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Are You Or Your Partner a Sex and Love Addict? The Ultimate Guide

Updated: Jan 25

Are you or your partner a sex and love addict? What are the characteristics of sex and love addiction? How do you get diagnosed? What causes it? What is the treatment for it? What help is there out there? What are the consequences if left untreated? What is the likely outcome of recovery?


I have created this ultimate guide to sex and love addiction for you, which includes many resources. I speak from personal experience: I now know that I used to suffer from being a subconsciously-driven emotionally anorexic external validation addict; now in remission thanks to my continuous inner work; and I am an adult child of a dysfunctional family who suffered childhood trauma. This is my Truth.


How about you? What's your truth? Are you ready to face yours?


Toni Sorenson wrote “Your addiction is not you, but it feels like you because you’ve spent so much intimate time together.” So how do we recover you? J. K. Rowling wrote “Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.”


Sex and love addiction


Are you or your partner a sex and love addict?

Yes, sex and love addiction is a real addiction just like any other. It certainly isn’t ‘just a bit of fun’ or an excuse. It's classified as a behavioural addiction. There is no need to be ashamed. Addiction is a coping mechanism, not a choice. It is not an ethical lapse. It's not a failure of will. It's not a weakness of character. It is not a moral failure: It’s a disease. Addicts are not bad people trying to become good: They are sick people trying to get well. Addiction is simply a response to human suffering.


Freud's study of the Wolf Man highlighted "His liability to compulsive attacks of falling physically in love... A compulsive falling in love that came on and passed off by sudden fits"; but it was Sandor Rado who in 1928 first popularised the term 'love addict' – "A person whose needs for more love, more succour, more support grow as rapidly as the frustrated people around her try to fill up what is, in effect, a terrible and unsatisfiable inner emptiness." How do we fill our inner void?


Søren Kierkegaard, the great philosopher, in 'Works of Love' said "Spontaneous [romantic] love makes a man free and in the next moment dependent... Spontaneous love can become unhappy, can reach the point of despair."


In 1976, the 12-Step program Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous (SLAA) started hosting weekly meetings based on Alcoholics Anonymous. They published their Basic Text, 'Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous', in 1986 discussing characteristics of and recovery from both sex and love addiction.


Both sex addiction and love addiction are mental disorders characterised by an impaired ability to engage in healthy emotional intimacy. Men or women suffering from either or both disorders typically have obsessive thoughts and compulsions leading to unhealthy behaviours. A sex or love addiction may negatively impact a person’s health, personal relationships, job, and ability to function responsibly in their life.


During the last decade, there has been heated debate regarding whether compulsive sexual behaviour (CSBD, the scientific name for sex and love addiction) should be classified as a mental, behavioural disorder. CSBD has been included as an impulse control disorder in the ICD‐11, the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, which is the international standard for systematic recording, reporting, analysis, interpretation and comparison of mortality and morbidity data. In the future sex and love addiction will be classified as an addiction in the ICD-11. It’s simply that the medical community and regulatory bodies are currently behind the times and stuck in the Victorian era with Victorian ideologies, despite 12 step addiction groups existing for 90 years!


The medical profession is trauma phobic. Dr Gabor Maté says that "The last thing most psychiatrists know how to talk about is actually emotional pain or its origins in human experience. You would think that they would know how to do that, but they don't. They are not trained in it... This is true for a lot of psychologists as well." That has certainly been my experience. He continues "We can guide people to healing if we ask the right questions." Such as where does this behaviour come from and what are you carrying inside that's making you behave that way? It's not why the addiction? It's why the pain?


Sex and love addiction affects around 6 percent of the population, that's one in every 16 people, or one in every four households, that's many people on your street alone, although this is likely to be an underestimate. That's over 4 million people in the UK. It affects both women and men. The incidence is rising rapidly, with the increased use of social media and pornography sites.


Addiction is not a choice, it’s a real disease with very real consequences, including death, regardless of the kind of addiction. Other behavioural addictions include workaholism, gambling, shopping, eating disorders, extreme sports, social media addiction, and gaming; although there are dozens more. The behaviours are subconscious patterns that many find impossible to resist.


Sex addiction is characterised by uncontrollable sexual activity in the form of an intense focus on sexual fantasies, urges, or behaviours, causing detrimental impact to all areas of their life, resulting in great emotional pain, heartache, or loss. Despite wanting to stop and having suffered negative consequences as a result of their behaviours, they are compelled to continue their destructive subconsciously-driven behaviours.


