I lost a college friend recently who was only 48 years old. I discovered this when his ex-wife contacted me via Facebook messenger to let me know. When she asked me if I could maybe send her a few comments about good things I remember from his life, I spent days struggling with the task, because in all honesty, I never developed a close connection with this friend due to his incessant search for sex and love that consumed him from one woman to the next.
When I eventually spoke with my friend’s ex-wife over the phone, I was truthful with her about this and apologized for not having anything positive to say about him. I told her that her ex struggled with his addiction to women, but she let me know she already knew that.
My friend would move from one state to another, one city to the next, and from town to town, consistently believing that each woman that led him there was “the one” for him. In the pursuance of this, he abandoned his son, friends like me, and all his loved ones, which at times made me very angry.
People often forget that sex and love can be addictive, and my friend denied he ever had this addiction like most people do when confronted about it. But when one’s life becomes dependent on finding that “one”, when life becomes a blur of one sexual escapade after another, when friendships and family and children get thrown to the wayside in the pursuance of sex and love, and when the only thing that becomes important is the search itself for sex and love via the Internet or in various other places, it’s a good sign that it’s become an addiction for the person.
My friend was a constant reminder of that for me, because I struggled with this addiction for as long as he did, until I woke up one day and saw the mirror in him. Thankfully, I finally addressed this addiction and found recovery for it, which has led me to have a 10-year monogamous relationship now, as well as freedom from pornography and a number of other toxic sexual behaviors as well. My friend never found that, even after I tried many times to get him to see how much his pursuance of sex and love was consuming him.
The thing I have the greatest sadness for now that he’s gone is not for the loss itself, it’s for his son who will grow up never having developed a close relationship to his father, something I know quite well given my father suffered from this addiction too. When my dad left my mother at the end of my senior year of high school for another woman, I never would live with him again under the same roof or feel incredibly close to him either. In light of that, my mourning for my friend’s son is because I know what comes next for someone who experiences this and that’s a struggle to ever develop close male connections and be open with deep emotions in general.
Nevertheless, my friend didn’t get to know the true me either like he didn’t with his son. Most, if not all of our conversations, were always about him and his desires and plans and the like, about women and money, and all the grandiosity that came from living in his addiction. Yet I never saw my friend find any real happiness, peace, love, or joy in any of the relationships he landed in, as he constantly found fault in each of them. That’s what happens when addiction consumes the soul.
I’m thankful I’m sober from sex and love addiction and have a long-term monogamous relationship to speak of because of it. I’m sad my friend never found this and that we never got to know each other deeply either, as I believe below his addiction and self-centeredness surrounding it, was an amazing soul, completely worthy and capable of giving and receiving unconditional love.
What I’ve come to know through his death and so many others from this addiction or any addiction is this. For as long as any addiction consumes an individual, the only sure thing that will come from it by continuing to pursue it with all of oneself is sure death. But finding true sobriety and recovery can and will ultimately lead to deeper connections, more loving friendships and relationships, and a much brighter life.
Thanks be to God for my still being on the path of sobriety and recovery. May my friend who never found it rest in peace now and may all those who continue to suffer from sex and love addiction, or any addiction, find sobriety and recovery from them before it’s too late. Because one day your luck with any addiction will run out, like it did with my friend, someone I really never got to know and wish I had…
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
