Sexual Addiction:Strength/Hope/Recovery

Abandonment in childhood effects self esteem and often contributes to the issues of sexual addiction. Tonight I will be interviewing Mark Smith Director of Family Tree Counseling who has written an e-book called MANAGING ABANDONMENT ISSUES THROUGH RECOVERY. He will discuss what you can do to resolve and reprocess the aftershock of abandonment and what you can do if your abandonment issues are feeding your addiction. Sexual Addiction is a disorder that requires strategies to assist you in maintaining recovery. This show is to help you access the books, the experts and the people who are managing recovery with The 12 Step Program and Patrick Carnes Recovery Task Model that reinforces the steps you need to take to manage your recovery and take your life through the journey so that you not only conquer the "Addict" but develop into the person you were meant to be! Carol the Coach is a Certified Sexual Addictions Therapist who is ready to take you on the journey and expose you to the experts who will guide you through the steps.

As a Sex Addict, can you love yourself despite the fact that you have an addiction. Today, Carol the Coach will be interviewing Jace Downey who looks at sex addiction with an unusual perspective about the reason for your addiction. Jace explains that with addiction reaching epidemic levels, we are seeing a revolution in the recovery sphere, a whole-person holistic approach to healing. Yet, we risk the unnecessary suffering of countless people if we set the foundation wrong. In her work with people recovering from sex addiction, Jace Downey, founder of You Got This! Recovery discovered a core theme across all demographics - the belief that we are not enough to be loved, just as we are. This intrinsic, inescapable need for acceptance, connection, for love is at the root of addiction as well as the solution for it. How can we expect to eradicate addiction in a system that reenforces the very beliefs that cause it?   Jace and her clients have experienced freedom from addiction through a radical twist to the recovery process - starting from the foundation that there is nothing wrong with you.

Being betrayed by someone you trusted is beyond painful! It’s a tsunami of emotions that are terrifying and out of our control. And those close to us may misguide us, well-intentioned as they might be. So it’s critical to have some professional guidance to help us ride the waves in a healthy way. You didn’t ask for it, and it might feel really unfair to be called upon to do the work to heal, but your healing is paramount for your own well-being. It will also allow you to rebuild trust within yourself, which can often get shattered, especially when our feelings become unmanageable. Today, Carol will be interviwing Rebecca Rosenblat PhD,who specializes in sex addiction and  partner betrayal. Her background is in understanding how loving an addict can cause trauma.

Are you someone who constantly struggles with  someone who is too clingy or too detached. Often times in sexual addiction, there is one partner who tends to be love avoidant and one partner who is love addicted. This can be a frustrating issue for each partner which invariably keeps each person from getting their needs met.Ben Galloway has worked in the field of Addiction and Trauma Treatmen since 1989. Ben is the owner and director of Enchantment Workshops and agency that customizes intensives and workshops for individual's couples and families who suffer from the effects of Trauma and Addiction. He is going to be helping us to understand how relationships are formed and how co-dependency can result from unhealthy relationships where trauma has occured. He will be giving concrete tools that promote recovery and improve and restore healthy relationships.

Your sexual addiction has devestated her. Her self esteem has been devestated and she does not know how to compensate for what she thinks that you need.Professionals see the daily devestateion but don't know how to help and today Rochelle has developed a course to reignitght that sense of appeal. Her topic is a new program that she is offering called Your Big Sexy Comeback for women who are moving on after betrayal and ready to (maybe) explore what dating, love, sex and intimacy mean for them now.  These are women who have done a lot of healing and are ready to really start experiencing what it means to thrive. Even if you question if you are ready, know that you deserve to have that energy back!

In this podcast, Carol the Coach and Dr. Jill Manning discuss the power of affirmations and how to effectively utilize affirmations in relational trauma healing work. Affirmations can sometimes be dismissed as simply "happy thoughts" or "nice statements," but when affirmations are truly understood and practiced, they can powerfully interrupt shaming or distorted thinking patterns and nurture physical, emotional, and relational health. Practical resources, ideas, and research-based information will be shared throughout this engaging discussion.

We are all products of the messages we receive in our lives. None of these messages are as powerful as those we receive in childhood. Tom Gagliano focuses on the messages given to us in childhood, verbal and non-verbal, and how they impact the roles one grows up to play and the ways these roles affect one’s intimate relationships. He discusses the steps to identify the roles one plays in order to grow as a person will be outlined, as well as the ‘People Pleaser’ and ‘Caretaker’ roles. The challenges associated with these roles, as well as ways to overcome these challenges, will be discussed.

Sex Addiction can appear so entitled. That is the very nature of addiction and so entitlement and self absorbtion keeps the addict alive. Listen as Carol the Coach explores the fundamental maladaptivecoping style that keeps addiction alive.

Sex addiction is an illness where the addict uses sex to self-medicate, to cope with overwhelming emotions. It’s about disconnection, not finding a more attractive partner. But often, partners fear just that, as the movie plays in their heads with more attractive partners acting in more sensual ways, which can make them feel unattractive and disconnected from their own sexuality. It’s hard enough as is, with the images that media projects as sexy, since the reality is that sexiness isn’t about what we look like, it’s about the attitude we have towards how we look – something that can fail us when our mindset is preoccupied with erroneous fears. This episode will focus on getting your groove back, and reclaiming your sensuality, versus giving the addiction the power to define it. As a Certified Sex Addiction Therapist, Rebecca Rosenblat is sensitive to the struggles of a partner. As a Clinical Sexologist, she’s aware of sexual challenges, including how we feel about ourselves. Rebecca will combine those two aspects of her training to help with the discussion.Reclaiming Your Sexuality.

Today, Carol the Coach is interviewing Laney Knowlton who has worked in the field of sex addiction for over a decade years. She has  developed a model for couples called Coupled Recovery. It uses similarities between the trauma cycle and the addiction cycle to create a common language for addicts and partners, creating a foundation for connection throughout recovery, which starts with emotional safety. This approach is meant to be used in conjunction with individual recovery work. Current models in the field tend to focus on either the addict or the partner. The differences between approaches can make it difficult for partners to see if addicts are working towards recovery, understand the work they are doing, and feel safe in recovery. At the same time, the work that partners do to heal themselves and the relationship is not seen and understood by the addict, and sometimes even left out of the recovery process, making it much more difficult for partners to heal.