As you read this, consider in the back of your mind the quote above that the behavior is always a symptom of a larger problem.

Give yourself the dignity and hope of searching to identify and address the underlying reason for that you’re engaging in these behaviors.

Combining Yoga with Mindfulness will help you to understand and tackle you’re underlying issue so that you can find a total freedom and better quality of life.

Podcast Transcript (edited)

To help put this into context, I’m going to tell you a story.

I got a phone call from this guy named Chris. Chris was SERIOUSLY struggling; but he had made a plan to conquer his sex addiction. His plan was to attend 90 meetings…in 90 days. If any of you have had any exposure to a 12-step model, you’ll know that a strong recommendation of this program is that once you realize you have an addiction is to do 90 meetings within 90 days.

A quick note here is that this model of addiction recovery actually has a few shortcomings, all of which I’ve explained in a different blogpost and podcast.

As I spoke with Chris, I submitted a different idea.

Instead of attending a meeting every day for 90 days, I recommended that he try 90 yoga courses in 90 days.

You Need More Than ‘Just Stopping’

When I first shared that story on social media, I was cyber attacked by Facebook and Twitter users for daring to challenge the 12-step model. They couldn’t believe that I would make this recommendation and some even accused me of harming or threatening this young man’s recovery.

These responses to me constitute evidence that our society has become conditioned to think that a disease-based model is the only one that can cure a person’s addiction.

However, I’m here to tell you that this belief is 100% false!

If you still feel skeptical and need more proof, then please go back and listen to my podcast and read the post where I elaborate upon the challenges presented by the disease-based model.

Here’s the most obvious and basic problem in my book: when you stamp the words ‘sex addiction’ on your problem, this implies that your issues is being ‘addicted’ to something. However, in my experience, that ‘something’ you are addicted to is just a coping mechanism or an escape from the real issue.

You read that right: your addiction is just a symptom of something bigger. It’s never the root of what’s really going on within you that needs to be addressed. So why don’t we dive into the real issue and work on that.

I hear this all the time, “so if someone has a sex addiction, they just need to stop doing that thing, right?” Wrong. Just not doing the thing solves nothing and is virtually impossible without treating the root issue or issues you have.

If you’ve got this far in my post, then you know better than to think that you just need to not do ‘the thing’. Even if you can just stop like that, you know that you wouldn’t be 100 percent well. What needs to be identified is the underlying beliefs or belief systems you have that are leading you to use pornography, sex or masturbation as a coping mechanism; unless you address this, you’ll never be completely free.

For those who don’t know: the opposite of addiction is not sobriety, it’s connection. It’s Love.

The common factor shared by every addict I’ve ever come across is a lack of self love and acceptance.