Is sex addiction real? Do golfer Tiger Woods and the soon-to-be-former husband of Academy Award-winning actress Sandra Bullock, among many others, really have no control over their bedroom antics?

• Author: Weiss, Douglas
• Position: Psychology

IT CERTAINLY is not unusual to hear about a sports figure, politician, pastor, or CEO getting caught in some type of sex scandal and subsequently go for sex addiction treatment. Some of us shake our heads at this and say that sex addiction is just an excuse for their behavior. Others question what sex addiction is--and, if you have it, why would you need help?

In the 1930s, our country faced a similar question: Is alcoholism a disease? Many felt that those individuals who were drunks made a choice to drink, so how could that be an addiction? Thus began the self-help, 12-step group called Alcoholics Anonymous. The official medical community was the last to call alcoholism a disease. We are in a very similar place today. Numerous 12-step groups to help sex addicts have sprung up. These include Sexaholics Anonymous, Sex Addicts Anonymous, Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous, and Sex Recovery Anonymous. The religious community also has sponsored faith-based sex addiction support groups. The clinical community has been treating sex addiction for more than 20 years at outpatient offices and inpatient treatment centers.

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So, do we just shrug at the cheater and say, "You have a moral problem," or do we look a little deeper to see if the person actually is addicted to sex? Let me say, before we go any further, regardless of the influence of the addiction, each person totally is responsible for any choices he or she makes. However, addiction can be treated and future bad choices averted. Many of us are not aware of using sex as a drag. The "wow" feeling one enjoys actually is endogenous opiates called endorphins and enklephlins flooding the prefrontal cortex of the brain During that experience, whatever is in your field of vision you will home in on and begin to desire. This is classic conditioning--ring the bell and feed the dog. Addicts tend to glue to objects of fantasy or pornography--thousands of times over. This is where the addict and person with just a high libido are different. The addict is going for the fix, whereas a sexually healthy person is going for the connection with a partner and sexuality is a part of that connection.

There is a grid all psychologists and clinicians should use to establish if an individual has an addictive process in his or her life. Someone would need to display three or more of these patterns over the last year to be seen as having an addictive behavior. The first is withdrawal. When sex addicts...