Recovery Articles

Addicted to Love

It’s interesting I ended up in this meeting.  In never thought I would be in a room with other men addicted to love and sex or relationships.  However, after hearing numerous first steps I knew this was the right place to me.  With help from my sponsor I have been able to discuss these issues, write them down, and then present them to you in an effort to begin the healing process.

My earliest childhood memories were not the most pleasant.  My father was very affluent, and everyone looked up to him, it wasn’t until really started looking at my family of origin that I found traces of sex and love addiction among him.  I was his second child from his affair partner, whom he actually married when my mother was pregnant with my older brother.  The sad thing is, my older brother died shortly after he was born, maybe a punishment for my mother and father’s sinful behavior?  I do remember being given everything I ever wanted.  My father and mother provided a lot for me, we had an enormous home and I was looked after by numerous caretakers as well as my parents.  Going back to my family of origin, in entering recovery and asking the questions that needed to be asked about my family of origin, I found out about my father’s adultery and how he met my mother.  You see my father was into voyeurism and lusted after my mother.  He took the extra step and began an affair.  Thankfully, he married my mother so technically I wasn’t some unwanted pregnancy.  My father was, however, in denial for some time about his actions until he was set straight by a close friend of his who pointed out what he had done.  After that, he began to turn away from that lifestyle, unfortunately, not enough.  He still acted out with other women, marrying them one-by-one.  Maybe that’s where I got part of my problem, genetics?

I remember growing up with a bunch of half-brothers and half-sisters, it was quite dysfunctional.  I didn’t complain, I was my mother’s only child and she took great care of me, but she was still emotionally drained and heartbroken at my father’s sexual activities.  When I was old enough, my mother prepared me begin the process of taking control of my father’s business.  I was given the best education and was absolutely ready.  As a side note, just before this, two of my half-brothers got into a feud over one of them raping the other’s sister (the assailant’s half-sister) and the rapist was murdered in cold blood.  Now that is crazy, but perhaps this helps you understand how insane my life growing up really was compared to a “normal” family.  That half-brother of mine even tried to murder my father so he could take over the business, but he ended up getting killed in the process.  Really messed up!

I remember the day my mother forced my father to give me control of his company by using guilt and some shame in the process.  I already suffered from a distant father wound, but now I could see the overly bonded mother wound coming out.  My mother was basically controlling my life and forcing my father to give up control to me.  It was like some crazy soap opera!  Furthermore, my other half-brother who initially tried to take control was murdered, but I won’t say who did it or why.  It sounds like my life is completely out of control at this point, but it gets worse!

I remember my first wife, she was very beautiful, but if I am brutally honest, the marriage was arranged in order to help me and her father in business dealings.  I wonder how many men have married their wives because of their father-in-law’s power and business.  I loved her, moved her to my newly built home but it wasn’t the love I wanted.  It wasn’t like the movies or as read in books; it wasn’t the “fantasy” I searched for all my life.  So what did I do? I started looking for another wife to fulfill what I thought real love should be; a fantasy!

Furthermore, while married, I began writing romance books, poems, and short stories in an attempt to deal with my love addiction.  One short story ended up selling world-wide and was a very poetic story about a man and a woman, in love, making love to one another with God present in their relationship.  I’m not sure if it was the mixture of the content and the poetry that made it such a best seller or just that it was written by someone with so much power and prestige.  Now that I look back, it was a cry out for me for help!  I have a problem and I can’t seem to admit it, I keep searching for that great romantic fantasy with each and every woman I am with, but I can never find it.  I even tried to help my children with my book on wisdom and living a godly life.  That too became a popular best-seller, but alas, I didn’t listen to my own advice – isn’t that the case most times, we can give great advice but don’t always follow our own!

By the time I entered recovery, I was plagued with depression and suicidal thoughts.  I even wrote about it, which I will discuss in a bit.  Just before entering recovery, I experimented with my wife and her worship of ancient cultures and ancient gods, not the God I originally knew growing up.  She had me performing all these ancient near-east rituals that revolved around sexuality.  I enjoyed them; it helped feed the fantasy and my addiction.  It made sex more powerful to my addict, but afterwards, I still felt empty, completely and totally empty.  It seemed life was meaningless.  While married to her, I wrote about how meaningless life had become apart from God, the real God, not some ancient false god where sex was the main worshiping ritual.  That too became a best-seller, but I was still empty.  All the publicity tours about my love poem short story and now this book on life being empty and meaningless all meant nothing to me!  I all wanted was real love, however, now I realize that I don’t even know what is considered real love.

I have learned over and over, beginning from my childhood, to believe in a fantasy love, not a real love with ups and downs.  As I review my powerlessness and the unmanageability in my life, I can see the common theme; I “fell in love,” thought I was happy for a while, something would go wrong, and then I would exit and find another woman with whom to fall in love!  It was a vicious cycle, I couldn’t stop, and in reality, I didn’t want to stop.  And finally, it hit me, without God (my God, not some ancient false god) life has not meaning, without meaning, life has no purpose, without purpose I have only one way out – suicide!

I mentioned the meaningless and suicidal thoughts as well as my entire story to my therapist and he let me know that I might have a sex and/or love addiction.  He talked to me about support groups I could attend and a program I could work through.  By the time I entered recovery, I had spent over 50 million dollars on my addiction, either through various wives, acting out material, or houses, gifts, trips, etc… that helped fuel my addiction.  I have had more wives than I can possibly remember.  This is going to sound absolutely ridiculous, but someone close to me told me I, that in my long lifetime, that I had been married 700 times, and I had 300 women I took care of on the side, those of which I would have sex with whenever I wanted, call them affair partners if you wish.  My search for the perfect love has been futile and worthless and I have lost countless years of my life in pursuit of a happiness that cannot be found apart from God.

Hello, my name is Solomon, and I am a sex and love addict.

The above post is my own interpretation of King Solomon’s life had he lived today.  It is taken from various parts of the Bible, most notably 2 Samuel and 1 Kings.  The tragedy of all of this is that the problem began with his father David and was passed on to his descendants until the time of Jesus Christ.  Solomon had a very dysfunctional life, made the best he could out of it, but at the end, he strayed from God and allowed his wives to influence him negatively.  I don’t believe there is a prayer like David’s Psalm 51 where Solomon asks for God’s forgiveness, but he does a great job of illustrating how meaningless life is apart from God when he wrote Ecclesiastes.  I hope everyone man’s life gets to the point where they are crying out to God for help, that they hit that rock bottom and realize they need help, and that they begin attending support and recovery groups for their problem.  Don’t let it go this far, get help now, before it is too late.

Take what you like and leave the rest!