Sex, Lies, and Addiction with Ann Taliaferro

What if your deepest secrets were causing your life's greatest disruptions? Join us in a candid conversation with Ann Taliaferro, a Certified Sex and Addiction Therapist, as she demystifies sex addiction and sheds light on its often misunderstood nature. Ann's personal recovery journey and professional expertise offer invaluable perspectives on how compulsive sexual behaviors can wreak havoc and the importance of addressing these behaviors sooner rather than later.

We explore how sex, lust, and other addictive behaviors negatively affect honesty and vulnerability within relationships strained by addiction. Discover why trust is so difficult to rebuild, the paradoxes within the recovery process, and how early exposure to pornography can lead to deeper issues like isolation and low self-esteem. Ann emphasizes the need for the different forms of awakening and the importance of genuine connection and support systems, particularly for men.

Learn about the latest treatment options and resources available for those battling sex addiction, including insights from renowned professionals like Patrick Carnes Ph.D. and Dr. Kevin Skinner. Ann shares her transformative journey of choosing self-worth over toxic relationships and the significance of building a compassionate recovery community. This episode is a call to action for listeners to foster supportive environments for those affected by addiction and to share the insights gained to help others on their path to recovery.

Ann Taliaferro 
https://roguerivercounseling.com/


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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:09

Welcome to A Therapist, a Buddhist in you, brought to you by the Recovery Collective. If you haven't heard about the Recovery Collective yet, it's an invaluable resource for anyone on a journey toward health and wellness, whether you're dealing with addiction, seeking support or looking to deepen your understanding of mental health, be sure to check us out, and more information is in the link. I'm your host and therapist, luke Dubois. I'm excited to be joined by the incredible co-host and at least my favorite, buddhist, salmon. What's up, luke? Hey guys, today we are thrilled to welcome Anne Tolliver.

Speaker 1: 0:39

She is a licensed counselor with lots of letters behind her name, including the CSAT, which stands for Certified Sex and Addiction Therapist. She has dedicated her career to helping those struggling with both substance use and sex addiction. With over a decade of experience in the field, anne brings a wealth of knowledge and compassion to our conversation. Sex addiction is a topic that is often misunderstood and stigmatized, yet it's a significant issue that affects millions of people, warranting attention and appropriate therapeutic interventions, and will help us demystify the condition, exploring how it intersects with other forms of addiction and what we can do to support those affected by it, whether you're dealing with addiction yourself, supporting someone who is, or simply curious about the intricacies of human behavior. This episode is packed with viable insights.

Speaker 1: 1:29

Now you might be thinking I don't struggle with addiction, so why should I listen? Well, great question. This episode isn't just for those with a history of addiction. It's about understanding human behavior, resilience and how interconnected our coping mechanisms can be. You'll gain insights to the complexities of human nature that can help you better understand yourself and others around you. Why is this important? Because we all have habits and behaviors that we turn to in times of stress and emotional pain. Learning about addiction can offer us a mirror to reflect on our own lives and find healthier ways to cope. And thanks for joining us.

Speaker 2: 2:05

Thank you, thanks for inviting me.

Speaker 1: 2:07

Absolutely. You were certainly the person that came to my mind when Zell and I were talking about this topic, so let's kind of get into it. As we mentioned, sex addiction is a topic that is often misunderstood and stigmatized, so if you could start off, can?

Speaker 3: 2:23

you explain and scary.

Speaker 1: 2:25

And a whole lot of other words. Some people might be fearful, some people might be intrigued by this conversation. So what is sex addiction? Let's start that way.

Speaker 2: 2:35

Well, in the same way that we look at substance use addiction and there are, you know, there's the medical terminology and then there's the personal understanding that any addict really has about their experience, that compulsive behavior that happens to a degree that all other important things cease to exist. So in the world of particularly sex addiction versus sex therapy, there is the sex is healthy and it's good and it's a way that we connect. It's a primal need, it's one of. Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

Speaker 2: 3:20

It's all good. When it becomes maladaptive is when my need for that becomes compulsive and I'm no longer able to function. It's impacting my relationships, it's impacting my work, it's impacting my finances. There's a whole host of ripple effect from what usually usually not always, but usually is happening in secret.

Speaker 1: 3:48

Because if the need is maladaptive or bad behaviors, well, I feel the need to hide that.

Speaker 2: 3:56

And with sex addiction, it's really depending on what it is. It usually developed in secret.

Speaker 3: 4:02

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2: 4:03

It usually developed. We work a lot with betrayal and betrayal trauma, so it is usually an addict coming in after being caught by their partner who's now devastated, because when it all starts to come out, it generally comes out, and he's like one incident and then another incident and then finding out about 20 incidents and then like, all of a sudden, the person I thought I knew has been in.

Speaker 2: 4:33

there's a guy named Omar Minwala who in the field has done a lot of. He's created his own sort of training and everything else, but he talks about the secret sexual basement, his own sort of training and everything else, but he talks about the secret sexual basement and a little cartoon of you know the individual. The addict is sort of down there doing their thing and everybody else is upstairs. Just the world looks normal and it looks like you know and we never know what's going on in that secret sexual basement. And he takes it as far as in my mind this will age me, but in my mind there used to be a show called Get Smart and the opening credits had him walking down this long hallway, this very long hallway, and I think of that in terms of the sex addict where it's this really deep dive. We were talking about deep dives earlier. At the end of that is this secret behavior. They usually started before they ever met the person that they end up with.

Speaker 1: 5:30

Yeah, let's relate this to other addictions like substance use. A lot of times we hear people why am I an addict? How did it get to this level? When it comes to that level of, maybe would you say, lust and sex addiction, is it progressive and how, in your eyes, does that happen?

Speaker 2: 5:48

In true sex addiction. It's definitely progressive and it definitely escalates. And what I've witnessed, what I've experienced I am at the beginning of the month I celebrated 42 years of substance use recovery.

Speaker 1: 6:09

I'd say maybe 38 years.

Speaker 2: 6:11

She's BC before crack, I'm before oxys, I'm before fentanyl, I'm before, which I do keep very upfront in terms of if I ever relapse, man, there's a laundry list of things that weren't even invented.

Speaker 1: 6:25

It's not even the marshmallow vodka that you're talking about Nope.

Speaker 2: 6:29

So it keeps me in check in terms of but I'd say probably maybe 35 years, maybe 36 years of sex and love, addiction recovery, like really going into that and doing it intuitively, because there wasn't a lot of material that I found or knew of in that realm. I've had a lot of moments in this training where I've gone. Man, I wish this information had been out there that long ago because I would not have felt so alone in what I was experiencing.

Speaker 1: 7:05

So give us. There might be some listeners that are going holy shit, this is in the basement. This is guilt and shame ridden in ways that maybe substance abuse isn't as hidden as much, even hypothetically. But what are potential timeline or symptoms of that progression that are generally common with sex addiction?

Speaker 2: 7:28

What I've seen and I think this is common with substance use as well is that somewhere early on there is I have not yet really heard a story that didn't include some sentence or statement around feeling different feeling outside of feeling like I didn't belong, like I didn't fit.

Speaker 2: 7:50

There's some sort of either event or just a general, it could be neglect, it could be any number of things that made me feel different. And we are creatures created to connect, to come into community, to be together, to grow together. And that outside feeling, I may have othered myself, but my perception was I didn't fit. And it can be sentences that are simple as, and it can be sentences that are simple, as I grew up in a very large family.

Speaker 2: 8:29

I was too sensitive and I was. It was a very intuitive, sensitive child. Children are just little intuitors, they don't have words for all the feelings. But I'm the seventh of eight children. I grew up in a crowd of people and it was noisy and boisterous and wonderful in a lot of ways and completely overstimulating to my system. And somewhere in there I picked up this message that I was a problem and I didn't feel like I fit into the general, whatever.

