Sex Addiction, The Scourge of Celebrities, Becoming Known

Addiction to alcohol, gambling or drugs can destroy lives, but more controversial and less known is the overwhelming need for sexual gratification, so intense that psychologists compared with cocaine.

U.S. Congressman Anthony Weiner had to resign under pressure from fellow Democrats, including President Obama, after admitting having sent sexually explicit messages about young people and compromising photos of himself. He said he was treated for an unspecified problem.

Tiger Woods entered rehab after admitting a number of unspecified “affaires” wedlock.

Actor David Duchovny is one of the few who has publicly announced his sex addiction. He entered a rehabilitation center for sexual disorders in 2008.

But the sensational nature of the famous and powerful to recognize their extramarital affairs, obsession with sex over the Internet or the repeated sexual harassment allegations attracted huge media attention and a lot of jokes.

“People joked that if they had to have an addiction, would like to go to sex,” the therapist Stephanie Carnes, author of “Mending a Shattered Heart.”

Sex, like food, is a primary need for humans. With the advent of the Internet is readily available, whether cybersex or appointments agreed through web pages. But cybersex is easier to hide and deny that the consumption of alcohol and drugs.

However, the consequences can be just as severe: loss of employment, health damage, ruin and away from family and friends.

“If you look at their lives, you discover that no one would have it. Are destroyed, lost everything and they hate themselves,” Carnes said in a telephone interview

Sex addiction knows no social boundaries or national borders, affects people of all life, culture and sexual orientation, and is not restricted to any gender or age.

Psychologists estimate that between three and five percent of the population is addicted to sex, possibly more given the easy access to the Internet.

Psychologists also say that there are three times more men than women with this problem. “Women are more addicted to romance,” said psychologist Steve Eichel, Delaware. And women seek less help from a great shame to admit his addiction to sex, until the consequences can not be ignored.

What makes a sex addict, said the psychologist, is the inability to stop the growing need of satisfaction, the shrinking space in the addict’s life for family and work and inability to bear the consequences .

There is no official diagnosis of sex addiction, and no reliable way to check if it exists. Some call it addiction rather than compulsion.

Many skeptics of the existence of this addiction in the diagnosis are a way for the rich who can afford treatment flee from tricky situations. The promise of recovery that a wife could paralyze the process of divorce, an employee gave him a second chance and in some cases not pursue crime as a scam to fund the addiction.

Carnes said the recovery was “absolutely” possible.

“There are hundreds of sex addicts living healthy lives recovered and happy,” he said.

But as with other addictions, relapse rate is high. While there are no definitive studies, Eichel success lies around 80 percent success is not defined as total abstinence, but as a healthy sexual behavior.

Comparing sex addiction with food, “you can not stop eating,” he said