A while back, I completed 4 and a half days of training on the assessment and treatment of sex addiction. You might be thinking “I’m not a sex addict so this isn’t relevant”, but I’d encourage you to listen to this week’s podcast regardless because we’ll also talk a lot about what healthy sexuality looks like in this show. There’ll be plenty of food for thought whether this is an issue in your marriage or not.

To begin with, let’s clarify what we’re talking about with “sex addiction”. It is not:

So what IS sex addiction? There are 10 criteria:

So the family and upbringing play a huge part in almost all cases. A lot of the recovery work involves addressing childhood trauma.

Yup. It’s amazing to hear stories of very broken lives and marriages. So much destruction and pain. Now they are whole and their lives are manageable and they are pursuing healthy courtship and healthy intimacy.

Coping with a spouse who is addicted to sex can be very challenging. Dealing with these issues can be similar to dealing with trauma and Post Infidelity Stress Disorder, both of which we have looked at in previous episodes. Disclosure should be professionally guided if there is a lot of addictive behavior to deal with.

It depends on the severity but where you have total unmanageability and basic counseling hasn’t helped it’s time to consider an inpatient program lasting several weeks. Then follow up work. I’m hearing of recovery treatment lasting 3-5 years and then after that, there is a lifetime of maintenance behaviors and habits, including being part of a SA group of some sort.

Listen to the podcast for the full discussion.