

If you are looking for a group therapy experience, when you scroll down looking for a CSAT in your area, see who provides groups, because they’re very helpful. Of course, we know that Twelve Step meetings are helpful as well. You’ve heard me talk before about Recovery Nation and some of the online recovery groups. They’re wonderful too, especially for people who really have difficulty with the Twelve Step program. And yet there is no substitute for face-to-face therapy, both individually and in group. It can contribute to the growth and spiritual transformation that is necessary in recovery. It’s not about conforming; it’s about transforming, and that’s so important. When I work with my group, the group teaches me as much as I teach them.

Tonight we will be talking with Dr. Carnes about what recovery tools he thinks are the most important. Of course, so many sex addicts struggle with long-term recovery. And we know that if they work on the Recovery Start Kit and utilize in all the recovery tools, they’re going to be much more likely to maintain successful recovery—and that’s what it’s all about.

What do you do to work on yourself? I am a big believer in setting aside daily time to work on reflection, contemplation, and change. Not only do I get up in the morning and exercise, but I listen to podcasts that provide inspiration and education. I spend time reading. I have a solid fellowship of people in my life who support me and who hold me accountable, no matter what my issues are, and that’s what you need too. There is hope, strength, and recovery out there, and there are lots of opportunities to learn more about recovery through your bibliotherapy, through this show, and through the introspection that comes with therapy.

If you just don’t think you can do it by yourself, it may be time to consider a residential treatment program where you can get specialized treatment, attend workshops, and participate in intensives. Dr. Carnes works at Gentle Path through The Meadows. Gentle Path uses Dr. Carnes’s task-centered approach for long-term sexual addiction recovery. He is a senior fellow at The Meadows.

The Meadows is located in Wickenburg, Arizona, and is one of the finest treatment centers in the world. It allows you to work on all types of addictions. One thing we know about sexual addiction is that there is a higher probability that if you are suffering from sexual addiction, then you likely have at least one other type of compulsion or addiction to address. That’s what we’re finding more and more. You’ve heard me talk about the fact that when I wanted to educate addiction hospitals about sexual addiction, they did not want me to talk about sexual addiction. They were scared to touch it because they feared it would interfere with their not-for-profit status. I’m always really amazed that there can be such fear around sexuality. We’ve got a lot of things to work on in today’s world, and this certainly is one of them. With the Internet being the new crack cocaine of sex addiction, we have to stay on top of it. Again, I am thrilled to be interviewing Dr. Patrick Carnes tonight.

This is a field that has gone through so many changes, and it’s important for us to recognize and honor the changes that it has been through. People didn’t believe in sex addiction and thought it was a moral issue. I’m pleased to tell you that the field has made so much progress. Dr. Carnes had to go through so much to get the word out, and he was stigmatized as a result, kind of blackballed. People thought it was just boys being boys. They didn’t get the compulsivity and the obsessiveness behind this. Now, people are clamoring to figure out how they can learn the skills needed to recover from this serious illness.

Do you feel like you can get the help you need? That is so important, and that’s what this show is all about: to remind you that, yes, you can. You can get the help as long as you reach out and request it. I think it is very difficult to make that first call, and when you do, what you’re going to need to know is that somebody cares and has the expertise to direct you to the right place.

If you’re a partner, I know that it’s really tough for you too, because what we know to be true is while the addicts carry the shame, oftentimes their partners carry the pain. They wonder was it something they did or did not do. They don’t know whether to stay or to leave. They don’t know if it will get better. They don’t know if they will ever be able to trust their partner! I oftentimes work with partners to create connection with other Twelve Step groups, S-Anon, COSA, even an Indianapolis group that has started to provide support on a smaller level, because they really know how imperative it is to be able to talk out their issues and not reinvent the wheel or brainstorm with each other. We’re always working with partners.

You’ve heard me say in the past that there are basically two reasons for addiction. One is trauma-based or neglect, abuse, that kind of thing; and the other has to do with a kind of obsessive compulsive behavior that occurs as a result of habitual patterns of behavior. We call it ritualization. We call it a kind of sexual addiction cycle that can actually keep you stuck in the cycle of your addiction.

So what I’m going to ask you to do is to think about your recovery. What are you doing that’s working in your life? What is making a difference? Is it the reading you’re doing? I recommend the workbook Facing the Shadow from Gentle Path Press to every person I work with. Why is that? Because it’s the workbook that deals with the ABCs of sexual addiction, and the more you look at the problems that it has caused in your life—the consequences—the more you understand that maybe it’s not just Internet porn. Maybe there is some fantasy; there is some seduction; there is that risk taking that is imperative to the illness itself. You can interrupt that at different points. Dr. Carnes talks about a fire drill. Have a fire drill ready so that when you begin to feel urges and cravings, you know how to interrupt that pattern immediately. This might entail writing a letter reminding yourself how much healthier you are, because you no longer utilize pornography, prostitution, exhibitionism, that kind of thing. When you’ve got those things on hand, as well as your fellowship list so that you can call anybody for support at any time, you’re much more likely to make successful choices. Some people have found that certain medications make a big difference in their urges and cravings, so they combine pharmacology with utilizing those healthy outside behaviors like exercise and relationship building and church. Addicts may go to additional Twelve Step meetings when they feel more at risk to slip or relapse.

