The nature of sex addiction

nearly always works through the pleasure senses (alcohol, drugs, sex, pleasure of winning, food satisfaction, etc).

usually works slowly – person will first experience pleasure they seek; as addiction progresses it becomes more work and less fun.

As person crosses the invisible line into full addiction, right of choice is lost; they must increasingly do what their addiction tells them.

In full addiction, they lose all pleasure from the activity; it becomes only bondage, repeating the action their addiction Commands them to perform (drinking, performing sexual acts, taking drugs, gorging food, betting). Pleasure is replaced with intense emotional pain and always devastating physical, emotional, and negative spiritual effect.

As the activity is continued, addiction will continue to progress within the person.  They will begin to manifest increasingly intense anti-social and often self-destructive behavior.  They can begin to engage in other activities:  stealing, telling lies, or having sexual affairs outside their marriage, engaging in one-night stands, getting into fights, and having problems with authorities (nearly always develop attitude problems towards “Higher Authorities” – the police, institutions, ect).

Creates intense shame, guilt, and low-self worth.

Addiction knows that it must isolate to destroy, so it tells the person they are “no good”, convinces them they are unlovable or mis-understood, and creates intense guilt and shame for increasingly more “sinful” acts.  Once this cycle becomes habituated, desperation sets in and the person enters the stage of: “it’s no use, I can’t stop it, so why try”.  The stage of Bondage is now close at hand.

In the process of slow destruction, two relationships are either severely damaged, or completely destroyed:

• with God, and;
• with family, friends, and colleagues.

Slowly everyone and everything is cast aside that stands between the person and their addiction. For this reason, addiction is often termed, “The Great Remover”.

The helplessness, sometimes called “powerlessness” increases until the victim is completely without will in doing the destructive act – i.e. have completely surrendered their will to the act.  This is why addiction means bondage in the final, literal sense, and why it is so destructive to humans.  Human power alone is unable to release this final bondage.  The complete “lock-down” effect in the final stage of addiction is so strong, it is at first unbelieved even by the person.  They feel imprisoned, caught and placed in chains, and they are normally completely and utterly shocked at being unable to stop performing the destructive act.

Once bondage is firmly in the final stage, the addiction requires/requires that more and more of the destructive act be performed.  Whether drinking, taking drugs, having sex in many forms, destruction and the downward spiral into mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual destruction now continues at a devastating pace.  This stage can be called the “last gasp”, because without intervention, there is no hope of saving the person.  The fatal disease is now firmly entrenched and the “cancer of addiction” will eat the person until they are completely destroyed.  (physical, mental, and/or emotional – the spiritual is already gone by now).

Having worked with many addicts, (also myself), over the past 26 years, including those who are cross-addicted into usually two and sometimes many addictions, I can say without reservation that I have never seen a person recover from the destructive addictive spiral on their on power, or with only the aid of only another human (includes Doctors, Psychiatrics, and other Counselors).