Tiger Woods and Sex Addiction: Real Disease or Easy Excuse?
Definition of Addiction:
1 : the quality or state of being addicted 2 : compulsive need for and use of a habit-forming substance (as heroin, nicotine, or alcohol) characterized by tolerance and by well-defined physiological symptoms upon withdrawal; broadly : persistent compulsive use of a substance known by the user to be harmful
Definition of Sexual Addiction:
sexual addiction is defined as a condition in which some form of sexual behavior is employed in a pattern that is characterized by two key features: 1) recurrent failure to control the sexual behavior, and 2) continuation of the sexual behavior despite significant harmful consequences.
Consequently, sexual addiction is a syndrome in which some form of sexual behavior relates to and affects an individual's life in such a manner as to accord with the simple definition of addiction or to meet the diagnostic criteria for addictive disorder.
Significantly, no form of sexual behavior in itself constitutes sexual addiction. Whether a pattern of sexual behavior qualifies as sexual addiction is determined not by the type of behavior, its object, its frequency or its social acceptability, but by the relationship between this behavior pattern and an individual's life, as indicated in the definition and specified in the diagnostic criteria. The key features that distinguish sexual addiction from other patterns of sexual behavior are: 1) the individual is not reliably able to control the sexual behavior, and 2) the sexual behavior has significant harmful consequences and continues despite these consequences.
Sexual addiction is not an excuse for bad behavior! Seriously...What healthy individual would put everything that they value at risk...employment, health, marriage, reputation, self-respect...and the list goes on and on. And you never completely recover from all that you lose.
Believe me folks....sexual addiction does exist! and the biggest problem is you never have to go outside yourself to get your fix....it's always right there in your head....sex is the drug...the person is just the container. Unlike drugs & alcohol, your drug is always with you. It's more powerful than heroin.
To complicate things, sex is a normal part of life and like food you can't get along very well without it -but then the problem isn't sex or food-it's using sex and food to avoid life-to help us escape pressure, difficult issues, real relationships, intimacy.
So if you think that men and women are out there sneaking around having totally hot wonderful sex and loving life while risking everything that matters to them, think about the junky in the street, or the closet drinker who is dying from liver failure but still can't stop, or the person eating 7000+ calories a day and putting their health at risk.
Then ask yourself this question: Would a healthy person choose to lose everything good in life, everything they value for sex...
Could the sex really be that good?
1 : the quality or state of being addicted 2 : compulsive need for and use of a habit-forming substance (as heroin, nicotine, or alcohol) characterized by tolerance and by well-defined physiological symptoms upon withdrawal; broadly : persistent compulsive use of a substance known by the user to be harmful
Definition of Sexual Addiction:
sexual addiction is defined as a condition in which some form of sexual behavior is employed in a pattern that is characterized by two key features: 1) recurrent failure to control the sexual behavior, and 2) continuation of the sexual behavior despite significant harmful consequences.
Consequently, sexual addiction is a syndrome in which some form of sexual behavior relates to and affects an individual's life in such a manner as to accord with the simple definition of addiction or to meet the diagnostic criteria for addictive disorder.
Significantly, no form of sexual behavior in itself constitutes sexual addiction. Whether a pattern of sexual behavior qualifies as sexual addiction is determined not by the type of behavior, its object, its frequency or its social acceptability, but by the relationship between this behavior pattern and an individual's life, as indicated in the definition and specified in the diagnostic criteria. The key features that distinguish sexual addiction from other patterns of sexual behavior are: 1) the individual is not reliably able to control the sexual behavior, and 2) the sexual behavior has significant harmful consequences and continues despite these consequences.
Sexual addiction is not an excuse for bad behavior! Seriously...What healthy individual would put everything that they value at risk...employment, health, marriage, reputation, self-respect...and the list goes on and on. And you never completely recover from all that you lose.
Believe me folks....sexual addiction does exist! and the biggest problem is you never have to go outside yourself to get your fix....it's always right there in your head....sex is the drug...the person is just the container. Unlike drugs & alcohol, your drug is always with you. It's more powerful than heroin.
To complicate things, sex is a normal part of life and like food you can't get along very well without it -but then the problem isn't sex or food-it's using sex and food to avoid life-to help us escape pressure, difficult issues, real relationships, intimacy.
So if you think that men and women are out there sneaking around having totally hot wonderful sex and loving life while risking everything that matters to them, think about the junky in the street, or the closet drinker who is dying from liver failure but still can't stop, or the person eating 7000+ calories a day and putting their health at risk.
Then ask yourself this question: Would a healthy person choose to lose everything good in life, everything they value for sex...
Could the sex really be that good?
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