BY ROBERT WEISS

While texting his mistress “not to call his house” at the very same time he was home fighting with his wife about infidelity, Tiger Woods demonstrated how impossible it is to understand and heal from sexual addition today without understanding what effect Smartphones and social networks have on those who struggle with compulsive and impulsive patterns of sexual behavior.

THE BASIC ISSUE
As the speed of access and connection to sexual content increases, so does the problem.

Over the many millennia it has taken for the brains, relationships, morality and ethics of mankind to develop, our sexual experience was basically limited to art, intimate partnering, cheating, imagination or self-stimulation. Yet in a period of little more than 100 years we have arrived at the point of near instant entry to explicit imagery and sexual partnering (for cash or free). And while most people have the ability to limit their involvement to the occasional or casual encounter and are therefore relatively unaffected, there are those with similar emotional and psychological limitations to people with drug addictions, for whom this tricky combination has created a nightmare web of intrigue, secrecy, compulsion and broken relationships. We call these people sex addicts.

The faster and more readily you can access sexual content, experiences and partners, the easier it is to get into personal or professional trouble. As sexual content and casual sex becomes increasingly immediate and anonymous, there also appears to be a marked increase in the numbers of psychologically distressed people (and their spouses) seeking help for days and nights lost to a secretive and often desperate search for romantic and sexual connection. While most of us find comfort, even fascination in our increasing interconnectivity, sexual addicts like all addicted persons, are capable of turning technological advancement into the kind of personal nightmare from which they have little power to escape and few places to turn for help.

THERE’S AN ‘APP’ FOR THAT
Today, sitting in the food-court of a large suburban mall or a city coffee shop with free Wi-Fi, Smartphone in hand, I can as easily find a man/woman within five blocks or five miles who wants to have casual sex (paid or unpaid) as I can find a reasonably priced Italian restaurant. My Smartphone doesn’t differentiate between a search for nearby prostitutes, affair-partners or a local bargain on hair care. Whomever I want or need nearby, with GPS on my phone, I can find it. By clicking on a phone sex application and choosing my gender of interest, photos and personal details immediately come into view, with their age, type of sex desired, etc., all listed by geographic proximity. All I need do is start a live phone chat to my selected partner and we can then begin to plan our connection.

FACE-HOOKED
Increasing numbers of sexually addicted people and their spouses are seeking treatment not just for problems with porn, prostitution websites or chatrooms, but also for how social networks like Facebook, Myspace, Twitter and the like (where many of us go to catch up on high school friends and follow newsworthy or personal events), are negatively affecting their lives. As our personal selves increasingly become displayed and available online, these sites have become a new destination where increasing numbers of clients report losing hours to cruising Myspace or Facebook, perusing intimate photos, sexual information, hot chat hook-ups and the like. As family life, career and relational intimacy go on without them, those addicted to the pursuit of online partners lose precious time and focus to this fantasy-based obsession.

Fortunately, for those who have recognized their vulnerability to addiction and choose to actively work on it, the new technologies also offer support. Today there are electronic alternatives to a losing-yourself-to-porn-obsession, compulsive masturbation or anonymous sex. All of the 12-step sexual recovery support groups (SA-Sexaholics Anonymous, SAA-Sex Addicts Anonymous, SCA-Sexual Compulsives Anonymous, SLAA-Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous, etc.) now offer not only websites that explain the nature of the problem, along with meeting and phone support lists, but also entrée to chat room-based 12-step meetings, sponsors and social support for recovery. As readily as you can employ the Internet to search for porn and prostitution, you can also find and interact with therapy organizations and individuals skilled in sex addiction treatment, clinicians specifically certified to help guide sexual behavior change and healing. The Internet also offers concrete, specific information about sexual addiction and recovery/healing that would have once been hard to find in libraries, phonebooks or at the doctor, pastor or psychotherapist’s office, even if one had been brave enough to talk about these potentially shameful problems.

‘APPS’ FOR THAT TOO!
As rapidly as the social networks have risen to prominence, so support has evolved for all types of healing through recovery apps (like iPromises or ann-e), programs that offer one-click connection to local 12-step support, meetings and daily inspirational messages, along with the ability to monitor addiction triggers or track sober time. For recovering sex addicts, sexting can be replaced with photos and video of loved ones, those meaningful reminders of why sobriety is important, while Smartphones and GPS can offer a connection to higher levels of accountability to concerned spouses, therapists and sponsors. As our world becomes smaller and more immediate, so fortunately does access to help, guidance and change for those willing to put their time and focus into self-stability, integrity and healing.

Robert Weiss LCSW, CSAT-S is Founding Director of The Sexual Recovery Institute (SRI), Los Angeles, and Director of Sexual Disorders Services for Elements Behavioral Health. He is the author of “Cruise Control,” and co-author of “Untangling the Web” and “Cybersex Exposed,” with Dr. Jennifer Schneider. www.elementsbehavioralhealth.com