Roads to Recovery from Sexual Addiction
By Terri Rimmer
Published 01/3/2008
Dating & Relationships
Rating: Unrated
Terri Rimmer
Terri Rimmer has 24 years of journalism experience, having worked for ten newspapers and some magazines. Currently she writes for http://associatedcontent.com. She has a daughter, McKenna, whom she placed for adoption in August 2000. Ms. Rimmer published her e-book "MacKenzie's Hope" on http://booklocker.com under the family heading. It's also listed on http://adopting.com. She resides in Fort Worth, TX. In 2007 she won a Media Award from Associated Content and in 2005 she received a grant from Change, Inc. In 2003.
View all articles by Terri Rimmer
Roads to Recovery From Sexual Addiction
Do you know if you or someone you love has the symptoms of sexual dependency?

According to a a Sexual Dependency Program brochure from Coral Ridge Psychiatric Hospital in Ft. Lauderdale, FL behavior patterns of those suffering from sexual dependency may include but are not limited to multiple extramarital affairs and repeated incidents of sexual harassment among others.

“My sex addiction was not something that was easily talked about, and when I did talk about it I was told to ‘stop my denial process and concentrate on my allergy to alcohol.’ I was told time and again, ‘Don’t drink and go to (AA) meetings,’” says David R. “I became abstinent from alcohol. I am now experiencing a level of sobriety that in the past I could only have wished for. We who are recovering from the shame of sexual addiction are truly miracles.”

According to the now defunct Recovery Today Newspaper, in July 1992 sexual addiction treatment, per se, was not covered by insurance, but it was covered under the category of major depression. Accepted patients went through standard hospital admissions procedures an an assessment determined the actual level of care.

“Today I am choosing recovery from a sex addiction that has plaged me since I first started getting sober the first time in 1998. It has not been easy. In fact, it has been harder in some ways than stopping drinking and staying stopped. It has been been harder because of the underlying problems surrounding it; the lack of support from others who don’t understand the loneliness, struggle, and pain. With an addiction such as this one it is hard just to abstain because sex is part of life,” states Denise P.

Denise’s sex addiction began during treatment for alcholism when she switched one addiction for another. When the drug (alcohol) was taken away she statd that she was left with an empty hole inside of her that could not be filled, she said. She began a collision course with a very real addiction that almost led her to drink many times, she revealed. She slept with two different men while in treatment to get back at her boyfriend who wasn’t calling, writing, or visitng. Once out of treatment she engaged in a three-week fling with a divorced, practicing alcoholic and addict and didn’t go to support meetings during that period. It was a miracle, she said, she stayed sober. During that time she also lost one of her former foster moms to cancer.

“Shortly therafter I moved to California from Illinois,” says Denise. “I lived with my brother, also a recovering alcoholic who didn’t understand my sex addiction but because he was a therapist steered me to a meeting of Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous, a women’s group which gave me hope.”

But Denise was not ready to end her self-destructive cycle and continued to indulge in “binges” which left her feeling worthless and experiencing actual physical sickness, much like a real hangover, only without the alcohol, she explained.

"In short, I wasn’t ready to stop being used and victimized,” Denise said. “I continued to go to meetings and knew that everyone had their own control device. For some it was as simple as not picking up the phone. Others could go out on a date but that was it.”

Denise said that it wasn’t as simple as not having or having sex.

“It wasn’t realistic to ask people to abstain from something as natural as sex; each person set their own behavior limits based on the consequences of their past actions,” she said. “For me it was as simple as not picking up the phone. For me it always started there.”

Denise eventually stopped going to the group and got involved with a married man, a practicing addict. That relationship went on and off for two years and it was still a temptation in 2002, she said, though not as strong as it once was.

“When I think about the insanity of my behavior during that time I still cringe and hurt for what I put others around me through,” said Denise. “I rmember sending my brother home with a plate of food after inviting him to dinner because the married man had called at the spur of the moment and said he’d be over in five minutes.”

Denise reported that she would buy expensive food at the local Mom and Pop grocery on credit and spend hours preparing a full-course meal complete with dessert only to have the married man cancel on her at the last minute.

“Married men have a way of doing that,” she said. “One day I hid behind my own house form a man who I had been out with the night before. He had come back to see me because I wouldn’t talk to him on the phone. Rather than face him, it was easier to hide.”

After beating her head against the wall through various affairs, flings, relationships, and overall destructive behavior, Denise said she finally succumbed in August 2001 a day at time to “this horrible addiction which ultimately cost me jobs, living situations, money, relationships, friendships, and my health.”

“Today I have a reprieve from choosing victim behavior contingent on my spiritual condition,” she says. “I did not find the answers in Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous (SLAA) because I haven’t been back there in two years. But I did apply the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) to my sex addiction and found that it works! Through my Higher Power’s grace I know that I don’t have to allow myself to be used over and over again. Today I know I deserve more.”

Denise said it is not easy, especially when the loneliness kicks in.

“I constantly have to examine my motives and judge situations individually based on my point of reference or my past pain,” she noted. “It’s more ore less breaking the cycle of doing the same things and expecting different results.”

Denise said the fact that she was sexually abused from the time she was three years old until the age of 17 by her stepfather is directly linked to her addiction.

“But toady I am in therapy and through the 12 Steps of AA I do not have to let me past rob me of today,” she said. “And for that, I am extremely and eternally grateful.”



For help with a sex addiction, go to sexhelp.com.