If you have a sex addiction, you likely lie for many reasons. Maybe you want to downplay the addiction or its severity. Or maybe you’re ashamed and want to keep the addiction secret. But to start the healing journey, you must understand the importance of honesty in recovery.
Whether it means coming clean to loved ones or finally admitting to yourself that you have a problem, honesty is required to start the first steps in healing from sex addiction.
Understanding Sex Addiction
Sex addiction — also known as compulsive sexual behavior or hypersexuality disorder — is an excessive preoccupation with sexual fantasies, urges, or behaviors that you can’t control. It causes severe emotional distress and negatively impacts every part of your life.
A hallmark of sex addiction is that you can’t control these behaviors, even if you try. Many people with sex addiction attempt to stop their negative behaviors repeatedly but are unable to do so without help. Other signs and symptoms of sex addiction include:
- Nonintimate sex with strangers or sex workers
- Compulsive masturbation or porn
- Feeling depressed or shameful about behaviors and inability to control urges
- Avoiding activities that don’t include sexual outlets, including daily responsibilities and social events
- Engaging in risky sexual behaviors such as voyeurism, exhibitionism, or having unprotected anonymous sex
- Low self-esteem
- Defensiveness
- An inability to maintain meaningful relationships or an aversion to intimacy
The good news is that you can heal from sex addiction, but first, you have to be honest about what’s happening and fully commit to recovery.
Why Honesty Is Important in Sex Addiction Recovery
Sex addiction recovery is about making positive changes toward a new, healthy lifestyle. To do that, you must be honest about your struggles, emotions, and addiction. There are many reasons why honesty in recovery is essential.
Honesty Restores Trust
If you have a sex addiction, you’re likely to lie or break promises to your loved ones to hide the addiction. After recovery, trust isn’t magically rebuilt between the person with addiction and those they betrayed. Being honest throughout the recovery process is key to repairing relationships and restoring trust.
Honesty Rebuilds Relationships
Lies and broken promises damage trust and relationships. Being honest can help you rebuild them. Offer genuine apologies for the harm your behavior may have caused. When you’re honest about the damage you may have done, you can better accept your past behavior and move on.
Avoiding a Relapse
Many people with addiction lie to hide their behavior or reassure others that they don’t have a problem. For many, lying is a normal part of living with a sex addiction. After recovery, choosing honesty over lies can help you avoid relapsing or sliding back into old bad habits.
Making Progress
Recovery is an ongoing journey that continues throughout the rest of your life. If you’re honest with yourself, you can accurately assess how you’re doing. Being honest with those in your support network also helps them better lend a hand when you’re feeling tempted to repeat poor choices.
How to Maintain Honesty in Sex Addiction Recovery
Being aware of and understanding the challenges and hurdles in sex addiction recovery is vital for successful recovery. Being completely honest with yourself about these challenges will help you begin your recovery journey. There are many ways to maintain honesty in sex addiction recovery.
Acknowledge Your Feelings
Feelings of guilt and shame are common in sex addiction recovery. Many people feel these negative emotions, especially in the early stages of recovery. Even though these emotions can be difficult, you mustn’t avoid them. Suppressing these feelings can create problems down the line. Instead, acknowledge they exist and discuss them with a therapist, journal through them, or find safe activities like exercise or art to help you work through them.
Seek Professional Help
Counseling is a necessary part of recovery from sex addiction and can help you stay committed to your goals. Therapy and counseling can help you communicate with others about your recovery journey and maintain accountability to yourself. These are crucial elements to stay sober, even during difficult times.
Be Honest With the People Around You
It can be tempting to sweep difficult emotions or experiences under the rug, especially when it comes to partners, friends, and family. But being honest with those closest to you will help you rebuild broken relationships and create an open way of communicating about your struggles. If your partner wonders if a sex addict can be faithful, being honest and open with them is necessary before you can start to rebuild the relationship.
Share Your Struggles
There are mental, emotional, and physical stages of relapse. If you’re experiencing the mental or emotional stages, be honest with your counselor, partner, family, or trusted friends. There is no shame in reaching out for help when you need it.
