AVR-The Empathy Formula Practicing the A in AVR requires that you acknowledge the situation and accompanying pain. At first it can seem counterintuitive to bring up the damage your addiction has caused her. She wants to know that you remember her pain is a result of your actions. It assures her that you have not forgotten, nor are you in denial. Addicts learn from other recovering addicts what healthy sexual behaviour is and what it is not. Without help to address the underlying causes that drive sexual addiction, sexual addicts are only able to stop acting out temporarily, and that only because of an enormous amount of willpower. Eventually willpower alone is not enough. Family, finances, work, community activities the list can go on and on. This individual universe is managed in the same way as the solar system, where whatever we place at the center will direct and orientate everything around it. So we need to ask: What is at the center of our universe? For many it is family, job, or finances. Why doesn t treatment work for me? Is there any change possible for me in the future? Existing Client The feeling expressed in this letter is familiar to what I am seeing in my clinical practice day in and day out when dealing with sex and porn addiction. Pornography eats away at the inner soul. After one views it (usually in secrecy and isolation), it leaves them with absolute misery and despair. We can look at the navigation of needs in several stages. As I break it down, think about which part may be most difficult for you. Step 1: The first step is to identify that you have a need. Often, it is easier to notice and think about others what they are doing, not doing, what we don t like about them, etc. International trauma expert Peter Levine explains that when we are confronted by a situation that our brain experiences as frightening, we automatically go into a freeze response. We are thrust into a primal survival strategy commonly referred to as being like a deer in headlights. It is the state of being beside yourself.