Sexually Addicted Families

By: Andy Gear, PLPC

I recently attended another workshop on Sexual Addiction by Dr. Richard Blankenship: president and director of the International Association of Certified Sexual Addiction Specialists (IACSAS).  This workshop was about Sexually Addicted Families, and I wanted to pass on a sampling of what I learned to you:

On average, children are now exposed to pornography at 8 years old (5 for boys):

     -Early exposure is imprinted on a child’s brain, and the images stay there.

     -These early experiences can shape arousal later in life.

     -These young children experience significant shame.

     -They are not developmentally ready to handle this and can become developmentally stunted.

This is a multi-dimensional problem that requires a multi-dimensional solution:

     -Blocking software is only one tool in the toolbox

          -Covenant Eyes or Safe Eyes (monitor and filter)

     -Address the shame involved

     -Provide accountability

     -Find community

     -Technology: a child should not have internet access behind a locked door.

     -Sex Education: helps prevent sexual addiction & should start immediately in developmentally       

      appropriate ways.

          -The number one trauma of sexual addicts is that no one ever talked to them about sex.

Families with these qualities often have the sexually healthiest kids (Coyle).

            -Good power balance in the family.

                        -It doesn’t mean full democracy, but not a full dictatorship either.

            -Flexible roles in the family.

                        -The family has a willingness to adapt.

            -Healthy and safe touch

                        -If kids don’t find healthy contact, they will find alternatives.

                       

Allure of the Web for Women:

-Immediate (though artificial) sense of connection

-Eliminates inconvenience & risks of face to face interaction

-Provides total control of sexuality & relationship

-Provides unlimited supply of potential partners

-Illusion: “you’re going to make me feel whole/complete me”

            -No person can do this.

Affects of Sexual Addiction on Women:

            -Often cuts more to the core of their identity

            -More shame: hate themselves/not just their behavior

            -Hate their femininity: feel devalued

            -Women have different consequences: pregnancy, cultural stigma, shame

Common Consequences for the Spouse of a Sexual Addict:

1.     Abandonment by spouse, friends, family & church

2.     Financial ruin or absent finances

3.     Financial dependency

4.     STD’s

5.     Lack of boundaries

6.     Emotional abuse

7.     Physical abuse

8.     Isolation

9.     Physical and emotional illness

How to Help the Spouse of a Sexual Addict:

            1. Husband:

                    -Don’t: deny, minimize, blame

                    -Do: confess, repent, show remorse

            2. Friends:

                    -Don’t: blame, withdraw, be afraid, give incorrect information

                    -Do: support, validate, show empathy

            3. Church:

                    -Don’t: blame, isolate, provide inadequate or incorrect information,

                     gossip, pressure to “forgive & forget.”

                    -Do: provide support, safety, empathy, encouragement, prayer

What to look for in your Sexually Addicted Spouse:

1.     Openness

2.     Brokenness

3.     Humility

4.     Consistency

Enemies of Recovery:

1.     Pride

2.     Arrogance

3.     Isolation

4.     External Focus

             

Unhealthy Family Messages of Sexual Addicts

1.     I can’t depend on people because people are unpredictable

2.     I am worthless if people don’t approve of me.

3.     I must keep people from getting close to me so that they can’t hurt me

4.     If I don’t perform perfectly, my mistakes will have tragic results.

5.     If I express my thoughts and needs I will lose the love and approval I desperately need.

Sexual Fantasy Attempts to meet Desires of the Heart:

1.     To have a voice

2.     To be safe

3.     To be chosen

4.     To be included

5.     To be blessed or praised

6.     To be attached, connected, or bonded

7.     To be affirmed

8.     To be touched (in healthy non-sexual ways).

Addictive Sexuality is:

1.     Uncontrollable

2.     Obligation

3.     Hurtful

4.     Condition of love

5.     Secretive

6.     Exploitative

7.     Benefits one person

8.     Emotionally distant

9.     Unsafe

Healthy Sexuality is:

1.     Controllable energy

2.     A natural drive

3.     Nurturing/healing

4.     Expression of love

5.     Private/sacred

6.     Mutual

7.     Intimate

8.     Safe

                       

Help for Healing:

1.     Learn about healthy sexuality

2.     Accept Support and Accountability

3.     Find a Mentor

4.     Join a Therapy Group

5.     Seek Counseling

6.     Work through family of origin and trauma issues.

7.     Look for safe Community

We can’t just ignore our issues and hope they get better. But if we address our problems, we can experience lasting change. “What we bury rises again, what we make peace with truly dies.” (Blankenship).

Understanding and Treating Sexual Addiction

by: Andy Gear, PLPC

This Friday and Saturday we (two other Avenues counselors and I) attended a workshop on Understanding and Treating Sexual Addiction taught by Richard Blankenship: author, president, and director of the International Association of Certified Sexual Addiction Specialists (IACSAS). I wanted to pass some of what I learned on to you:

Addiction is the excessive use of pleasure and excitement to obliterate emotional pain 
   Addictive Sexuality ends in despair and shame
      Healthy Sexuality ends in joy and connectedness (Hatterer)

An addict’s Core Beliefs are:
    1. I am a bad, unworthy person
    2. No one would love me as I am
    3. No one will meet my needs
    4. Sex or a relationship is my most important need
    5. God is not powerful enough or trustworthy enough to meet my deepest needs (Carnes)

Basically an addict believes that grace is for everyone but me. Addicts are full of shame, which can be described as:
    Self
    Hatred 
    Accepting 
    My 
    Enslavement

This shame and wounds from one’s past help drive the cycle of addiction: 

Some things I should know if I am a spouse of a sexual addict: 
       1. Don’t blame yourself for the perpetrators problem 
       2. Don’t minimize the grief and pain
       3. Stay in community
       4. The only person you can be responsible for is you!

