Written by Joe Zychik

You can break free of sex addiction

When a person fails to overcome an addiction they will usually feel, "I can't do it. I'm stuck. I'll never break free." In part, they are correct because the most likely reason they failed was their approach was ineffective.

If a person uses an effective approach he or she can overcome addiction. With the proper approach, you can break free of your sexual addiction. You are not stuck, although you might feel that you are.

Past failures do not mean that you didn't care, or that you sabotaged yourself. If you've felt that you're worthless because you didn't succeed at overcoming a sex addiction, you're mistaken. There was nothing wrong with you. But there was something wrong with your approach. You can overcome any addiction, including any form of sexual addiction, with the right approach and proper guidance.

Success in overcoming sex addiction depends on three factors. Failure occurs when any one of these three factors are not properly developed. Here they are

1-Honesty Most sexually addicted people lie to themselves and/or their partner about their sexually addictive activities. The lies come in the form of rationalizations like, "I don't have a pornography addiction. I'm just having harmless fun." Or the person lies outright, "I didn't get up in the middle of the night to masturbate. I was working late." And of course, "I would never cheat on you."

The first goal in counseling is to help the addicted person stop lying. Despite the years and years of lies the addicted person may have told himself and others, he can stop lying. Being honest is a free will choice. The addicted person does need medication, meetings, or years of therapy analyzing his childhood to stop lying. With proper guidance the sexually addicted person can be completely truthful about any sex addiction, including a porn addiction, addictive masturbation, using prostitutes, massage parlors and the various other forms of sexual addiction.

2- Effort. Most addicted people are willing to work at overcoming their addiction once they enter counseling. However, if their efforts are not properly guided their attempt to stop will fail. Approaches based on guilt mongering and scare tactics will not help the sex addict get control. He already feels guilty and afraid. An addict needs help, not humiliation. Overcoming pornography addiction, compulsive masturbation, serial cheating, voyeurism, phone sex, and all other forms of sex addiction requires positive motivation.

Retribution and humiliation can achieve short term success. Long term success requires a positive approach that encourages and supports the addicted person's efforts to stop.

3- Advice that works Conventional licensed therapy and the 12-step program rely on various forms of repression to try to overcome sex addiction. Here are a few typical ways a sexually addicted person is advised to repress his addictive desires: Stay away from the Internet. Don't read anything or watch movies that might be sexually stimulating. When you feel an addictive desire go to the gym and do an exhausting work out. Or go to meeting. Or take psychological medication to squelch the desire. All these and other forms of repression basically advise the addict to try to get away from his or her addictive desire. But, you cannot overcome a sex addiction by trying to escape your sexually addictive desires because they are directly tied to your sex drive and you won't be able to successfully repress your sex drive over the long run.

A sex addiction is overcome by first learning how to face - not repress - your addictive desires.

A further example of why conventional licensed therapy and the 12-step program fail in dealing with sex addiction is that their approaches advise the use of HALT. HALT stands for "Don't get too Hungry, Angry, Lonely, on Tired." In other words don't be a human being. Approached correctly any sex addiction can be overcome no matter how hungry, tired, angry, lonely, stressed or depressed you might be. Conventional licensed therapy and the 12-step program fail in the area of sexual addiction because their advice is based on living in world without stress, fatigue, anger or hunger.

A successful approach to overcoming sex addiction teaches you how to overcome your addiction under any circumstances, including the most difficult times in your life.

Right click, choose "Save target as" to Download The Most Personal Addiction

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Every failure is a new opportunity to learn how to overcome sex addiction.

Nobody knows everything.

For most sexually addicted people, sex addiction has been their predominant sexual experience.

When you attempt to get a handle on sex addiction, you're doing much more than merely stopping a bad habit. You're attempting to change your deepest and most personal feelings.

If you've failed at getting your addiction under control, you're not doomed. You're just dealing with profoundly deep feelings that you don't know how to change. I've been helping people overcome sex addiction since 1983 and I'm still learning every day. Whatever you've been doing since 1983, I'm sure it hasn't been learning the ins and outs of dealing with sexual addiction issues. So, instead of beating yourself up or concluding that you're hopeless, use your discovery of this website and my free e-book as an opportunity to expand your knowledge so that you get the control over this very troubling problem you've struggled with most of your life.

This free download could enable you to experience the success you've wanted for a long time. Right click to download for free "The Most Personal Addiction."

Why you can succeed.