Dr Robert Weiss in his book 'Sex Addiction 101' wrote “Hours spent compulsively masturbating to online pornography or pursuing potential sex partners on dating or social media sites and apps are hours not spent developing one’s career, nurturing one’s spouse and/or children, hanging out with friends, enjoying hobbies, and engaging in various other necessary forms of self-care.”


Love addiction (also known as pathological love) refers to a “Pattern of behaviour characterised by a maladaptive, pervasive and excessive interest towards one or more romantic partners, resulting in lack of control, the renounce of other interests and behaviour, and other negative consequences.” Love addiction is often a pattern of intense infatuations and obsessive relationships, as well as a tendency to be sad, desperate, and insecure in relationships. Does this resonate with you?


Signs of love addiction may include achieving a sense of euphoria from the fantasised relationship, feeling desperate or uneasy when separated from the partner, excessive interest in the new relationship to the exclusion of other interests, or using the relationship to hide from unprocessed emotional pain from childhood, low self-worth, and negative feelings or situations.


Those that suffer from love addiction have an overwhelming need to feel loved, often to their own detriment and to the detriment of those that actually do love and care for them. Their desperation become destructive to themselves and others. They will go to extraordinary lengths to search out love or please their idealised partners, even if it means compromising their own needs and wellbeing. Those that are affected may become obsessed with the idea of being in love, obsessed with certain individuals (called qualifiers), taking part in numerous dangerous relationships as they have difficulty being on their own. Their mood swings from desperation to resentment. Over time, love addiction can cause serious consequences to the individual; they can be left unable to find a balance or maintain a healthy relationship with anyone for any reasonable period of time. They become untouchables.


Love addiction is an attachment disorder in which the sufferer becomes dependent on the attention of a romantic partner. Much like any other addiction, the crux of the problem centres in the individual’s mind. Those affected often suffer from cripplingly low self-esteem and deeply believe that they are worthless if they are not in a relationship. They may tolerate harmful behaviour from their partner, as they believe that is all they deserve, and it is preferable to being on their own. Many that suffer from love addiction do not even realise it is an illness and that there is treatment and help available. There can be ignorance of this disorder even in psychological circles as 12 step treatment, unlike most psychotherapy, is free, and they may dismiss it out of fear within turf wars as spiritual mumbo jumbo.


Most people are affected by elements of both sex and love addiction. In addition both have the same causes and solutions, which is why sex and love addictions are grouped together.


Here is a great video with Dr Gabor Maté, the world's foremost expert on addiction and its causes:


How childhood trauma leads to addiction


What are the characteristics of sex and love addiction?

1. Having few healthy boundaries, we become sexually involved with and/or emotionally attached to people without knowing them.

2. Fearing abandonment and loneliness, we stay in and return to painful, destructive relationships, concealing our dependency needs from ourselves and others, growing more isolated and alienated from friends and loved ones, ourselves, and God.

3. Fearing emotional and/or sexual deprivation, we compulsively pursue and involve ourselves in one relationship after another, sometimes having more than one sexual or emotional liaison at a time.

4. We confuse love with neediness, physical and sexual attraction, pity and/or the need to rescue or be rescued.

5. We feel empty and incomplete when we are alone. Even though we fear intimacy and commitment, we continually search for relationships and sexual contacts.

6. We sexualise stress, guilt, loneliness, anger, shame, fear and envy. We use sex or emotional dependence as substitutes for nurturing care, and support.

7. We use sex and emotional involvement to manipulate and control others. 8. We become immobilised or seriously distracted by romantic or sexual obsessions or fantasies.

9. We avoid responsibility for ourselves by attaching ourselves to people who are emotionally unavailable.

10. We stay enslaved to emotional dependency, romantic intrigue, or compulsive sexual activities.

11. To avoid feeling vulnerable, we may retreat from all intimate involvement, mistaking sexual and emotional anorexia for recovery.

12. We assign magical qualities to others. We idealise and pursue them, then blame them for not fulfilling our fantasies and expectations.




How do you get diagnosed?



What causes sex and love addiction?

The causes of sex and love addiction are childhood trauma in all its forms (physical, mental, and sexual abuse) as well as childhood dysfunction, which is the lack of an unconditionally loving environment. There is also a higher incidence of sex and love addiction in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism, major depression, and severe generalised anxiety disorder. A staggering two-thirds of people with sex and love addiction have ADHD.


