Yesterday a good friend in a nearby city, Edward, sober from alcohol and drugs for well over a decade, received a flurry of text messages about an acquaintance of his, a recovering addict in her early 40s, who’d just gone into the hospital. At first the cause of this hospitalization was somewhat unclear, but as …
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Ten Things to Do When a Friend or Loved One Relapses
October 29th, 2015 | Posted by in Addiction & Recovery - (Comments Off on Ten Things to Do When a Friend or Loved One Relapses)Diagnosing Sexual Addiction, Part Two: Questions to Pose
May 7th, 2015 | Posted by in Sex Addiction - (Comments Off on Diagnosing Sexual Addiction, Part Two: Questions to Pose)As mentioned in part one of this blog, sexual addiction can be difficult to identify. Because of its highly secretive nature (the addict’s denial/unwillingness to disclose), even therapists sometimes struggle to uncover and diagnose active sexual addiction. The good news here is that there are some basic tools that can be used to identify (or …
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Sexual Addiction: Legit Diagnosis or Pop Culture Phenomenon?
November 19th, 2014 | Posted by in Sex Addiction - (1 Comments)The Current Non-Diagnosis Though sexual addiction is now readily accepted as a real and debilitating disorder by much of the general population and the media, it is not yet an official psychiatric diagnosis. In fact, the DSM-5 was published last year without even mentioning sexual addiction – this despite a proposed hypersexual disorder (sexual addiction) …
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Finding a Good Sex Addiction Rehab
October 2nd, 2014 | Posted by in Sex Addiction - (Comments Off on Finding a Good Sex Addiction Rehab)While most addiction-informed therapists have a fairly clear sense of the type of residential/inpatient rehab facility that will best serve a drug addicted or alcoholic client, where to go for “sex rehab” is often another story. Therapists and counselors of all stripes, along with their sex and porn addicted clients, can be challenged by a …
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Breathing, Mindfulness and Addiction Recovery
September 21st, 2014 | Posted by in Addiction | Addiction & Recovery | Addiction Discussions | Addiction Education | Alcohol Addiction | Celebrity Rehab | Drug Addiction | Love Addiction | Marijuana Addiction | Mindfulness | Prescription Drug Addiction | Sex Addiction - (Comments Off on Breathing, Mindfulness and Addiction Recovery)Sherry Gaba, LCSW, is a Licensed Psychotherapist and Certified Transformational and Recovery Coach. She is the author of “The Law of the Sobriety: Attracting Positive Energy for a Powerful Recovery” and the creator of wake up recovery. She is the go to expert on VH1’s Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew Pinsky and media expert on …
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Creating a Plan for Sexual Addiction Sobriety
March 20th, 2014 | Posted by in Sex Addiction - (Comments Off on Creating a Plan for Sexual Addiction Sobriety)In a previous blog I examined the ways in which sexual sobriety is typically defined, noting that total abstinence, the most common conception of sobriety with alcoholism and drug addiction, does not work for many of the process (behavioral) addictions, including sex addiction and eating disorders. (For instance, if a sex addict is married, his …
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Treating Sexual Addiction
February 19th, 2014 | Posted by in Sex Addiction - (Comments Off on Treating Sexual Addiction)For the most part, effective sexual addiction treatment strategies mirror the techniques that have also proven useful with substance abuse treatment. In short, sex addiction treatment specialists rely on a combination of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), group therapy, trauma-informed assessment and awareness, and 12-step recovery work. One major treatment difference when dealing with sex addiction …
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Spotting Sexual Addiction in Clients
February 5th, 2014 | Posted by in Sex Addiction - (Comments Off on Spotting Sexual Addiction in Clients)Sexually addicted men and women enter treatment because their addiction is destroying their lives, but once they’re in therapy they often fail to mention their out-of-control sexual activity (most often due to shame). Instead, they ask for help with their addiction’s related symptoms – depression, severe anxiety, relationship problems, co-occurring substance abuse issues, and the …
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To Name is to Explain or Is It?
August 31st, 2013 | Posted by in Uncategorized - (Comments Off on To Name is to Explain or Is It?)I sometimes notice substance abuse professionals who believe they understand addiction concepts and behaviors when, in fact, they don’t. One main reason for this false impression is that they have a profound belief that naming a particular behavior or concept, explains it. A more technical term for this naming problem is the phrase called the …
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