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Sexual Purity Support & Recovery Group

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Getting Past Your Past: Q&A with Therapist Francine Shapiro

For those of us in recovery that includes EMDR for our childhood trauma, this is a great article/interview to read from the originator of EMDR.

Getting Past Your Past: Q&A with Therapist  Francine Shapiro

In a new self-help book, Shapiro offers instruction for  dealing with negative emotions by using a tried-and-true therapy for PTSD.
By Maia Szalavitz | @maiasz | April 18,  2012 |

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Psychologist Francine Shapiro was a Ph.D. student when she first discovered  in 1987 that moving her eyes in a certain way could take the emotional sting out  of disturbing thoughts. Pressing her friends and acquaintances into service, she  tried the technique on them and soon after conducted the first randomized  controlled trial of the therapy in people with post-traumatic stress disorder  (PTSD).

Today, Shapiro’s treatment — known as eye movement desensitization and  reprocessing (EMDR) — is one of the most effective known therapies for PTSD. It  looks strange because it involves therapists directing clients’ eye movements by  waving their hands or tapping, but dozens of randomized controlled trials have  demonstrated that it works.

Healthland spoke with Shapiro about her new book, Getting Past Your  Past, which offers self-help methods based on EMDR.

Why did you decide to write this book?

It’s so important for people to realize that there’s help and [not] think  that therapy has to be about years and years of talk.

People are walking around wounded and not understanding why they’re  responding the way they are to the world. They are not understanding why they’re  having negative feelings like ‘I’m not loveable, I’m not good enough,’ because  of these unprocessed memories that they might not even remember. What happens is  that when you get triggered, you get the emotions, but not the images, and then  you buy into it.

When you’re feeling stuck, when you have negative beliefs about yourself — that’s not the cause of the problem, it’s the symptom. All those negative  thoughts that push you into acting in ways that don’t serve you or prevent you  from doing the things that you want — the basis is these unprocessed  memories.

How did you first come up with EMDR?

I was using my mind and body as a laboratory to see what things worked.  Around the time that I needed to do a dissertation, I was walking along one day  and I noticed that some disturbing thoughts I was having were suddenly  disappearing. When I thought to bring them back, they didn’t have the same  charge any more.

What thoughts were you having?

I can’t remember! But what caught my attention was that they were the kind of  thoughts that you generally had to do something about [in order to make them go  away]. I started paying close attention and I noticed that when that thought  came to mind, my eyes started moving in a certain way and the thoughts shifted  from consciousness and when I brought them back, it wasn’t that intense.

What eye movements were you making?

It was rapid diagonal movements, very rapid, what they call saccadic  movements. So, I wanted to see if it could work deliberately. I brought up  something that bothered me and moved my eyes in the same way and I found the  same thing. I reached out to all my friends, basically every warm body I could  find, and asked them if they had something they wanted to work on. Everyone  did.

I started having them follow my hand in order to make the same eye movements  and that’s how I developed the process. Then I did a controlled study, which was  published in the Journal of Traumatic Stress in 1989.

(MORE: Scientists Identify Genetic Changes that May Increase Risk of  PTSD)

There was an enormous amount of resistance to EMDR and for a long  time many researchers simply didn’t believe that it worked. There’s still  controversy about it. Why do you think that’s so?

Because whole field of PTSD was new. The diagnosis of PTSD was only made  official in 1980. And what you had were all these Vietnam vets who were still  struggling and suffering 20 years after the war. The view of field was that PTSD  was pretty impossible to treat and here I published an article on a randomized  controlled study showing positive effects after one session and with eye  movements, which didn’t make any sense.

For me, I felt I stumbled on the brain’s natural processing. I started  thinking about REM sleep [when dreaming typically takes place] where you also  get those kinds of eye movements. At this point, the research [suggests] that  the REM state is when the brain is processing survival-related information. Back  in 1989, the view was that the eye movement was the dreamer scanning the dream  environment. They had no idea what it was actually doing.

Right now, there are 20 randomized controlled trials on just the eye  movements alone and all of them show a positive effect. About half of the  studies have been done by memory researchers who believe that the eye movements  disrupt working memory [one theory about how it works]. Harvard researcher  Robert Stickgold has written [about how EMDR] links into the same process that  occurs during REM sleep.

These ideas aren’t mutually exclusive?

