Sexual behavior may provide a temporary relief to a person s depressive symptoms. They achieve a dopamine high by engaging in sexual behaviors repetitively. Ultimately this may do more harm than good. Addiction affects dopamine levels in the brain making it difficult to maintain that same intense high. Pornography eats away at the inner soul. After one views it (usually in secrecy and isolation), it leaves them with absolute misery and despair. These feelings prove they are a slave to it; they no longer have control over it. Sexual addiction, like all addictions, steals the mind s freedom and the right to choose. Sometimes the term is used synonymously with sex offender, and although the two terms can certainly coexist, they can also be mutually exclusive. Many people think a sex addict is that creepy-looking person they tend to avoid, the person who is unsuccessful in pursuit of relationships, the social outcast, the person without means and resources, or the person with the corny pickup lines in bars. This article provided some basic information about the concept of what sobriety means in sex addiction. If you're in the Atlanta area and would like more personalized assistance for your own needs, please call me at 404 345-1570, email me at bill@billherring.com or use the contact form on this site. --------- Bill Herring LCSW, CSAT is an Atlanta certified sex addiction therapist (CSAT) and an expert in helping people overcome problematic sexual behaviors that violate their promises, values and/or self-control. Though the therapist promised to help them navigate recovery in the most positive way, he had been labeled too emotionally stuck and sent off to individual therapy with me! It was the therapist that indicated his inability to surrender and heal was holding back recovery. Was this a special case? Sadly no, too often, many betrayed spouses receive this message. It is not only a gift from their husbands, it is really (in our opinion) a moral imperative. No wonder the Bible instructs us to speak truth to each other. I know that as couples seek to heal and transform from the hurts of infidelity, full disclosure is an important part of trust-building. Often a wife learns about unfaithful behaviors through her own accidental discovery or through more intentional detective work.