Other times you may be a partner and say, You know what? I need to go to a partner trauma workshop so that I can work with a group of people who really know how I feel and can give me the support I need to make the necessary changes in my life. Maybe I need a separation. Maybe I need a full disclosure. Maybe I am tired of information leaking out over and over and over again, which leaves me feeling re-traumatized.

One of the things I do with addicts is that I ask them to have empathy for what’s going on in the lives of their partner. It’s not all about them; it’s also about how is this affecting your wife or your husband? How is this affecting the kids? How is it affecting your work? And although you need to have somebody who really is there for you and who understands and won’t stigmatize or shame or guilt you, they also need to help you rebuild the lives of the people whose lives you have shattered.

I am so pleased to announce that we have Dr. Carnes on the phone.

Carol: I’m very glad to have you on the show, because I’ve got some important things to check out with you, and of course I wanted to talk to you first and foremost about AFAR. Can you tell our listening audience why AFAR is such an important organization and what it’s doing for the field of sexual addiction?

Dr. Carnes: There is no other organization that really takes into account all the addictions. There are things around some of the chemical addictions, but there isn’t anything that also takes into account what we call a process addiction, like compulsive eating or compulsive sex or some of the things that don’t involve chemicals. AFAR is committed to fostering research across all the various types of addiction.

Carol: So in some ways this differentiates process addictions from chemical addictions and will help people to understand through research that this is just as devastating and compulsive as a chemical addiction.

Dr. Carnes: Well, in fact from a neurobiological and medical point of view, this is something that has been in the works for a long time. People have understood that the reward centers of the brain can be accessed in many ways besides chemicals. With both food and sex, for example, they actually are in some ways harder wired in the brain, because they are connected with survival. The reality is that both in food and sex, we can now see this in brain scans documenting that the same parts of the brain are affected as cocaine or other chemicals would affect them. In some ways, like for example in the case of sex, the brain will categorize something as sexual for both men and women 20 percent faster than anything else that it is presented with. So the reality is that physicians are saying and writing about that, and they’re saying of course sex can be addictive. Of course, now it is delivered in ways that we never knew before, because the Internet has really opened technology to flooding the brain and the reward centers of the brain in ways that the human race has never faced before. So we have a greater challenge than we know.

About six or seven years ago, there was an article in Pediatrics talking about the fact that two-thirds of our junior high students are doing sexual things while they do their homework, and 34 percent will go on to have a lifelong problem. That period in an adolescent’s life between the ages of twelve and sixteen is very powerful in terms of forming addictions. Like if you smoke at the age of thirteen or fourteen or if you drink alcohol at the age of thirteen or fourteen, it can be a real problem. One of the things that we are starting to understand is those kids—and roughly that’s about six million U.S. teenagers at this point in time—40 percent of those kids who are having the problem started when they were actually ten. The fact of the matter is that there are parents out there who literally do not know what their kids are doing or that a kid would even be having a problem.

One of the things that AFAR is trying to do is mobilize the recovery community as well as the research community and public health people to become aware that we have a major problem. Addiction is our number one public health problem. In chemicals alone, there is over $500 billion a year in medical expenses connected with the chemical addictions. When you fold in the eating disorders and compulsive overeating—for example, with a third of our adults having obesity, which leads to diabetes and cardiovascular problems, etc.—then you fold in sex addiction and you start getting to sexually transmitted diseases and AIDS. In fact, a recent statistic shows that the leading cause of throat cancer—which used to be either alcohol or nicotine—the leading cause of throat cancer now is HPV, the virus that is transmitted by oral sex in adolescents, and it’s reduced the age of onset from the early fifties to the mid-thirties. It’s stunning to see that we have major consequences, major things that are happening in our culture, and people are oblivious to it. It’s AFAR’s mission to help people understand that we as a nation have a huge addiction problem. We are one of the most expensive medical systems in the world, and we are not one of the healthiest nations in the world.

Carol: That makes total sense. So, in some ways, it’s going to have to hit a physical realm for people to grasp how this addiction is affecting our kids, our families, and certainly adults. Tell me, what is the greatest change you’ve seen in the past forty years in your work with sexual addiction? Actually, has it been forty or is it fifty years now? Wasn’t it in the mid-80s that you first started this work?

Dr. Carnes: I actually started … the book that kind of started it all for me in my career was Out of the Shadows. I actually wrote the majority of that in 1972.

Carol: Did you really?

Dr. Carnes: We did not publish it until 1983, because at that time we were still learning. To talk about any non-chemical addiction was a real problem, so what we did in 1985 is we started off really researching. We followed 1,000 families for seven years, and what we found is we were able to document that there was a process, probably an age-old process, in that sex addiction comes from certain kinds of families; it usually involved things with childhood abuse, sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse. We knew that it was very stress and trauma related. We also knew that early sexual experiences could have a tremendous effect on it and that it traveled with other addictions. So we had kind of a pathway. If you’d ask me the biggest change that has happened in my career, I thought by 1991 that we had a map of how all this happened and we did. At that time, we had a really good picture and really good numbers about how sex addiction occurred.

Carol: Before the Internet, right?

Dr. Carnes: It was before the Internet. We started getting people … I was getting patients who didn’t fit that pattern. What did happen is they got on the Internet, and as we have since learned from a number of different sources, there are now people who struggle with the problem who never would have had it if not for the Internet. Reality is that, first of all, I had people tell me that and one of my clues was it happened so fast. I remember having a minister tell me that he discovered the Internet in his church when he was working alone one day on a holiday, and he quickly went through his family savings and he embezzled from the