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The most widely used approach to overcoming sex addiction is the 12-step program. A couple entering counseling through the 12-step approach will be advised to avoid sex for anywhere between 30 to 90 days. The theory is that the sexually addicted person is having too much sex. To overcome his need for sex, he requires a cooling off period.

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?

Let's answer the question by understanding one of the main causes of sex addiction. It is what I call "the flight from intimacy."

Essentially the addicted person turns to sex addiction as a substitute for genuine intimacy. Why? Because sex addiction is easy. Whether it's through masturbation with pornography, or a one night stand or a hooker, the sexually addicted person gets a sexual thrill, a shallow sense of intimacy, with no emotional investment.

Real intimacy demands emotional investment. It takes hard work over time to build a solid, loving relationship. Fantasy requires no emotional investment, no effort, and delivers an instant high.

Real intimacy can only be derived from a genuine, loving, romantic and sexual relationship with a real person. Such relationships do not occur instantly. They are developed over time through dedicated effort. One result of the effort is loving, intimate sex between the partners.

When a couple is advised to stop all sex for weeks or months, they are being advised to break off loving, intimate sex, an experience that contributes to keeping them together.

The painful irony of this advice is telling a couple, "Deal with an intimacy problem by avoiding intimacy."

The undertone of this advice is: celibacy is pure, loving, intimate sex is impure.

This leads to some important questions

If loving sex is impure, then so is intimacy. If intimacy is impure, then is sex addiction pure?
Answer: If celibacy is a state of purity, then intimate, loving sexual contact defiles the spirit.

If loving sex defiles the spirit, then having sex alone protects you from being degraded by loving sex. How does one have sex alone and avoid loving sex?
Through masturbation with or without porn, which brings us full circle back to sex addiction.

When advice that contradicts human nature is applied, the results are perverse.

Can the 12-step program and conventional, licensed therapy be wrong?

Not only are they wrong, their advice encourages sexually addictive behavior.

 

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