Speaker 1: 9:05

You're not just different, but don't fit.

Speaker 2: 9:08

But don't fit. That isolation for me and in the story that I sort of go into with my clients, turns into that's a really powerless feeling. And when you're out there engaging in the world and navigating, if you find any sort of information that fits that narrative, that confirmation bias, it just builds on it and you feel even more powerless as you go along. Then there can be, you know, catalyst events, there can be bullying, there can be, you know, abuse of any sort.

Speaker 1: 9:46

So when it comes to sex addiction, I often say how I think affects how I feel, which affects how I act. So what does that look like in the early stages to progressing with sex addiction?

Speaker 2: 9:59

Well, I feel it. I think it feels like you know, there is a tension. There's a tension in that Our systems are always looking for a release of tension. It's looking for homeostasis.

Speaker 3: 10:10

I want to feel stable.

Speaker 2: 10:13

For me, it was finding my father's Playboys in the hall closet why they were left in the hall closet.

Speaker 1: 10:24

Just about.

Speaker 2: 10:25

That's the story of a 37, eight year old boy that's 35 and older but I'm a girl and so this is informing who I am as a woman at nine or 10 and what I'm supposed to look like and how I'm supposed to be. I don't necessarily feel that way. So now I'm feeling to look like and how I'm supposed to be. I don't necessarily feel that way. So now I'm feeling even more different and I'm looking at my peers as I'm coming into my teenage years. It is really confusing.

Speaker 1: 10:57

It brings bodily feelings. It brings yeah.

Speaker 2: 11:00

There's arousal. There's arousal in these images. They're really strong images. Now, if you fast forward to now, it's porn and it's intentional and it's really designed to be very powerful and that arousal and that's a great big, huge dopamine hit and that release. So what has my brain learned? It has learned that this thing relieves this thing.

Speaker 1: 11:31

So that's the beginning, with masturbation right, and then that release, and a lot of the clients that are in recovery or seeking recovery, they're often first addiction is masturbation. Yeah, because it's what you're explaining that allows for release.

Speaker 3: 11:49

Yeah, I mean. Thank you, Anne, for joining us. I'm just listening a lot and this is a very important topic and also a difficult topic for many people. But my experience is like, compared to Western culture and Eastern culture, and Eastern culture, in Western culture sex is more embraced, in comparison to Eastern culture is suppressed, but, um, yeah, but I have a lot of questions and I don't want to jump ahead, but my initial thoughts are pretty much that when somebody is born like comparing substance abuse and this kind of process addiction that when somebody is born, that person is not born with a bottle out of the womb but for this, uh, somebody's born with some kind of sexuality.

Speaker 3: 12:25

It's part of our being. We're sexual beings and that's how we exist, that's how we're procreated. So it's not something that we can work against, you know. It's not something to be eliminated right out of it, because I also heard some stories where, uh, sex addiction being followed by sexual anorexia that you act out so much that you end up acting in yes, and there's that idea of shame cycle that you do it.

Speaker 3: 12:48

There's a ritual, there's a remorse and they keep repeating this fouling down. And there are also extreme forms of this type of addiction, which I shouldn't even mention in this podcast of, like prostitutions, you know, child pornography yes like human traffic, things like that, like things that it's all in there.

Speaker 2: 13:06

Yeah, it's a big soup of stuff.

Speaker 3: 13:09

Yeah, but I think it's also very important. But maybe we can dive into it down the line. But what I wanted to learn from this conversation and then wanted to be available to listeners is, like how is that therapy process like? Because you know, it's not about I'm going to eliminate sex out of my life and my life will be completely fine, because that's the case for substance abuse. There's no such thing as I'm going to have a healthy relationship with alcohol and then my life will be great, you know.

Speaker 2: 13:34

So, like Well, it's like food addiction.

Speaker 3: 13:37

You need to eat.

Speaker 2: 13:38

So it's and it's not that I really like Drew Pinsky, who, years ago, I heard him make the statement that it isn't the alcohol, it isn't the drugs, it isn't the sex, it's not the food, it's not the gambling, it's my relationship to it. So my relationship to sex was there wasn't anybody around me. There were lots of people around me, but there wasn't anybody around me really telling me that like, like masturbation is okay, it's, it's, it's natural.

Speaker 2: 14:09

It's normal and of course, you feel good and you know here. Here are the ways to kind of do that in a healthy way. Here's the way to be healthy. I had the. If somebody finds out that you're doing this or you overhear people talking about doing this, you hear about it in a really shame-based way, so you start to feel like I'm doing something wrong. But I would also say that, because this has been one of those things even from the time that you and I worked together, luke, I would ask my clients when they came in in the course of that intake well, like, tell me how much secret keeping and you know, lying and sort of risking things and getting away with it plays into you getting high and again I getting caught.

Speaker 2: 15:10

The idea of and in my addiction, that was very much a piece of the idea of getting caught in this, in this compromising position, added an extra something to the whole thing. So to your question, coming into recovery and sort of putting down that compulsive use of was sort of like well, what do I do now? What is healthy? What does healthy look like? Because now it's not a secret, now it's like there's no, you know, it's okay, you can do what you want to do, kind of thing. Well, now it's, it's sort of taken a big like well, now it doesn't seem all that interesting.

Speaker 3: 15:56

The high of secrecy yeah.

Speaker 2: 15:59

Yeah, asked us in one of my training modules one of the questions that we had to before our break. They said I want you to write down an answer to the question of what is sex for, what is the purpose of? And it seems like a really simple question until you start to ask yourself like what is the meaning of this for me? And when we came back out of a I think my cohort was like 68 people everybody had a different answer.

Speaker 1: 16:27

It's kind of like spirituality, yeah.

Speaker 2: 16:29

There's a thousand different definitions for spirituality. Yeah, and what's the meaning? Sort of sexual energy and having sex every day is a thing that like, that's great, that's fantastic. But if I'm with somebody who I want to have sex every day and their sex drive is once a week and we never talk about it, what starts happening?

Speaker 1: 17:05

The intimacy starts to be affected. What I mean by that is there's sexual intimacy, communication intimacy, emotional intimacy, physical intimacy, and when we don't have those conversations, the sexual intimacy is drastically affected.

Speaker 2: 17:21

Yeah, and somebody is going. I always feel like I'm initiating sex and you don't want it, and then I feel rejected and then I'm turning away from and we're still not talking about it. We're still not talking about why, if this person over here, sex drive is impacted because they're spending their mornings and evenings masturbating to pornography. The real-time interaction is so much harder when you're a kid and you stumble upon porn and that's what teaches you what sex is. And then you meet someone and you interact with them and you are attracted to them and you want to have sex with them. None of what you experience in real time looks like what you were watching on screen.

Speaker 1: 18:10

Is porn ever healthy?

Speaker 2: 18:12

I think it can be. I think in some formats it can be and I've had those conversations with people that I work with. But again, I think it's the communication and again, if I have a partner who's like yeah, porn doesn't bother me, I don't care if you watch porn, in fact that can be part of what we do together. That can be part of what gets us going can bring intimacy together it can sex together.

Speaker 2: 18:38

Yeah, but what's missing in a lot of what happens in the maladaptive and the addiction realm is we're not good communicators.

Speaker 1: 18:48

So when it comes to porn, how does that lead to maladaptive or sex addiction for a lot of people?

Speaker 2: 19:07

usually start with is pretty um, what they would term in the in the sex addiction world, vanilla, or even in the sex therapy world, vanilla. It's pretty, you know, man woman mild, you know and that will do.

