/ 5 February 2010

Rising addiction

The number of sex addicts is increasing, but it's still not recognised as a real illness by government. Ilham Rawoot reports.

‘I’ve been a sex addict since I was eight,” says Chris Stephens*, coordinator of Sex Addicts Anonymous. “I’ve been married twice and engaged 10 times. I’ve left a trail of destruction.”

This week ACDP leader Kenneth Meshoe suggested President Jacob Zuma was a sex addict after the disclosure of his affair with Sonono Khoza. Actors David Duchovny and Michael Douglas and golfer Tiger Woods have admitted sex addiction.

Although some feel it is a cop-out for promiscuity, recovering addicts and psychologists insist it should be recognised as a real illness.

The law disagrees. The Prevention of and Treatment for Substance Abuse Act recognises only substance dependency. Warren Whitfield, recovering sex addict and chief executive of the Addiction Action Campaign, is lobbying for the act to be amended to recognise sex addiction, which will allow for treatment at public health facilities.

Six weeks’ treatment at Johannesburg’s Houghton House, a private institution, costs a cool R40 000.

Said Kenneth Wilson, psychologist and founder of Cleanstart Wellness, which offers therapy for sex and other addictions: “It’s a disease. It fulfils all three criteria — it gets progressively worse, can be physically harmful and responds to treatment.

“For addicts the pursuit of sexual satisfaction, or an erotic moment, is the governing force in their life,” said Stephens. “They take great personal risks to pursue that behaviour.”

Manifestations include frequent affairs, compulsive consumption of pornography, voyeurism and compulsive masturbation. Specialists say addicts often have deep-seated feelings of low self-worth, unattractiveness and lack of belonging.

“The underlying causes often have to do with very early childhood anxiety,” said clinical psychologist Suzanne Hotz. “Tiger [Woods] was drilled to become a golfer — he’d feel unloved unless he was performing. When he wins a Masters, he has this fleeting moment of success and then feels deflated. He’ll turn to women for affirmation.”

Analysing his own condition, Whitfield said his mother was emotionally distant. “When I saw other kids with affectionate mothers, I wondered why I wasn’t getting that love. My parents were separated but lived together; I never saw them flirt or show affection. I find it impossible to know when a woman finds me attractive. I saw myself as unattractive and inadequate.”

Whitfield’s first sexual experience was with a prostitute at the age of 17. “That became my reality. Most of the sex I’ve had was with prostitutes.”

Pornography is another cause. “When your model is porn, and the person you’re with doesn’t respond like that, you keep trying to make your fantasy happen. It’s a self-worth issue.”

Stephens said 85% of sex addicts were physically or psychologically abused as children. Men make up 80% of the sufferers he sees at Sex Addicts Anonymous. Lauryl Lorio, a Houghton House addictions counsellor, said that in the past year just 10% of patients were women.

But she said: “More men are honest and seek help. For women there’s a lot more shame.” Most of her patients are in their 50s and have had multiple marriages.

A growing number of centres are offering sex addiction therapy. Wilson said that Cleanstart Wellness has a 12-step programme, drawn from Alcoholics Anonymous, and sessions with a psychologist and psychiatrist.

Houghton House has a four-month programme, or intensive in-patient six-week therapy followed by 12 weeks when patients can leave the centre for two hours a day. Lorio said birth control pills were often prescribed to reduce men’s sex drive. Anti-depressants are also prescribed when needed.

But recovery is tricky, said Stephens. “You recover from alcoholism by stopping drinking,” he said. “But sex addicts can’t have no sex at all — sexual anorexia is also a disorder. Each sex addict has to define his or her boundaries.”

* Not his real name