Sexual Addiction:Strength/Hope/Recovery

Listen tonight as Carol the Coach interviews recovering couples specialist Claudia Thompson as she discusses how to increase safety, connection and trust through her retreats. Claudia has developed workshops for couples who want to stay together but need the tools to deal with the pain of betrayal. Her mission is to rebuild healthy sexual relationships after betrayal and infedelity has torn it apart.

People are still reeling with the Ashley Madison scandal. If you are a partner ... you probably are wondering how if your partner did that to you and how you can check on it? If you are a sex addict, you may be concerned that this has triggered all the other betrayals that your partner has been through.  Tonight, we will be talking to the Director of the Gratitude Program at Pine Grove as she talks about how Ashley Madison website is effecting our culture and contributing to sexual addiction. 

Carol the Coach will be interviewing a female sex addict who wants to share her hope, strength and recovery with other men and women. She went to rehab and wants to share what tools she has found most helpful in her recovery. She has had several struggles ---- the closest meeting is 2 hours a way and her atheism makes the 12 Step process a different experience. Listen as she shares her story about recovery one day at a time.

Carol the Coach will be interviewing Recovery Coach, Juan, who will be sharing his story, his downfall and his premise that you can avoid the pitfalls of addiction if you overcome victim conciousness and subscribe to a Rules of Living Formula that will take you out of your role as the addict and into your potential as a fully actualized person! Can you imagine your life being free from the compulsion? Well this is the show that is going to take you to the keys of rebuilding your life from the ground up!

Carol the Coach is presenting nationally to audiences who do not know about sexual addiction or how recovery can actialize true human potential. Patrick carnes teaches his therapists that once a client is in good sexual recovery....he or she is ready to take his/her life to the next level....and that is what life is all about!

Carol the Coach will be interviewing Dr. Doug Weiss who has written over 40 books on sexual addiction and teaches clients how to get healthy so that they can pay it forward and coach others to find recovery from sexual addiction! Dr. Doug will be explaining how he got into the field of sexual addiction and how his programming differs from other professionals who treat sexual addiction. Dr. Weiss is an innovator in the field and this interview will demonstrate how much he believes in recovery and what you can do when you work on your recovery so that you can take your life to the next level!  

Carol the Coach interviews Dr. Robert Miller who has developed a protocol that works well with Sex Addicts to decrease or remove the compulsion.  He maintains that the development of the Feeling-State Addiction Protocol actually eliminates the underlying cause of the sex addiction.  He maintains that sex addiction is not about sex and tonight he will educating us about how he works with sex addicts and how that effects future behaviors! He will be discussing how  the goal of most sex addiction therapies is abstinence.  And yet his goal for this therapy  is different makin many people wonder is abstinence necessary?  If sex addicts relapse, will the compulsions start up again? Listen tonight as Dr. Robert Miller talks about how this therapy differs from others out there!

Carol the Coach will be interviewing a listener who has had great difficulty with her husband.  There are many issues this Partne has to talk about and this listener has decided to call Carol the Coach and spend the entire hour in a free coaching session. Join us as we have a frank discussion of how she found out about her husband's sex addiction and why she has made the choice to support him despite the trauma he is brought into her life. Perhaps Sandy's story will be similar to yours. Join us tonight for another open and honest show that will hopefully help the listening audience to understand and empathize with the partner of a sex addict!