Speaker 2: 19:17

You know, it's kind of like the first time I got high, you know, felt like a really big feeling. And it feels really big initially, that dopamine hit, that level is going to top out, and then what happens? The same thing with drugs I need more in order to get a bigger feeling. So my arousal is going to top out bigger feeling, so my arousal is going to top out and then I'm going to need something that's more powerful and that may be something very, very different. Now I do. I do have some clients who, at a very young age, stumbled upon things like sissy hypnopornography, which is a whole other. This is something new to me.

Speaker 1: 20:04

Google it.

Speaker 2: 20:07

But don't look at it. That was my client. Don't look at it. Investigate it, but don't look at it. It's very, very powerful. It's very. It is very like takes brainwashing techniques and at eight or nine years old, to have something like that hit your brain it's not meant for it?

Speaker 2: 20:28

oh no, not at all. Um, and there's um very little research about it, it's it. What I found the other day was some numbers on how, uh, there were 300,000 followers of this before the pandemic and that sort of doubled post-pandemic, and that is somebody who is. We're now all isolated, and this is where that sort of isolation came up for me, because there were a lot of people who just lost it in that isolation me, because there were a lot of people who just lost it in that isolation, and a lot of these behaviors went, got really escalated and really out of hand.

Speaker 1: 21:11

And it's a quick release a quick release?

Speaker 2: 21:14

Yeah, and so, in the same way that the tension builds and I go out and I get drunk or I get high, I go out and I either you know, I either watch porn and masturbate or I find a sex worker, or I even just webcamming and OnlyFans. And now I'm not just in a realm of sexual behaviors, behaviors I am spending, money I'm taking from the family finances because there's a big price that you got to pay for that. It's all very transactional.

Speaker 1: 21:55

Yeah, and the the, the porn or the webcamming goes back to your awareness that you brought up. When it comes to communication, whether it's communicating with the spouse or communicating really with ourselves, with what we're doing and why we're doing it With drugs and alcohol, there's a relationship, often a toxic relationship, with substances. Do you look at sex, maladaptive behaviors, as its own toxic relationship? What's your parallel?

Speaker 2: 22:26

Yes, and you know again, in the same way, it's not the thing, it's my relationship to the thing.

Speaker 1: 22:32

Okay.

Speaker 2: 22:33

And I'm. What is the purpose that I'm using it for? When you have someone finally get to that point where they go, oh, I'm using this person to fill a void and they can't fill that void. My partner can't even fill that void.

Speaker 1: 24:06

And for a lot of your clients, it takes a spouse to find out a. What are some of the other negative things that bring people to sex therapy?

Speaker 2: 24:19

The police A little at the door oh yeah, oh yeah.

Speaker 2: 24:27

Which has been really, really fascinating when, halfway through my sort of expansion of addiction therapy, my boss said, you know, I have somebody who you know has is in the court system and you know how do you feel about working with an offender, and I was like I got some feelings. My nature is more curious than judgmental. So you know there is that initial like oh that you know that's usually only in one realm and that's really very stigmatized and very controversial and should be rightly so. But again, why?

Speaker 1: 25:14

There's a rhyme or reason why we do the things we do.

Speaker 2: 25:17

What drove somebody to that? I'm curious. I'm always curious about that. Why do I do the things that I do? Why do you do the things that you do? What shaped you and brought you to that place? And that's where, for me, most of what I did in my master's program was trauma and neurobiology and just sort of my own nerdy, obsessed desire to understand the why, the roots, the brain root.

Speaker 2: 25:47

And there's a lot of trauma behind what drives somebody to like watching child pornography. There is also an element of I would throw this in there there's an element of and you're the generation of kids and kids behind you like coming into video games and video games being a big thing and you're sitting alone in your room with your little video games. Well, there's a whole backdoor channel in that video game world and that virtual world that leads right into chat rooms, that lead people right into conversations with people who really want to pull you in to this whole world, into the webcamming world, into the looking at things and to and that. I have heard that story more than a number of times that there was no intentional. I'm going and looking for this thing.

Speaker 2: 26:42

There was a. I'm over here and then you know, like those little YouTube little little story things that are running along the side, like oh, that's interesting too, let me go to there. And let me go to there, and now there's an algorithm that is taking me down a very nefarious path. I didn't think I was in those, and now there's an algorithm that is taking me down a very nefarious path.

Speaker 1: 27:00

I didn't think I was in those people, places and things, but there was some of that going on, yeah.

Speaker 3: 27:05

So Luke brought that up about intimacy. I think it's important. I guess it's difficult or it's impossible to talk about sex addiction without intimacy. It goes back to what you were saying earlier about. I guess it's common in addiction like feeling different. But also intimacy cannot occur without vulnerability. So like there's also an especially with a sex addiction, there's an aspect of not trusting. Start trusting it's probably very, very difficult, but also that's probably the only solution to start having a healthy, open relationship. I guess there's also an aspect of self-compassion too, right, like to be self-acceptance of some kind.

Speaker 2: 27:52

Self-honesty, that can get you to self-acceptance, that can get you to self-compassion. That's a really good point. And I would say and I should say because I just recently sort of looked at my caseload and went I have more men on my caseload than I have women, than I have women. So a shout out to the men and I have said that to a lot of my clients a shout out to the men because we've also had this belief that men don't go and get help. More women go get help, more women are diagnosed with more and and I hate that and it's not particularly true- and it's not just the men that are getting that knock from 911 either.

Speaker 1: 28:45

Right.

Speaker 2: 28:47

Right, and there are women. I mean I have we all sort of in my practice, in the practice that I'm in, have different sort of are specialties, um, have different sort of our our specialties, and one of my coworkers, um, really sort of deals with women, sex and love addiction, um, not that I don't have some of those clients as well. So it's not, you know, it's not indicative of one or the other, but when you, when you talk about vulnerability, I do see that like the biggest obstacle for men is to get out from behind a very deep seated belief that if I, if I show you who I really am, if I come in as me right off the bat, you are going to reject me. And so I can't really tell you these things, because it is a conversation that I have with my clients. If they're not in a relationship and they're going to embark on dating, it's like. So when are we going to tell that person that we have this struggle and we seek help for this and we're doing this thing Because that's a really important piece of information for the person that you're interested in?

Speaker 2: 30:02

And on the other side of that, I can tell you every partner, every woman in particular, but I think men probably would feel the same way too will say I can forgive the behavior. That's a big statement. I can forgive the behavior. That's a big statement. I can forgive the behavior. It's the lies and the deception Like they knew before they dated me, married me, had kids with me that they had this problem and they never told me. Or I said when we were dating and they never told me. Or I said when we were dating my last boyfriend was a sex addict. I don't want that. And they never admitted that they were too or that they had an issue or a problem. And now they're on the back end of. I trusted you that what you told me was true because you weren't vulnerable enough to tell me who you really were.

Speaker 1: 30:59

For someone with that fear of guilt and shame that's preventing them from being proactive in their recovery process. What would you tell them? Because that's one reason. Another reason might be they might fear about being able to perform or ejaculate if they weren't doing these intense actions.

Speaker 2: 31:23

Well, I think the biggest piece in not getting honest with your partner about that stuff, what people don't realize is you take away the opportunity for your partner to support you.

Speaker 1: 31:38

Connection.

Speaker 2: 31:43

Yeah, vulnerability, and it's so much harder to try to get that connection back than to go in and be vulnerable. There is a risk. There is a risk that your partner might go nope.

Speaker 1: 31:57

Sure that fear can prevent you from taking the action.

