The 5 Common Types of Sexual Addiction – Part 5
Published September 30, 2010 | 
Mood swings/Brain imbalancedThe last common area, which I can relate to, is Mood-affective sexual addiction. This type is characterized by a pattern of using sex to placate or control the highs and lows of mood swings. The two most common medical diagnoses related to this pattern are depression and bipolar disorders. The fact is that sex addicts deal with mood issues at a rate of nearly 4 times the general male population 26% for the former, 7 for the latter. Thoughts that often accompany the acting-out range from “This will make me feel better” to “Well, if I just get it over with I’ll be able to go to sleep.” I have dealt with depression and anxiety and have benefited greatly from using a drug called Welbutrin (especially during the winters) to combat Seasonal affective disorder (SAD). Before recovery, I would use masturbation to comfort myself when feeling down, depressed or simply lethargic instead of finding someone to talk to, workout or experience adventure. Now, I am living the real and engaged life I always wanted: running, hiking, skiing, and pursuing new adventures regularly instead of using the escape of masturbation and fantasy as a counterfeit source of adventurous fun and exercise to help my brain get the needed endorphins naturally and in a non-habit-forming way.
You may learn more about Jayson Graves and his excellent counseling ministry, Healing for the Soul by visiting their website – www.healingforthesoul.org.
The 5 Common Types of Sexual Addiction – Part 4
Published September 27, 2010 | Fear of intimacy
Intimacy-aversive (sometimes called “sexual anorexic”) addicts have more trouble with “acting-in” than acting-out in the context of a relationship. This can be evidenced by behaviors that tend to sabotage or erode the intimacy in that primary romantic relationship: withdraw, withholding, blaming, shaming, avoiding, hiding, controlling, etc. Sound familiar? Nearly 40% of all sexual addicts also deal with Intimacy-aversion. There are 3 common roots of Intimacy-aversion: 1) attachment disorder with one or both parents, 2) sexual trauma and 3) reflexive/reaction to the sexually-addictive behaviors.
While I don’t think I personally deal with this type at a significant level, I can see that I was a prime candidate: my relationship with my mother growing up was volatile and with my dad it was shallow; I was sexually traumatized to a significant level as described earlier; and I experienced overwhelming shame guilt and fear towards my wife early on in our marriage because I was still walking in the addiction and acting out. Even today, I have to be on guard for ways that I can tend to subconsciously sabotage the intimacy in our relationship through blaming and controlling, behaviors common amongst those of us dealing with same-gender attractions.
You may learn more about Jayson Graves and his excellent counseling ministry, Healing for the Soul by visiting their website – www.healingforthesoul.org.
The 5 Common Types of Sexual Addiction – Part 3
Published September 25, 2010 | The Trauma factor
The third most common type of sexual addiction is called Trauma-Induced and is the result of sexual trauma. sexual trauma means “any event that alters or damages a person’s self-perception or understanding of healthy sexuality.” This can range from normal childhood experiences like “playing doctor” or exploring to actual acts of rape, incest or molestation. Something can become traumatic when there is either a power differential or emotional distress in the experience: either someone else initiated it, they were bigger or stronger or older or simply more experienced than you or you felt scared, guilty or shameful during or as a result. The addiction lies in the compulsion to repeat the trauma so if you can look at your “acting-out” behaviors and see patterns that are similar to sexual or quasi-sexual experiences in your younger, more impressionable years (often into early adulthood), there may be some trauma to address.
I can see this in my own story in that not only was I molested by a male scout leader and a female babysitter around 8-10 years old but I began being sexual with boys and girls in the neighborhood shortly thereafter on a daily basis until I was about 15 or 16. This tapered down in late high school and early college (sounds ironic, huh?) but while the behaviors became more sporadic, I was still trying to recreate the same things from childhood as an adult in an attempt to feel like I was in control or to give me the illusion of power, affirmation and value.
You may learn more about Jayson Graves and his excellent counseling ministry, Healing for the Soul by visiting their website – www.healingforthesoul.org.
The 5 Common Types of Sexual Addiction – Part 2
Published September 19, 2010 | Psychological deficits
The second most common type of addiction-psychological-is created when sex is used to “medicate” against painful memories or relational experiences from childhood in adulthood. In other words, we all have emotional/relational needs that must be met developmentally: affirmation, attachment/bonding, gender affiliation, trust, responsibility, honesty, and others. When these needs are not met or when we develop scarring as a result of abuse or neglect, the result is pain. You could call this “soul pain” and a soul in pain will seek medication. So, the addict has chosen sex as his “poison” to cover up the effects of this psychological pain instead of facing the pain and growing through it.
