Added: 01/05/2006 |
Sexual Addiction: Curing Without Pain RelieverDavid Duchovny admitted to it: He was a sexual addict. Luckily for him, the hero of the X-Files could afford an expensive clinic as a reliever. One major league baseball one-time reliever admitted to a similar problem back when playing for the minor-league Denver Zephyrs in the 1960s. He, too, received high-level (and high-cost) treatment hardly received outside celebrity spheres. The estimated three million American women and approximately one million American men suffering from it are rarely so wealthy and therefore so fortunate.
The psychological illness is not listed in Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) among other such addictions (e.g. to illicit drugs, alcohol, food, prescription pain relievers) taken for granted in the modern world, and therefore no psychological relievers or prescription pain relievers are standard in treatment.
Perhaps because of this lack of standard information and known treatments coupled with the social stigma of this particular obsession in a culture that frowns upon even broaching the subject of sexual intercourse-related matters causes so many to turn to alternative relievers, substituting one misplaced adoration for another.
The most common substitute reliever seems to be the internet itself. Of course, few sex addicts turn to support groups or on-line psychologists, but rather adult websites with which the addict believes his thirst will be quenched. Other relievers include alcohol, born-again fundamentalism, marijuana (tetrahydrocannibinol has been shown to cut sex drive in experiments performed in laboratories) and, of course, in a tendency all too fashionable in the medicated nation that is the United States in the 00s, self-medication of pain relievers just lying around the house and utterly inappropriate for the addiction.
So where is assistance to be found? There is no double yoo double yoo double yoo reliever dot com out there that's relevant (no edu or org or net, either). Indeed, searching online is probably a very bad idea, as adult websites are too close by and a favorite reliever. Even watching television may be considered dangerous, as the tube's titillation can prove to overwhelm sincere effort to control oneself. Unfortunately, the sexual addict often must address the problem on his or her own, again an action seldom undertaken in Anglo puritan-like cultures.
As with any addiction, the first step - and possibly in the case of sex addiction even more than any other - is admitting the existence of problem. After that, real human contact is necessary. The majority of sex addicts - again, similar to cases of most addicts - engage in anti-social behavior, avoiding any real contact with those for whom sexual intercourse is not an option.
If you're involved personally with a sex addict, remember that drugs without a prescription are not at all advised. And remember, too, that one reliever leading to obsessive behavior is just as bad as another.
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