Speaker 2: 32:00

But my take is, if I'm dating, when I'm dating, I want to know that early on. I want to know that in the beginning, when it you know like yeah, ouch, it's going to hurt, I put a lot of possibility in that early, that limerence stage Right. I am really fascinated with this idea. This came out of like listening to all these stories and going I wonder why, when we first meet someone, we give them 100% of our trust and we believe everything that they tell us. When we know the least that we're ever going to know about them ever, we go here. I believe you and everything you're saying. I have no idea who you are, but the picture that you're painting for me is so beautiful I'm getting really emotionally invested. You're telling me you want kids and you want family and this is what our life is going to look like, and none of that looks like what's going on present day. But let's skip that, let's just look ahead. And then, 20 years down the road, it's like this person is not even anything close to what I imagined that they would be. This is not the life that I signed up for and and we've seen that in substance use as well I used to teach family education and I used to go. You know you're feeling a little blindsided that your person is in treatment and you had no idea what was going on and what they were doing. And this is what it's going to look like.

Speaker 2: 33:33

You know the addict in treatment usually spends that time doing. You know, if they're doing the work, they're paying attention and doing a lot of really hard work and they're feeling so good about themselves when they're leaving that they're like, man, I'm going to go home and my family should throw out a red carpet and there should be a parade for me because I'm doing all this work and your family did not get the 30, 60, 90 days of treatment. They're at home trying to hold everything down with a laundry list of things that hurt them, and you're going to come out and hit this wall of wait. Why are you not happy that I've done all this stuff? And they're like oh, we're just beginning.

Speaker 1: 34:18

And that vulnerability is tough, and that vulnerability is tough and that vulnerability is very tough.

Speaker 2: 34:23

It's humility, there's a, there's a and there's that paradox that I think most of us sort of grow up in this world of like either or Things have to either be this way, or they have to be that way, and as either, with maturity, maybe those normal people go through that. I don't know who they are. I'm not one of them. Through this work that we do what we recognize, particularly in recovery, I think it introduces the idea very early on that there's a lot of paradox, there's a lot of both and there's a lot of. I am an addict. If I feed this thing in me, I will implode my life, without a doubt, and I'm not using today and that means I have a better chance at being a better version of me than I ever had the opportunity before. It's not one or the other. I have to walk with my addict right next to me. I'm not shoving them in a closet. I have to have them right next to me. I have to be able to go.

Speaker 3: 35:28

Yeah, I am capable of incredible harm and I'm working really hard to not feed that, to not be that today there's a sense of uh, as I'm listening, there's a sense of like double life for sex addict because, like you mentioned earlier, there's a a sense of belief system where I am deeply defected, so I'm going to have to hide it and I'm going to appear this way, and that creates that lack of intimacy because you lose a sense of connection within yourself.

Speaker 2: 36:03

Absolutely. The world will shun me if I show you who I really am.

Speaker 3: 36:08

Yeah, so yeah, that's very deep, but Luke knows this really well about recovery. You know recovery is about change, but then I also know this from my own home country and political situations like real change happens when the system changes. Otherwise it's just a superficial change. So for an addict, like there is a belief system that is impaired, that is incorrect. That is not so. Only if that belief system changes things will change, because growing up with that sense of I am defective. If that's a belief system, the world is outside of this wall and then there's a lack of connection and I'm gonna, usually unconsciously, very unconsciously, set up situations that are going to confirm that defective I'm gonna.

Speaker 2: 37:01

I'm gonna say things or do things or or repeat situations that will then like, well, see, I'm defective, see, nobody cares about me. Well then like, well, see, I'm defective, see, nobody cares about me. And then I'm going to justify going back to the maladaptive behavior. So the isolation turns into powerlessness For me. Very specifically, I could go back to exactly when, as a teenager, I felt very powerless teenager. I felt very powerless and very alone and very resentful, very, very angry about the power that I felt other people had over me, whether it was in the judgments and opinions they had of me or the decisions that were being made for me or about me. And that was when my very oppositional defiant came roaring out of the gate. And that was.

Speaker 2: 37:58

That was sex, drugs, rock and roll, that that was whatever, whenever, whoever however, don't care the rationalization and justification for all sorts of really, really really self-destructive and destructive to relationships behavior came out for me and I think there is a maybe not a track that clear, but there is generally that track of what I see and what I work with with my clients is identifying that sense of isolation and that level of powerlessness. And that came out of asking that question of like, particularly with relapse. It's like, well, when did this relapse happen? And it's like, well, my wife was out of town or you know, she was upset with me and I was alone and I was bored. That word boredom, like number one on the Family Feud leaderboard of what could cause you to relapse. Boredom, what does that actually mean? That was my question. I was like what is actually happening in that boredom?

Speaker 1: 39:07

What are you thinking, what are you feeling?

Speaker 2: 39:08

What do you? You know, yeah, I'm feeling alone. I'm feeling alone. I'm feeling alone and I don't know, because really it's like you know, boredom, like man, when I'm, when I have nothing to do, I have 8 000 creative things to think of, doing, like the last thing on the list is let me go drink or drug or go have sex with a random stranger, or you're like that. That's not there anymore, thank goodness. But I got it. You know, when I think about in that early stage and that early recognition of of, particularly in early recovery and for I mean it happens for substance abuse, but when I'm working with sex addicts too, it's like I have to really get you on board with feeling really uncomfortable for a while, like the discomfort won't kill you and it's so necessary.

Speaker 1: 39:57

And it goes back to that lack of connection. And I often ask people are you alone? Yes, but is it really lonely? And when you're lonely, what comes up for you? Right, and that, yeah, it's lack of connection. But, boy, the emotions and the. And then wanting to cope with feeling lonely or not just comfortable with, really not with the uncomfortability, really, right, I mean, I remember feeling that and going home, oh my gosh, I'm alone, but I'm just lonely after a four-year breakup, you know, living by myself. And then what behaviors can come with that and wanting to.

Speaker 2: 40:34

What are my choices in that loneliness?

Speaker 3: 40:36

yeah, I don't have to stay lonely yeah, I want to ask about the social skills aspect of this too, because, um, that the relational, because our identities are relational.

Speaker 3: 40:46

And since we're talking about like porn, for example, like, if somebody finds out porn at an early age, there's, you know, because when you want to go out with somebody, you got to ask somebody out and there's a sense of rejection, you know. But, like, when you get pleasure from porn, there's no sense of rejection, you can just get it whenever you want it. But then the more you do that, the more you're dissociating from the society, like having those you know, and then it develops low self-esteem and then the lower your self-esteem goes, the harder to make connection with other people you know. So, like, how do you help a sex addict to have that relational identity again, to be out in the world? Because you know boredom wouldn't happen if you're, if you have a good sense of belonging, like, oh, yeah, I'm gonna call someone because I'm bored, yeah, but, but other than that, if I have no one to call because I've isolated myself so much.

Speaker 2: 41:42

That and that's and that's part of the kicker too is like my partner, who, who I love and I think that's true, I mean, for most it's like I love my wife and my kids. I really, you know, but your partner's not feeling that right now. They're feeling really betrayed and they're as isolated as you are, like you've broken any attempt at that relational bond and so now you've done the thing that was the worst case scenario for you. None of us wants to be lonely and isolated and without love and connection. But through my behavior and then getting caught in the behavior, I've really done the biggest, worst, like I've really cut myself off from you and now I'm really in that spiral and so again it's coming into that, like it's going to be uncomfortable, but we're going to have to deconstruct this from that belief of I'm not good enough and so I have to mask myself as this other person into. This is who I am and in this space right now, as I am, you are rejecting me.

Speaker 1: 42:55

Yeah, that's a truth cause-effect action, and I have to accept that I have to like yeah, I did that.

Speaker 2: 43:01

It's a lot of again. It's a lot of the both-and. It's like in order to get better, we have to start with the, the dialectic behavioral therapy. The two truths are here and I have to sit with that and I have to get a little more comfortable with that idea because that's the one moving forward. I've seen it in substance use and I've seen it in sex addiction, where there's oftentimes this initial the partner says well, this is what I need from you in order to stay in this marriage or this relationship, this is what I need for you to do. And it's often like you need to go to meetings and you need to work with a therapist and you need to be doing this work. What does that mean? Like I didn't even.