For me, the main sources of pain were my relationships with parents and peers. My parents loved me and I knew that, however, they were limited in what they could give me and sometimes what they gave me was harmful. My dad was a bit relationally stunted and passive: he was very fun and likeable but unable to connect on a heart-to-heart level with me or show me how that was done as a male. My mother, also fun-loving and caring, had an anger issue and would sometimes get controlling and violent. My peers were merciless from 6th grade through 10th when I was bullied and called names that were terribly feminizing and confusing.
The net effect was that I had a love-hate relationship with men, looking for them to rescue me, while waning in my ability to respect them. When it came to women, I was not interested in anything other than friendships because that felt like healing and not something that would consume or violate me. And as far as peers were concerned, I’ve had to work through trust issues and take risks to be “fully-known and fully accepted” (the very definition of intimacy).
Furthermore, the confusing attractions towards men came from the need to be affirmed in my own masculinity and have a sense of mastery over life-something that good looks, big muscles, a sense of freedom and adventure and all the other things I was attracted to in males was trying to give me in a false or counterfeit way. Part of this root came also by way of comparison/contrast in my relationship with peers and being a “late-bloomer.” Puberty came later than normal for me and this, coupled with having to shower after gym class every day in 7th and 8th grade, created a sense of inferiority, jealousy and strife around things s_xual and anatomical. The mix of this psychological deficit and the regular practice of masturbation with the images of the other, more developed and endowed boys, made for a very powerful longing for what I didn’t seem to have and an attachment to what they appeared to.
You may learn more about Jayson Graves and his excellent counseling ministry, Healing for the Soul by visiting their website – www.healingforthesoul.org.
The 5 Common Types of Sexual Addiction – Part 1
Published September 18, 2010 | “Ring the bell, feed the dog”
First, the most common type, Neurological, can be understood as addiction that’s created behaviorally. This happens primarily as a result of masturbation and fantasy and as the brain is conditioned through ejaculation/orgasm to respond to the images, (imagined or actual pornography) that are in the brain at the moment of chemical impact. This impact, a combination of endorphins and enkephalins not only explains why the release feels so good but represents the highest chemical reward the brain can achieve naturally. This is also why the images that we’ve acted out with in the past can seems so vivid even today-they’ve essentially been “burned on our brain” through this reinforcing process. Remember Pavlov and his dogs?
My own experimentation with masturbation started earlier than normal-the average age to start seems to be around 11 to 14-and it became more pronounced and regular for me at about 11 or 12 and eventually becoming a daily habit through my teens and tapering off in my twenties. I know I looked at a lot of porn and remember focusing mainly on the men in the pictures. I think this was because they were less prevalent than women and I was curious about what they were doing and what I might be expected to do myself. The sense of freedom and adventure they seemed to have been also very alluring to me. So I would go back, sometimes daily to my secret stash and fixate on these pictures, and regularly sealing the images in my brain through masturbation.
This habit continued for me even after being saved at age 21-primarily because no one ever told me how harmful it could be-even though I always somehow (thank you Holy Spirit) felt guilty about it and would try to stop but only with mixed results. Even though the porn and acting-out with others stopped, I still had the images in my fantasy world and this kept me attached.
You may learn more about Jayson Graves and his excellent counseling ministry, Healing for the Soul by visiting their website – www.healingforthesoul.org.
A Neurosurgeon on Pornography and the Brain (Video)
Published September 17, 2010 | Donald L. Hilton Jr., MD speaks to youth and parents about pornography and its impact on the brain.
This is really interesting when Dr. Hilton speaks about the frontal lobe of the brain. He compares addiction, both to chemicals and behaviors, to brain trauma in how it impacts compulsive behavior, impulsive behavior and impaired judgment. You can view the video here…
Dr. Hilton has a website, http://salifeline.org/, with more on his research into pornography addiction from a clinical and recovery standpoint.
Brandt Russo – Exposed (Video)
Published September 17, 2010 | 
The guys over at XXXChurch have posted a short video of a guy, Brandt Russo, who has a unique ministry to the homeless. Brandt openly shares about how his struggle with porn addiction affected his ministry. View the video here…
The 5 Common Types of Sexual Addiction – Series Intro
Published September 17, 2010 | We are beginning a new blog series sharing the story of Jayson Graves, a great friend to our ministry. Jayson will be sharing the 5 Common Types of Sexual Addiction. We will devote a blog post to each type and how Jayson relates it to his own story.
