Healing from Sex Addiction: A Transformational Approach

I first joined the US Army in 1992. For 34 years and throughout my entire adult life, I wore the uniform and served my country. It has been a wonderful experience. One of my happiest memories from my early years was the training I received on how to navigate the land. Aside from learning all the features of a map and how to read a compass, the basic rules that govern success in land navigation are as follows: 1) know where you are, 2) know where you are going, 3) orient yourself to the map, and 4) know your pace. If a person has these four things in order, they can usually get to where they want to go.

I found these principles to be true when counseling with sex addicts as well. Many people believe that they know where they are. They are hurting because of their actions and have a felt understanding that some change is needed, whether internally felt or externally imposed. Some addicts know that where they want to go is “destination clean town.” However, I found that the great majority have no idea how to orient themselves to the map because they have never looked at a map of healing before. The sights, sounds, and feelings are all foreign and frightening. Even the thought of looking at the map terrifies them. I found this to be true for some counselors as well. The thought of getting into the business of helping sex addicts is terrifying, and many feel woefully unprepared for the task. My prayer is that lessons with me will orient pastoral counselors to the map and give them the confidence and compassion to assist people who desperately need them. Finally, because the majority of people coming in for counseling have not engaged in self-care out of a preference for numbing, they have no idea what they do not know or their capabilities for getting to the next step in the process. Their pace is slower than what they think it should be, and their frustration breeds self-contempt and shame, effectively halting forward movement without help. Counselors are the help that addicts need. Thank you.

In Jesus’ parable about the sower and the soils, it says:

“A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. Whoever has ears, let them hear.”[1]

My question for us is this: Do we know where our starting place is on the map? What type of soil are you, and what type of soil is your client? Some of the materials within this book may be new seed for some of you. Are you able to receive it? Many of our clients are immature regarding getting clean and staying that way. Do they understand where they are starting? A common assumption about this parable is that the soil is unchanging. It is what it is, we might say. However, I am not sure that Jesus had this in mind. If a client comes to us as rocky soil, are they, therefore, without hope for healing? I believe that soils do change, and I believe that with our help and the consistent nurturing of the Truth of the Word of God and best counseling practices, their soil (and ours) can become fertile and rich.

Some clients come to us as hard as a well-worn path. They are with us only because they got caught and refuse to see any of their behaviors as problematic. They lack remorse and empathy and bitterly refuse to take responsibility for the pain they have caused others or themselves. Some clients come to us as rocky soil. They are shallow. Their pain brought them into the office, and they might even have a desire for healing, but life’s distractions and a lack of follow-through prevent depth. Clients within these categories are neither ready nor willing to heal. Perhaps a couple of hard sessions with us as counselors can open their eyes to something much deeper and to the harsher reality of what their behavior has wrought. Although it may take some time before these people continue with counseling, some may respond to the hammer of our counsel and prepare themselves for more.

Most of our clients find themselves in thorny soil when they begin counseling with us. There is some depth, but they are still primarily focused on their own comfort and secret keeping. The appeal of attempting to “fix” themselves without anyone else knowing is strong. Yet, as we will discover, this idea is a lie. For these clients, nurturing fertile soil by pursuing authentic cleanliness and total freedom is far too disruptive to life. The rocks and thistles poke and wound, and shame uses this to create a defensive posture. Because they spend so much time defending against the potential pain of rocks and thistles, the focus for the client is entirely self-centered, and there is no more space for creating depth. However, the soil must be enriched and changed. This is typically the place where clients try either behavioral strategies to get clean or skip elements of the process in an effort to shortcut deep cleaning. They try them and they fail. These clients are willing to change but are not yet ready. We’ll get into what these strategies look like and why they fail in a moment.

            As we contend with the contents of this book, my prayer is that our own soil will become more fertile and that the truth about our potential for freedom sinks down deep, is nurtured, and grows. As our clients contend with the hard work of this process, my prayer is that they, too, will become fertile soil so that they discover a freedom that enables their work to become easy and productive. Contrary to popular misconception, the work to get clean is not long and arduous, but it does demand diligence and commitment. Jeremiah 23:29 says: “Is not my word like fire, declares the LORD, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?”[2] How do we cultivate fertile soil? By allowing the truth of who God says we are and what God says is pure to burn away the weeds and thistles and hammer away the rocks in our lives. What those things are may look different to each individual, so we compassionately take our time to hear each story and cleanse the soil when the opportunities arise. Together, we isolate and remove idolatry and deceit by internalizing and practicing the truth of the Word of God. When a person has fertile soil, they are both ready and willing to change, to allow themselves to be challenged, and to engage in an internal transformational evolution of heart, soul, and mind.