I think both are correct. What’s quite interesting at this point in the whole  field of PTSD is that in order to have the official diagnosis, you need to have  a major trauma like rape or combat experience, but the latest research indicates  that general life experience can [produce traumatic memories].

Do you mean things like child abuse?

Not even. Children can hear parents fighting. They had a study showing that  children can get PTSD from falling off a bicycle.

Is this because people who are very sensitive to experience can  be traumatized by things that wouldn’t affect other people?

There’s a genetic [piece] and there’s also what kind of foundation has been  laid. A lot of research lately indicates that childhood adversity can set the  groundwork for vulnerability to a lot of later problems.

What we’re really looking at in general is that you have an information  processing system in the brain that’s supposed to be geared to digest  experience, to make sense of it [so that] what’s useful is incorporated [into  memory] and what’s useless is let go. When something is too disturbing, it  overwhelms that processing system and the memory gets stored along with the  emotions and physical sensations and beliefs that occurred at the time, and  that’s what gets triggered [in PTSD].

Robert Stickgold says that [the experience] is inappropriately stored in  episodic memory — the memory of emotions, physical sensations and beliefs — and  through EMDR, it gets shifted to semantic memory [narrative or verbal memory].  It is stimulating the information processing systems of the brain so that the  appropriate links are made. So a rape victim may start out saying that she feels  shameful, ‘I should have done something’ and has all those emotions; at end, she  is saying, The shame is his not mine, and I’m a resilient woman. That’s the  digested version: what needs to be learned is incorporated and what’s useless is  let go.

(MORE: Child  Abuse Pediatricians Recommend Basic Parenting Classes)

Some people claim that EMDR is most helpful for single traumatic  memories, but less so for people who have experienced ongoing trauma over a long  period of time.

It’s not that it works better, it takes longer when you have multiple  traumatic experiences because there are more memories that need to be processed.  And if it was childhood onset, because of the traumatic experience, they didn’t  necessarily [learn the] socialization and skills and that are needed at the  time.

Within EMDR, we have a three-pronged approach. First, identify and process  the earlier memories that set the groundwork [for the problem], then process  current stimuli that trigger distress, and third, incorporate whatever skills  and education are necessary to overcome developmental deficits and provide what  the person needs for the future.

It’s often really hard to find evidence-based therapies, but you  seem to have very successfully disseminated EMDR. What’s the  secret?

It really has been word of mouth. When I first developed it, I gave a lot of  presentations throughout the country. People would give me their cards and say,  When you are ready to teach it, I want to learn it. I made sure I had people who  were able to give and receive it under supervision so they actually learned it.  It was not just me as a talking head. I did small group practice and had one  trainer for nine people. At end of that, they wanted other clinicians to learn  it because they went back and used it, saw results and were getting results that  they hadn’t gotten with anything else and wanted their colleagues to learn it.  They often volunteered to train others because they wanted more people to be  helped and that’s really the way it went.

I write a lot about addiction and many, many addicted people have  suffered traumatic experiences, which unfortunately are often not dealt with  appropriately in treatment.

I think the literature is very clear that there’s a large connection with  trauma and the person trying to self-medicate. We tried to do an randomized  controlled trial with EMDR in Washington state’s drug court and we had to drop  the randomized part because the people treated with EMDR started talking about  how much it helped so the others were really upset that they couldn’t get. We  ended up being able to do the evaluation: graduation from these courts is  supposed to be a major indicator of recidivism, and 91% of those who got EMDR  graduated, compared to 60% of those who didn’t.

(MORE: Siblings  Brain Study Sheds Light on the Roots of Addiction)

So why do we always think that every emotion we experience is  real and connected to what’s happening now, not the past?

Because we’re feeling it and, therefore, seeing world in that way. That’s  what’s so funny about it. We don’t even get that. When we’re going into a social  situation and start feeling insecure, we’re feeling and acting on it. What the  book is trying to do is give people an understanding of where this is coming  from, so they can step back and use techniques to [cope better]. For a lot of  people, that’s all they need, not therapy. But for other people, if you are  always needing to use this, O.K., you’ve done most of the work to prepare and  you go get helping processing it. These are the techniques clinicians would be  teaching a client.

What should someone look for in an EMDR  therapist?

Make sure they’ve been trained by a program approved by the EMDR  International Association. We also have a nonprofit called the EMDR Humanitarian  Assistance Programs — they’re getting the royalties from the book. We provide  pro bono treatment for underserved populations worldwide, after every natural  and man-made disaster.