Dr Robert Weiss wrote "The simple truth is addicts of all types typically report multiple instances and forms of early-life neglect, abuse, shame, and family dysfunction... 97 percent reported emotional abuse, 83 percent reported sexual abuse, and 71 percent reported physical abuse... It is clear that an abnormally large percentage of sex addicts were traumatised in childhood."


As Dr Gabor Maté says, "Addiction is an attempt to escape suffering... What people need is not judgement: They need to be helped to heal from their trauma. Because it is all about trauma." He continues, on the way that institutions treat addicts, "It's a perpetual cycle, taking traumatised people and then retraumatising them... They don't give it up because the more hurt they are, the more they need to escape... (Their) problem was that they had a lot of emotional pain that (they) didn't know what to do with. So, the addiction was really an attempt to solve the problem... They had a problem that they didn't know what to do with. People use (addictions) because they have deep emotional problems that they don't know how to heal on their own."




Addiction by Gabor Maté


What is the treatment for it?

Sex and love addiction needs treatment for the causative trauma and recovery to maintain remission from relapse. This is likely to involve psychiatrists, psychotherapists, 12 step recovery groups and life coaches, who can provide an invaluable cosmic view on your journey ahead.


As part of 12 step recovery a sponsor is an experienced, sober SLAA. who has become seasoned in his/her new way of life, and is available to share his/her experience, strength and hope with an SLAA newcomer on an individual basis. A newcomer usually asks another sober SLAA if she/he will sponsor him/her. The prospective sponsor has the right to accept or to refuse, and/or may suggest another sober SLAA for this role whom she/he feels would be more suitable. The relationship of sponsorship is based on mutual trust and may be terminated at any time by either the sponsor or the sponsee.


Many problems with emotional intimacy stem from negative relationships and patterns established in childhood. Working with a therapist to uncover and resolve deep-rooted issues, in combination with a 12-step program, offers the best chance for long-term recovery.


What help is there out there?

Denial is the first symptom of addiction. But as Mokokoma Mokhonoana wrote “Addiction denied is recovery delayed.” Before you can break out of prison, you must realise you are locked up. Denying that a problem exists is a common form of resistance for beginners and others having trouble with recognising their sex and love addiction. Various forms of denial include thinking: I'm not as bad as the others I see at meetings; I'm not a sex and love addict, I come from a good family; one more time won't hurt; I'll see him or her but I won't have sex; we'll just be friends; she or he won't leave me alone, therefore I can't get free. Acceptance of the S.L.A.A. program on a daily basis eliminates denial.


Demi Lovato said that “One of the hardest things was learning that I was worth recovery.” 


Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous (SLAA) is a twelve-step program for people recovering from sex addiction and love addiction. SLAA was founded in Boston, Massachusetts in 1976, almost 50 years ago, by a member of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). Though he had been a member of AA for many years, he repeatedly acted out and was serially unfaithful to his wife. He founded SLAA as an attempt to stop his compulsive sexual and 'romantic' behaviour. SLAA is also sometimes known as the Augustine Fellowship, because early members saw many of their shared symptoms described by Saint Augustine of Hippo in his work 'Confessions'.






SLAA believes that sex and love addiction is an illness, a progressive illness which cannot be cured but which like many illnesses, can be arrested. It may take several forms including (but not limited to) a compulsive need for sex, extreme dependency on one person (or many) and/ or a chronic preoccupation with romance, intrigue, or fantasy. An obsessive/ compulsive pattern, either sexual or emotional (or both) exists in which relationships or sexual activities have become increasingly destructive to career, family and sense of self respect. Sex and love addiction always leads to worse and worse consequences if it continues unchecked.


The SLAA theory is that sex and love addicts are sick people who can recover if they will follow a simple program, which has proven successful for scores of other men and women with the same illness.


Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous, is a fellowship of men and women who help each other to stay sober. They offer the same help to anyone who has an addiction with sex and/or 'love' and want to do something about it. Since SLAA’s are all addicts themselves, they have a special understanding of each other and the disease. They know what the illness feels like and they have learned how to recover from it through SLAA.


The SLAA preamble: Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous is a Twelve Step, Tradition-oriented fellowship based on the model pioneered by Alcoholics Anonymous. The only requirement for SLAA membership is a desire to stop living out a pattern of sex and love addiction. SLAA is supported entirely through the contributions of its membership, and is free to all who need it. To counter the destructive consequences of sex and love addiction we draw on four major resources:

  1. Our willingness to stop acting out in our own personal bottom line addictive behaviour on a daily basis.

  2. Our capacity to reach out for the supportive fellowship within SLAA

  3. Our practice of the Twelve Step program of recovery to achieve sexual and emotional sobriety (as well as a spiritual experience or spiritual awakening).

