Often, it was the unassuming person, ostensibly the harmless law-abiding type, who was committing the most heinous crimes. A sex addict can be your happily married neighbor, your pastor, a doctor, a lawyer, a man or a woman. Sexual and gender orientation are also not factors that determine sex addiction. Their lives are broken to pieces, and they are overwhelmed with shame, often thinking, How could I be so stupid not to realize what was happening right under my nose? I m such a fool for trusting him/her. They feel they are going crazy. But these feelings are all normal because in all likelihood, this is the most shocking and confounding crisis they have ever experienced. The biggest struggle for my husband through this heartbreaking addiction was the concept of integrity and honesty. I firmly believe that true recovery is not even remotely possible until all the cards are face up on the table. Secrecy fuels this addiction. Our therapist once mentioned the idea that it is better to be 100% honest and have integrity even if it means risking the shame and possibility of losing your comfort zone. The addict acted out because he is an addict. He did not act out because you were not good enough or not worthy of his love. You could not cause his acting out. A secondary gain of mindfulness is that over time, you can learn to be present with the uncertainty, which is a normal response that is manifested out of betrayal trauma in a manner that was not reactive driven. I realized then that it is impossible to "kill off" the addiction, and that hating and controlling the addict part of themselves could only lead back to shame and problems. That afternoon, I sat down with the guys and we had a group treatment experience. For an hour, we did gestalt work talking to that poor, ugly stuffed dragon. According to a study conducted by sex addiction researcher Patrick Carnes, Ph.D., a significant amount of people with sex addiction experienced emotional abuse (97%), sexual abuse (81%) or physical abuse (72%) in childhood. Furthermore, people who came from rigid, uninvolved and emotionally absent families were also more likely to experience sex addiction (77%).