People can take control of their lives, they don’t have to be buffeted by  these unprocessed memories.

See more of  Healthland’s ‘Mind Reading’ series.

Maia Szalavitz is a health writer for TIME.com. Find her on  Twitter at @maiasz. You can also  continue the discussion on TIME Healthland‘s Facebook  page and on Twitter at @TIMEHealthland.

Read more: http://healthland.time.com/2012/04/18/getting-past-your-past-qa-with-therapist-francine-shapiro/#ixzz23oxcHghU

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Glued

I saw this short animated film and couldn’t think of my own childhood. GLUED to the TV, to video games, and to my “secret” aka pornography…..

It’s easy for parents to sit their children in front of the television/video game system also known as the “babysitter” while the parent gets things done.  My beliefs are, they only need to do this for a short period of time and as much as I personally don’t like to be outside (thanks to my indoor childhood), I try to jump at the opportunity when my daughters ask to go outside and play, or encourage it!  It’s not always easy, a lot of times I am tired, there are mosquitos or other bugs, it’s hot in the summer, etc…  But the more time I spend with them away from the TV/Video Games, the better off they might be later on in life, having learned the skills to associate with others, not isolate the way I did (and sometimes still do).

If you want to know how a child become and “addict” watch this short movie.

Take what you like and leave the rest.

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Castimonia Saturday Morning Meeting Topic, 11-10-2012 – The Amazing Lie-O-Matic

I feel every sex addict (and their spouse) should read this article by Dr. Johnson on why addicts lie and why some continue to lie.  This is not an excuse for continued lying, but an understanding why sometimes a lie is the first and only response an addict can give.  In recovery, we must practice rigorous honesty, something we lacked for a majority of our lives.  Progress, not perfection!

The Amazing Lie-O-Matic
(author: A. Michael Johnson, Ph.D. PLLCJ)
04/15/2004

Addicts lie. They lie to maintain their double lives. Maybe some addicts learn to lie just to support their addiction, but usually not. Lying usually begins much earlier. Children learn to lie if their parents and other caregivers are too fragile to handle the truth. They learn the skill of lying to manage the emotions and behavior of their caregivers. They learn to lie to protect themselves from punishment, shame, anger, judgment, and rejection. Those things are toxic caregiver junk. The learning doesn’t happen all at once.

Children start out speaking the truth. It’s the obvious, easy thing to do. If the caregiver loves and accepts the child as the child speaks the truth, regardless of the content of the truth, the child keeps speaking the truth. But if the child gets junk from an adult after speaking the truth, the child begins to lie. Each time a child gets junk after she or he tells the truth, a little bit of learning happens. An alarm begins to develop. The alarm says, “Warning, Warning, Warning -You will get junk for speaking the truth -Warning, Warning, Warning – Protect yourself”. After a while, that response becomes quite automatic. It bypasses the part of the brain that could assess the reality of the situation. The decision to lie becomes automatic. A Lie-O-Matic is installed in the child’s brain.

Why don’t kids just take the toxic shaming caregiver junk? Children and other humans require continuous proof that they will survive right now. For children, the language of that proof is love, acceptance, attention, and evidence that their caregivers know what they are doing. When children get that proof, they feel safe and they tell the truth. But, when they do not get that proof, they feel a bone deep, primal fear that utter annihilation is at hand. Like any other animal, they do what is possible to feel safer. One thing to do to feel safer is to lie. Survival is the fundamental thing – more important than the truth.

There is a danger detector in the Lie-O-Matic. The detector sets off the alarm when the fear of annihilation occurs. The Lie-O-Matic sets its level based on experience. It optimizes protection. Suppose a kid gets junk when she tells the truth about cleaning her room but does not get junk When she tells the truth about doing her homework. The alarm will go off around room cleaning but will not go off around homework. If a kid gets toxic junk when he tells the truth about his feelings, he will come to lie about his feelings. If a kid gets junk for talking about her perceptions, she will come to lie about her perceptions. If the kid has been really, really, scared, more lying will happen. If a kid has been less scared, less lying will happen. The Lie-O-Matic is a clever, sensitive, flexible device.

