of Wilson’s quest for recovery. He wanted a different life—one not dominated by sex. He yearned for a healthy relationship. He also wanted to get free from his propensity to rage when things didn’t go his way.
How could he be a success in other areas of his life and have messed up his personal life so badly? Others looking at him saw him as someone who succeeded against great odds. People admired his success in business and envied his ability to carry on multiple relationships with so many women. His friends constantly fed his ego saying, “You’re the man!”
Yet in his private moments, Wilson knew he didn’t want to continue the shell of a life he was living. He yearned to be free from his obsessive and compulsive sexual behavior. He wanted to feel normal, but he didn’t know what normal was. All he knew was the life he had lived.
Abuse during childhood does not cause addiction. However, many, many people who struggle with addiction have been abused—some physically, others verbally and psychologically, still others sexually. Abuse is the fertile soil in which addiction—in all its forms—often grows.
Abuse during the formative years of life sets a new normal; it changes the baseline for what is normal behavior. A person who has been abused may escape into sex, food, work, alcohol or other drugs, spending, gambling, high-risk sports, self-abusive behaviors (cutting, burning, etc.), criminal behavior (burglaries, theft, arson), or even violent crime. We will examine the role of abuse in the development of sex addiction a bit later. But abuse itself does not explain why someone becomes addicted. For every person who comes from an abusive childhood and becomes an addict, there are many more of similar backgrounds who never develop addiction. Another factor that often sets the stage for addiction is the presence of addiction in one or both parents.
Addiction seems to run in my family. Three of my four grandparents are alcoholics and my brother is a drug addict. Am I at greater risk of developing addiction?
Addiction is an intergenerational problem. When we study the families of addicts we often find that addiction is present in preceding generations. Although this is often the case with alcohol and other drug addictions, sex addiction may be so well hidden that an addict may not be aware of the presence of sex addiction in his parents. And when it comes to grandparents, even if compulsive sexual acting out occurred, often such behaviors become the closely held family secrets. Family histories are frequently sanitized in an attempt to preserve the illusion of an ideal family.
The most reliable risk factor for future addiction is a family history of addiction. For alcohol and other drugs, we know that the transmission of addiction is part genetic and part environmental. There is speculation that there may be a genetic component to sex addiction, but as of yet there is no scientific data to back that up. However, a variety of environmental factors seem to provide fertile ground from which sex addiction can rise.
When we hear the word “boundaries,” we may think in terms of sports where there are clear indicators on the court or field of play as to what is in bounds and what is out of bounds. Families have boundaries as well. Boundaries let us know who is responsible for various tasks, how family members interact with each other, what behaviors are acceptable, and what behaviors are not acceptable. There are three broad categories of boundaries in families: clear, rigid, and defuse.
In families with clear boundaries, children have an established bedtime as well as clearly defined rules by which they live. Adults live by agreed upon guidelines in the way they behave and how they interact with each other. There may be times when exceptions are made to a boundary such as allowing a child to stay up past bedtime on a special occasion. There is clarity on what the boundaries are and when and why exceptions are made.
In families with rigid boundaries, there are no exceptions made to family rules. Rigid boundaries lead to isolation and a breakdown in communication. There is an atmosphere of either indifferent detachment or of tension and anger. Physical abuse may be present in these families.
Families with defuse boundaries do not have an understanding of where one person’s role and rights end and the role and rights of others begin. Parents are overly involved in every aspect of a child’s life. Husbands and wives have few if any individual pursuits. Children may be allowed to do what they want. Enmeshment is the norm.
Being raised in a family that does not have clear boundaries is one of the factors that can predispose a person to developing addiction.
Attachment refers to the emotional bonds that connect one person to another. Attachment disorder is an umbrella term that describes a person’s inability to develop normal, healthy bonds with other human beings. Healthy attachment bonds develop in early childhood and are the result of being raised in a nurturing environment. An attachment disorder may develop because of a number of factors, including moving frequently over a short period of time, changing caregivers often, the absence of one or more primary caregivers, unresponsive caregivers (such as a child crying and there is no one responsive to his or her cries), or profound neglect.
When a person is a sex addict and also suffers from an attachment disorder, he or she may turn to casual sexual relationships hoping for the neurochemical reinforcement that is present in a committed relationship. (Neurotransmitters, the source of this reinforcement, are chemical messengers that, among other things, regulate mood.) He may have an inability to rebound from disappointments or criticism. Consequently, he may look for acceptance from someone who is willing to be sexual with him—even if he has to pay for it.
I think that my mother’s trauma and my father’s inability to deal with it greatly affected their relationship with me. Is it possible that this lack of bonding contributed to the development of my sex addiction?
Yes, it is possible. It is healthy to recognize the possibility that the lack of attachment may have contributed to your sex addiction. If your parents were not emotionally available to you then that certainly has had a negative impact on your life. The question now is what are you going to do about it? You can choose to believe that you will always sexually act out because of the unresponsive parenting you received. Or, you can engage a skilled sex addiction therapist who has expertise in working with adults who have attachment disorders. We will look more at treatment in Part Two.
Abuse is often a factor in the development of addiction. Abuse can take many forms including sexual, physical, psychological, and religious abuse. Neglect intersects with abuse when there is a failure to protect children from being abused by others.
Jed’s Story __________________
Jed’s sexual acting out started when he was in grade school. When asked about his first sexual experience, he recalled that it took place on a campout with two other boys his age. Others had picked on him for as long as he could remember because he had some physical characteristics that were more common to girls than to boys. Jed welcomed the opportunity to go camping with two other boys because it seemed like he was being accepted as one of the guys,