Will it be easy? Anyone who tells you that overcoming a porn addiction, compulsive masturbation, infidelity, or promiscuity is easy is not someone to be trusted. But is it impossible? Absolutely not. Can anyone do it? Anyone willing to be honest about his or her addiction and willing to put in effort can do it.

As a seasoned addiction counselor, I know that you will be tempted to lie to yourself and/or your partner or me about your addiction. But what I can do and what the Most Personal Addiction can do, is help you overcome the temptation to lie to yourself and your partner or me about your sex addiction. You can develop the honesty it takes to break free.

I also know that you will encounter difficulty in getting control of your sexually addictive behaviors. If it had been easy to overcome sex addiction, you'd have already done it.

But don't confuse the difficult with the impossible. Instead I suggest that you download the Most Personal Addiction. You'll discover that with the right approach, what appears to be impossible can actually be very doable.

Thousands of people have benefited from the lessons in the free download of The Most Personal Addiction. You can too.

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How To Tell If You Are Ready To Stop

There are many mistaken beliefs that stand in the way of a sexually addicted person breaking free of his addiction. Separating the myths from the facts can help you. For instance:

the belief that you can't stop a sex addiction until your life is free of tension, stress and problems is a myth.

If you approach the addiction correctly, life's stresses, tension and problems will not get in your way of stopping. In fact, stopping correctly will reduce the stress, tensions and problems in your life.

Here are a few questions to help you decide if you are ready to deal with sex addiction:

Do you wish you had stopped your sex addiction years ago? Yes, means you're ready
Do you look forward to continuing your sex addiction for the rest of your life? No means you're ready.

If your answer is yes to the following questions, you’re ready:

If you're not in relationship do you wish your were in one?
If you're in a relationship do you think your relationship is being hurt by your addiction?
Would you like to cut back on your use of porn?
Do you feel that you might be masturbating addictively?
Are you cheating on your partner and would you like to stop?
Does your sex life consist of frequent new partners? Would you like to able to enjoy a committed relationship with one partner?

Of course, sex addiction can't be stopped just by snapping your fingers. It takes careful planning, self-awareness, honesty, effort, and excellent advice. Assuming you've decided you're ready to stop, the free download of the Most Personal Addiction can guide you through the next phase of achieving your goal.

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Misconceptions that stop the sexually addicted person from stopping.

The media has done its best to portray sex addiction as a perfectly normal way of life. Conventional licensed therapy shares in this problem because conventional licensed therapists are notorious for telling people that addictive use of pornography and addictive masturbation are not a problem for open-minded people. Conventional licensed therapy's mantra is "If it feels good do it."

In the grown-up world, people understand that there are things that feel good that also lead to terrible consequences. It can feel good to masturbate in public. It can feel good to stay high on drugs instead of going to work. It can feel good to get drunk every weekend. It can feel good to overeat to the point of obesity.

So let's look at some of the most common myths that stop a person from dealing with sex addiction.

Myth: It’s OK to use sex with your partner as a stress reliever.

Fact: The best way to deal with stress is to face it. When you use sex to relieve stress you end up abusing sex the same way an overeater abuses food or an alcoholic abuses alcohol. The purpose of sex is to create a loving, intimate bond between you and your partner. Sex is special. If you treat it as something less than special you degrade your partner and you degrade yourself.

Myth: I’m not using my partner addictively. My sex drive is greater than hers.

Fact: You have two sex drives. One is the natural loving drive. The other is an addictive drive that you’ve developed and that you are trying to use your partner to satisfy. I suggest you take these two interviews to find out more about an addictive sex drive:

The General Sex Addiction Interview

The interview for the man in a relationship.

I also suggest you download for free The Most Personal Addiction for a thorough discussion of this very common misconception.

Myth: Every guy I know uses porn, so it can’t be a problem.

Fact: There are cultures that believe it’s OK to circumcise women. There are plenty of guys who think the bigger their penis is the more of a man they are. There are plenty of women who think porn is disgusting. Maybe every guy you know is as addicted as you are. Do you think that if you’re addicted to pornography it makes you more of a man? I suggest you find out more about pornography addiction.

Myth: My wife and I went to a therapist. The therapist said she was uptight and close-minded. My wife has a problem with sex.

Fact: Did you ever stop to think that maybe the therapist was defending his or her own sex addiction? Did you notice that the therapy was causing your wife to suffer? Who’s more important to you, the therapist or your wife? Read this to understand your wife's suffering caused by your sex addiction.

Myth: There’s no such thing as masturbation addiction.