Speaker 2: 43:49

I was three years into my recovery before I hit that emotional bottom with my sex and love addiction and had to like oh, this is the work, this is the actual thing that's really going to change me, that's really going to move me forward. And it was a very spiritual, spiritual awakening, was that? Up until that point, it was like I'd hear people talk about. I was like yeah, I haven't had that I'm not. That's not happening for me. It was performance based. I did my recovery in a performance based format for a solid couple of years. I did all the things but I did it. So I was checking boxes so I could sit in a meeting and I did all the things, but I did it. So I was checking boxes so I could sit in a meeting and I could hear the topic and I could go. Oh yeah, this is what I know about that.

Speaker 1: 44:38

It's not uncommon for people to come to Recovery Collective I'm sure you see it too people 3, 5, 10, 15, 20 years and then address their sex addiction, their lust, their gambling, their other behaviors.

Speaker 2: 44:53

This other thing that we don't talk about in the AA realm, which is a shame, in my opinion, because it's happening and. I've seen it.

Speaker 1: 45:03

And I think it's where we are at in our culture and society now with the gambling and the easy access to the full spectrum of sex and lust that we can visibly see and easily get to. That might have been a lot harder 20 years ago that I hope it becomes much more parallel as a focus, primarily together.

Speaker 2: 45:25

Yeah, so my work has to start with. How did this begin? What's the core system here? It's usually shame-based. It's usually that isolation of and then working with that shame into that. You know it's going to be performative because we got to learn. We got to learn the tools. We have to pick up the tools. We have to get comfortable with the tools. We have to start learning to take some risks. You know, like, who is your support system? What's been your wife? She's really mad at you. She does not want to. Like you're on your own, buddy, so who else do we have to lean on?

Speaker 2: 46:05

And this is where and this is something I've seen in 12-step recovery in substance use is. I think one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen is to go to an anniversary of a man and have other men talk about him in such a beautiful, loving, caring sort of way. To hear men sit in that realm and go I love you and connect in that it's like, oh, it gives me goosebumps, you know, because that, I think, has been lost for you. You guys have been taught and trained. You get, you know, one or two emotions and they're usually the angry ones. You know who are you if you say I love you, who are you, you know, if you show your sensitivity, you, you know, it's you do around the golf for four hours.

Speaker 1: 46:55

What do you talk about? I don't know.

Speaker 2: 46:57

Yeah yeah, stuff way up here and I I'm very lucky that I have a husband who was like you know I I have no interest in those conversations, like you know, I'll I'll be in the kitchen with the women talking about the deep emotional, you know, but he has carried a lot of that shame stuff as well.

Speaker 2: 47:19

We sort of worked on it in a. We were not together at the time but we were kind of working on that stuff in our own little journeys and it made being able to communicate about that stuff a little bit better. Although what's really interesting in this work in the last several years that I've done like we're now having conversations that are like, wow, this is really interesting. There's a lot of other things in there that impact relationships. Right, you get you know again. You have that picture of what it's going to look like. You have that picture that you learned on the screen, not just from pornography, but even from our movies. You know, I mean, I always go back to Jerry Maguire and the moment of you complete me and I go. That's a terrible sentence. That is, that you fill the void in me and that is. You know, it's like. What happened after that story is what I'm always curious about, because if that's the reality, we probably ran into some stumbling blocks there.

Speaker 1: 48:21

Yeah, you completely triggers my codependency Deeply. What? Does what would, for the spouses, the family members who are listening to this episode, talk about enabling someone with maladaptive behaviors with sex and lust and sex addiction? How would you help the family members that might either be struggling?

Speaker 2: 48:50

or might be enabling these unhealthy behaviors, might be enabling these unhealthy behaviors. Usually, what I have to do in the beginning is listen to a lot of stuff about the partner who has abused the trust right. It's a lot of validation. You're not crazy.

Speaker 1: 49:03

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 49:05

You know that sentence is not okay.

Speaker 1: 49:10

That is gaslighting Any addiction wants to train the spell, so that way the addiction continue. Right, that's the idea. I want you to walk an eggshell so I can continue my unhealthy behavior.

Speaker 2: 49:20

Well, yeah, well, because we're very intuitive. You know, we, as human beings, are very intuitive. We don't trust our intuition. We don't trust our intuition. We have our heads full of all sorts of weird stuff that you know, if I go, this doesn't feel right and I bring that to you and you say what are you talking about? You're being crazy.

Speaker 1: 49:47

I have been called crazy in the past.

Speaker 2: 49:52

It is a very awful feeling to be called that and every single time coming out of you know those relationships and looking back like I wasn't crazy, I was on to something, so listeners if that is you, if you're like you, can't trust your intuition.

Speaker 1: 50:08

That wise part of self, that is a wonderful reason to go to therapy. Yes, empower that wise part of self. That is a wonderful reason to go to therapy. Yes, empower that wise part of self, all right, continue.

Speaker 2: 50:16

Yes, because that is where so much of the damage is done. So the partner has not only, you know, been betrayed in this discovery and discovery is a whole other thing we could talk about, because it typically happens in a death by a thousand cuts sort of scenario where there's the much like the addict. It's like, well, I caught him drinking, and it's you know well, how much are you drinking. You know I'm having a couple of beers every night. It's like, well, let's multiply that by 10.

Speaker 2: 50:53

That's the safe bet, yeah and then add in a few other things, because we're going to find out about those later just a couple and and so you know there is the, the.

Speaker 2: 51:04

I saw a text on my husband's phone and it always starts with I had a feeling. I've never had this feeling before, but I had a feeling and so for some reason, I went to look at my husband's phone. Now the husband will say had him say it. Well, isn't that a violation of my boundaries and my trust that she's looking at my phone? I'm like did you have something on your phone that was secret and you didn't want to be seen? Because really I should be able to hand you my phone and go hey, look away, I have nothing to hide.

Speaker 1: 51:37

That can be true. However, the justification the vulnerability.

Speaker 2: 51:43

If I'm looking for something, why am I looking for something? I'm probably going to find something. I'm probably going to find something.

Speaker 1: 51:52

Yeah, and they do, but what they find may be pretty. I was going to say benign, but that's not the right word, early warning sign.

Speaker 2: 52:04

Or it may be a massage parlor or maybe, and there's a story around why and what and it was really nothing. That's another one of those gaslighting. You know it was nothing. Or it was because of you, it was because we had that fight, or you were paying attention to the kids, or and that's just another cut.

Speaker 1: 52:27

And then there's that's a slash, but go ahead then there's what mich Mays calls Sherlocking.

Speaker 2: 52:34

So I, as the betrayed partner, then go into like well, what else is there? Because now there's a tiny little rip in the fabric of my reality and now all sorts of questions are coming out. And now, man, we are a woman whose intuition is now like the radar has gone up. We are the most, the greatest investigative.

Speaker 1: 53:02

Yeah, the hunting and gathering.

Speaker 2: 53:06

So we go into Sherlocking mode and we start and we and then the questions start, and then we come back with more questions and at that point, like the light is now on the addict and they're like, oh man, I'm caught. And if they, if they have, if they have a level of like, oh, this is bad and I and I, I want to reconnect with my partner, so I want to give them what they're asking me for. It's a really, really tricky place because you're asking me for the truth. I'm going to keep giving you the truth. It's going to keep punching you in the face and I'm and I'm asking to be punched in the face.