My experiences, both personally and working with hundreds of clients who once struggled, have taught me that behavioral methods do not work. I attempted many approaches in teh past without the fullness of success. I discovered that transformational healing is the only method that truly satisfies and I will not be satisfied with anything less than total and complete freedom of heart, mind, body, and soul. If our pace is off, we will miss our target. Right thinking without right practice is futile if it is not applied in practical ways that inspire generational growth. Once free, the client must be able to pick up the mantle of joyful discipleship and bring true freedom to others.

The most common evidences of deep and fertile soil are: 1) Generosity of heart, mind, and belongings; 2) Empathy towards self and others; and 3) Vulnerability in everything, including an extraordinary willingness to grow. When you begin to see these three things, watch out! Your client is about to burst out with rapid new growth that bears much fruit because their roots have gone deep.

Before we get into what works, let’s explore some techniques and tactics commonly used within the sex addiction counseling world that will not work on their own. In fact, if these practices occur without the appropriate emotional and spiritual trauma work, they have the potential to cause greater harm.

Trendy and popular behavioral strategies include, but are not limited to:

Rubber band on the wrist (Pavlovian theory). The idea here is that we condition our brains to respond to temptations with pain rather than acquiescing to lust. Because the addict has spent many years conditioning his or her brain to respond to temptations with capitulation, it becomes easier to fall into undesirable behaviors over time. However, if we put a rubber band around our wrist and respond to temptations by stretching it out and letting it go, then pain retrains our brain to stop pursuing avenues of lust.

The main problems with this approach are as follows: 1) Humans are far more complex than dogs. There is an extraordinary depth to who we are. Attacking complex and emotionally wrought issues by merely causing surface-level pain will not accomplish much in the long run. Such an approach is almost certainly doomed to fail. 2) The practice continues to condition our minds to respond to others as threats rather than as the beautiful creations of God that they are. People are not a threat to our purity. More will be said on this topic later.

Nanny Software. Over many years of counseling, I have watched men and women install these programs and then find ways to circumvent them within the first week of their use. While many of these programs are getting better and much more difficult to circumvent, anyone familiar with how they work will find ways around them. Moreover, the programs behave like mere band-aids for a gaping chest wound. They persistently insult and shame the user, and when the addict eventually finds ways around the nanny program, shame has a voice that inspires hopelessness. When the addict believes their efforts are hopeless, addiction grows. In the end, these programs are insulting and create avenues for hurt rather than healing.

I recently spoke with another pastoral counselor who defended the programs, saying that only those who are not serious about getting clean will find ways to circumvent them. This belief is powerfully naïve. Remember that the great majority of our clients will start off in rocky and weedy soil. Their desire is healing, but their focus is entirely on themselves. The need for self-preservation is strong. How has the addict numbed their stress until now? They numbed using pornography and other avenues of sex addiction. Has it worked for them until now? Yes. Do not believe that only the undedicated will find ways to conceal and continue their addiction. Even the most serious individuals on a healing journey occasionally backslide. How you and I respond to them will either inspire vulnerability and growth or it will inspire shame and hiding.

Accountability partners. While I do use a version of this strategy within my group processes, I relabel it “Got your Six”. This takes away the humiliation by emphasizing the fight, restoring manhood, and encouraging a team-oriented battle plan. Therefore, I am not entirely opposed to this method. However, I felt the need to include it on this list of ineffective behavioral strategies because it is too often used alone. When people believe that all they must do is daily humiliate themselves in front of someone else (usually someone who is not struggling with sex addiction), then two things happen: 1) the process becomes long and arduous and induces a shame reaction when simple daily confession fails to achieve results. 2) Regardless of the other person’s good intentions, daily confessions take their toll because the process tends to make them responsible for the addict’s recovery. Only the addict is responsible for their recovery. If the accountability partner has not struggled with any form of sex addiction, they will not understand and are more likely to grow impatient with the confessor.

Accountability within a group works because each person intimately understands the pain of both failing and confessing, and people are expected to call their battle partner before they potentially fail, not afterwards. When a potential failure is successfully interrupted, they rejoice together and share their joy with the group, inspiring hope for everyone involved. When they do not, we process it together as a group and choose to learn about what happened so that we can successfully interrupt future temptations. Accountability works in a group when it is not the only method used for course correction. “Got your Six” is merely one small step in a larger process.

Ignoring it and “Just don’t do it”. I recently heard a well-known pastor say that he defeats sexual temptations by simply ignoring them. Clearly, he either does not have a compulsory struggle with pornography, or he is lying to himself and others. Frankly, I am still surprised when I hear these sentiments. Anyone with a history of addiction in any category knows that willpower alone will never achieve success. These so-called strategies are absurd from the start, but desperate people will try anything, and when they fail, defeatism grows.