Carol the Coach interviews Forest Benedict who is a therapist who specializes in the treatment of sexual addiction. The perspective that guides his work is attachment theory. From this viewpoint, sexual addiction is an attachment or intimacy disorder. When a secure attachment to a caregiver is not developed in early life, a person is more susceptible to addiction. In his book “Addiction as an Attachment Disorder”, Flores states it this way:  “No one ever escapes their need for satisfying relationships, and the degree to which we are unable to form healthy interpersonal intimacy determines the degree to which we are vulnerable to substitute [addiction] for human closeness.”   In this show he explains that when you combine this lack of relational trust with the opportunity for a mood-altering experience, such as using ography,  it becomes a formula for creating a powerful connection with a non-relational entity. Over time, this can become a person’s primary method of relieving stress, soothing sadness, calming anger, and managing other moods.   Looking at addiction through this attachment lens, one of the primary sources of healing is choosing to disconnect from addiction while simultaneously learning to connect in safe relationships. From this standpoint, healing means much more than mere abstinance or “sobriety”. That is why specific, daily exercises as well as other recovery components are recommended for deep, long-term recovery. Listen as Foresrt Benedict shares exercises to get you closer to the intimacy you deserve!  

Listen as Carol the Coach interviews a female sex addict who shares her success and her struggles in the world of sexual addiction. You may wonder if there is a difference for men vs. women when dealing with sexual addiction. Listen as our female addict shares how she has found recovery and what she does to navigate through it. You decide if you think it is the same or different from the world that men face in Sexual Addiction.

There are all sorts of ways to heal the wounds that contribute to sexual addiction. Tonight Carol the Coach will be interviewing Tom Prah who will be speaking about RIM which is a technique and scientific method of re-generating images in memory and re-scripting the experience to heal. RIM initially began as a synthesis of techniques that access the subconscious mind directly-Somatic Therapy, Ericksonian Hypnosis and Interactive Guided Imagery  has continued to expand and evolve. Originally, the acronym RIM stood for Deborah Sandella's Ph.D RN. book Releasing the Inner Magician so it could be conveniently referenced as a research intervention for people suffering with stress relatied illnesses and condition, Her study found that RIM significantly decreased the symptoms of stress-related illness and significantly increases one's quality of life.. As it has evolved into a scientific method, the meaning of RIM has become both: Re-generating Images in Memory and Re-creating the Inner Movie.  Tom has been using this successfully with individuals who suffer from Sexual Addiction.

Carol the Coach will be interviewing Ruby B. Johnson on how we can address the needs of all clients...especially African Americans who have sexual addiction. Ms. Johnson works with all populations and will be talking about how we can be sensitve to the power imbalances. She will be discussing her vision in the  development of collaborative  partnership based on mutual trust and insitutional accountability. Listen as she shares her plan to remove the barriers that impede the inclusivity of the black community.

Carol the Coach will be interviewing Paul Hartman who has 30 years of treating clients and their partners. Paul will be speaking about his double mission. First is helping the addict get sober, stay sober, and progressing to deeper recovery. That includes healing past and present trauma wounds, exploring family of origin issues, accessing emotions that may have been repressed or stuffed, reducing shame, claiming self esteem, and living life as a functional adult. His second mission focuses on the couple. He believes the original relationship wounded by sexual betrayal cannot be healed. Even when both partners want to preserve the relationship, the wounds are too deep and the old relationship must be allowed to die. The good news is that if the addict establishes consistent, relapse free sobriety and the partner chooses to believe that partner is a new person in recovery who is honest and trustworthy, they can create a brand new relationship together. With willingness, help, and hard work over time; the new relationship can be better than anything they have ever had together including going back to a time that predates the addiction.       

Carol the Coach knows that the trauma of betrayal that occurs when loving a sex addict is huge. How do you heal and live with the person who has betrayed you? Listen as Carol the Coach interviews Hope Ray who is an expert in treating partners. She has studied a model called Complex Partner Trauma that helps partners work through the pain of betrayal. This is an opportunity to feel encourageed about living with a Sex Addict and finding the hope to stay true to yourself and deal with the pain of loving a sex addict.

Carol the Coach will be interview Eric Gentry, PhD who is a Board Certified Expert in Traumatic Stress. Eric will be speaking about the hope for addicts, survivors of trauma amd the addicted survivors of trauma. He will be talking about how trauma effects the brain. He also believes that atttachment trauma may be the true cause of most addictions. If you or your paartner has suffered from PTSD, or addiction, you will really benefit from seeing the relationship of addiction and trauma!