Some things I should know if I am a sexual addict:
       1. Sexual Addiction is an Intimacy Disorder at its core
       2. Recovery must take place in community
       3. Pride, arrogance, and isolation are the top enemies of recovery 
       4. Recovery takes work, but it is doable!

Tools of Recovery:
     1. Join a Support Group
    FirstLight
                Celebrate Recovery
             Therapy Groups
             L.I.F.E Groups
     2. Find a good Counselor (Blankenship)

Does any of this sound like you or your spouse? If so, I would encourage you to begin this process as soon as possible. It is never too late to start the journey towards healthy sexuality! 

Feeling Better is Not Always Better

by Jonathan Hart, LPC

In order to experience life more richly and more fully, you must become a student of your own heart and mind.  Many of us walk through life working very hard to feel happy and to not feel sad.  It is a human instinct.  When we feel happy, we accept it as normal and good.  When we feel pain or sorrow, we try to avoid it, snuff it, or overcome it because on some level we believe that it is not normal and therefore it is bad. There is little examination of how joy or sorrow take shape in our own hearts.  This leads us to a blandness of experience that we find acceptable only because we have not tasted the richness that is possible.

Let me explain.  When we feel sadness, our first instinct is often to try to get happy.  It seems foolish to allow the sadness to stay.  If we can't "get happy", we wonder what is wrong with us... which leads to more sadness, and even to shame.  We try to anesthetize the pain with all kinds of things, from shopping to substances to adrenaline rushes.  Somehow the sadness flattens all of these eventually.  Our attempts to feel better are not what they cracked up to be.  We need something different, something more authentic.

What if, instead of running from the sadness we acknowledge it and not only allow it to stay, but poke at it, study it?  What if we learn what it is really about, how it works, why it is there?  This is not an attempt to make it better.  Rather it is an attempt to know it more fully, to give it room to exist.

"Why on earth would I do that?!" you might ask.  The answer is simple: sadness is normal.  If you have lost your job or a loved one, had a friend move away, had a car crash, or had a child move on to college, the sadness you feel is supposed to be there.  It is a normal emotional response to loss.  If you fight it, you will lose.

Rather than fighting it, I suggest making friends with it.  Observe and experience your feelings at the same time.  Get to know it.  Learn how it works in you.  Allow it to be present, and actually feel it for a change.

Do not only do this with sadness.  Do this with joy and contentment and peace as well.  Instead of just rolling past it, pause and examine it.  Feel it more fully.  Know why it is there and how it comes to be.  Pick apart why the joke was funny to you, explore the layers of irony or innuendo.

In short, become a student of your own heart.  Don't measure yourself against others' reactions or patterns: they are not you.  Be yourself, and be yourself more fully. Stop striving for the illusion of perpetual happiness, and strive to know the full range of human experience on a deeper level.

Guilt or Shame?

by Jonathan Hart, LPC

Guilt and shame are powerful feelings.  Many people experience them on a daily basis.  For some, they are feelings to be avoided as "inappropriate" in our current society. For some, they are tools or weapons used consciously or unconsciously to get children or adults to behave the way we want them to. For some, they are  ever-present and smothering.

I distinguish between guilt and shame.  Guilt, when internally experienced and heeded, is a productive emotion that leads to a change in negative behavior patterns. It is the "Godly grief" that 2 Corinthians 7:10 describes as leading to the genuine understanding that I have done wrong and hurt myself and others, and that I need to behave differently. Guilt says, "I have done wrong."

Shame is a feeling that says, "Something is wrong with me".  It is a statement describing identity rather than behavior.  It cannot lead to a change in behavior because the problem is "all of me", as the character Hiccup says in the wonderful movie, "How to Train Your Dragon".  The language of shame says, "What's wrong with me?", "Why can't I ...", "I'm always/never...", "I am (a screw up, a goof ball, a fool, fill in the blank...)".

Shame speaks with the language of identity ("I am...") rather than the language of deeds ("I did..."). As such, it makes change nearly impossible to conceive, much less execute. If the problem is who I am rather than what I did, there is no hope for change.

Think about the language you use on yourself.  Think about the language you use on others, or on your kids.  If you say things like "What's the matter with you?!", or "You are such a ..." as you correct your child, you are very likely shaming them rather than reproving them productively.  Rather speak to their deeds: "That was inappropriate to do.", or "You hurt your sister. That was wrong."  In this way, you help train the child's moral compass and help them to learn how to define right and wrong accurately.  You also make the problem a fixable one rather than a permanent one; the problem is outside the individual rather than the individual themselves.

We can do this for ourselves as well.  When you hear, "Agh!  Why can't I ever get this done?", or "I don't know what's wrong with me that I ...", you are using shame language.  Try shifting from statements of identity to statements of action: "I made a mess of that situation.  I will try to do it differently next time.", or "I'm sorry I hurt you.", or  "I see what I did, and I don't want to do it again."

Shift your language into language of hope rather than hopelessness.  When you describe genuine wrongdoing, make sure you use the language that describes it as wrong-doing, not wrong-being. It can take work to set the oppressive and impossible weight of shame aside, but it is worth the effort.