Читать книгу Real Hope, True Freedom - Milton S Magness - Страница 10

INTRODUCTION

The Canadian Rockies are filled with some of the most breathtaking beauty in the world. I spend as much time as possible here, enjoying multiple sports year round. At the same time, winters at my Canadian home can be dangerously cold and bleak.

There are times when the temperature plunges to minus thirty degrees or even colder. Snow comes a foot or more at a time. Nights are long and the days may be as brief as eight hours or less. Many of our friends suffer months-long depression every winter as they battle seasonal affective disorder (SAD) due to the lack of sunlight.

When the temperature plunges, simple errands outside can become life threatening. Going to the grocery story demands planning and multiple layers of clothing to remain healthy. Floors are covered in grit tracked in by snow boots, and mudrooms are littered with all manner of footwear and more coats than will comfortably fit.

In the midst of some of the harshest weather, there is a beautiful phenomenon. When the temperature plunges, the accumulated snow compacts forming transparent crystals. These crystals cover the snowfields but are invisible in low light conditions. However, when the sun comes out, the snow shimmers like it is studded with diamonds. The temperature may still be extremely cold and there may yet be several more months of harsh weather ahead, but the glimpse of diamonds in the snow brightens an otherwise unremarkable day. The glistening crystals are one of the most beautiful sites during winter.

Sex addiction is a condition that has decimated countless lives and destroyed many families. The path of destruction caused by sex addicts is mind-numbing. This book takes a frank look at sex addiction and the devastation it causes. We look at the tremendous damage sex addicts cause to others, especially to their partners. This is also a book of hope. In the midst of the destruction, some individuals and some couples find their way out and get their lives back on track, finding new life, new hope, and renewed relationships on the other side of addiction.

To be fair, we do not know how many sex addicts and partners do well after recovery. There are no statistics to indicate how many marriages survive sex addiction. Certainly, many sex addicts never stop acting out, many partners never fully heal from the trauma caused by their partners’ sex addiction, and many marriages end as a result of sex addiction.

However, we do know there are sex addicts that become fully healthy. They stop all of their acting out and change their other problematic and unhealthy behaviors. Though sex addiction will remain with them throughout life, they are able to regain much of what they lost as a result of their active addiction and live in integrity.

There are also partners that find true healing after the trauma of being in a relationship with a sex addict. Some of these partners are still in that relationship and others have moved on in their lives without their sexually addicted spouse. The healing journey often takes years but can happen through diligent work.

We have had the privilege of working with couples whose relationships survived sex addiction. These fortunate couples often find that their relationships are better after recovery from sex addiction than they ever were before the discovery of sexual acting out. Although this is far from the norm, their stories are important, and a number of them are included at the end of this book. Although this book does not try to soften the impact of sex addiction, it is our hope that while reading it, you will glimpse some diamonds in the snow.

The working title for this book was “Why Did He Do It? Why Can’t She Get Over It?” These questions are at the nexus of understanding and coping with sex addiction. Sex addiction is real. It is not something dreamed up by Hollywood to help celebrities dodge responsibility for their inappropriate actions or to explain a lapse in judgment. Sex addiction is not just liking sex or even just liking sex a lot. This has nothing to do with sex drive, libido, or hormones.

Sex addiction is a debilitating disorder that conservatively affects 3–6 percent of the population. It is epidemic in America. That figure is based on those who have sought treatment in the USA for sex addiction. When you add to this number the partners/spouses and children of sex addicts, the number of people whose lives are directly impacted by sex addiction reaches as high as 30 million!

Since most sex addicts are men, this book speaks of addicts in the masculine and partners of sex addicts in the feminine. However, women can also be addicted to sex. Regardless of gender, this book gives direction to addicts, their partners, and those who love them.

This book is written in part to address frequently asked questions (FAQ) that have been supplied by others—primarily sex addicts and their partners. These questions were generated by more than 270 people who completed questionnaires sent to those who signed up for the Hope & Freedom newsletter and via links posted on several websites. These respondents contributed over 4,000 questions. In part, because there are so many questions and concerns shared by people exposed to sex addiction, quite a few of these questions were similar in nature. Approximately 190 of them are directly addressed in this book.

Many of these questions are posed and answered directly throughout this book, and many more are addressed within the narrative. Most of the remaining questions that were contributed on the questionnaires are duplicates of, or similar to, other questions already asked. Appendix A: Finding Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) and Answers at a Glance will allow you to prioritize the areas and questions that are of greatest immediate interest to you and give you the opportunity to focus on other areas later.

I am very pleased to have Marsha Means as my coauthor for this book. Marsha’s outstanding work with wounded partners of sex addicts has brought hope to many women who did not know where to turn. She and I have worked collaboratively with many clients over the past decade. The insights she contributes to this book further help partners navigate the stormy waters of healing and show them how to move from wounded to healthy, from pain to joy, and from fearful to hopeful.

Some of the time when Marsha and I use the pronoun “I” for the sake of clarity, we will insert our name in parentheses. In those cases, we are relating our own experiences or our own point of view. The “we” pronoun indicates either collaborative writing or a point of view that we share.

This book is the fourth in the Hope & Freedom Series. It is my firm belief that sex addiction is not only treatable, but that sex addicts can live free from all acting-out behaviors—forever. It is also possible for relationships that have been badly damaged by sex addiction to heal and be completely restored. I have the privilege of working with couples each week, many of whom had previously given up on their relationships. Through the hard work of recovery by both partners, these couples have been able to rebuild their relationships.

Hope can be yours today. Freedom comes only through persistent, unrelenting recovery.

Milton S. Magness