This practical guide helps spouses to understand what drives sexual addiction and how to find healing after betrayal. When Jason Martinkus confessed his infidelity to his wife, Shelley, she wasn’t sure she could ever trust him again. Together they began a difficult but redemptive journey of understanding sexual addiction. In this book, Jason and Shelley join Stephen Arterburn to address the following: What sexual addiction is and how to know if someone is addicted How to understand the roller coaster of post betrayal emotions Guidance in developing boundaries What to do if a spouse doesn’t want to recover This is a valuable resource for anyone who loves someone addicted to sex or pornography.

With the revised information and up-to-date research, Out of the Shadows is the premier work on sex addiction, written by a pioneer in its treatment. Sex is at the core of our identities. And when it becomes a compulsion, it can unravel our lives. Out of the Shadows is the premier work on this disorder, written by a pioneer in its treatment. Revised and updated to include the latest research--and to address the exploding phenomenon of cybersex addiction--this third edition identifies the danger signs, explains the dynamics, and describes the consequences of sexual addiction and dependency. With practical wisdom and spiritual clarity, it points the way out of the shadows of sexual compulsion and back into the light and fullness of life.

2. What is a Sex and Love Addiction? Definition of Addiction, The High, Tolerance, Dependence, Craving, Withdrawal, Obsession, Compulsion, Secrecy, Personality Change, Getting It All Together: Diagnostic Criteria. 3. The Disease Concept of Addictions: Competing Theories of Addictions, The Disease Model of Addiction, The Disease of Sex and Love Addiction, Severity of Sex and Love Addictions. 4. Short-Term Treatment and Recovery: Twelve-Step Programs - H.O.W., Bottom Lines and Triggers, Secrecy, Why Me?, Masks and Attitudes, Relapse and Relapse Prevention. 5. Long-Term Treatment and Recovery: Self-Affirmation, Support Systems, Families, Boundaries, Nurturing and Discipline, PTSD, Healthy Intimacy.

This compassionate and helpful book educates both the mind and heart in the power of addiction and the way to help others find healing. When a family member or friend is addicted to drugs or alcohol the situation can feel hopeless and confusing. In this book, David Stoop and Stephen Arterburn help readers develop a plan of action by offering: • Insight into brain chemistry and addiction • Real-life ideas for encouraging healthy choices • Guidance in how to help without enabling • The connection between depression, ADD, and trauma Stoop and Arterburn have helped thousands of people around the country understand chemical addiction and how to love someone well in the midst of this gripping disease.

If someone you love is depressed, you probably feel confused, angry, and helpless. This encouraging guide will help you hold on to hope while broadening your understanding of depression and its treatment. Dr. Brenda Hunter has been a caregiver for someone with depression and has also struggled with depression herself. With empathy, real-life stories, and clinical expertise, Brenda teams up with Stephen Arterburn to explore: The multiple causes of depression How men and women react to depression differently The influence of social media and technology on depression The unique challenges of depression in adolescence How to take care of yourself while caring for someone who is depressed Brenda and Steve know from personal experience that light can overcome the darkness of depression. You can get back the person you love. Learn how to care for both of you in this hope-filled book.

You Can Win Her Back Few challenges in life are as difficult as regaining a wife’s trust—and few are as ultimately worthwhile. Trust can be rebuilt in your marriage! With patient, loving, self-sacrificing effort, it’s possible that one day your wife will risk her heart with you again. And she may even have more respect and love for you than before. In Worthy of Her Trust, Jason Martinkus relates how he repaired his own marriage after revelations of sexual addiction. Along with Stephen Arterburn, Jason offers exercises and tools rooted in counseling principles to help your marriage begin again. This comprehensive guide discusses: · How to be truly and effectively transparent · Combating the “he must not love me” myth and other untruths · What to do about the Internet, office temptations, and travel · Encouragement for wives who wonder if trust can ever be restored · The “five-minute phone call” and other daily trust-building strategies · What meaningful forgiveness and restitution look like · The Amends Matrix—a concrete exercise to admit past wrongs and cast a vision for a faithful future Including insights from Jason’s wife, Shelley, Worthy of Her Trust guides you through the process of rebuilding your relationship so it is stronger than ever.