Fact: Any substance or activity can be used addictively. There are people who read addictively, exercise addictively, watch TV addictively, eat addictively, and certainly masturbate addictively. I suggest you take this interview to discover if you masturbate addictively.

If any of these myths apply to you, you can save a lot of time and web browsing by downloading The Most Personal Addiction. It provides the best information for free on the Internet about these issues.

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How to talk to a partner who is sexually addicted.

If he doesn’t want to admit it.

The refusal to admit one’s addiction is the first major obstacle every person faces when dealing with addiction.

But, once again, sex addiction is different. Since it’s the most personal addiction, it’s also the most sensitive addiction to talk about. I suggest that instead of you taking on the burden of getting your partner to admit he’s sexually addicted, get him to read just three interviews on this website:

You especially want him to read the partner interview. It will help him understand the terrible burden you are carrying because of his sex addiction. After he’s read the interviews, get him to download The Most Personal Addiction for free so that he can get started with the process of getting his sex addiction stopped.

If he doesn’t want to even read the interviews:

I suggest that you download and read the Most Personal Addiction. Don’t be afraid to take lots and lots of notes. Then sit him down and take him through it chapter by chapter. If he refuses to go through the book with you, tell him, “If you’re not willing to take my concerns seriously, maybe we should start talking about breaking up.”

If he cares about you, he’ll have a change of heart. But if he doesn’t even make the effort to go through the book with you or do three simple interviews, it is possible that he does not truly care for you. The odds are he does care about you deeply and The Most Personal Addiction can help him show his love for you.

Questions that might be on your mind:

How can I help him deal with his sex addiction?
There are times he might feel discouraged or you might feel there’s no hope. There is hope. He can overcome it.

Do I have any responsibility for his sex addiction problems?
None whatsoever.

I feel like he will never stop lying. Can he really stop lying?
Just about every partner enters counseling with the same feeling. The trust in your relationship can be rebuilt.

What should I do next?
Your most important goal is to get him to work with you to apply the advice in the free download of The Most Personal Addiction.

What if I can't get him to cooperate with me?
Give me a call

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What to look for in a sex addiction counselor

When you seek help for a sex addiction, whether it's a pornography addiction, a masturbation addiction, infidelity, promiscuity, voyeurism, phone sex, massage parlors, prostitutes, strip clubs, or a fetish problem, you are putting the quality of your life in the counselor's hands. Here are a few signs of the counselor to avoid and what to require of a counselor:

A counselor who has not overcome his own sex addiction can't relate to you. The counselor's website should clearly state that he overcame the addiction and when he overcame it. Would you want combat training from someone who's never been shot at?
Beware of the counselor who asks you for graphic details about your personal sex life. The counselor might want to hear the graphic details to feed his own sex addiction. For instance notice the interviews on this website. None of them ask for graphic details.
The counselor should give you an introductory session at no charge. I receive calls from people who have been referred to me by a friend or relative of theirs. I insist on providing everyone the first half hour of counseling at no charge because I want my clients to understand what our chances of success are before they spend a penny on counseling. I also don't want someone to pay me if I can't help him or her. I think it is unethical to charge a person a fee without knowing if you can help them and without the person knowing what their chances of success are.
If you're in a relationship, the counselor should be able to prove to you and your partner that he understands what both of you are going through. Click here for an interview for the sexually addicted guy in a relationship. Click here for an interview for the partner of the sexually addicted man.
For more information on how to find a competent sex addiction counselor, use this questionnaire.
The Most Personal Addiction can begin the counseling process for you and save you time and money before you enter counseling with me or anyone else.

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Pornography: The Illusion Addiction

Steve, a client of mine used to masturbate to female newscasters. For him, the nightly news was his porn magazine. Jeffrey was turned on by a popular mainstream mail order catalogue. Richard went bananas over the women’s underwear ads in the daily newspaper. By most people's standards none of these men were addicted to porn.

Eddie, like the many men I helped overcome sex addiction, used to spend hours searching the Internet for the perfect porno picture. He had the same problem Jeffrey, Richard, and Steve had. He relied on a visual stimulation to help facilitate masturbation. In fact, his real addiction was not porn. But when he entered counseling both he and his wife, Carla, were convinced that he was hooked on pornography.

Certainly, from Carla's point of view, the problem was porn. She found porno mags hidden in the trunk of the car and behind the headboard in their bedroom. She had put a filter on the computer to stop him from accessing porn sites. So, he bought a cheap a laptop she just happened to discover by chance. After she took the laptop away from him, he found software on the Internet that bypassed the filter she put on the family computer.

