When recovering from sex addiction, it’s important to remember that you’re trying to overcome habitual behaviours you adopted in order to help you cope with life. Unfortunately, this means that a full recovery will take time.
Recovery from sex addiction – how long does it take?
Many experts say that sex addiction recovery can take anything from two to five years – this will of course vary from person to person and will depend on many factors including:
- What the underlying cause of your addiction is and whether or not this has been established
- If you’re seeing a counsellor
- Whether you’re willing to change your behaviour. For example, you continue to drink even though you often feel tempted to relapse when drunk.
- The effort you put into your recovery
- If you have a good support network
The different stages of sexual addiction treatment
The Crisis/Decision Stage (1 day to 3 months)
Arguably the most difficult part of your recovery, the crisis or decision-making stage involves coming clean to others about your addiction, irrespective of the consequences.
The Grief Stage (6 months)
Sadly, many people who suffer from sex addiction will have lost things they truly cared about before they receive help. There are many things you may be grieving in this time including:
- The loss of a job, partner, friends or family members
- The exposure of the cause of your addiction – this may be childhood trauma, sexual abuse, parental neglect or other types of abuse
- The loss of the image of the person who abused you. It is now you will accept that this person was an abuser and not a friend, parent or mentor
- Even though you want to get help, it’s perfectly normal to grieve the loss of your addiction in the beginning stage
The Shock Stage (6 to 8 months)
As you start to face the reality of your addiction and the behaviours you’ve participated it, you’re likely to start experiencing some form of shock. This can take form in many ways and the feelings you experience may include:
- Loss, separation, disbelief or numbness
- An inability to focus, feeling disorientated or ambivalence
- Withdrawal symptoms
- Hopelessness and despair
- Anger over having a therapist, partner or family member set boundaries or have a say in your decision-making powers
- Relief that the truth about your addiction is out in the open
The Developing Stage (up to 2 years)
Within the first two years of dealing with sex addiction, you’re in the developing stage. At this point you should:
- Be willing to admit you have a problem and want to change
- Have a trusted counsellor you have regular therapy sessions with
- Develop an understanding of your addiction and what caused it
- Have learned how to stop acting out with sexually compulsive behaviours
- Have a relapse-prevention plan in place
- Know what to do should you relapse
- Start to understand how to overcome sex addiction
The Repair Stage (18 to 36 months)
The repair stage is one of the more positive aspects of the <strong>sex addiction recovery timeline</strong>. This is when you will really start to notice positive changes in your mindset and behaviour. By now you will:
- Be leaving behind feelings of pain and loss and will start to focus on forgiveness and repair
- Change long-held beliefs and develop healthy new ones
- Have accepted responsibility for your actions
- Be able to form stronger bonds with others through the ability to feel empathy and intimacy
- Be making more of an effort to follow instructions, respond to requests, show up on time for appointments and accept when you might be wrong about something
The Growth Stage (2 plus years)
From here onwards, you will continue to grow and achieve balance in your life. You will:
- Develop a greater sense of self
- Be able to achieve non-sexual forms of self-satisfaction
- Be emotionally available to the people you care about
- Have compassion for yourself and others
- Develop trust in all areas of your life
It is important to recognize that with effective addiction treatment and a true commitment to wellness, you will start seeing positive changes early on. The time frames mentioned in this post are meant to give you a general idea of how things should develop overall in your treatment. They are not meant to imply that you will not see any “repair stage” items in the “grief stage” for example.
If you would like to speak to a sex addiction counsellor in Toronto, please feel free to contact us and we will be more than happy to help.
