Defining Your Sobriety

To establish sobriety, we must first define it.  “Sobriety” – when used in reference to compulsive sexual behavior – is the state of living that is free from the addictive or compulsive behavior. Sexual sobriety is not the same thing as sexual purity … it’s not sexual perfection. It is the ongoing experience of abstaining from unhealthy, addictive sexual behaviors.

Bottom Line Behaviors

In order for recovery to take place from any addiction, there must be some bottom line definition of sobriety.  Alcoholics and drug addicts define sobriety as being the amount of time they have abstained from the use of alcohol or other mind-altering chemicals.  The time away from the use of these substances is the recovering persons’ sobriety time, the date they began this sobriety or the date they entered 12 step group, is used as a sobriety date.   For the recovering sexual addict, sobriety can be more challenging to define.

Sexual sobriety is often defined as a contract that the sexual addict makes between himself, his recovery group, spouse/partner, and/or their therapist/clergy.  These contracts need to be written with clearly defined behaviors from which the sexual addict has committed to abstain in order to define his sobriety.  .

At Front Range Counseling Center, we have trained counselors that specialize in sexual addiction counseling in Denver Colorado and Littleton Colorado.  We can provide direction for your journey of recovery.  Call us today at 303-933-5800 or contact us through the contact page on this website.

The most important component to “establishing sobriety” is that we not only define it, but that we actually start to live it

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Kevin Leapley, MA, LPC, CSAT

Sexual Addiction Therapist at Front Range Counseling Center

Kevin Leapley specializes in both marriage counseling and sexual addiction therapy for men. Kevin has received specialized training by Dr. Patrick Carnes and obtained his CSAT (Certified Sexual Addiction Therapist). Kevin has also received extensive training in Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) and is a certified Emotionally Focused Therapist .

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