He appeared to be the typical junkie who would do anything to get his fix. But was his fix pornography or was it addictive masturbation?

I asked him two questions that helped Carla and Eddie revisit their assumption that he was addicted to porn.

The first question was: Do you use porn without masturbating? His answer was just about never.

Then I asked him the reverse question: Do you masturbate without using porn? His answer was the same.

For him and for just about all users of pornography, porn and masturbation are partners.

So the next issue for Eddie and his wife was: “Does porn cause a person to masturbate addictively? Or does addictive use of masturbation cause some people to become dependent on pornography?

There are three types of addicted masturbators.

The most common type uses porn to create the fantasy necessary for masturbation.
The second most common group creates the fantasy in their own mind without relying on any external pictures.
The smallest group reads erotic stories to create their masturbation fantasy.

Here’s a simple proof that addictive masturbation is the real problem and porn is merely the symptom. In my counseling when a person stops masturbating addictively, his interest in pornography subsides naturally.

The reason Eddie’s wife could not stop him from using porn was that Eddie was hooked on masturbation just as a junkie gets hooked on heroin. Needles don’t cause heroin addicts to become hooked on getting high. Pornography use doesn’t cause a masturbation addiction. Porn is merely the delivery system for the person addicted to masturbation just as needles are the delivery system for the heroin addict.

Pornography does have its own problems apart from its association with a masturbation addiction. For a discussion of the unique problems associated with pornography addiction, and especially its effect on a relationship, I suggest you download the Most Personal Addiction for free. There is a special section devoted to the many complex aspects of porn in a relationship. I also suggest you read this short article about pornography addiction counseling.

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Phone Sex, Strip Clubs, Online Sex, Massage Parlors, Prostitutes, Promiscuity

Barry goes to strip clubs every Tuesday night. He sits in the back, has a few drinks, spends a few hours there and leaves. He doesn't have a lap dance. He doesn't kiss or caress any of the girls. Herman calls phone sex lines about twice a week. He masturbates during the conversation. Kenny hangs around online sex chat rooms. Warren finds women online who strip for him.

None of these men have any physical contact with their sexual partners. Yet, they've certainly been engaging in sexually addictive behavior.

If they're married or in a committed relationship they've been unfaithful to their partner, although they never touched another woman.

If they're single, they've gotten themselves into a sex addiction spiral that could eliminate them from ever having genuine intimacy in their lives.

Now let's compare their addiction to alcohol addiction so that you can learn one of the most important differences between sex addiction and other addictions and why sexually addictive problems stand apart from every other kinds of addiction.

Nancy sips wine with a co-worker throughout the day. Sylvia and her husband can't get through the night without at least three cocktails. Gail spends the weekend alone drinking a case of beer. Each of these women has become dependent on alcohol even if they drink alone or with someone else. And none of them are addicted to the same kind of alcohol. But each of them is an alcoholic. There is no need to treat an addiction to wine different than an addiction to liquor or beer. The fact of the matter is alcohol addiction is simple to deal with when compared to sex addiction. All substance addictions, when compared to sex addiction, are not very complex.

Before a person can overcome his sex addiction he needs to answer two questions that do not apply to any other addiction.

The first question is "Does your sexually addictive behavior involve anyone else?"

The second question is "Are you in a committed relationship?"

The following sex addictions are in the category of sex alone:

Compulsive masturbation without anyone else's involvement
Pornography addiction without the direct involvement of another person
Cross dressing alone.

Any form of sexually addictive behavior that does not directly involve another person is addictive sex alone.

I define addictive sex with someone else as interacting with another person for the purpose of non-intimate sexual stimulation.

Addictive phone sex involves another person and its purpose is non-intimate sexual stimulation.
Going to a strip club, sitting in the back and not touching anyone is still sex with someone else because it involves and interaction between the stripper and the customer for the purpose of non-intimate sexual stimulation.
Online sex involves another person in real time for the purpose of non-intimate sexual stimulation.

Different sex addictions imply different problems.

Although going to a prostitute every week is addictive sex with someone else, it is a far more serious problem than going to a strip club every week and sitting in the back and not touching the women who work there.

The person who goes to a prostitute has very different motivations than the person who watches a stripper from afar.

The person who goes to erotic massage parlors deals with far more complex problems than the person addicted to online sex chats.