Like all good alarms, the Lie-O-Matic alarm bypasses unnecessary steps. It operates largely outside of awareness. The alarm triggers the unconsidered decision to lie. The Lie-O-Matic does not prevent the person from being aware that she or he is lying. In fact, the Lie-O-Matic instructs the person to lie. But the content of the lie requires that the person tune into the facts of the situation and use their imagination. That is certainly a conscious process. The Lie-O-Matic does prevent the person from thinking about why he or she is lying. The decision to lie is automatic.

When the Lie-O-Matic is first installed and adjusted it is a subjective truth that the kid will be annihilated by too much caregiver junk. When you are a kid, you think like a kid, feel like a kid, act like a kid, and lie like a kid. As an adult, when the Lie-O-Matic alarm goes off, you again feel like a kid and, so feeling like a kid and with the decision already made, you again lie like a kid. Lying to avoid toxic junk was a good and safe short cut when you were a kid. But now you can use your mature mind and resources to keep you safe. You can no longer be annihilated by what is now phantom caregiver toxic junk. Now the Lie-O-Matic is a problem and a part of the psychological system that supports your addiction. The Lie-O-Matic and its Lie Ability is truly a liability.

Fortunately, the Lie-O-Matic system includes two signals that are detectable and that can be used in a scheme to recover conscious control of the alarm. The first of these signals is the experience of fear. However, faint, the fear that triggers the Lie-O-Matic can be detected by the healthy and mature part of your brain. This part of your brain may need practice learning to detect this signal, but with effort and help, that can be done. The second signal that can be detected is the activation of the fabrication system. The fabrication system constructs the particular lie before it is uttered. It invents new lies, searches the archives for old lies that have worked, or old truths that can be used as lies. It assesses the plausibility and discoverability of lies, and keeps a record, however imperfect, of lies told. One of the delightful aspects of the fabrication system is that it takes time to decide what to do. Lying takes more time than does telling the truth. It is a fairly simple thing to develop a mindful oversight of the fabrication system so that rational, fact-based, mature decisions can replace those mandated by the Lie-O-Matic.

With these two sets of signals in mind, one can make more rational and mature decisions about lying. Often, there are more healing and effective ways to soothe the frightened child within us. Often we can see the harm we do others and ourselves when we choose to lie. Often we can predict the shame we will feel by lying and avoid that shame. Often, we can stay in the truth.

Understanding how you came to be a liar is important because it helps to strengthen your compassion for yourself. You did not learn to lie because you were a bad person. You learned to lie because you were a frightened child protecting himself. That understanding is not a justification for continuing to lie. The understanding helps to remove obstacles to living in the truth. And living in the truth is a central thread in the fabric of recovery.

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Castimonia Saturday Morning Meeting Topic – Step 11 Step Study

We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood God, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
“Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.  Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – His good, pleasing, and perfect will.” (Romans 12:2)

In today’s Castimonia meeting we reviewed Step 10 from the Twelve Steps for Christians and the SAA Green Book.

In understanding Step 11, one must understand that God’s will is the best and highest for us.  Our God is loving and supportive.  He has been with us even in the depths of our addiction.  As we worked through the first 10 steps we slowly improved our conscious contact with God.

“The quality of our contact with God, the depth and richness of our spiritual life, is the goal; prayer and meditation are the means.” Through prayer and meditation, talking and listening, we gradually improve our conscious contact with God.

Prayer to God is simple, we speak to Him, we ask him questions, we have discussions with Him.  We can pray by ourselves in our rooms, or with a group of individuals in community with one another.  The goal is to be open to actually speaking to God and not shy away from old beliefs we might been taught about how prayer should be structured.  In short, prayers are regular conversations with God.

If prayer is speaking to God, then meditation is listening to God speak.  God speaks to us through various ways.  As seen in some of the previous musical topics, He speaks through music.  God also speaks through other men in the program, during their shares, or through our sponsor and his wisdom.  Ultimately, God speaks to us through His word, the Bible.  The question is, are we still enough in our lives to actually hear what God is whispering to us in the aforementioned, or are we still too busy to listen.  Progress, not perfection is the key.  With time, any amount of effort we make to slow down and listen to God will bear fruit.

One of the most interesting meetings I have ever attended was an 11th Step Mediation meeting near Oakland, CA where we sat silent and in darkness for 15 minutes of the meeting!  I believe it was one of the few times I have ever just been still, enough to listen to God and his still small voice about my life and my recovery.  That meeting will forever be etched into my mind.  It was peaceful and quite, a place I still struggle to get to in this busy life of mine.