Speaker 2: 53:48

It's a really awful and that's usually when we get people. So I'm validating what's happening for the face. It's a really awful and that's usually when we get people. So I'm validating what's happening for the partner and at the same time, I'm going. You might want to stop asking those questions right now, just for the time being. What we do in our practice is we do something called a disclosure, if the partner wants it. The betrayed partner partner wants like I want all the information, I want to know how bad this is, how far back it goes, how deep this wound is put it in black and white paper, huh we want it.

Speaker 2: 54:24

It's a it's a four-step inventory like no other, yeah, but it also goes all the way back. I take my addicts all the way like when did this actually start for you as a behavior to release that tension. Because one of the things I have to teach my partners is that, in most cases with sex addiction, what started never had your name on it.

Speaker 1: 54:53

It starts at hello right. It starts at clicking on that website or oh, look on that Facebook and that wasn't ever about a partner.

Speaker 2: 55:02

That was about your addict finding a way out of distress.

Speaker 1: 55:06

Yeah, and the addict certainly removes denial that disclosure process transparency, it's vulnerability.

Speaker 2: 55:20

But how long did it take you to come out of denial?

Speaker 1: 55:24

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2: 55:26

How long did it take you, zah, to come out of denial? I mean, I walked in with. Well, it might be this might be bad, but not all this other layers.

Speaker 1: 55:35

Right, it's layers.

Speaker 2: 55:36

It's peeling back layers of, to get to truth, Right? So there's that there again. There's that both end of like. I want to be truthful with you. I don't even know what that means for me.

Speaker 1: 55:50

Yeah, you might think you're being truthful. Then you get to a whole nother level of trust and honesty with the disclosure, with the support of everyone involved, with the treatment.

Speaker 2: 55:59

I was so masked, I was so and I was really young. I didn't even have an identity. When I got sober I was 19 years old. I was barely. I was an amoeba. I was saying I was honest, but I didn't realize, realize how full of shit I was. But I was as honest as I could be at the time, and that's a lot of where I start with people is like you have to start with. I'm a liar?

Speaker 2: 56:20

yeah, I'm absolutely a liar and I didn't think I was first and foremost I'll tell you what I think is true, what I think you might want to be true. Yeah, I don't know what truth is. I used to sit in meetings all the time and when they were like the topic is honesty, I'd go oh man, I got nothing. Everything out of my mouth felt like is that really true? I don't even know. I don't know was the most honest answer I could give, and nobody wants that answer. Nobody wants I don't know, but I. To me, that is the greatest thing that we can wrestle with and come to dealing with the I don't know, swimming in the uncertainty of it is not clear right now, in the uncertainty of it is not clear right now. So I really for me to try to tell you something that feels honest would be dishonest.

Speaker 1: 57:20

Yeah, yeah, so I'm thinking just buddhist principles. I'm thinking about cravings and letting go of suffering and upset like what's on your mind when it comes to your perspective I mean, sex is not talked about that much in buddhism. So but they try to avoid it.

Speaker 3: 57:36

Yeah, it falls under the category of, you know, cravings. Um, as I'm listening to this conversation again, like life is supposed to be enjoyable. Life is supposed to be. We're supposed to be happy.

Speaker 3: 57:49

I don't know if pleasure is the right word define that though, like finding finding joy, finding meaning and purpose in life, but like for a sex addict, if the pleasure is getting out of only in this behavior, then also, especially in an addiction, it's insatiable. Like you want this, you get this and you want more. They're seeking of the novelty over and over again, but the real pleasure, real joy and life doesn't create more suffering. I love connecting with my children, and that's it. You know that's meaningful. I love what I do. That's meaningful.

Speaker 3: 58:21

Life is supposed to be enjoyable that way, with, like you know, having a sense of being at ease with who you are and then finding joy in that, and then sex is one of the many things that you're supposed to enjoy when you're approaching life. That way, sex is placed in a proper place. I know there are some people who practice celibacy as well. Sex can bleed out their life and they find peace. But I think that really is the key component of recovery in this to find your true identity, being at ease with who you are.

Speaker 2: 58:52

Absolutely. And I asked the sort of definition of happiness because that is one of those places that I go to with people, because for me one of the discoveries was my assumption of happiness was euphoria, which feels different to me than joy, and so that was a you know, long into my recovery, like I am still seeking that euphoric.

Speaker 1: 59:23

Euphoric is almost like an escape to me when you said that, yeah, yeah, that's like if you could see our faces like, oh yeah, I know what that's like.

Speaker 2: 59:32

The hit.

Speaker 1: 59:33

I just dreamed.

Speaker 2: 59:34

The hit, the big hit, and I had to do this, like, oh, I feel like joy is a more. It involves that contentment, it involves that connection to self and presence and it's sustainable, like I can work towards that, like I could wake up every day and decide I'm going to be in a place of that versus I am seeking this hit.

Speaker 1: 1:00:04

To me, that's the difference between an earned high joy and an unearned high euphoria.

Speaker 2: 1:00:11

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:00:11

You're working for that unearned high, you got to hide it and you're doing actions.

Speaker 2: 1:00:14

But one is a different kind of connection yeah, and the true joy, that presence, that piece of it doesn't cause harm. It has its own, it has its own boundaries and it has its own. I can say this feels good. This doesn't feel good like I know what the parameters are of that. This euphoria thing is like an insatiable monster that can never be. It's never gonna be satisfied. We have a mutual friend and she will. She will say in her workshops that I've done with her. She will say that I taught her. Like she came bouncing into work one day talking about another date that she'd gone on and you know, asking my advice and I said well, do you want up, do you really want a relationship or do you want to hit?

Speaker 2: 1:01:02

and she looked like I slapped her in the face it's like but and it just sort of organically came out of me, like you know, I've been hearing about these dates and these experiences and they sound, they sound like hits to me, they sound like really intense experiences but they don't sound sustainable, you know, and there is, there is that realization that going into relationship, anna Lembke is a goddess.

Speaker 2: 1:01:37

I love her. She wrote a book called Dopamination and I listened to her in an interview on Armchair Expert and she talks not just about substance abuse but she talks about sex addiction. She talks about all sorts of mental health things that have to do with our dopaminergic system and how that really, when we get hooked in that, how that really then starts to inform our thinking, our beliefs and our behavior. Thinking, our beliefs and our behavior so much of you know there's, there's this idea that you know, I think from one place and I think, and then I make it happen and we are so driven by our unconscious parts of our brain so much more than we ever really realized. So another aspect of what I try to work with in my clients is like we have to bring that unconscious stuff to the surface.

Speaker 2: 1:02:36

We have to understand the multi-dimensional parts of us and how we. It's not just our minds but our bodies. When we move into our bodies and we start to listen to that intuition, it has informed me more and moved me away from more negative situations in my crone years as I am in, and in really, really profound ways. Like my brain was going, we do not understand what the situation is, we do not have the information. What the situation is, we do not have the information, no one is giving us the information, but the system is going offline and that is telling us there is a huge unsafe thing happening here and I move away from it and within. It doesn't happen right away a lot of times, but within weeks, all of a sudden, the rest of the information is revealed. It's like, oh, weeks, all of a sudden, the rest of the information is revealed. It's like, oh, oh, I did dodge a bullet. I didn't know I was doing that and I didn't understand why.

Speaker 2: 1:03:40

Now my head also has in there you're being crazy, you're just being, you're being dramatic and you're being, you know, you're making things up here and, and, and I, I will, my brain will fill in, you know we're good at that in the I don't know space that my brain doesn't like.

Speaker 2: 1:03:57

It'll go, let's make up a story. Let's make up a story. We can get some good stories going. I see this a lot of times with my clients. They'll do that. They'll future trip as somebody we worked with in the past. It'll go into some really catastrophic amazing. I had a client once who had to leave treatment because he was completely convinced that his wife and child had been in a car accident and that's why they hadn't shown up at the facility. No evidence. The wife was actually just taking her time because he was in treatment and she was kind of mad. I was like no, I'm not running up there 20 minutes from now to give you what you want.

