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For many years prior to Alcoholics Anonymous there was little recovery for those who suffered from alcoholism and other addictions. With the beginning of AA, however, a program of recovery slowly and painstakingly developed that worked for many alcoholics. Over time the principles of AA have been applied to other addictions with significant success. As a result, there are several 12-step programs for sexual addiction and compulsion.
Research about recovery from sexual addiction has indicated that 12-step meetings are important for success. Those who do not attend 12-step meetings have a much more difficult time recovering, if they do at all. In many ways recovery from significant sexual addiction can be more difficult than recovering from some of the other addictions. The heavy prevalence of sexual abuse in the backgrounds of sex addicts is one reason. In addition, sexual addiction fundamentally involves a problem with intimacy, something important for successful recovery.
Twelve-step meetings have been the source of much public attention because they have helped many people. They offer the sex addict a means of social support that helps break isolation and lessen paralyzing feelings of shame. They also offer an opportunity for nonjudgmental accountability that can strengthen ones commitment to recover and to live with more day-to-day honesty and integrity. The meetings have their shortfalls, of course, as surely as do the individuals who attend them. Also, at any one point some meetings are going to be “better” than others. One cannot not expect perfection from meetings. However, individual meetings grow and change over time as do the 12-step organizations themselves.
People sometimes ask about whether both 12-step meetings and psychotherapy are needed, or if one replaces the other. For many sex addicts meetings alone are not going to be adequate for recovery, just as psychotherapy is typically not enough by itself for recovery. Research has indicated that it is important to include a period of psychotherapy with a therapist who is competent working with sexual addiction.
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