A further 72 percent suffered from physical abuse; furthermore, frequent abuse was even more strongly associated with sex addiction than occasional abuse. People with a history of trauma can manifest a variety of different responses that are rooted in their traumatic experiences. This can include a deep-rooted sense of unworthiness, efforts to block or numb residual feelings, finding pleasure in extreme risk-taking, compulsive deprivation and re-creation of the trauma experience. Because our partner has caused us such deep pain, they now feel like a threat to our well-being rather than a source of comfort and rest. Sue Johnson, the founder of Emotionally Focused Therapy for Couples says that betrayal traumas, overwhelm coping capacities and define the relationship, as a source of danger rather than a safe haven in times of stress. You will be able to fill your life with meaningful relationships instead of constantly pursuing out-of-control sexual obsessions. Getting a Sponsor After you ve attended 12-step group meetings for a while, you may wish to find a sponsor. How do you do that? If there is someone with whom you share a similar story or background, you may want to approach them after the meeting and ask if they ll be your sponsor. In other words, this issue does not discriminate, and neither should we in our attempts to understand and/or treat it. Twelve-step programs emphasize the need to completely abstain from the identified problematic behaviors, but this philosophy is not as straightforward as it sounds when it comes to sexual behavior. Or, more broadly speaking, this can be defined as: Dependence on the needs of or control by another.1 However, while in most addictions the assumption can be made that the partners are co-dependent, or at least the addict s partner had co-dependent behaviors, this is not necessarily so in the case of sex addiction. The study showed that many men began using pornography at an early stage of their teen years, with nearly six percent starting when they were 14 to 18 years old. During the mid-twenties to mid-thirties time period, more than 22 percent had begun using pornography and this number rose to more than 25 percent for men in the next age group, 35 to 44 years.