Sexual Addiction

Dear Victor,

I've been hearing about sexual addiction in the media lately. Frankly, it sounds suspiciously like a justification for bad behavior. The fact is that sex has been a problem for centuries. What's the truth behind what people refer to today as sexual addiction?

Jerrilynn R. - Thunder Bay, ON

Dear Jerrilynn,

I think there are legitimate reasons to believe in the actual addiction of anyone to anything that changes the way they feel. We speak of addiction to alcohol, drugs, gambling, shopping, relationships, TV, Internet gaming and many other things. In that context, sexual addiction looks as legitimate as any of the other things that people supposedly get addicted to.

Like all other addictions, sexual addiction has as its core a spiritual hole that we try to fill with something ungodly. It was meant to be filled by God. Moreover, this core is rooted in character defects - which manifest themselves as sin in the addiction process. So, for example, someone who is addicted to shopping will find that greed (at a minimum) lies beneath that addiction. Other sins may lie under it as well. Perhaps a false belief that material things can make you feel better or actually make you be better would be one of them.

Wikipedia, the on-line encyclopedia, has a good post on sexual addiction. The first paragraph really portrays the controversy. (See it at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_addiction.) But like any other addiction, I would caution you to separate the sin from the sinner. People who struggle with an addiction should be treated with compassion - and encouraged to engage in the spiritual war that's going on inside of them.