The sexually addicted person doesn't use sex just to escape reality. He also uses sex as a shallow, fantasy based substitute for genuine intimacy. It is what I call, "the flight from intimacy."

The flight from intimacy is more difficult to deal with — and must be addressed first — because it creates the emotional attachment to sex addiction.

The process of escape begins with experiencing an uncomfortable feeling, like anxiety, fear, guilt, boredom, stress, etc. The options for relieving uncomfortable feelings lead to two separate experiences. One is beneficial; the other is far from beneficial. The most effective option is to face the discomfort and work your way through it.

The greatest fear about dealing with sexual addiction is the fear of failure. The fear of failure influences other addicted people also. Addicted people tend to believe that if they try to overcome their addiction, they won't succeed. Let's discover what causes this kind of gloom in the addicted person's mind.

Conventional, licensed therapy will tell you that in order to overcome sexual addiction, you have to remember how horrible your childhood was and figure out what happened to you then that causes you to act sexually addictive now. However, you are not a child, you are an adult; sex addiction is an adult problem

This example illustrates that to overcome sex addiction, don't try just anything. In the first part of this series I explained that there are two components to overcoming sex addiction. Motivation, the first component, addresses why you would want to overcome the addiction. The second component is method, how you would attempt to overcome it.

This interview explains aspects of sex addiction you might not have been aware of. It will help you understand if you are sexually by discussing the symptoms of masturbation addiction, pornography addiction, infidelity, phone sex addiction, an addiction to prostitutes and promiscuity. It is designed to help you, not beat you up or put you down.

Joe, you say there is an addictive sexual desire and a natural one. Explain please.

Sure. Let's take eating for an example. Overeaters create an addictive hunger for themselves. When they experience it they feel like they are starving, even though they may have just finished a big meal. Through Positive Realism counseling they learn how to distinguish between their addictive hunger and their natural one.

Pornography as an addiction

A pornography addiction can best be described as an obsessive relationship with a fantasy.

Is masturbation always a sin?

Is it always natural?

Is it always an addiction?

Answer: none of the above.

In the field of sex addiction, nothing is more misunderstood than masturbation.

Before you make an attempt to stop masturbating, there’s an important issue to deal with first. This issue is important because masturbation is a misunderstood addiction.

There are people who think they’re addicted to masturbation and they aren’t. Plenty of people are hooked on masturbation and think there’s nothing wrong with it. Just like the alcoholic who fools him or herself about drinking, the person addicted to masturbation is not doing themselves any favor by trying to deny the problem.

Overcoming any addiction, after you've acknowledged that you're addicted, begins with your approach to the addictive desire. Positive Realism succeeds first because of how it teaches you to deal with:

 There are three approaches to sexual addiction besides Positive Realism. They are:

-12 Step Programs

-Psychotherapy/psychology

-Religious Counseling

Each of these approaches have failed in successfully addressing addictive desire, here's why:

Ethical, effective counseling meets these standards:

• It makes sense.

• It deals with the here and now.

• You do not have to go to meetings every day.

An addiction is behavior a person cannot control that leads to detrimental consequences.

Behavior:
The behavior could be related to substances, such as: alcohol, drugs or food.
Or it could be activity-related, involving, for example: sex, sleep, exercise, or work.
Addictions like smoking, drug abuse or alcoholism must be stopped completely to be overcome.
Other addictions should be controlled rather than stopped. For instance, overeating is handled by controlling one's eating - not by starvation.

All addictions negatively impact a person's life.

Drugs and alcohol destroy the mind. Smoking destroys the body. Overeating undermines health.

Sexual addiction is different. Although there is a risk of disease, sex addiction does not directly destroy the body like drugs, alcohol, smoking or overeating. Nor does it have the direct effect on the mind that alcohol and drugs do.

A single man will also be told to refrain from all sex for as long as he can.

Conventional, licensed therapy, the other widely used approach, endorses the 12-step approach. Can the 12-step program and conventional, licensed therapy be wrong?

Mr. Jones is just waking up. He spent the entire evening drinking alcohol until he fell asleep. He's hung over badly. He tells himself, "I've got the whole weekend to sober up. I'll be OK by Monday morning."

Mr. Smith is just waking up. He spent the entire evening surfing porn sites and masturbating. He wakes up telling himself, "Another wasted evening." He hopes his wife doesn't ask him what project he was working on until the wee hours of the morning.

Can Mr. Jones, the alcoholic, overcome his drinking problem by treating it as a sex addiction? Can Mr. Smith approach his sexual addiction as if were an alcohol problem?

In her e-mail to me she said, "are you good at what you do? Not every counselor should be one...and not all of them are skilled/gifted/whatever you want to call it. I want someone who has a handle on this topic, who is an expert, who can REALLY, REALLY help."

She also wanted to know if the counseling allows "any consideration or discussion of a patient's history."

Below is my unedited response.

This couple calls me from overseas. People call me from around the world for my advice on sexual addictions such as pornography addiction, masturbation addiction, massage parlors, prostitutes, infidelity, etc. When this couple first called, they were on the verge of breaking up. She also had doubts about whether she wanted a relationship with anyone. In his desperation to hold on to her he stumbled across my website.

He was wrapped up in a porn addiction and a masturbation addiction. He had also been cheating on her by going to erotic massage parlors.

(transcript of interview conducted July, 2006 between Joe Zychik and Mr. 731)

Joe: OK, Mr. 731. Do you want to describe your sexually addictive behavior without going into any graphic details, because as you know, in my work we don't resort to graphic details.

Mr. 731: Masturbation to pornography, chat rooms, and to a lesser extent phone sex.

Joe: When is that last time you acted sexually addictive?

Mr. 731: It's been I think just over two years.

"It was the best sex I ever had," the client told me. I was not surprised.

Was it advice about a new position, a new drug, a new game, a new aide that enabled the client to enjoy the best sex of his life? Of course not.

The best sex is caused by what goes on inside you and not from some external gimmick.