In 2011 I was contacted by the first person I had helped stop drinking. He thanked me for 33 years of sobriety. I have been helping people stop drinking since 1978. I use the same approach for wine, hard liquor and beer. I wouldn't dare use the same approach for a masturbation addiction that I would use for promiscuity or an addiction to prostitutes. Each form sex addiction is composed of unique problems.

The most comprehensive discussion about the unique nature of each form of sex addiction and how to approach it can be found in the free download of The Most Personal Addiction.

The second question: "Are you in a committed relationship?" is discussed at length in the The Most Personal Addiction

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Are you a codependent?

I'm going to give you a shocking and yet accurate definition of a co-dependency. The definition is shocking because the 12-step program, conventional licensed therapy, and just about every co-dependent group deny and/or violate this simple and accurate definition.

In fact if they applied this definition, they would lose most of their members. What's even more shocking is that the definition I am going to give you used to be the standard definition of co-dependency.

A regular part of my practice is counseling the partner of the sexually addicted person. It's not uncommon for the partner to label herself as a codependent. Then she feels guilty for contributing to her partner's addiction and might even hate herself for not realizing that she had gotten involved with a sexually addicted guy. But what she doesn't realize is that men are experts at hiding their sex addiction from women.

Sex addiction for a man is different than sex addiction for a woman.

I help sexually addicted women. I also counsel in situations where both the man and the woman are addicted to masturbation, porn, promiscuity, etc. I also counsel in situations where the man or the woman uses their partner for addictive sex. And I counsel women suffering from serious intimacy problems. They seek me out because they've heard about me from a friend or a relative. Women trust me with their sex addiction and intimacy issues because I understand their situation. I also never make a pass at a client and I approach a woman's sexual conflicts as an adult with years of experience in the field of sex addiction.

And although I am not a woman and I could never experience sex as a woman or think like a woman, I have spoken to so many women throughout the years i can converse with women about sexual issues. I can also provide the women with insights into how a man thinks about sex and sexually addictive issues. So, please take my word for it when I say that men and women do not experience sex or sex addiction the same.

Interestingly, women are more likely to consider themselves codependents. A man involved with a sexually addictive woman usually does not consider himself a codependent. He will, however, consider himself an inferior lover if the woman he's involved with is sexually addicted.

A definition of codependency and why you are most likely not codependent:

A codependent is "a person dependent or his or her partner's addictive behavior." In other words, the codependent needs his or her partner to act addictively. Here are a few real life examples:

The woman who was angry at me for helping her partner stop his masturbation/porn addiction because "I don't have anyone to watch porn with."
The woman who did not want her husband to stop drinking because she did not want to have to drink alone.
The woman who wanted her husband to continue masturbating addictively because "I'd rather fold clothes than have sex."
The woman who wanted her husband to go to strip clubs because she wanted him out of the house so that she could hit the bars and pick up men.

You get the picture. Here's the codependent question to ask yourself or anyone else who believes she is a sex addiction codependent:

Do you depend on your partner's sex addiction? If you do not depend on his sexually addictive behavior, you are not a codependent. You have not contributed to or caused his sexually addictive behavior.

You are also probably not an enabler:

Some women believe that they enabled their partner's addiction because they did not end the relationship when they discovered the addiction. i suggest that you did not end the relationship because you saw the good in your partner and you wanted to stick by him and help him overcome his addiction.

If you tried to get the addiction stopped and you did not abandon him when he failed to overcome it you were not an enabler. You were a woman who loved her partner and wanted to save her relationship. I think you still love him and still want to save the relationship. I suggest that you download The Most Personal Addiction for free so that you can begin the process of saving your relationship.

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Sex addiction and criminal behavior

I receive calls from attorneys who want to get their client into my counseling so that they can tell the court that their client is in counseling and he shouldn't be sent to prison. I refuse to accept any client who resorts to counseling as a way to escape prison. My philosophy is simple: If you do the crime, you do the time.

I don't believe a person should be put in prison for a crime he did not commit. I don't believe people should be put in prison for victimless crimes. I don't think people should be put in prison for using pornography. I don't think people who voluntarily enter the porn industry should be sent to jail for choosing an unpopular profession.

But pedophilia, rape and incest are not victimless crimes. Pedophiles, rapists, people who force women into making porn films, and incestuous parents create real victims and belong in prison, period.

Counselors who help real criminals avoid going to prison are unscrupulous exploiters of a legal system that has abandoned rational law, common sense, and has betrayed basic human decency. I refuse to do anything to support or profit from such a system.

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