This interview is designed to help you understand yourself, your partner, and how you can save your relationship. Every question provides you with an explanation of why it's being asked and a short, informative discussion about the issues involved. There is no "score" because what's at stake for you and your partner, you can't put a number on. What you can gain by successfully overcoming your addiction is what life is really about. Keep an open mind and take a honest look at yourself and don't forget your partner as you take the interview.

What every woman involved with a man needs to know about sex addiction.

If you suspect, are not sure, or know that the man in your life is sexually addicted, you're probably wondering, "What can I do about it? How can I talk to him? What are the problems to expect? Can they be overcome? Should I leave him? Should I give him one more chance?" But what if you've been giving him one more chance for years?

This interview, written by a happily married man who overcame his own sex addiction in 1982, is designed to help you understand what you are going through and why you are going through it. It will answer the questions posed above and more.

Sex addiction is a symptom of intimacy problems. If you don't have someone close to you in an intimate way, you are probably very familiar with the pain of loneliness. Sexual addiction creates obstacles to ending your loneliness. This interview will help you identify the destructive wall of fantasy that sex addiction builds between you and a good relationship.

You can overcome any addiction.

How long you've been acting addictively doesn't matter. I've helped people in their 70's overcome addiction.

Your occupation won't get in the way. Mark was a truck driver and sexually addicted; Renaldo, considered a genius by the people in his medical practice, was hooked on cocaine; Dorothy, an overeater, was a stay-at-home mom. They all overcame their addictions with the approach in this ebook.

You've may have been told or may have felt that you don't have what it takes to overcome your addiction. This article will prove to you that you do. All you need is to be guided on how to use the valuable traits you have.

We're going to use qualities you've already developed to prove it.

The three most popular approaches to overcoming addiction are:

• Twelve Step Programs

• Conventional Licensed Therapy

• Religion

I call my approach Volitional Honesty (because it's based on free will and honesty).

The first reason it can help you is:

Let's find out why:

Allan had spent three years in the Twelve Step Program. He felt that he had learned a lot and made a lot of new friends. But he was still going to prostitutes, using pornography, and masturbating at work.

About six months before he called me he met Louise. He kept his Twelve Step meetings secret from her because he did not want her to know about his past.

For two years George did not experience any sexually addictive desires. During that time he stopped all his sexually addictive behavior. Then, one afternoon he went on a sex addiction binge at a massage parlor.

Malcolm did not act sexually addictive for a month; the few sexually addictive desires he experienced he pushed out of his mind, easily. He told his wife his problem was over. A week later he watched three porn videos.

Steve forced sexually addictive desires out of his mind by following his therapist's advice. He was so happy he told everybody at his group therapy meetings to follow the doctor's orders. But then Steve stopped going to group because he had returned to his sex addiction.

Conventional, licensed therapy, The Twelve Step approach, and religion offer their own versions of repression.

1. The Twelve Step approach relies on conscious, deliberate repression by asking a Higher Power to remove the addictive desire.

   Whatever your beliefs, asking a Higher Power to remove your desire is the same as asking a Higher Power to repress the desire for you.

2. Religion's attempt to deliberately repress is similar to Twelve Step's because the addicted person asks the deity he believes in to rid him of his addictive desire. But religion goes one step further. It tends to morally condemn you if you experience a "wrong" desire.

In order to get the knowledge you need to overcome sex addiction, you will either:

• Figure it on your own, using this book as your guide, or

• Ask someone to help you.

Since you have a better chance of success by finding qualified help, let's discuss what to look for in an advisor. But first let me warn you: If you don't find an advisor who meets the requirements, you're better off going it alone.

Here's what happens when you rely on an unqualified advisor:

Brian engaged in three sexually addictive behaviors: 1) compulsive masturbation, 2) addictive use of pornography, and 3) frequenting massage parlors.

He was also an alcoholic. Through my counseling he learned that it did not matter whether he drank beer, wine or hard liquor, whether he drank at home, out in public, on the weekend, or during lunch. He needed to treat all drinking behaviors the same.

 Unlike alcohol - all sexually addictive behaviors are not equal.

Knowing how to approach the problem is a necessary ingredient for success. Knowing what is not true about the problem can be more important. Since we live in a media-driven world, you will be bombarded with mistaken ideas about addiction for a long time to come. You need to be aware of them so that your attempt to overcome sex addiction is not hindered by misconceptions.

Let's discuss some of the more popular ones.

The symptoms we're going to discuss can be identified by you or your partner just by taking a close look at your actions and being honest about them. What blocks people from identifying that they are addicted is the a desire to deny one's faults. No one is perfect. A greater mistake than developing an addiction is refusing to admit you are addicted.

This discussion will help you understand why certain symptoms mean you are addicted. There's a separate section on how to get through to an addicted person who doesn't want to admit their addiction. If you're displaying any of the symptoms discussed, read the section on how to get through to the addicted person, carefully.

People are not born with a natural desire to get drunk on alcohol, get high on drugs or distort their minds with prescription medication.

We are born with natural, healthy desires for sex, work, and eating.

Addictions that stem from the misuse of a natural drive such as sex addiction, overeating, and workaholism need to be treated differently from addictions based on artificial drives, such as alcoholism, drug addiction, and smoking. Here's why:

I've been able to help people overcome addiction because through approaches I developed, I overcame four addictions:

• a two- to three-pack-a-day smoking addiction

• overeating

• addictive gambling

• sex addiction.