with alcohol and drugs, you don t touch that again. with sex addiction you re trying to relearn how to have sex in a way that s sort of sane for you and is actually fun. because sex addiction, you know, it ends up not being very fun. that s another misconception, you re out there having all this sex and it s really a lot of fun. it s actually really isolating and really depressing for a lot of people. because what? it s never enough? it s really about the person, the person is a drug. and that s actually not fun after a while. and it s not fun as a lot of sex addicts experience. you have to go to work at 8:00 a.m. in the morning. you say i m going to go on line and look at pornography for half an hour and you re still doing it six hours later. i wonder, i have all this willpower in other areas of my life, why can t i stop this? it s really a very confusing problem to have. i think that s different to
life-long abstinence and you don t touch that substance again. with sex addiction, you are trying to relearn how to have sex in a way that is sane for you. it s actually fun. sex addiction ends up not being very fun. that s a misconception that you are out there having all this sex and it s a lot of fun. it s really isolating and depressing for a lot of people. because it s never enough? it s never enough. it s not really about the person. the person is a drug. that s actually not fun after a while. it s also not fun as a lot of sex addicts experience. you have to go to work at 8:00 and you want to go online and look at porn for a half hour and you are still doing it six hours later. you wonder i have all this will power in other areas of my life, why can t i stop this? it s really a very confusing problem to have.
going to treatment was a way for me to take responsibility. you ve been through in patient treatment twice. do you feel like you have a handle on the issue now? or is this a life-long thing you deal with. . this is a life long thing. there are people who say i m recovered. it s not a problem anymore. this is a really tricky addiction. and, you know, you mentioned this about the dsm, you know, it s not in the dsm. they re proposing to call it hypersexuality, which is actually a step forward. it s a way to call it sex addiction without really calling it sex addiction. and the problem is, we ve started to look at the brains of sex addicts. we made great progress with alcohol and drugs. we made great progress with compulsive overeating and food addiction. we re just starting now to look at the brains of sex addicts.
work on this and continue to go to meetings. this is a tricky addiction. you mentioned this about the dsn. it s not there. they are proposings to call it hyper sexuality which is a step forward. it s a funny word, but it s a way to call it sex addiction without calling it sex addiction. the problem is that we started to look at the brains of sex addicts and made great progress with alcohol and drugs and compulsive overeating and food addiction. we are starting to look at the brains of sex addicts and what we re finding is fascinating. the same pleasure centers are being affected. there is a lot more to learn. this will be in the dsm. always good to have you on. it s an excellent read if anyone has not read it, i recommend it. thanks so much. thank you. we will have more on tiger woods and his problems and how he is dealing with it and including his religion,
addiction, like alcoholism, like gambling addiction is when that behavior or substance takes over your life. your life becomes really depressing. it starts to affect your job, your relationships, your friendships. so for me i really got to the point when, you know, it was clear to me that i had lost the ability to make sound decisions sexually. i didn t have that problem with alcohol. i didn t have it with drugs. i can have a glass of wine. i don t really understand alcoholics why they can t have just one glass of wine. for me, my life really became very small and very depressing. people become suicidal over this. and it destroys relationships. it absolutely destroys relationships. it certainly destroys marriages. having an affair does not make one a sex addict. most people who have affairs are not sex addicts. a sex addiction is really a sort of taking it to the next level, when you re actually not