Rediscover Intimacy through Sexual Addiction Recovery and Embrace Freedom in NYC
We live in an ever increasing world of compulsive social media behavior and 24/7 access to sexual arousal.
In the digital era, compulsive sexual behaviors can create a sense of losing control, leading to dependence and isolation. Symptoms range from online activities to seeking intimate encounters, ultimately hindering the possibility of genuine intimacy.
The repetitive use of addictive sexual behaviors can lead to a feeling of being out-of-control, compulsive or dependent. Symptoms of sex addiction can take form in repeated use of pornography, virtual sex through on-line chat rooms, instant messaging, compulsive masturbation, or sex with anonymous partners; other symptoms include paying for sex through escort services, additional forms of prostitution, serial monogamy, and affairs.
Breaking the Cycle
Understanding the parallels between the release of endorphins during sexual behavior and the patterns observed in substance addiction is crucial. Both provide a temporary escape, yet sex addiction often hinders true intimacy.
Sexual behavior releases endorphins to the brain, resembling opiates, that numb pain and produce a feeling of well-being. The release of endorphins is compulsively pursued by the sex addict and follows a similar pattern to alcohol, nicotine, or drug addiction. However, the difference is that sex addicts use the most intimate act, sexual contact, to ultimately isolate themselves from a place where pair bonding can begin, a place of intimacy.
Seeking Transformation
Addictive behaviors begin to eat away at the foundation of your life, happiness, and functioning skills. A partner leaves, we get fired, or close friends fade away; it becomes a time of reflection, a moment of self-awareness, and can be an opportunity to change.
Embracing Recovery
Therapy isn’t just about addressing behaviors; it’s about understanding oneself, confronting past hurts, and cultivating new strategies. Through therapy, control over actions is regained, opening the door to a hopeful future filled with genuine connections and personal growth.
Therapy challenges faulty thinking, and provides the conceptual tools necessary to break from stories of the past, and rationalizations that block true intimacy. It addresses the underlying hurt to confront ourselves and the childhood defenses we carry into our adult life. Sex addiction therapy provides us the opportunity to accept ourselves and learn new techniques in managing, reducing, or eliminating painful behaviors. We learn to gain control of our actions and begin to see hope on the horizon.
Sex and Porn Addiction Can Attach to Substance Abuse Issues
Countless people pair and eventually fuse the use and abuse of substances with sexual behavior. This is sometimes referred to as sexualized drug use or chemsex. Often, this involves a stimulant drug like cocaine or methamphetamine, though alcohol and other drugs are also commonly used in conjunction with sex.
What does paired substance and sex behavior look like?
When drug use is consistently fused with the hunt for and experience of intensely arousing sex, these paired behavioral patterns can become mutually reinforcing.
Over time, substance use and sexual behavior can be paired together so often that they fuse in to a single behavior. If you are doing one, you are also doing (or you are about to do) the other. In this way, getting high and seeking/finding, having sex can become a single coexisting and complementary addiction.