If your use indicates growing compulsivity to the point of becoming “unmanageable” (you have tried to stop but can’t), then this program is designed for you.

Objective Criteria

Researchers concerned with questions about “addiction” and frequency of use (e.g. Schneider, 1994) defined addiction as: 1) loss of ability to ability to freely choose (compulsive behavior) and 2) obsession (excessive preoccupation) with the activity, and 3) continuation of the behavior despite potential for severe adverse consequences such as loss of job, marriage, family, or self-esteem.

Frequency of use is considered excessive or problematic at either 5 or more hours per week per Cybersex researcher Delmonico. (Delmonico, 1999, ISST).

Subjective Criteria

Do you often stay in the activity longer than you planned? Do you find yourself going to it on a regular basis as if a “ standard ritual” of your daily routine? Your behavior is telling you, though your mind may still prefer to resist the reality (denial), that you have already progressed well past the beginning, exploration stage. Your inner conviction that you are “in control” is not squaring with reality. Warning: you are on a slippery slope and moving full speed ahead in the process of becoming an fully hooked “addict”! This is an illness you have developed that will only get worse: you need to stop sooner, not later!

Repetition produces habit before users typically acknowledge its presence. In your inner warning system is there a persistent background voice saying, “beware” or “danger ahead”? Does the thought of doing without it frighten you? If so, use this program.

Sex addiction is, like food addiction, considered a “process addiction”. That is, on a daily basis it will regularly present an urge stemming from your own biological process that will seek some level of gratification. Many cross addicts consider sex addiction the most difficult and pernicious addiction to break of all the addictions they have experienced.

How about non-porn users who act out in other ways?

While the program interventions are oriented toward pornography users, others can benefit as well, including those involved in secret sexual fantasies, and also those doing “acting out” behaviors such as voyeurism and exhibitionism. (See Sexualimpulsivity.com for specific programs for these behaviors, including those facing legal consequences. Note: Dr. Shackelford is a Certified Sex Offender Treatment Specialist and has specific treatment programs that have assisted others in achieving a sentence reduction during their legal proceedings).

For example, if your issue that you are struggling with is to gain control of persistent sexual fantasy images or thoughts, you can select one or more of the specific interventions offered in Leg One that deal with Cognitive or “Thought-Stopping” techniques. (Note: research shows that images are more powerful than thoughts. You will need outside tools to win this “mental warfare”).

In short, don’t try to do it alone!

Other possible indicators of potential sexual addiction are listed below.

You should use this site if you answer,  "yes" to five or more of these questions:

1. You’re feeling apprehensive about falling into a repetitive kind of routine or ritualistic sexual behavior that you sense is gaining in strength and intensity.
   
   
2. You feel your sexual needs would not be meet if you didn’t engage in your secret behavior.
   
   
3. You feel ashamed, powerless, and diminished after you act out.
   
   
4. You feel depressed, stressed, or lonely because of your life situation, and using gives you an instant boost that, on a regular basis, you have come to emotionally rely on.
   
   
5. You have an extremely strong (or abnormal) need for sexual expression, and fantasize about sex to the extent of jeopardizing your job, relationship, or other adverse consequence.
   
   
6. Your tendency to think of women as “objects for your gratification” is growing.
   
   
7. You find yourself doing abnormal behaviors in your clandestine activities that are opposite of your normal or workday persona.
   
   
8. The computer desk or use area is becoming eroticized as an associated part of the ritual that you have grown to look forward to.
   
   
9. You get over-whelmed by your preoccupation of using, and the thoughts themselves have become an arousing part of your routine.