Patrick Carnes - Out of the shadows: understanding sexual addiction

... a formidable yet worthwhile and pioneering task in a difficult, unpopular area of disturbed human behavior... Interesting, readable, original... Of value to begin to understand these age-old complex sexual behaviors.

Domeena C. Renshaw, M.D.

Journal of American Medical Association

This is an affliction that affects large numbers of men and women.

Phil Donahue

Patrick Carnes has pioneered a treatment for sex addiction.

USA Today

Whats significant about the [sexual addiction] concept is that it gives people a label for understanding their very puzzling and destructive patterns of sexual behavior.

John Grace, therapist

St. Paul Pioneer Press/Dispatch

Patrick Carnes is the acknowledged expert in a field that until recently didnt exist.

Philadelphia

I just want to say thank you for understanding me. Its the first time that I felt my problem crystallized for me. I not only [speak] as a professional, but as an addict. Its the first step for me.

Anonymous

Other books by Patrick Carnes, Ph.D....

The Betrayal Bond: Breaking Free of Exploitive Relationships (Health Communications, 1997)

Contrary to Love: Helping the Sexual Addict (Hazelden, 1989)

Dont Call It Love: Recovery from Sexual Addiction (Bantam, 1992)

Facing the Shadow: Starting Sexual and Relationship Recovery (Gentle Path Press, 2001)

A Gentle Path through the Twelve Steps: The Classic Guide for All People in the Process of Recovery (Hazelden, 1993)

Open Hearts: Renewing Relationships with Recovery, Romance, and Reality , with Mark R. Laaser and Debra J. Laaser (Gentle Path Press, 1999)

In the Shadows of the Net: Breaking Free of Compulsive Online Sexual Behavior , with Elizabeth Griffin, David L. Delmonico, and Joseph M. Moriarity (Hazelden, 2001)

Sexual Anorexia: Overcoming Sexual Self-Hatred , with Joseph M. Moriarity (Hazelden, 1997)

Out of the Shadows

Understanding Sexual Addiction

Patrick Carnes, Ph.D.

Third Edition

Hazelden

Center City, Minnesota 55012-0176

1-800-328-0094

1-651-213-4590 (Fax)

www.hazelden.org

1983, 1992, 2001 by Patrick J. Carnes, Ph.D.

All rights reserved. First edition 1983 as The Sexual Addiction

Third edition 2001. Originally published by CompCare Publishers

First published by Hazelden 1994

Printed in the United States of America

No portion of this publication may be reproduced in any manner

without the written permission of the publisher

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Carnes, Patrick, 1944-

Out of the shadows : understanding sexual addiction/Patrick Carnes.--3rd ed.

p. cm.

First ed. originally published in 1983 by CompCare under the title: The sexual addiction.

ISBN 1-56838-621-4 (paperback)

1. Sex addiction. I. Carnes, Patrick, 1944- . Sexual addiction. II. Title.

RC560.S43 C38 2001

616.8583--dc21 2001024399

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-59285-769-2

Editors note

All the stories in this book are based on actual experiences. The names and details have been changed to protect the privacy of the people involved. In some cases, composites have been created.

This book is intended as a guide to understanding both the sexual addiction and the Twelve Steps as a means of recovery. Neither the book, its author, nor its publisher endorses any specific Twelve Step group for sexual compulsiveness. Readers are encouraged to investigate thoroughly any such group as to its appropriateness for them.

The Twelve Steps are reprinted and adapted with permission of Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. (AAWS). Permission to reprint and adapt the Twelve Steps does not mean that AAWS has reviewed or approved the contents of this publication, or that AAWS necessarily agrees with the views expressed herein. AA is a program of recovery from alcoholism only use of the Twelve Steps in connection with programs and activities which are patterned after AA, but which address other problems, does not imply otherwise.

05 04 03 02 01 6 5 4 3 2 1

Cover design by Theresa Gedig

Interior design by Stanton Publication Services, Inc.

Typesetting by Tursso Companies

This book is written to help the many addicts who have been afraid to admit their pain. One of the strongest bonds of the addiction is its secrecy. Perhaps, with the secret broken, addicts can know the peace and self-acceptance that comes with knowing it can be talked about.

Contents

Illustrations

Figures

1.1 The Addictive System

2.1 Levels of Addiction

4.1 The Abuse Checklist

4.2 The World of the Sexual Addict

5.1 The Coaddictive System

5.2 The Coaddicts Checklist

5.3 The World of the Coaddict

6.1 The Male Sexual Addicts Beliefs about Sex, Men, and Women

7.1 The Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous

7.2 The Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous Adapted for Sexual Addicts

7.3 The Twelve Steps and Changing Beliefs

7.4 The Addicts Worksheet

Preface to the 2001 Edition

I had given my friend Sherod Miller an early draft of what was eventually to become the first edition of Out of the Shadows . Sherod, whose organization had published an earlier book of mine, was a respected author, with his Couples Communication in seventeen foreign editions. I really wanted his opinion of the manuscript. During dinner in a Minneapolis hotel, Sherod and I discussed my writing. As we talked, it became clear that the editorial state of the book was not his concern.

He finally looked at me and said, Pat, this book is going to change your life.

A shudder of premonition went through mesomething that always seems to happen when an inescapable reality in my life is reached. I remember quietly dismissing the significance of Sherods statement by assuring him that I was prepared to face whatever happened. Twenty years later to the month, I can say that nothing, not Sherods comment or anything else, could have prepared me for what happened. And, yes, the book did transform my life.

The book actually appeared in December 1983, entitled The Sexual Addiction . I have never agonized as much over any task before or since. I joked that I really did not know how the book was written. What I meant was that this book came from some quiet place of certitude within meand, in that sense, it was not about me or any abilities that I might possess. It was more about a truth that would not rest until expressed. I simply gave voice to the perception of sexual pain I saw in struggling people.

Shortly after the book was published, it became clear that the book needed to be retitled. So much shame existed about the illness that readers found it difficult even to purchase the book with the title The Sexual Addiction . Renamed Out of the Shadows , with Understanding Sexual Addiction as a subtitle, the book began to sell. And with the broader audience, those changes my friend Sherod talked about began to happen.

First came the mail. The book had tapped into a deep undercurrent of sexual trauma in our culture. People needed to talk about their pain. So they wrote letters. Most wrote because they were grateful. Many were struggling with inadequate resources. There were people in prisons with no help, people who had little Twelve Step support in their communities, and others who needed help and could not find treatment or therapists.

All walks of life were represented in these letters, as well as all kinds of sexual addiction problems. There was the woman whose husband failed to return after he had gone to his office on a Sunday in order to catch up. She and her eight-year-old daughter found him in a rest room, dead of autoerotic asphyxiation. She wrote that she understood the addiction and how he got there. But her greatest problem now was how to deal with her daughterthe image of her father hanging by his belt in the midst of piles of pornography continued to haunt her.