  4. Our developing a relationship with a Power greater than ourselves which can guide and sustain us in recovery.


SLAA encourages members to identify their own 'bottom-line behaviours.' The organisation identifies these behaviours as "Any sexual or emotional act, no matter what its initial impulse may be, which leads to loss of control over rate, frequency, or duration of its occurrence or recurrence, resulting in spiritual, mental, physical, emotional, and moral destruction of oneself and others." Maintaining 'sobriety' (not acting out) in the SLAA program requires abstaining from one's bottom-line behaviours. However, these behaviours are never set in stone, and may change as SLAA members continue in the program, once agreed with a sponsor. Examples of bottom-line behaviours might include sexual or romantic activity outside the scope of monogamous relationships, anonymous or casual sex, compulsive avoidance of intimacy or emotional attachment, one-night stands, compulsive masturbation, obsessive fantasy, compulsive attraction to unavailable or abusive partners, and a wide variety of addictive sexual, romantic, or avoidant behaviours including 'emotional anorexia' (using sex to avoid feeling emotion) and 'sexual anorexia' (not engaging in sexual activity at all).


COSLAA is another twelve-step fellowship created to support the family members and friends of sex and love addicts.




1. We admitted we were powerless over sex and love addiction - that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

7. Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings.

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with a Power greater than ourselves, praying only for knowledge of God's will for us and the power to carry that out.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to sex and love addicts and to practice these principles in all areas of our lives.


What are the consequences if left untreated?

Untreated compulsive sexual behaviour disorder can damage your self-esteem, relationships, career, and health: It is cunning, baffling, and powerful. As with all addictions, it is progressive, and ultimately fatal, for a variety of reasons.


What is the likely outcome of recovery?

Addictions are incurable, but they can be put into remission by lifelong engagement with the 12 steps of recovery. This must include as a minimum attending meetings, having a sponsor, and working the steps. Toni Sorenson wrote “Recovery is taking all twelve steps…over and over and over and over.”


This is the likely outcome of living authentically. If you have decided to follow the suggestions of this program, a new life will begin to unfold within you. Along with this new life are promises that will guide and sustain you. They are manifesting among us, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly.

  1. We will regain control of our lives.

  2. We will begin to feel dignity and respect for ourselves.

  3. The loneliness will subside and we will begin to enjoy being alone.

  4. We will no longer be plagued by an unceasing sense of longing.

  5. In the company of family and friends, we will be with them in body and mind.

  6. We will pursue interests and activities that we desire for ourselves.

  7. Love will be a committed, thoughtful decision rather than a feeling by which we are overwhelmed.

  8. We will Love and Accept ourselves.

  9. We will relate to others from a state of wholeness.

  10. We will extend ourselves to nurture our own spiritual growth and that of others.

  11. We will make peace with our past and make amends to those we have harmed.

  12. We will be thankful for what has been given us, what has been taken away and what has been left behind.


Famous sex and love addicts

The following brave people have declared their sex and love addiction:

Alanis Morissette, Amber Smith, Andra Day, Anthony Wiener, Billie Eilish, Calum Best, Charlie Sheen, Colin Farrell, Californication star David Duchovny, Dean McDermott, Eric Benet, Jada Pinkett Smith, James Franco, Jenifer Lewis, Jesse James, Kanye West, Kari Ann Peniche, Lamar Odom, Lindsay Lohan, Lord Irvine Laidlaw, Michael Douglas, Mike Caussin, Nicole Narain, Pamela Anderson, Rob Lowe, Robbie Williams, Russell Brand, Terry Crews, Tiger Woods, and Wilt Chamberlain, amongst many more.


Please don’t despair: You are not alone. I hear and feel your pain and ai have 100 percent compassion for it. Set aside any shame (a common feature of addiction) or embarrassment and focus on the benefits of getting treatment. As Gabor Maté says, “90% of people are addicts; 10% are lying to themselves.” We all suffer from the human condition.


To get you going, I have written an article on the first three steps, which can be read by clicking on this link:




Namaste.


Sending you love, light, and blessings brothers.


Olly



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Hello,

I am delighted and enchanted to meet you. I coach men with 'Deep Coaching', 'Supercoaching', and Transformative Life Coaching (TLC). Thank you for reading this far. I very much look forward to connecting with the highest version of you, to seeing your highest possibility, and to our conversations. Please do contact me via my email for a free connection call and a free experience of coaching on Zoom or in person. 


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