sex addiction, ctd.

[topaz]

I started to reply to a comment in my earlier post about this, but decided it's worth expanding into a general post.

My skepticism about sex addiction is not so much about whether it exists, or is even possible, but more about whether it's a useful way to address unhealthy sexual activity.  Certainly it's possible to become psychologically dependent to an unhealthy degree on just about anything: cocaine, cards, cocks, chamomile or cardamom.  In principle, a person could become obsessively focused on any one of these things to the extent of obstructing their ability to lead a normal life.

But that doesn't mean that it's helpful to frame the issue as an "addiction."  Let's remember here that sex, unlike narcotics or gambling, is not just an ordinary part of every day life, but for many people is a crucial part of their lives.  When an entire recovery industry -- complete with twelve-step programs, self-help books, licensed counsellors and three-day seminars -- springs up to treat an "addiction" to one of the most natural and fundamental things a person can do, it starts to smell suspicious.  It is even harder to take seriously when you consider that sex is the one thing that an average American is most likely to feel guilt and shame about anyway.  It cannot be hard to persuade someone with a high sex drive who feels periodic guilt and shame about it that they have a psychological addiction that requires professional treatment.

It's clear that the traditional trappings of addiction treatment -- the twelve-step programs, psychological reconditioning, and the like -- have been instrumental in helping people cope with chemical addictions to alcohol, nicotine or narcotics.  But there is a critical component to those programs that is not present in treating, say, sex addiction or overeating: the addict learns that they can never again indulge their addiction without risking a relapse.  As far as I can tell, sex addicts are not taught that they must remain celibate for the rest of their lives; nor have I been able to learn why the sex addiction industry omits this step.  Maybe because they know it wouldn't work.  But if so, that brings me back to my original question: does it make sense to talk about unhealthy sexual focus as an "addiction" at all?

What I understand about sex addiction as people describe it -- that it is characterized by compulsive sexual activity and an inability to form intimate emotional relationships -- makes it sound like the underlying problem faced by sex addicts is not so much an unhealthy dependency on sexual activity as some kind of emotional disconnection that leads them to substitute sexual intimacy for an emotional one.  In other words, it is not that they are addicted to sex so much as confused about what it is and how to use it.  That above all suggests that "sex addiction" is an entirely wrong and counterproductive way to frame a real problem.

Comments

[moontoad.livejournal.com]

What about food addiction? It's also crucial to life. Do you feel it exists like other more typical addictions do?

[qnetter]

I don't, really -- it's a bad framing. I think there are unhealthy eating behaviors, sure. But the whole notion of "addiction" -- physical and psychological dependence on a substance or behavior one otherwise uses optionally and voluntarily -- goes out the window when the substance in question is one for which everyone has a genuine physical need.

[jacflash.livejournal.com]

I think you don't understand addiction.

I also think you're going to get flamed bigtime on this one, so I'll just sit back with some popcorn and watch instead of saying any more.

[qnetter]

I think you don't understand addiction.

And I think there are lots of things labeled as addiction that are not.

If it takes four sentences to explain that "sex addiction" is not addiction to sex per se, or that food addiction is not addiction to food per se, then it's not sex addiction or food addiction -- it's just a shorthand way to lump a whole set of different but somewhat related behaviors together that you claim addiction treatment approaches are effective for under a label.

But they're also different from addiction -- or, more specifically, the obvious literal definitions of the labels are so different from addiction -- that the model breaks as much as it benefits.

[dbang.livejournal.com]

Everyone needs food, but not everyone needs every type of food. Most addiction-model approaches to recovery from compulsive eating identify trigger foods that are in fact optional -- very often, sugar and refined carbs.

Also, while everyone needs food, it can be certain behaviors around the food, not the food itself, that is identified as the addiction. so unless you reject entirely the concept of addiction to a *behavior*, there are lots of ways that the addiction model can be successfully applied to eating.

[awfief.livejournal.com]

And not everyone needs certain amounts of food. Hunger is hunger, which is different from appetite -- you might have an appetite or craving for something whether or not you are hungry.

There are people who eat when they do not have an appetite, nor are they hungry. Meaning they don't want food, they don't need food, and yet, still eat.

[qnetter]

Right. I think "addiction" is a bad label for this, because it took both of you two paragraphs each to explain that "food addiction" is not as simple as "addiction to food."

[dbang.livejournal.com]

whereas what she wrote is not what I wrote and you didn't respond to what I wrote. In my professional and personal experience, the behavior of eating when full is less likely to respond to an addiction-model approach than the eating of specific types of foods from which one can abstain entirely.

[qnetter]

Fair enough.

I still think there's something circular about defining addiction as "something that can be treated with some level of effectiveness with addiction treatment."

[malefica-v.livejournal.com]

It's only a matter of time until we see the term "para-addiction" here, I'm afraid.

[dbang.livejournal.com]

Not if you have some "canonical" addiction against which to base it...most people would agree that, say, alcoholism or opiate addiction would represent such a canonical addiction. Then, we can devise approaches to treat those addictions, and call other things addictions according to the extent to which they follow similar patterns and respond to similar treatment modalities.