If you’ve read any of my previous blogs, then you’ll probably know by now that I’m recovering from multiple addictions I’ve suffered from throughout life. I’m truly grateful that I’ve been able to build up good sobriety time in each of them, including the year and a half I have now in my recovery from a sex and love addiction. Three years ago, I attended my first recovery meeting for this addiction where I was handed a pamphlet entitled “40 Questions For Self-Diagnosis”. What’s interesting is how different my answers are to those questions today as compared to back then.
I never answered those 40 questions that day when I received that pamphlet. Part of me knew already what it would show me, and another part of me wasn’t ready at the time to fully let this addiction go. But after I went through a lot more pain from acting out in this addiction, I finally did. And when I was done, a “Yes” could be found next to thirty-six of them! I was horrified to realize just how much of a sex and love addict I had become and saddened that it had taken me so long to hit rock bottom in that addiction.
Since April 21st, 2012, I have been working diligently to recover from my sex and love addiction. I believe it did more damage to my life than any of my other addictions did combined. I think that’s only because I let it go on for so long without realizing how much I really had a problem. It can be rather hard for a person to realize that things like sex and love can even be addictive in nature. The consequences are often more subtle than what other addictions can do to a person. In my case, while my addictions to alcohol, drugs, and gambling affected me greatly from living life on a normal basis, my sex and love addiction didn’t.
I spent years chasing one sexual escapade after another, falling in codependent love again and again, racking up countless hours looking at porn, constantly verbalizing sexual innuendoes, and flirtatiously chatting with people on the Internet I’d never meet. Through all of that, the worst I ever experienced was having a tremendous amount of ups and downs in my life. Yet, I was still able to function on most days doing my normal routines unlike what the rest of my addictions had done to my life. I believe this is what makes a sex and love addiction so difficult to diagnose in someone.
People ask me all the time these days how they would know if they had a problem with this addiction. Trying to answer that for him or her is difficult because it’s different for each and every person. There really isn’t a cut and dry image of a sex and love addict, unlike that of a seasoned alcoholic or drug addict. As I said already, many sex and love addicts can manage living their lives just fine and may never feel like they have a problem. In my case, that was true until I made a realization one day that my happiness was totally dependent on my sex and love behaviors. For others, it’s also been true until their addiction got them arrested, or caused a divorce, or contracted them a serious disease. Thankfully none of those things had to happen to me to face my own sex and love addiction. But in all cases, it really is best to refer anyone asking about a sex and love addition to that 40 questions pamphlet. Because ultimately, if each are answered honestly, a person will clearly see whether they are or aren’t a sex and love addict like I did after doing it.
I recently took the time to answer each of those questions again for where I’m at in my recovery from this addiction today. Ironically, I was able to mark “No” next to all of them. That’s a far cry from the 36 “Yes’s” I once got from it three years ago, but I know that doesn’t mean I’m cured from this addiction or that I’ve graduated in my recovery program from it. All it means is that this addiction isn’t in charge of my life anymore. Truthfully, God is, and I believe that’s the only reason why I’m able to answer “No” next to each of them now.
While it’s never my place to tell a person whether they’re a sex and love addict or not, I know there is a great tool out there that can help them start trying to figure it out for themselves. And it’s a pamphlet entitled the “Sex And Love Addiction 40 Questions For Self-Diagnosis”. If you are someone who has been questioning whether you’re suffering from this addiction or not, I encourage you to click the link I’ve provided below. It will take you to a page that lists those 40 questions and there you may find the answer to your question like I once did several years ago…
http://www.slaafws.org/download/core-files/The_40_Questions_of_SLAA.pdf
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson