Permit yourself to stop feeling bad about not forgiving quickly enough for your partner, your therapist, or anyone else. Does being unable to surrender to the process mean you are cruel or hard-hearted? Of course not! It is not your job to surrender or accept blame after your trust was shattered by betrayal. The brain depends on a higher level of dopamine to regulate the central nervous system. It quickly becomes the only way to reduce stressors; the person struggling with addiction ends up doing and saying things they will soon regret but cannot seem to stop on their own. Carnes aptly refers to this as the hijacked brain. Once the manic state is over, however, the individual may feel shame or remorse for their actions, exacerbating symptoms of depression. This, in turn, may lead to subsequent acting out behavior. For some people, there are specific triggers which cause the onset of manic episodes. For example, there may be certain places, times of the day, or thoughts that lead to manic episodes involving sexual acting out behavior. When you do this, you decrease reactivity and begin to trust yourself again so that you can appreciate who you are and your own intuition. You develop an improved sense of confidence that allows you to attune to the reality that the addict s behaviors affect you but are in no way, shape, or form because of you. In the initial stages of crisis, demanding obedience might be necessary, but demanding obedience in the long term can sabotage trust rebuilding. Trust should be based on genuine care and commitment, not just following orders. Here are three important boundaries to consider for rebuilding trust in your marriage. These two different reactions to addiction illustrate that not all recovery is created equal. Unfortunately, most laypeople do not know what sexual addiction is much less how to deal with it if it affects them or others they know. Although sexual addiction has received some high-profile exposure with movies such as Don Jon and celebrities Tiger Woods and David Duchovny revealing that they are addicted to sex, the issue still remains foreign to most.