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Post by Will on Jun 29, 2018 17:43:05 GMT -7
Hi guys,
am reading this book and it has really been pretty amazing. Cannot recommend it highly enough. There's one section under the chapter 'Sexual Addiction' that I have just read and it nails the problem I have so completely that I want to share it in the hopes that it might help others. I'll just post a bit at a time:
"Dr Harry W. Schaumburg is one of my favorite Christian writers and counselors in the field of sex addiction. In his book, 'False Intimacy', he defines it this way:
'Sexual addiction exists when a person practices sexual activity to the point of negatively affecting his or or her ability to deal with other aspects of life, becomes involved in other relationships - whether real or through fantasy - and becomes dependent on sexual experiences as his or her primary source of fulfillment...regardless of the consequences to health, family, and/or career.'
Dr. Schaumburg identifies a probable sex addict as one who exhibits the following:
- compelling and consuming behavior - behavior leading to negative consequences - out-of-control behavior - denial of the seriousness of the behavior
He also sates that sexual addiction is "an avoidance of the pain often caused by real intimacy. In effect, a s sex addict creates a pseudo relationship with something or someone who can be controlled, such as a picture, an actor on the video screen, or a prostitute....The primary goal of addictive behavior is to avoid relational pain - essentially, to control life." Dr. Schaumburg believes that the person who is the most likely to develop sexual addiction is one who "feels that life isn't fulfilling, who experiences disappointment in intimacy, who loses hope, and who lacks self-confidence." "+
More to follow
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Post by Will on Jul 14, 2018 20:00:53 GMT -7
"Fear of intimacy is a key issue with sex addicts. They are deathly afraid of it. They have been deeply hurt by it in the past, and perhaps their family environment modeled an attitude of fear of intimacy or punishment and rejection when intimacy was sought. Let me give you a simply example of how a family environment can create a fear of intimacy in a child. Say you're a seven-year-old boy returning home form school and you burst into the house brimming with exceitment over something that you did that day. As you begin to deliver your news to your parents with passion, your dad, rather than listening and sharing in your excitement, mocks you for acting like a girl in getting worked up over nothing, and your mom screams at you for interrupting her day and sends you to your room.
Their anger and ridicule caught you at a vulnerable moment. You had opened up your deep heart to them and had gotten slammed for it. As a result, it is very unlikely that you will risk doing that again. Your parents have just instilled in you a fear of being intimate. If that continues to be the ongoing atmosphere in the home, they will quite possibly (albeit unwittingly) be grooming a budding addict - someone who is afraid of genuine intimacy and who will look for ways to express his need for it where there is no risk of humiliation or rejection."
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Post by Will on Jan 13, 2019 22:31:17 GMT -7
"There is one other piece of fallout from the scenario that I painted above. When this little boy experiences humiliation and rejection at every attempt to share his deep heart, particularly if accompanied by painful verbal or physical abuse, he will begin to develop the belief that he is is defective, abnormal, unlovable or just plain bad - the core belief that fuels all addictive behavior.
For sex addicts, intimacy, for one reason or another, is not worth taking any chances for. For them, it is better to pretend than risk the hurt and rejection of attempting true intimacy. The life of a sex addict is usually saturated with a profound sense of unworthiness, disbelief in the idea of being acceptable to anyone on any deep and meaningful level, and a history of attempted compensation through substitution and fantasy.
The pain of believing that they are unlovable or unredeemable drives many people to engage in compulsive behaviors that provide a strong jolt of pleasure, so that for a brief while, they can forget that they feel hopeless, lost or destined for the trash bin of humanity. But the more they are driven to find stronger jolts of pleasure in even more perverted behaviors, the more convinced they become that they are indeed worthless human beings who God could never love and would never redeem."
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Post by Will on Jan 13, 2019 23:02:56 GMT -7
"So, although there are sinful behaviors involved in the life of a sex addict, there is more to the picture than just a simple love of sin and pleasure. In our example of the little boy who grew up to be a sex addict, the sinful heart of the boy plays a part and, yes, demons play a part. In fact, the demonic realm was probably at work from start to finish - first bringing in sinful patterns (and possibly spirits) from as many as four prior generations; orchestrating the traumas and rejections of the boy's life; implanting thoughts of self-hatred, fear of intimacy and doubt about God's gracious character; providing the objects or persons who tempted him to commit immoral acts; and finally, hounding the boy with thoughts of self-hatred and condemnation every time he gave in to the sinful pleasures that took away his pain."
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Post by Will on Jan 24, 2019 3:12:17 GMT -7
"In short, sex addicts are often people who have been slapped silly by life - on multiple levels and in multiple ways. This does not excuse their sinful behavior, but it helps explain how they ended up in such a trap and what needs to be healed in order for them to get free. According to Dr. Patrick Carnes (perhaps the country's leading expert on sexual addiction), 97 percent of sex addicts have been emotionally abused and 81 percent have been sexually abused.
A "Sin" That Operates as a "Disease"
Lest we get too preoccupied with the clinical side of the issue and thus distracted from the need for repentance, let's take a closer look at the sin aspect of this condition.
Sexual addiction involves more than just misguided subterranean emotional responses, as the addiction-as-disease-only camp would have us believe. While sin is clearly involved on the surface of the matter (namely, sexual immorality), it is involved on a more insidious level as well. Deep in the heart of man lies the real mother lode of evil that fuels and motivates the behavior.
The ironic thing is that the sexual addict uses what God intended as a primary means of intimacy (sexual relations) to achieve just the opposite. This grotesque twisting of what He created is a manifestation of an inner rebellion and anger against God that lingers within the heart of the sex addict. And so, the sex addict will depersonalize the object of his or her lust and use sex in a flight from intimacy rather than as a means of intimacy. That is why the sex is illicit. A great rebellion against God and the created order of things is going on within the psyche of the person."
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Post by Will on Jan 25, 2019 17:42:34 GMT -7
"Of this phenomenon, Dr. Harry Schaumburg writes:
"Sexual addiction is not a disease over which the sex addict has no control .Sex addicts make significant choices and must be held accountable for those choices. Also, treating sexual addiction as a disease easily leads us to treat the sex addicts's behaviors instead of the sin that causes the behaviors.
Only God can help a person overcome sin. Treatment programs can influence a person to stop committing certain sexual acts, but the programs can't address the root cause of those behaviors without bringing the power of Christ to bear on the issues of the heart.
Sexual addiction primarily stems from the sinfulness of the human heart and a reluctance to be in a passionate, dependent relationship with God...The essence of sin is autonomy from God, a failure to be dependent on Him. Sex addicts'...refusal to cling to God as the only Person who can fill their deepest longings and ease relational pain did not originate in a shame-based family but in their shameful, deceitful heart. All of us have such a heart...
When we sin in our hearts toward Him, refusing to be dependent on Him, He gives us over to the control of the sinful things we prefer more than Himself. When God gives us over, He turns us over to the darkness of our hearts, which creates deeper darkness....Sexually addictive behaviors are not as dark as the internal commitment to serve self....A sex addict truly changes when his or her relationship with God changes.""
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