Sexual Addiction:Strength/Hope/Recovery

This is a repplay where Carol talks about the criteria for sex addiction

Carol the Coach is going to be interviewing Shane Adamson who will be discussing understanding and healing attachment wounds of loss, betrayal and abandonment and neglect.  He has a desire to start a podcast that will feature complex problems and be inspired by love stories.  As a professional counselor over 25 years, Shane observes what helps and what hurts individuals, marriages and families.  Shane combines clinical experiences and formal training to identify quality content for the listener.  The greatest happiness life has to offer most often comes through connected and loving relationships. The podcast features authors and experts as well as  everyday heroes who have something helpful and inspiring to share about strengthening loving relationships.  Episodes will inspire the listener to do hard things as well as find better ways to live, love and parent.  He explains, "This is a place we get real, tell stories, and are reminded of things that matter most. You, Your Marriage, and Your family has seeds of greatness. Subcribe to get the water, light, and nutrients to grow your greatness. Prime relationships deserve prime time." Get ready to be inspired by this guest!

Today, Carol the Coach will be interviewing Gary and Donna who support RCA a 12 Step Group for Couples in recovery. Find out how you can access this incredible 12 Step format for support!

Carol the Coach will be interviewing Michele Saffier who will be speaking about her work with partners struggling with betrayal trauma.  Discovery forces partners into an existential crisis of self. The choice they are faced with has very little to do with external decisions about their life– divorce, reconciliation, therapy, polygraphs and disclosure, why the betrayer did what they did, etc. There are two paths ahead. The must choose one.                                  The path on the left is the relationship healing journey – individual therapy, partners group, S-Anon, marital therapy, accountability, etc. This path manages the acute crisis yet wellness still depends largley on the “we” and not the “I”.  The path on the right far more difficult; it is a Heroes’ Journey.  They will battle two-headed dragons, angry monsters and, the scariest monster of all, their own dark side (shadow self).  If they hang on for dear life and stay on their journey, they will emerge, like the Phoenix rises from the ashes, transformed.  Death and then rebirth.  Partners must slay their own dragons to transform themselves.  In the spirit of Kintsugi, brokenness is not to be hidden with gorilla glue but rather it is to be celebrated and mended with gold.  She believes that partner should be celebrating the wisdom, beauty and strength in their brokenness.

Money issues and financial distress is all a part of the sexual addiction cycle. Listen as renowned "sex addiction's expert" Debra Kaplan talks about her new audio book which will help to unravel the damage that sexual addiction has contributed towards in the relationship. Debra Kaplan, who wrote For Love and Money: Exploring Sexual and Financial Betrayal in Relationships  turns a provocative, literary lens on the world of sex, money and relational power. For over a decade, Ms. Kaplan has been a licensed psychotherapist treating problem related to sex addiction, money and relationships. Join us for a provocative exploration into relationships about sex, money and power.

Today, Carol the Coach interviews Gary Owens who is the male spouse of a female sex addict. He has written a book titled The Betrayed Husband’s Survival Guide as a way to tell his story and to help other men who find themselves in the battle of their lives. Being the partner of an addict is difficult, especially in the early days of recovery. And being a man whose wife betrayed him can be a blow to ones masculinity. Gary shares some of the things which have helped him find the road to his own ongoing recovery of self.

Sex addiction is a common occurance in the military, Lauren Rich explains, "ography is a huge problem. Excluding military sexual assault in this discussion ography and infidelity are an infinite battle. You have to remember that we’re talking majority men, minority women and that they are young, testosterone filled males who look to ography as a way to escape, feel good, and meet sexual needs. There’s little to no shame of doing this while enlisted, when they discharge and get married is when it can become an issue. Many stop use by this time but others struggle greatly." Today, she will explain what resources are available to the men who are serving our country.

It is so important to recognize how the proper sleep can help sex addicts with thier urges, cravings and triggers. And for the partner, the proper sllep insures more stress management including less triggers and more emotional regulation.Listen as sleep specialist Laura Childers reminds us how important sleep really in the management of trauma and good mental health.

Betrayal Trauma can feel different for male partners Their greatest wounding is to believe that nothing that they experienced with their significant other was real. They experience an out-of-the-blue grief response to the sudden loss of what they thought was their life and they have nowhere to turn because that there are very few resources for male partners. Our guest today, Sibylle Georgianna has written a book for male partners to offer that support and she wants male partners to know that at some point they need to mourn the relationship they thought they had. She knows that reactions such as anger, sadness, numbness or craving to go out and cheat yourself show the humongous loss. The betrayal wound causes you to no longer trust your significant other and yourself. In her book she says: "You have many questions: Was my relationship with the one who betrayed me an illusion? What’s my sense of reality that I did not see the dual life of the one who betrayed me sooner? How could I have entrusted myself and my family to a person I did not know? You have been wounded on so many levels. I would like to repeat: betrayal trauma is not your fault. " Listen as she talks about why she believes that it is so hard for male partners to ask for help!

Today, Carol the Coach will be interviewing Latina Griffin, LCSW, CCTP, CCPS about the benefits of working collaboratively with  professionals who are skilled at understanding sex addiction. She encourages clients to find clinics who can offer partner sensitive services and also have professionals who who can provide the needed umbrella of services to assist sex addicts in their healing and restore the coupleship. She has discovered there is significant benefit to her clients individually as well as healing in the relationship to work with a CSAT. She wants to educate our listeners as to the many advantages to to having an area or a clinic who can work together for the sake of the client.