Reasons for Dishonesty in Sex Addiction Recovery
There are many reasons you may be tempted to be dishonest in sex addiction recovery. Lying may have become a habit, and it may feel automatic. After all, you’re so used to covering things up, it may feel more natural than telling the truth.
You may be dishonest in recovery because you fear the consequences of your actions. You may lie to protect yourself from those consequences. For example, you may be afraid to tell your partner about all of the risky sexual encounters you had during the height of your addiction, so you may lie or conceal them.
Dishonesty can have some desirable short-term results. Whether socially, economically, or healthwise, telling lies can help you achieve something you desire in the immediate future. But, in the long run, the consequences for these lies often outweigh the short-term benefits.
And, in some cases, a person with addiction may be self-deluded or in denial. You may not see what you do as a problem, and you may continue lying, even to yourself, because you aren’t ready to recognize that you have a problem.
The Dangers of Dishonesty in Sex Addiction Recovery
There are many reasons dishonesty is dangerous in sex addiction recovery. For example, dishonesty can be a common relapse warning sign. It’s a sign that someone with addiction relies on old coping mechanisms and may be falling into old habits.
Dishonesty can make someone in recovery feel trapped. Whether you are dishonest with yourself about your recovery or the guilt you feel from the dishonesty, lying or avoiding the truth can stop recovery progress and make you feel stuck.
Before recovery, many people with addiction damage relationships with partners, friends, and family by lying. While in recovery, it’s essential to maintain honesty to rebuild those relationships. If loved ones, especially your partner, find out about any dishonesty, it can further damage those relationships.
Honesty is key for making progress in treatment. Dishonesty with loved ones, treatment professionals, or yourself will halt recovery progress.
“To prevent relapse, one should dedicate themselves toward rigorous honesty with self and others, embrace their vulnerabilities and ask for help, engage in continuous therapy, and seek resources and support from the community,” said Nate Geyer, Primary Therapist at Begin Again Institute.
How to Increase Honesty in Sex Addiction Recovery
Honesty is crucial for successful sex addiction recovery. In fact, you may want to consider being radically honest. After all, this is the time to get it all out and heal from the ground up. There are many ways to increase honesty in sex addiction recovery.
Ways to be more honest include:
- Admit Dishonesty. It can be difficult to admit when you lie. But doing so is the only way to break away from a pattern of dishonesty. Admitting to lying or dishonesty as soon as possible after it occurs will help break the habit and make it more difficult to be dishonest.
- Practice Honesty. Building a new habit is just like building muscles. It takes time and lots of work, but you can do it. Practice honesty like you’re building muscles. Make honesty the new habit.
- Journal. Journaling is a great way to keep a record of your life. It’s also a great way to practice honesty. By keeping a record of your behavior or any dishonesty in your life, you’ll see when it becomes a pattern. You’ll also be able to prevent yourself from becoming self-deluded because you won’t be able to ignore your dishonest behavior.
- Understand the Importance of Honesty. If you understand the importance of honesty and the dangers of dishonesty, then you can see the value honesty holds in your life and recovery. By clarifying this importance in your mind, you’re less likely to fall into old dishonest habits that may lead to a relapse.
- Recognize that White Lies Are Lies. It’s common to view specific lies as harmless. People often refer to these harmless lies as “white lies.” But in recovery, viewing any dishonesty as acceptable is not a good idea. Instead, someone in recovery should strive for 100% honesty.
Sex Addiction Recovery Starts with Honesty
If you’ve been honest with yourself and think it’s time to seek sex addiction treatment and begin your healing journey, reach out to Begin Again Institute.
We offer various programs, including a 14-Day Men’s Intensive and a 14-Day Christian Men’s Intensive to provide you with the support you need.
BAI also offers a free virtual Partner Support Program to help your loved ones heal from the betrayal caused by your dishonesty and addiction.
Contact us today to get started.
Edward Tilton is a proven behavioral healthcare leader with an established track record in the recovery industry space. As an accomplished healthcare leader, Ed has diverse management experience including clinical and business operations, expansion of program development, and clinical service offerings.
