Looking at the behavioral manifestation and realizing how the behavior shows up is one important aspect when determining if someone is struggling with a sexual addiction. Understanding what drives the behavior is also crucial. Having said that, I am not professing to have a recipe for recognizing someone with a sexual addiction, but there are telltale signs. Many claim that this behavior is normal or mere entertainment because of the chemical brain s power and capacity to shut out the conscience. They don t look for treatment because they feel there is no addiction. The rationalizations and justifications that can come from the brain s survival part are alluring and convincing. The simple answer is that relapse is defined as any sexual activity that falls outside of pre-determined boundaries. Sometimes people in 12-step recovery refer to acts that would constitute a relapse as "bottom-line behaviors". In addition to bottom lines , two other "lines" are helpful to understand. At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked. But there is a twist to this story of healing! At some point later, Jesus finds him in the temple and a follow-up conversation occurs. Jesus says to him, See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you. The Outer & Inner Condition The conditions we are dealing with in our lives may not be paralysis but they can be equally debilitating and threatening. Why Full Disclosure is Important Mark & Debbie Laaser Faithful and True Ministries Speak the truth to each other. (Zec.8:16). At Faithful & True, we encourage truth-telling. We encourage being authentic. We work with many couples for whom there has been lying and covering up of sexual and emotional betrayal. Some counselors would say that spouses are codependent at this point, a term that is defined as: A psychological condition or a relationship in which a person is controlled or manipulated by another who is affected with a pathological condition (as an addiction to alcohol or heroin). Or, more broadly speaking, this can be defined as: Dependence on the needs of or control by another.1 However, while in most addictions the assumption can be made that the partners are co-dependent, or at least the addict s partner had co-dependent behaviors, this is not necessarily so in the case of sex addiction.