Speaker 2: 1:04:40

I'm not rushing for your cigarettes complete story, and that's what betrayed partners go through too, right? So there's the aftermath of well, now my partner's gone to treatment and they're coming out and they're saying they're in recovery. They say they're going to meetings, they say the, but I don't see anything changing. That's a really tough. That's a really tough space to work with people. Yeah, because they're. They're then putting them in my hands and going change my partner and it's not happening fast enough. And I've I've had several just recently where it's like so how long have we been in nine months? I'm like, okay, not even at a year, but we're really pressing to have some big, dramatic changes happen.

Speaker 1: 1:05:27

What support groups or recovery recommendations would you recommend for the betrayed loved ones?

Speaker 2: 1:05:48

there are, I mean connected with every you know SA, SAA even you know AA and all those. There is some sort of family support group and I would say definitely from an informative place. Those groups are really good Can be tricky in the betrayed realm because partners will go and they'll get triggered by other, like if other people are talking about their partners not getting better. They're not, you know it can feel like they can come back from that with like, oh, this is going to just never end yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:06:27

There are some really good. And again I would say Michelle Mays is in Virginia, has written a fantastic book called the Betrayal Bind in which she talks about there's an injury cycle that happens for the partner that is really really hard to come out of, and she writes beautifully about it. She offers intensives for partners. Smart, she has a whole um I hope it starts up very soon uh training for helping partners kind of come out of that betrayal bind cycle that's good there are um treatments.

Speaker 2: 1:07:13

Most of the treatment centers, like the meadows is the big treatment center for this type of work patrick karn many years ago he did his PhD and sort of started this whole, facing the shadows and the work that we are trained in the CSAT world.

Speaker 1: 1:07:33

And Meadows is residential inpatient.

Speaker 2: 1:07:36

Residential, inpatient, has all levels of care, but they do within that realm. They have it sort of divided up into all sorts of very specific pieces for people to get really, really direct care. There are programs that they are connected with. Pep is one of them. It's for professionals. There is additional mental health issues that need to be addressed. So there are places. There are more places than ever In our particular area, though on the East Coast. Here it's really wanting.

Speaker 2: 1:08:16

Harbor of Grace does have somebody who does some of this work, but there are also I mean across the board online so many groups in intensive. There's Bloom for Women, which is Dr Kevin Skinner, who is one of those people in the CSAT world who's very well known. Alex Katahakis, out on the West Coast, has Center for Healthy Sex and groups for men, groups for women, intensives, same thing and she is very much in the realm of. She teaches CSAT modules but she also is in the sex therapy realm. So that has has. Uh, when you were talking about that earlier, saw the my understanding from people who've done CSAT work in the got trained. In the past there was this sort of. Well, now we get the addict healthy again, but we're not really teaching them how to have healthy sex. So we're sort of not really taking it to the next level and that that has expanded now much more so.

Speaker 2: 1:09:30

Um, that it's not just about you know. We're going to stop here and then good luck. We actually want to readdress those core beliefs. We want to. We want to knock the shame out of, we really want to knock the shame out of sex. I would like to all together, you know, like, why are we making this such a such a thing?

Speaker 2: 1:09:57

Um, and then helping couples to do that, to do that repair work? So we have our disclosure process. Couples to do that, to do that repair work so we have our disclosure process. It is the sort of accounting of everything, and then we go into kind of the repair process, which involves, like, the partner being able to write an impact letter, the addict being able to come back, and you know, what we're building is this I'm listening to you, I'm taking ownership of the impact I had on you, and we're starting here to rebuild our communication and our connection and it's it has to be a buy-in to. We're leaving that marriage behind, or that relationship behind, and we're moving into something very different and again, we don't know what that looks like, so that can feel really scary and at that point sometimes people will go nope, I'm out.

Speaker 1: 1:10:55

It's the continuum of care. We see that need that with substance use recovery. When someone is back home and they're not using and they're five minutes late from work and then the spouse or loved one is, oh, say something, I'm scared, I want to talk. I don't know how and how they process that same thing with sex. Okay, people are going to be very triggered yeah whether it's during or the whole spectrum that comes with.

Speaker 2: 1:11:23

It can be as simple as because so much pornography now is being watched on the phone. Yeah, so if my husband is late for work, if I look out the window and I see him in his car and he's on his phone, I don't know what he's doing. In fact clon's like the minute my husband pulls out his phone.

Speaker 1: 1:11:42

I get triggered, yeah yeah, I mean that's part of the continuum of recovery for both members.

Speaker 3: 1:11:49

So can you touch upon for the listeners that don't know what sa or sa is, and then you can potentially piggyback off of it um, yeah, I mean I think there's at least five or seven s fellowships like sex addicts anonymous uh, sra sla sa sexualics anonymous spa sex and porn addicts anonymous, uh, and then pa porn addicts. I mean, there are just so many uh branches of the tree yeah, but they're all 12-step base I think.

Speaker 3: 1:12:20

and there's alsoSA Maybe it has to do with Partners of Sex Addicts and then Sexanon, which is like some kind of Al-Anon version of Sex Addicts Anonymous. But yeah, I don't know the differences between all of them, but I know there's a sense of community and I think that really is a key for any kind of addicts to reconnect, uh, with the, with a sense of community, and then finding your true self in that, you know so that's as much as I know.

Speaker 3: 1:12:55

but I also wanted to kind of maybe we've already talked about it that emotional aspect of sex addiction, you know. Because when somebody is using these behaviors there is emotional availability being taken away and the betrayal does happen in that you're with your partner but then there is no emotional connection. Emotional availability, but then reclaiming that can be part of this recovery journey too, that you can just sense it when you're with somebody and when that person is truly present you can can feel it especially it's more important in an intimate relationship well, there's a piece of that, too, that we haven't talked about which is a big part of this as well, which is understanding attachment on on both sides.

Speaker 2: 1:13:42

So there's a lot of attachment disruption that can happen. That lands people in one of several categories, which is the securely attached person who doesn't really have that anxiety about what their partner's doing or what's happening with them.

Speaker 1: 1:14:02

They're safe, they're seen, they're soothed appropriately.

Speaker 2: 1:14:07

There's the dismissive avoidant who kind of does the come here, go away thing. They want connection, they want attachment, but they don't really know how to let it in. So as soon as it starts to feel a little comfortable, they'll push that away.

Speaker 1: 1:14:23

Or close up.

Speaker 2: 1:14:25

Yeah, they are definitely the like. I don't feel like you make time for me, I don't feel like you're really present when you're here, I don't you know. And they, they want to be, but they don't know how to do. That usually happens very early on, um, and then there's the anxious avoidant, which is really a come here, go away, and that is the sort of that. What is that? Object permanence kind of thing, like. Like when you're here, even when you're here, I still don't feel secure and safe. So I'm asking you all like are we okay? Are we okay? Are you mad at me? Is everything okay?

Speaker 1: 1:15:02

Do you love me? Do you really love me?

Speaker 2: 1:15:04

Do you really love me? Is everything okay? Do you love me? Do you really love me? Do you really love me? And the funny thing is that the anxious avoidant and the dismissive avoidant tend to be attracted to each other a lot. So when that comes at the dismissive, they feel very pressured and it pushes them even farther away, and so then there's this sort of weird dance that happens. And then there's the really fun one that I identified myself as, which is the disorganized, which is a sort of you move in and out of feeling anxious about your attachments and feeling just sort of dismissive and avoidant. It's like binge purge kind of. You know I love people and going all in and then people suck and I don't want to have anything to do with them.

