Recovery support can include support groups, like Sex Addicts Anonymous, recovery sponsors, accountability partners, in- or outpatient treatment programs, counselling, medical help and Internet filters. 2. Stopping rituals All addictions have rituals. Rituals can be anything from thoughts to behaviours that eventually lead to sexual acting out. states, It is imperative that we treat pornography and sexual addiction with the respect accorded any drug addiction, for as we shall see, that is precisely what it is. Until we, the general public, become more informed about the reality of how pornography reacts with the human brain, it will just be looked at as a moral weakness or some entertainment rather than a true chemical addiction. A relapse plan is what actions or steps you will take when you feel those incessant and impossible urges that could cause you to slip. Some possible thoughts/actions in a relapse plan include: Attend more meetings. Reach out to more people. Admit that I can t do this on my own. Talk to others. Take it easy on myself. Some counselors would say that spouses are codependent at this point, a term that is defined as: A psychological condition or a relationship in which a person is controlled or manipulated by another who is affected with a pathological condition (as an addiction to alcohol or heroin). 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. Abuse of stimulants and the intense sexual desire that can accompany these drugs can jumpstart a pattern of compulsive sexual behavior, and sexual addiction can also become a substitute addiction for people who are in the process of quitting an addictive substance. Nevertheless, the history of abuse that dominates the pasts of a large majority of sex addicts shows the strong correlation between this addiction and early trauma. The simple answer is that relapse is defined as any sexual activity that falls outside of pre-determined boundaries. Sometimes people in 12-step recovery refer to acts that would constitute a relapse as "bottom-line behaviors". In addition to bottom lines , two other "lines" are helpful to understand.