Early Beginnings
I remember the first boy I ever had a “crush” on: his name was Robby and we were both 12 to 13. I just remember noticing him in a different way and wanting to be close to him. I wouldn’t call it necessarily a sexual thing although I’m sure he may have showed up that way in dreams. Rather, the feelings I had towards him were more about wanting what he had: he always seemed to be very positive and confident and was one of the popular kids yet showed kindness to the likes of “nerdy little me.”
Looking back at that today as a counselor who specializes in helping men with sexual addictions and unwanted same-gender attractions, I can see that it was part of the beginnings of the distress I would feel about these feeling over the next 2 decades. The beginnings had roots in more than just feelings, however-they were the result of many factors-understanding these and seeking the road map to God’s grace has been the key to overcoming.
Understanding the Roots
I have come to understand my sexual confusion/disorientation as a form of sexual addiction. From what I have learned treating sex addicts of all sorts for the past 3 years, there are essentially 5 common types of sexual addiction: Neurological, Psychological, Trauma-induced, Intimacy-aversive, and Mood-affective. I will explain these, using my own story to hopefully give you a good grasp at understanding your own and that of those who struggle similarly.
Stay tuned – more to come…
You may learn more about Jayson Graves and his excellent counseling ministry, Healing for the Soul by visiting their website – www.healingforthesoul.org.
Recovery in the Early Days
Published September 15, 2010 | We hear all the time in our ministry from men and women who are just beginning their journey of recovery from sexual addiction. Recovery in the early days can be very frustrating and discouraging. This is a recent response to a newcomer to recovery on The Purity Report forums.
I know exactly where you are – I have been there a thousand times. In the beginning of recovery it required a lot of help and stringent boundaries for me to get those first days, weeks and eventually months of purity under my belt.
There were a few elements that were absolutely essential. I know I would not have been able to break free without them.
- A good Christian counselor. I was in counseling dealing specifically with my sexual addiction and the issues surrounding it for close to two years. It was really expensive, but some of the best money I ever spent.
- A Christ-centered mens group where I could get accountable and develop recovery relationships.
- Reading good books about recovery from sexual addiction to learn about it and heal.
Don’t give up! I won’t lie to you and tell you recovery is easy – it is not. But, it is so worth the pain of spiritual surgery to be free! You can do this, but not alone. Only with the support of Jesus Christ and His people can we find real freedom from habitual sin of any kind.
We Admitted
Published September 14, 2010 | From Operation Integrity
Everything that we do in a worthwhile recovery effort begins with “we.” We cannot allow ourselves to be alone if we hope to have a worthwhile recovery experience, because no one recovers from their addictions alone. We have to have help. While each of us will have a different story to tell, all of our stories end up pretty much the same way; addicted.
In our addictions, we become isolated by our secrets and by our shame. We feel guilty about the things we’ve done and we feel shameful about the secrets we’ve kept. We often feel like we are little more than a huge mistake that must be kept hidden from others at all costs.
In our efforts to combat our sense of aloneness, many of us have participated in various groups that were based on commitments of religion, social service, virtue, promise keeping, and faithfulness. We participated in these groups with full sincerity, always working with great diligence so we would not fail. We thought that if we could make ourselves to be of great importance we could solve our own internal pain. But we could not. Our best efforts were never good enough for us. No matter how much we excelled in our good works, our own sense of failure continued to grow. Whatever we did, no matter how good or worthwhile it was, it was never good enough. We thought we had to be perfect. It seemed to us that if we could get it right, whatever it was, then we could get ourselves right too. We always worked harder. To us, things were never good enough. We became perfectionists. Then, we would even find failure in our greatest achievements. Strange as it sounds, no matter what the successes we achieved, or the failures we experienced our addictions seemed to become ever more attractive. And, paradoxically, the harder we worked to overcome our addictions on our own the more our addictions ruled our lives.
Left with few, if any, viable opportunities for change we admitted we needed help. And, we took the first step in getting help by seeking out a recovery fellowship, a place where it was safe to admit that we were not in complete control of lives. Desperate, we admitted that we had been unable to overcome some very serious problems with our behavior and that our life was beyond our ability to manage. In making our admission we began to set aside our own ego-centered independence in order to seek out a connectedness and fellowship that could do for us what we had not been able to do for ourselves.
Alone we are dying, but together we can recover and live.
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