1. The Wages of Sexual-Addiction Politics.
“Did addiction politics leave us stranded on a slippery slope?” The legacy of “Big Tobacco” versus Addiction Medicine has led to the denial of sex as an addictive process worthy of study.
2. Everyone’s Wired for Sexual Addiction
“Highly palatable foods and highly potent sexual stimuli are the only stimuli capable of activating the dopamine system (reward circuitry of the brain) with anywhere near the potency of addictive drugs.”
3. Too Much Internet Porn: The SADD Effect
” … these men have rewired their brains to crave the instant gratification of a porn-enabled orgasm … They’ve accustomed themselves to an intense type of physical stimulation that’s not approximated during real sex. Their overall levels of sexual desire for their partners are down, and they need to fantasize during real sex in order to maintain a full erection.”
4. Understanding Addiction – The Straight Facts from the American Society of Addiction Medicine
“After 4 years and the work of 80 specialist experts in the field of addiction medicine, the American Society of Addiction Medicine has released a new definition and explanation of addiction. They say it’s a disease of the brain and it has nothing to do with will power!”
5. Time Magazine - Sex Addiction: A Disease or a Convenient Excuse
Time magazine: “The American Psychiatric Association (APA) is debating whether sex addiction should be added to its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.”
6. It’s a national epidemic: Why Americans are being diagnosed as sex addicts in record numbers
“Sex addiction is on the rise, say experts, with more than nine million Americans suffering from the disorder. And, where sex addicts were once more-or-less limited to 40- to 50-year-old men, the demographics are changing too, with more and more young people and women seeking help.”
7. Pornography addiction: A neuroscience perspective
This is a tough read, but if you want the science, well … “In 2006 world pornography revenue was 97 billion dollars, more than Microsoft, Google, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo, Apple, and Netflix combined. This is no casual, inconsequential phenomenon, yet there is a tendency to trivialize the possible social and biologic effects of pornography.”
“When couples drift apart, they cheat themselves of the most beneficial gifts of intimacy. Studies show that close, trusted - and especially, harmonious - companionship is associated with increased longevity (Young, 2004), faster healing (DeVries, 2004), and lower rates of illness (Coyne, 2001), depression, and alcoholism (Horwitz, 1996).”
9. MSNBC - Addiction now defined as brain disorder, not behavior issue
“Many behaviors driven by addiction are real problems and sometimes criminal acts. But the disease is about brains, not drugs. It’s about underlying neurology, not outward actions. … says Dr. Michael Miller, past president of ASAM who oversaw the development of the new definition.”
Jeff Schultz, LPC, CSAT, is the owner and founder of the Sonoran Healing Center in Phoenix, Arizona.