Speaker 2: 1:15:52

And all can be roller coasters and all can be roller coasters, but understanding I mean there's controversy there in terms of like well, you can't really change your attachment. You know personality, whatever. I don't believe that that's true at all. I believe that one of the things about recovery is that you know you can come in as a very insecure, anxious person and doing this work really sort of understanding your internal self, finding community, finding some sense of connection spiritually, emotionally, is a mental health mandate. We need it. Whatever that belief is, we need it, we need to find a way to connect with it and that creates a healthy, solid human being.

Speaker 2: 1:16:39

I still don't know who I am as an individual, but I am solid in myself, like there's no void. There's no sense of dis-ease, there's no. I'm a constantly changing individual, navigating this really fascinating world that we're living in and looking for opportunities to be curious and be open to whatever, whatever the universe provides, with a lot of faith that you know. One of my favorite sayings is everything works out in the end. If it hasn't worked out, it isn't the end, yeah absolutely.

Speaker 2: 1:17:21

So you know, until I'm gone, it's not the end.

Speaker 1: 1:17:23

Two more questions for you, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 1:17:23

So you know, until I'm gone, it's not the end. Two more questions for you.

Speaker 1: 1:17:25

As a therapist certified with addiction and things like that, if and when is it important to have total abstinence with sex and masturbation?

Speaker 2: 1:17:34

Well, there's the what I think should happen, and then there's what my client is capable of doing.

Speaker 1: 1:17:42

Makes sense.

Speaker 2: 1:17:43

Right.

Speaker 1: 1:17:44

Yes.

Speaker 2: 1:17:44

So we've all heard the AA mandate, which really made me mad in early recovery of like, don't get in a relationship for the first year. Nobody ever told me why Like, why is that a good idea? What are you supposed to be doing in that year that you're not in relationships, you know? And then there'd be all that fuzzy information but you can have as much sex as you want, which was like well, wait what? That doesn't really make any sense.

Speaker 1: 1:18:14

I don't.

Speaker 2: 1:18:14

Now I'm really confused. Until I heard, um, until I heard a tape, uh, from Sandy beach. A tape from Sandy Beach, easy to remember, that really talked about like sort of to your point earlier about the you know, the connection and the relationship like we need to relate to people. We need to learn how to relate to people in a new and different way. So what I learned in my own story because I didn't stay out of a relationship in the first year unless you tell me why it's not my oppositional defiant was going to do what she was going to do, and there were things I had to learn about that.

Speaker 2: 1:18:58

I was very lucky that I got involved with somebody who was. He had the gift of desperation, and so I rode his coattails and he was my higher power, and that lasted about a year and some change, um, and out of that came a, a defining moment for me where, for the first time in my life, I chose myself over the relationship, over the relationship or escapism.

Speaker 2: 1:19:25

I chose to walk away. I had always been the victim. I painted a beautiful victim picture for myself and my attachment put me with those avoidant people who were never going to be emotionally available. And until I hit that emotional bottom and had that moment of like, you're the constant and it's not. That was people. Somewhere in you is picking them, is picking the same person to play out this role where they're leaving you and you're the left behind victim. And oh, woe is me. And I sat down and I fourth and fifth stepped that. And then I saw within that, even when a nice person came into your life, you couldn't receive them because you needed to be the victim. So I would become a raving asshole and push them away.

Speaker 2: 1:20:28

But it always had to be them leaving, never me making the choice that like, hey, you know what this really isn't working out. I'm not feeling it. Good luck, let's just part ways Be friends. It always had to be a drama. It always had to be me garnering sympathy. It had to be, you know, to the most dramatic, which was the last relationship I had. That you know, I really and I was sober. I came out of that going I'm insane and sober. I stalked this person.

Speaker 2: 1:21:04

I just did really obsessive, awful, but for the and all of that in conjunction with, for the first time in my life, being in my early twenties, being responsible, having my own apartment, having a jet, like like adulting for the first time and not really seeing that or giving myself any credit for that, because I was so obsessed with being a victim in this story and this cycle. And the story would have continued had I not come to this place. And I did a lot of conversations in prayer, going this is what I want to happen. I want them to walk away from me and getting back. That's not going to happen, Ann. It's time for you to decide who you want to be. Who do you want to be?

Speaker 2: 1:21:53

And I chose me and I walked away and I did my own 12-step program focused on relationships, and I saw the pattern. I saw my pattern really, really clearly, and so I did abstain for a while. I didn't do a year. I don't know that specific deadlines really mean anything. What's more important to me was what was I doing the work, yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:22:21

What was I looking at, what was I trying to do in that, before I embark on something different? And I and I've had some of those conversations with recently with clients, because they're doing that and they're like, yeah, so I went on the statement. Just I didn't feel like there's much of a spark and I'm like, yeah, the boring ones are the healthy ones, they're nice and they say nice things and they like they don't, they're not bringing chaos chaos.

Speaker 1: 1:22:55

Life will provide life to us. We don't have to add to it.

Speaker 2: 1:22:58

They're not bringing the chaos, but but my brain equated chaos with connection and big feelings, big hits, big euphoria. This must be love.

Speaker 1: 1:23:08

Yeah, highs are high, lows are low.

Speaker 3: 1:23:10

I really appreciate the conversation and, as we began to, the healthy sexuality or like sexuality being part of who we are, we are sexual being, so anybody who's out there I guess this is what we do too at Recovery, collective or just Recovery in general is to find your authentic self and then letting that express in multiple ways, as an employee, as a father, as a musician.

Speaker 3: 1:23:34

You know, creative outlet we didn't talk about that too, but, like you know, I think about sex as, like a creative energy, it can create babies, you know so you need to work with it, because I've seen people who become more creative or finding outlet in creativity, connecting with others, social events, finding joy in life and then going from there.

Speaker 1: 1:23:53

That's my key takeaways from this conversation yeah, that's beautiful and what's your take-home message you want the listeners to leave with today?

Speaker 2: 1:24:03

I think that we all fundamentally deserve to be loved and to feel like we're worthy of love. That journey, as you just described it, it's a creative one, that creativity requires risk, but I believe it's a risk worth taking and I think you know, when you step into that place and you take that chance the what do they say the universe will conspire to give you everything that you want, being careful about what you want and understanding that that to know who I am, to feel that connection with myself, to have to understand all those dialectics, all those paradoxes, all those both ands, is what allows me to be connected with you, to understand you, to ask meaningful questions and have a meaningful interaction and relationship, and I just think that makes people and life and the world way more interesting than all this destructiveness, turned inwards or outwards or in any direction turned inwards or outwards, or in any direction.

Speaker 1: 1:25:26

Well, as we wrap up today's insightful episode, we want to extend our deepest gratitude to Anne for sharing her expertise and invaluable perspectives on such a complex and important topic. Remember, understanding addiction, whether it involves substances or behaviors like sex, is crucial for fostering empathy for self and others and finding effective paths to recovery. If you found value in this conversation, please consider subscribing to our podcast. Writing a review on platforms like Apple certainly helps. And don't forget, season two of the podcast will end in July and we'll take a break in August before starting season three in September. During the break, we'll be working on some exciting e-courses that we know our listeners will certainly find beneficial, so stay tuned. Thank you for joining us on this recovery. Remember, understanding and addressing addiction is a collective effort. Share this episode with others who might benefit from it and let's continue to build a compassionate, informed community together. Take care and be well.

Speaker 3: 1:26:20

My name is Luke and this is Zal. Thank you all for listening and thank you, anne, for joining us.

Speaker 2: 1:26:23

Thank you all for listening and thank you, Anne, for joining us.

Speaker 3: 1:26:25

Thank you for inviting me See you next time.