Everyone makes mistakes in relationships at one time or another. Sometimes they learn from those mistakes. Other times, they return to those behaviors and cycle through failed relationship after failed relationship. Sometimes those behaviors become an addiction to love that may leave a person feeling unhappy, unfulfilled, lonely, or worse. Lesbian Love Addiction: Understanding the Urge to Merge and How to Heal When Things go Wrong makes visible the elements of love addiction that many lesbians suffer from. Love addiction for lesbians comes in many forms. Some struggle by sexually acting out and others are serial relationship junkies, jumping from one relationship into the next. Some are addicted to the high of falling in love and once that wears off don’t know how to handle the day-to-day realities of a committed relationship. Some are even addicted to fantasy and intrigue, while others are love avoidants and sexual anorexics. Love avoidants may be able to get into a relationship but once they are fully committed, struggle with feeling smothered. Others may avoid intimate or sexual relationships all together, becoming sexually anorexic. Some may even vacillate between all of these. The underlying component and common denominator in all of these scenarios is the “Urge to Merge.” Lesbian Love Addiction is designed to help ameliorate at least part of this problem. Lauren D. Costine offers insight for lesbians, bisexual women in relationships with women, queer women, and more specifically, any woman who loves women, as well as their family and friends, and health care professionals, into the psychology of lesbian love addiction. It will give those who struggle with and suffer from love addiction ways to understand, cope, and heal from this debilitating addiction. It will give those who work with this population new tools to use to do this more effectively. Mostly, it will help lesbians understand their relationship failures and how to heal from problems associated with them, so they may grow and cultivate happier, more fulfilling connections in the future.

Like other psychiatric disorders, sexual addiction is a condition that affects peoples' relationships with others as much as it affects their own mental state. Individuals suffering from sexual addiction typically pursue sex through any means possible and often engage in risky forms of sexual activity such as exhibitionism, promiscuous sex with multiple partners, online sex, etc. It's easy to see how a couple's relationship may be challenged by the manifestations and reality of a disorder like this one. A Couple's Guide to Sexual Addiction discusses common relationship issues within the context of sexual addiction and provides the reader with exercises, information, and advice on the following topics: Trust Communication Healthy sexuality & sexual behaviors Family By understanding the reality of sexual addiction and what it means for a relationship, couples will be able to better relate to each other and plan for a successful future.

When your partner betrays, what are the first steps to picking up the pieces of your shattered heart? Many unsuspecting people wake up every day to discover their loved one, the one person whom they are supposed to trust completely, has been living a life of lies and deceit because they suffer from a disease-sex addiction. This is a disease shrouded in secrecy and shame. This is your go-to-guide for what to do when you discover your partner is a sex addict. Each chapter is based on frequently asked questions by partners such as: Should I Stay or Should I Go? Is This Going to Get Better? How Do I Set Boundaries and Keep Myself Safe? and What Should I Tell the Kids?

The number of affordable, easy links to pleasurable sexual online content is on the rise. Activity increases with the accessibility of technology. So, too, has sex addiction. People struggling with sex, porn, and love addiction typically have little understanding of this incredibly complicated disease. Sex Addiction 101 covers everything from what sexual addiction is and how it can best be treated, to how it affects various subgroups of the population such as women, gays, and teenagers. The book also provides sex addicts with strategies to protect themselves from the online sexual onslaught. Sex Addiction 101 is intended to enlighten the clinical population as well as actual sex addicts and their loved ones. Along with his mentor Patrick Carnes, Weiss has become the face of and driving force behind understanding and treating sex addiction; this book should be a core title in every addiction collection.