POSA™ Blog

"Each week, the PoSARC inbox is filled with all kinds of e-mails requesting help. But hands down, our largest percentage of mail contains questions directed to the small handful of addicts in recovery I work with who occasionally donate their time to answer the questions I put before them. What I glean from reading all of these e-mails is what I call the million-dollar question: "How can you (the sex addict) do these behaviors when you're in a relationship? What were you thinking?"

I always feel a little saner when I read those because it helps me know that I wasn't the only one who was beyond vexed by this right after Discovery and in the next few years afterwards.

Here's an e-mail that just came in which I'll share because I know it's a big day for POSAs to get triggered.

Dear Lili:

My husband and I have been fighting all day already and now he's stormed out of the house on his way to the local sports bar to watch the Super Bowl.
Reason for fight: I asked him if he will be fast-forwarding over the cheerleading part of the big event and he became furious, claiming it's not at all something he considers a trigger for his acting out. He's saying that since his "thing" was porn, seeing NFL cheerleaders is so far removed from porn that it's ridiculous, and clear to him I need to get a hold of myself!
On top of that, he's saying I ruined all the potential for his fun evening of sports and that I'm in need of a good therapist to help me with what he calls my anxiety.

Please advise me!
Cindy

One of the challenges of working with a topic for many years is that one can end up burrowing deeper and deeper into more complex aspects of the topic. One of the risks can be possibly losing touch with how a newcomer to the topic may still be struggling with "the basics". So while still engaging my interest in delving into the more complex aspects of progressed behaviors in addiction as well as chronic infidelity, I am devoting some time and webpage space to apprising newcomers of what they might expect as they find themselves in a strange new world of sex addiction or chronic infidelity with all its pain and confusion. Here, then, is Part One of the new series:

Sexual addiction, including pornography addiction, is one of the most harmful in relationships. The shame with this addiction for the addict and the spouse, the betrayal, trauma and stereotypes linked to the addiction are often devastating.

I think it is courageous to produce a mainstream film about the recovery from sex addiction.

Recently, a recovery coaching client of mine asked me if I thought the movie Shame(2011)would be suitable to show her family and friends as a way of inviting them to understand the hell she has been living in, as the wife of an intransigent sex addict. I told her no, for many reasons that I won't go into here. But my client's question did get me thinking that there hasn't yet been a film that can elucidate what we go through as POSAs. This film, Thanks for Sharing, does express this perspective and yet, does not fit that bill all that well either. I'll explain:

 *Editors Note:

Dr Linda Hatch is a well respected authority in the field of Sex Addiction and Compulsion. In this post she addresses the issues surrounding addiction and infidelity. We at PoSARC feel it is important for Partners of addicts to confront, and understand the issues related to the Addiction / Compulsion, in order to best work towards a healthy and productive recovery for themselves.

In the strictest sense, the answer is no, not all sex addicts cheat. For example there is the addict whose sexually addictive behavior involves pornography and who doesn't have sex with anyone but their partner. And certainly there are many such sex addicts who lead the typical double life of the addict but who do not have sex with another person. There are also sex addicts for whom actual cheating is their preferred or only acting out behavior. They flirt, they hook up with people or they have "serial" affairs with various people outside their primary relationship. I have previously argued that not all cheaters are sex addicts and that sometimes a cheater is just a cheater.

For many addicts cheating is one of several sexually addictive behaviors

Published on Dec 2, 2012, this is a livestream event that broadcast at Pornharms. Dr. Linda Hatch, from sexaddictionscounseling.com gives an overview of what happens to relationships when sex addiction enters the picture and what goes on during treatment and the potential rebuilding of a relationship.

At the APSATS training for Partner-Sensitive Trauma Treatment (in sex addiction) recently in Dallas, which I was fortunate enough to be enrolled in, I was particularly struck by one of the Board member's presentations. Dan Drake, an articulate and well-informed therapist trained in sex addiction presented on the many ways partners are often psychologically manipulated by their sex-addicted significant other and the effects thereof. His presentation of this often misunderstood and even more often unaddressed aspect of the partner's experience left me feeling relieved that this information was finally out there.Plus, I was inspired that he was teaching a whole generation of other therapists from the partner-sensitive trauma model.

I am sharing a transcript of my interview with Dan in the hopes that you, our faithful readers, will know that there will soon be an end to the days when one cannot find treatment providers (coaches and therapists) who work from a partner-sensitive perspective. The days are soon coming when the term "co-addict" will be a relic of the past.

APSATS TRAINING JUNE 26- JUNE 29, 2013 DALLAS, TEXAS

I caught up with Dr. Barbara Steffens and Richard Blankenship (another APSATS Board member & sex addiction therapist in GA) after the completion of the first-ever training to certify clinicians in the new partner-sensitive trauma treatment model. We were exhilarated and spent, having come through a four-day training so intense there wasn't even enough time for breaks. At night, we "processed" with our fellow trainees and stuffed ourselves on delicious Tex-Mex food in the 100-degree + heat of the Dallas summer.

I couldn't help but often feel emotionally overwhelmed during and especially after our training: there was grief at all that had been lost to those of us who had Discovery in the pre-trauma-model days. Grief not just for our own selves and our own relationships lost, but for those of many of our clients.