When sex becomes an alienating addiction
There are Casanovas who accumulate ‘conquests’, seductive women who know how to use their wiles and then there are the others, the real sex addicts for whom sex conditions their lifestyle and provokes dependency.
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Any addiction translates into a person’s difficulty to be autonomous, to find self-balance, to manage their personal needs, shortcomings, emotions and impulsions...
For sex addicts, it is sex that becomes the alienator, with the need for sex becoming irrepressible and irresistible, like an inner force impossible to control...
When hot sex becomes cold suffering
Each person suffering from sex addiction is unique, but they all have one thing in common: suffering. Sex addicts fear withdrawal symptoms, in the same way as drug addicts, and so gradually become prisoner to a behaviour, which overwhelms their lives and isolates them from family and friends. And like drug addicts or alcoholics, sex addicts deny their behaviour, blaming others for the problems it causes.
Sex addicts go through different stages during which they increasingly neglect their family, friends and work. Repeated sexual contacts, devoid of any emotional investment, distance them from all those who are not part of the addiction cycle. Then comes the associated guilt, pushing them to work even harder to hide their impulsions from their loved ones.
The secret life slowly starts to take over the public one. And when the sexual addiction intensifies, life revolves primarily around satisfying this need for sex.
An addictive 4-phase spiral
According to Dr Patrick Carnes, addiction takes hold through a 4-phase cycle that intensifies with each phase. Sex addicts are therefore imprisoned within a veritable addictive spiral.
- The first phase is the ‘preoccupation phase’: the addict falls into a state of self-absorption in which their mind is totally occupied by sexual concerns.
- The second phase is the ‘ritualisation phase’: the addict carries out certain specific actions, which precede actual sexual behaviour. The ritual intensifies the obsessions and increases arousal and stimulation, for instance watching porn...
- The third phase is the ‘acting out’ phase: the addict engaging in sexually compulsive behaviour, dictated by these obsessions and ritualisations. The addict is now incapable of controlling or stopping their behaviour.
- Then comes the fourth phase of ‘unmanageability’: the addict feels totally helpless about their behaviour – out of control and totally beholding to the addiction.
Unable to establish a healthy and gratifying relationship with one single partner, these sex-dependent addicts promise themselves that they will stop their compulsive behaviour but instead become increasingly powerless to their addiction.
And their lives gradually become overwhelmed by the single aim of satisfying the need for sex, spiralling into social and emotional alienation.
Copyright © 2010 Doctissimo
Posted 01.03.2011
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