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. Unable to withstand the mental obsession and physical temptations, addicts return to their addictive sexual behaviour. So please be patient with him and try to refrain from rejecting him for his empathy statements. You can make this process smoother if you acknowledge his attempts no matter how scripted or feeble. All humans need positive reinforcement, especially when they are working on relational repair. In the new book Help. She was truly an angel, and I wish I remembered her name. My spirits were low, and this was a last-ditch effort to see if we could eliminate pornography from our lives for good. I quickly learned that I could block specific websites and receive weekly accountability emails. For the first time in a long time, I felt some aspect of peace and steadiness coming back into my life. " Replacing Shame The work done that day underscores the importance of relieving the burden of shame from the recovering sex addict. No matter how hurtful the past has been or how strong the current desire to act is, the addict needs to understand that their behavior came from an attempt to cope with unmanageable circumstances. Those who have made it out of this industry will always know it was destructive and unhealthy. Still, for them to admit it, they have to get out of it first and seek sex addiction treatment. Many who have become involved in the porn world may feel that they are too far gone to get out of it. This isn t true. A secondary gain of mindfulness is that over time, you can learn to be present with the uncertainty, which is a normal response that is manifested out of betrayal trauma in a manner that was not reactive driven. When you learn this, you will not only survive, but thrive because of the self-growth that has occurred because of your trauma.