As we grow in our spirituality, we move from only asking for specific things to asking only for knowledge if His will for us, seeking to join our will with God’s will.  We learn to accept God’s will because we come to understand it is for our best interest.  Even when He says “no” we learn that it is for our better good.

We also ask for the power to carry out His will, regardless of how difficult it could be.  We need faith and strength to carry out God’s will, but we also need His help.  We can’t always see what God has in store for us, but in knowning God to be trusting and loving, we know it is for the best and this extends past our recovery and into all aspects of our lives.

Take what you like and leave the rest.

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Porn Star Finds a New Life

I would caution those who are “new” to recovery about reading this article.  Although this is a great story about someone entering recovery, the fact that she was a former porn star can be triggering and harmful to someone new or unstable in their recovery from sexual addiction.  That being said, I urge all of you NOT to go searching for more information on this individual as this could constitute a form of acting out.

Porn Star Finds a New Life   

When Jennie Ketcham went on Sex Rehab with Dr. Drew to boost her porn career, she had no idea she had a problem—or that a TV show would help her find a solution.

By McCarton Ackerman

08/01/12

It’s taken Jennie Ketcham a long time to become Jennie Ketcham.

From 2002 to 2009, when she went by the name ***** *****, Ketcham starred in over 200 porns, picking up numerous AVN Awards (Oscars in the porn world) in the process. She felt she’d exhausted every possible angle as an actress in the porn world and was hoping to get into the business side. With that in mind, Ketcham signed on to appear in the 2008 reality show Sex Rehab with Dr. Drew. But something funny happened when she got there: Ketchum realized not only that she had been using drugs and alcohol as a way of numbing herself for on-camera sex scenes because they were becoming traumatic but also that she was also a sex addict who was unable to form close relationships with people.

Within two weeks of entering treatment, Ketcham decided to completely abandon the porn industry. She continued to chronicle her recovery on another Dr. Drew spinoff, Sober House, and has been free from alcohol, drugs and the sex industry for over three years.

These days, she’s a full-time student with plans to go to grad school and is sharing her story in a new memoir, I Am Jennie. In this exclusive interview, Ketcham talks about dealing with a significantly reduced income since leaving the industry, her motives for entering the Pasadena Recovery Center and the Sober House producer she says intentionally tried to make cast members fall off the wagon.

When I left rehab, it was obvious I had no marketable job skills and that was a huge reality check.

What made you decide to write this memoir?

Initially, it all started with my blog. I thought that if I made a public statement about how difficult it is to struggle with sex addiction, and focused as well on my struggles with drug and alcohol addiction, it would make me much less inclined to go back into the adult business. I didn’t want that to even be an option. The memoir came about when an agent of Dr. Drew’s told me I needed to write a book. I had this powerhouse of support with the medical staff from the Sex Rehab show like Dr. Drew, as well as [therapist] Jill Vermeire and [psychiatrist] Dr. Reef Karim, both of whom had been seeing me pro bono since the show ended.

They all felt this could book could help so many people. It was obviously cathartic to write about my past and know I can open and close that book. But the response I’ve gotten from people who have told me my blog really helped them was a big reason for writing it. The book could reach people on a much larger scale.

How has the transition out of the porn industry been for you since Sober House ended?

We finished shooting that about three-and-a-half years ago. Since then, I’m now a full-time senior in college and pursuing a degree in psychology, with plans to go to grad school. I’m also working as a hostess at a Pan-Asian restaurant, learning to live on reasonable means while still being self-supporting. I have done nothing in the adult industry since April, 2009. I don’t even get money from any of my past videos, so there’s no financial gain from that—as frustrating as that might be at the first of the month sometimes. [Laughs].

You mentioned in an interview that girls in the porn industry can make up to $15,000 a month. Was it difficult to go from that kind of salary to $10 or $12 an hour as a hostess?

I wish I made $12 an hour! [Laughs]. To be honest, I could’ve made much more than 15 grand a month in that industry so the difference was initially difficult to wrap my mind around. I was convinced that I was a bigger-than-life person. But when I left rehab, it was obvious I had no marketable job skills and that was a huge reality check. I didn’t deserve to make more than $10 an hour because I hadn’t put in the time to develop skills that would pay more than that. It made me realize how entitled I’d become to think I deserved so much just because I sold sex for a living.

You also mentioned that even though a lot of girls in the porn industry made that kind of money, they still had trouble paying their bills. Do you chalk that up to drug addiction or just mismanaging their money?

