The Life-Altering Realities of Sex and Love Addiction

Recovery for deGuzman and Riley came from joining Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous (SLAA). Like Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous, it’s a 12-step group that provides a support system for anyone seeking to control an addiction, though individual therapy can be helpful as well, explains Linda Hudson, the counselor. In particular, she says, addressing sexual trauma from childhood or teenage years may help sex addicts gain perspective on their behavior.

An enormous part of recovery for sex addicts is establishing healthy boundaries. “One of the most important things in the treatment process is learning that you have rights, you have limits, you get to say no,” says Hudson. Sex and relationship addicts can be so accustomed to accepting “crumbs,” as deGuzman put it, that they may not know how to leave a relationship that doesn’t feel good.

There’s also the need to stop sexualizing any kind of nurturing and instead give platonic friendships or professional relationships with the opposite sex room to breathe. Sexualizing every relationship “frequently happens if you don’t have good boundaries and you learn that sex is love,” Hudson explains. “Then you start sexualizing everything—affection or appreciation or admiration turns into sex.”

DeGuzman went to her first SLAA meeting when she was 27, at a friend’s suggestion. “I thought it was bullshit, I thought everyone was crazy there, and I thought I was fine,” she recalls. But three years later, after the suicidal thoughts, she found herself back at the meetings and on a path to recovery.

“The first step for me—which was the hardest and seemed impossible—was to completely withdraw,” she recalls. “So that meant getting out of this relationship with this guy, which took months because I really wasn’t willing to do it.” When deGuzman finally committed to kicking her addiction in January 2015, she still suffered through the physical and emotional pain of withdrawals just like any other addict.

Wrestling control of her sex and love addiction meant going cold turkey from everything she once loved. “I refrained from everything: dating, guys, contacting my ex, flirting, masturbation—which was really hard,” she says. “I went a year off masturbation and then I went like a year and a half without sex. “

No sex—with herself or anyone else—was an eye-opener for deGuzman, who found herself exploring new interests. She became hugely productive as a writer, actress, and YouTube performer. In fact, she penned a screenplay for Unlovable, a film about sex and love addiction, which has raised over $60,000 on Kickstarter and has Patton Oswalt as a producer.

In sobriety, says deGuzman, “I realized I had no idea who I was. I had always just tried to be whoever [the boy I was with] wanted me to be. I had never said no before because I was always so eager to be with any guy who gave me attention.” In March 2016, she introduced a healthy dating plan into her life, and she now carries a list of “red flags” on her phone.

Lee Riley has been sober from cocaine for 29 years and in recovery for sex addiction for about two decades. She currently dates, but has no plans to marry again. For her, the status of sex and love addiction in terms of how it’s viewed by the public is somewhat “like where alcoholism was in the 1950s, or drug addiction was in the 1970s.” That is to say that the addiction is treated as “very shameful, being very mentally ill, being [an] outlier.”

“I think one of the reasons it is such a big deal when an Anthony Weiner is ‘caught’ is because this is a very successful person. He’s not, like, some gutter dweller. This a successful person who is doing these crazy things.”

She adds, “You know what? Lots of successful people are doing these crazy things.”

*Names changed where indicated.

This article is part of Summer of Sex, our 12-week long exploration of how women are having sex in 2017.

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