They develop the ability to share their truths, including feelings of pain, sadness or ambiguity. And they learn that a relationship is something to value but not something they need to survive or to feel good about themselves. A recovering addict who has accomplished these things and desires a healthy relationship may consider some factors for further readiness. In my work with sex offenders, I often used the term transitory guilt, which is a short-lived guilt that is very intense in nature and not manageable to carry around in one s mind, to describe the offensive cycle of behavior. A myriad of thinking errors or cognitive distortions are used to decrease and eventually eliminate the guilt, thus putting the offender in a position to reoffend. This allows the betrayal trauma response to calm as you gain the ability to be present with the natural normal distress resulting from the discovery that the addict has betrayed them. Your reactivity decreases and your distress acceptance takes the charge out of the fear equation. The secondary gain is that you begin to apply this constructively compassionate mindset to others as well. Carnes aptly refers to this as the hijacked brain. Once the brain is hijacked, the downward spiral of craving more and more dopamine affects higher-level thinking and reasoning. Let the healing begin Healing for the betrayed partner begins with a formal disclosure process, ideally guided by certified sex addiction therapists. While the first few months of sexual recovery does require somewhat rigid boundaries, it is essential to help addicts negotiate the line between healthy sexual recovery and a healthy nurturing of self. Despite the negative consequences caused by their addiction, recovering addicts need to find ways to love and value the addiction. The five components to treatment According to Mark Laaser,1 author and recovering sex addict, there are five components to treatment and recovery for sexual addiction. They are: Stopping sexual behaviours Stopping rituals Stopping fantasy Healing despair Healing shame. Stopping sexual behaviours Admitting there's a problem is the first step to coming out of denial.