I think it can all be lumped together. Whether you’re wasting money on cocaine or dresses, not being able to manage your money is usually a sign of something bigger. I mismanage my money when I’m not being healthy and those financial issues are one of my biggest hurdles. People often get sober and freak out when they look at their financial past. They either run out and use again or they say, “I can’t ever use again because this is what happens when I do.”

Has your past in the adult industry ever come back to haunt you at the restaurant or when you’re on a date?

When I first started working at the restaurant, I didn’t tell anyone about having been in porn because I didn’t want to define myself that way. I do get recognized occasionally, but it’s more from the Dr. Drew shows. People have come up to me quietly and said, “I just wanted to say that I saw you on TV and really admire you. I think it’s great you’re here now.”

That being said, I had to deal with one really drunk guy at the restaurant on a Saturday night that kept going, “It’s her! I know it’s her!” His friend goes, “I’m really sorry, my friend thinks you’re someone you’re not. He thinks you’re a porn star.” I told him I wasn’t and the guy goes, “No, not is. Was a porn star!”  I owned up to it and then just went into the back room. I didn’t want to deal with it.

It’s not haunting. It’s simply why I don’t do it anymore. For every drunk guy like that, there’s a feeling they could get away with a butt slap or a grab and it’s a reminder of the total lack of boundaries I once had. I’m just really proud that I’m now able to have those boundaries and respect myself.

When you talk about sex in the porn industry being a traumatic experience for you, did you know it was traumatic at the time or was it only when you got to rehab?

I don’t want to have this hindsight bias where I’m like, “I always knew this was f***** up.” I had a good time in the industry and didn’t ever think I was recreating the trauma of my youth. I knew I had intimacy issues simply because I’d never had a relationship. I thought I had a cocaine problem when I was using it at the moment, but never thought I had a drinking problem. A lot of these things surfaced once I got into treatment.

How many of the people who go on these shows do you think genuinely want to get better?

[Filmmaker] Duncan Roy, who was on Sex Rehab with Dr. Drew, always tells people he went on the show for a Los Angeles adventure. Obviously some people have done it as a career booster and that’s not surprising. I honestly feel like whatever gets you in the door is fine, though. Unfortunately, what got a lot of people in is the promise of revamping their career but the motives are irrelevant. Once you get in there, you have a chance of getting better. I went in thinking this was going to give me so much exposure in the porn industry and after two weeks of treatment, I decided not to do porn anymore.

In your book, you write about a producer on Sober House getting loaded on sake in front of the cast and encouraging Seth Binzer (lead singer of Crazy Town) to break the rules of treatment. Is that something you blame Dr. Drew for, or do you consider him separate from the rest of the crew?

Dr. Drew is 100 percent separate from the producers and the show. He’s a big part of the rehab and therapy that helps us get better. Unfortunately, my experience on Sex Rehab with Dr. Drew was completely different from the one on Sober House. Sober House is reality TV at its finest. He comes in and does the rehab, but when he goes home at night we’re left to our own devices. And the producers were looking for ways to stir things up because the struggle of people trying to get better wasn’t compelling enough to them.

After that incident though, I called Dr. Drew and one of the head producers that night and freaked the f*** out. Drew was on my side and things changed immediately afterwards. He’s not doing Sober House anymore because he realized how little control he had.

What does the after-treatment plan for sex addiction look like? It’s not like alcoholism where you can say, “I won’t ever have sex again.”

It’s an individualized plan and the way mine was set up almost looked like a bulls-eye. The inner circle consisted of behaviors that would trigger a relapse like sex for money, drinking alcohol or using drugs. The middle circle was slippery territory like masturbation, which had the potential to become chronic and compulsive.

What’s difficult for people to grasp about sex addiction is that sex is a fundamental and necessary part of our lives. We have to have it. You don’t have to have alcohol. That being said, even if you abstain from drinking, you can white knuckle it the whole time and not have that emotional sobriety. In working through sex addiction, you’re learning how to have an emotionally sober lifestyle and that’s absolutely necessary for recovery.

What advice would you give to people who are trying to maintain their sobriety?

Have good people surrounding you. I’ve been blessed to have such an amazing network of support like Dr. Drew and Jill and Dr. Reef. Taking part in anonymous programs has helped me stay accountable as well. And spirituality has become very important to me also. I pray every morning and try to pray every night.