Thursday, February 12, 2009
{The Blue Banner}
Addicts
Page 12
Continued from Page 10
ferent from having obsessive, addictive
sex,” Bill said. “It may look exactly the
same from the outside, but it’s what’s go
ing on in my head. Before I got sober, I
wasn’t necessarily here. I was off in some
fantasy.”
The obsession occasionally manifests
through an addict taking “indecent liber
ties,” a term Williams explained as physi
cally rubbing against another person’s
body and fantasizing, often culminating
in chronic masturbation.
Howe.ver, symptoms only reflect the
extemalization of the root cause, he said.
“They’ve taken something that, as we
know, is a wonderful, natural act, and
they’ve made it something that they have
to engage in to deal with emotional pain,”
said Williams, who also worked as an ad
dictions counselor for 22 years.
Psychologist Robert McDonald, Ph.D.,
explained the official collection of psy
chological diagnoses, the Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders,
excludes sex addiction.
“I help people change their behavior
to ways that work for them,” McDonald
said. “If they identify their behavior as
a problem, it is a problem, so I see it as a
legitimate problem.”
That issue often remains untreated,
while the addict rationalizes their behav
ior as normal, according to McDonald.
“Sexual arousal and orgasm are so in
herently pleasurable that there usually has
to be an external problem before the indi
vidual identifies it as a problem: you have
to get arrested for soliciting a prostitute,
or run up the credit cards really high or
the person you’re in a relationship with
gets really ticked off,” said McDonald, an
Oklahoma native.
Since sex addiction often stems from
feelings of shame and anxiety, support
groups encourage members to find Aeir
“higher power” and put their faith in spiri
tuality.
Eric B., a member of the Asheville
chapter of Sex and Love Addicts Anon
ymous who wished to exclude his last
name, explained that, to reach intimacy
with another individual, he first learned
to reach intimacy with himself and his
“higher power.”
“What is not spiritual? To me, it all
is, and especially sexuality. Sexuality is
sensuality, which is all of the senses. And-
what is not sensual?” Eric said.
The love facet of addiction remains
as important as the intercourse, said Wil-
“It took about six months to lose my job, a year to
lose my license and about two-and-a-halfyears of civil
court. I don’t regret any of that now because it all got
me into recovery, and my recovery is more important
than any of my professional life. I didn’t have a spiri
tual life before, and now I do and that s worth whatever
the cost. ”
-Anonymous sex addict
Hams.
“There’s a saying around those recov
ery zones: a person doesn’t fall in love;
they take people hostage. They become
a kind of leech to the person they fall in
love with,” Williams explained of addic
tive relationships. “It’s more of that need
to be needed, need for romance, need to
be loved.”
“The partner becomes the person’s
‘higher power,”’ Eric said.
For Sexaholics Anonymous, member
ship only requires a genuine commitment
to stop lusting obsessively and pursue
sexual health and sobriety. This universal
urge unites all types of individuals on a
common front, said Bill.
As another alternative, individual ther
apy offers more personalized benefits, ac
cording to McDonald.
“I have the luxury of tailoring every
thing to the individual’s needs, as closely
as I can figure that out. I try to figure out
what led to that maladaptive behavior,
what maintains it, what kind of interven
tion might be helpful for the individual
to gain more control over it,” McDonald
said.
Internet pornography and sexually ex
plicit photographs serve as tools which
sex addicts tend to employ frequently, ac
cording to Bill.
“When you have to go to a grimy store
in a bad part of town and pay somebody
face to face to get sexual material, there
are a lot of hurdles there. But if you can
press a couple of buttons on a computer
in the privacy of your apartment or bed
room, there are virtually no hurdles,” Mc
Donald said.
McDonald often receives female cli
ents who feet discomfort because their
male partner spends great quantities of
time with a virtual woman through a com
puter screen.
“Women feci threatened by the men
paying a lot of attention to abnormally
attractive women,” McDonald said. “If
they were male, and she was looking at
the Chippendale Strippers with the ripped
stomachs, we’d be kind .of uncomfortable
just from the perspective .of, ‘is that what
I have to live up to? Is my flabby stomach
a real bummer for her?”’
In most cases, the men insist they in
tend to stop. However, McDonald esti
mates that 99 percent of the time, they
cannot stop themselves.
“It (Internet pornography) kills inti
macy,” Eric said.
Sex addicts who ask for help tend to
be middle-aged males, according to Wil
liams.
“The meetings definitely have more
men in them, but my own personal belief
is that it’s harder for a woman to come out
of the closet with this in our culture,” Bill
said of the 12- step support programs. “If
a man’s having a lot of sex, he’s a man; if
a woman’s having a lot of sex, she’s a slut.
Our society just looks at it differently.”
Biological growth offers another ex
planation, according to McDonald.
“At the point when the fetus gets the
message to become a male, a portion of
the brain that would develop into empa
thy and the ability to socially understand
situations - females, empathy and social
understanding, those things can be tested
- for men, it develops into sexual interest
and aggression,” McDonald said.
Although people tend to get help later
in life, sex addiction affects every age
group. Younger individuals manage to
Extra:
m
For more information on se^
addiction, visit the Sex Addict
Anonymous Web site at:
www.sexaa.org
or
www.sexaddict.corr
For counseling information, cs
UNCAsheville’s Counseling'
Center at:
(828)-251-6517
The counseling services arei
located on the first floor of'
Weizenblatt Health Center an^
provides three major programs!
service, free of charge, to all re;
istered UNCAstudents; individt;
counseling, group counseling a'
outreach programs.
copulate frequently without the label “
diets” because society expects it of thf^
said McDonald.
“One of the challenges in that peri^
17 to 25 or so, is to learn to manage'
feelings, of stress or attraction or wlj
ever, in ways that are not too probir
atic,” McDonald said. “At 30, using ■
becomes more problematic than it dofii
18 to 22.”
However, young addicts can exf
ence the same strains of symptoms, s'
as compulsive sexual dispositions and*
ing sex as an emotional outlet. |
“The middle-aged sex addicts {
dealt with seem to have had a lifel^
course: they were hypersexual in tlj
teens and twenties and then on into
adulthood,” McDonald said. “But \v|
they get married, after a period of ti'
she (their spouse) is going to find sol
thing going whacky.”
Despite obsessive mentalities, add;
still manage to pursue sobriety succ^
fully. Bill uses prayer to curb poter!
fantasies. I
“That puts the power between my &
not between my legs,” Bill said. *