Pray it away. To some extent, I appreciate the attitude behind this strategy. Surrendering our struggles to God is always a great thing to do. The problem with this method is that it does not include others and strives to keep the issue secret (a defining characteristic of the thorny soil). Miracles do happen, but they are rare and outside the norm. Furthermore, a sudden release of struggle might be contrary to our health. God’s intention is for us to grow and develop as individuals and as a church. Miracles must have a purpose beyond personal gain. They should serve God’s glory and not our own.

Computer in a public place. Similar to nanny software, this strategy inspires secret-keeping and shame. It daily reminds the addict that he or she is not capable of healing and needs to be treated like a child so that compulsory behaviors can be averted. Moreover, it places the onus of responsibility for change on the family and/or the environment instead of the addict. Public computers do not prevent people from accessing pornography.

Become a Naturist and it will all go away. Briefly defined, naturism, or nudism as it is often called, is about the experience of safe (and even holy) nudity in a social context, while understanding that the Western culture is unaccustomed to such activity. As such, naturism in America is not a 24 hour a day “colony” experience but more of a retreat from what is viewed as an oppressive culture when it comes to body shame. This counterintuitive thought process is provocative. In fact, the number of addicts within naturist communities is statistically smaller, thus there is a draw for some to use naturism as a mere behavioral strategy to get clean. There are reasons for this difference, so it is very important to understand what naturism is and what it is not. I elaborate on this practice in my book, Inside Out. While a small population may find surprising freedom in naturism, it will not work for many others. In fact, many of my clients have been and are naturists. Only by engaging in the important work outlined in this book have they learned what real freedom looks like. I hope it is obvious that simply getting naked will not give someone freedom. As mentioned, this book has an entire section dedicated to what happens when a person has a healthy position on the body, and so will not get into details here. Suffice it to say for now that simply becoming a naturist does not work.

The behavioral strategies for conquering addiction listed above are insufficient. They will never be sufficient. Coping with symptoms does not equate to freedom. If this is all that our clients are looking for, then they do not know where they are going. Salving symptomology is a mere behavioral change that lasts a short time and no more. Symptom depression is not healing from an addiction. However, like pain killers provide symptom relief in the body, such strategies may provide enough space for the recovering addict to breathe if they are also doing the important work of addressing the addiction’s neuroaffective etiology. Otherwise, it is all for nothing. Worse, symptom depression without the corresponding addiction work will take the addict deeper into despair, hopelessness, and defeatism, thereby increasing the addiction’s power. Therefore, I have distanced myself from these behavioral modifications as standalone treatments. They pose more risk than help for recovering addicts.

When behavioral modifications fail (and they eventually do fail), there is room for shame to do its dirty work, nurturing hopelessness and the lie that God does not care, the exact opposite of what is required to conquer addiction.

Finally, I would like to reframe our understanding of addiction. When we think of addiction, we typically think of a list of poor behaviors that cause harm to oneself and others. While this is not entirely incorrect, it does not provide a real picture of what addiction is. The behaviors themselves are not addiction but symptoms of addiction. Addiction lies beneath. While some have been able to curb their symptoms in an effort to tackle addiction, they often find themselves perpetually thinking about not doing the thing that causes harm. Alcoholics Anonymous calls this behavior, “dry drunk,” which is an apt name for what I am describing. Although the person has curbed the behavior (in this case, drinking), he or she is still an alcoholic. This is true, not because of the mantra, “once an alcoholic always an alcoholic,” but because the person only dealt with defining behaviors and not the addiction itself.

Addiction is indiscriminate of behavior. Alcohol, work, drugs, gaming/gambling, body modification, sex/porn/masturbation, or anything else out of balance are all compulsory symptoms of addiction. To conquer addiction itself, we must ask better questions. What deep need does addiction meet? How do I know that I have correctly identified the need? How can I meet this need in a holy and edifying manner? How have I allowed shame and trauma to define my life? Who am I really? Unless we find authentic answers to these questions, addiction will be a constant partner in life, even if the symptoms change.

To avoid misunderstanding, I am not suggesting that certain behavioral techniques lack value. There is some good in behavioral techniques in so far as they assist addicts in maintaining the most basic level of sobriety while their minds and bodies are reset. It is also necessary that they do the more important work of discovering why they went to porn, grieving porn’s betrayal and loss, and rediscovering who they really are and how they are made for more. When addicts do this important work, the gravitational pull of a symptom is significantly diminished. When the addicts learn who they are and who others are, then objectification and sexualization get the final death blow are extinguished.

Ultimately, my prayerful desire is that those who come to see me will be appropriately challenged and wrestle with the causes of addiction in a transformational way. When our experiences take information from the head to the heart, transformational change creates pathways for freedom and a life well lived.

[1] Matthew 13:3b-9, NIV

[2] Jeremiah 23:29 (ESV)