Questions to ask Yourself:
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1. Were you sexually abused as a child or adolescent?
2. Have you regularly purchased sexually explicit magazines?
3. Did your parents have trouble with sexual behavior?
4. Are you often preoccupied with sexual thoughts?
5. Do you believe that your sexual behavior is not normal?
6. Does your spouse/SO ever worry or complain about your sexual behavior?
7. Can you stop your sexual behavior when you know it’s
inappropriate?
8. Do you ever feel bad about your sexual behavior?
9. Has this behavior ever created problems for you or your family?
10. Have you ever sought help for your sexual behavior?
11. Do you worry about people finding out about this behavior?
12. Has this behavior ever emotionally hurt someone?
13. Are any of your sexual activities against the law?
14. Have you made promises to quit some aspects of these activities?
15. Have you made unsuccessful efforts to stop a type of sexual behavior?
16. Do you hide certain aspects of this behavior?
17. Have you ever felt degraded by your sexual activity?
18. Can you escape your problems by having sex?
19. Do you feel depressed after having sex?
20. Have you felt the need to discontinue certain sex activities?
21. Have these activities ever interfered with your family life?
22. Have you had sex with minors?
23. Do you feel controlled by your sexual desires?
24. Do you ever think that your sexual drive is stronger than you are?
25. Has your sexual behavior caused you either to seek help or made you feel scared or different – somehow alienated from other people?
26. Do you keep secrets about your sexual or romantic activities from those important to you? Do you lead a double life?
27. Have your needs driven you to have sex in places or on occasions or with people you would not normally choose?
28. Do you find yourself looking for sexually arousing articles or scenes in newspapers, magazines, or other media?
29. Conversely, are you anorexic? That is, is sex totally out of your life; do you avoid it at all costs?
30. Do you find that romantic or sexual fantasies interfere with your relationships with others or are controlling you?
31. Do you frequently want to get away from a sexual partner after having sex? Do you frequently feel remorse, shame, or guilt after a sexual encounter?
32. Do you feel uncomfortable masturbating or touching your body? Do you avoid masturbating altogether?
33. Does each relationship continue to have the same destructive patterns which prompted you to leave the last relationship?
34. Have you ever tried to leave a specific person or a destructive relationship and found yourself returning?
35. Have you ever tried to limit or stop masturbating because of your discomfort with frequency, your fantasies, props you used, or places you masturbated?
36. Do you obsess about sex or romance even when it intereferes with your daily responsibilities or causes emotional discomfort?
37. Do you avoid sexual relationships altogether, or for long
periods of time, because they are just too difficult or not worth the trouble?
38. Does the time reading pornographic magazines or watching films interfere with the demands of your daily activities and relationships with people?
39. Do you sometimes wonder if you are asexual or fear that you have no sexual feelings?
40. Do you lose your sense of identity or meaning in life without sex or a love relationship?
41. Is it taking more variety and frequency of sexual and romantic activities than previously to bring the same levels of excitement and relief?
42. Are you in danger of being arrested because of practices of voyeurism, exhibitionism, prostitution, sex with minors, indecent phone calls, etc.?
43. Does your pursuit of sex or romantic relationships interfere with your spiritual development?
44. Do your sexual activities include the risk, threat, or reality of disease, pregnancy, coercion, or violence?
45. Do you seek or use sexual or romantic highs to avoid unpleasant realities in your life? Do you find your basic needs and relationships are neglected following a sexual or romantic encounter?
46. Has your sexual or romantic behavior ever made you feel
hopeless or suicidal?
If you see yourself in several of these questions, there is a good chance you are suffering from sexual addiction. Sexual addiction is like any other addiction – it controls, and it is an illness which can be cured, given the will to work through it, and the willingness to acknowledge the illness. (Like alcohol and other chemical dependencies, getting to the point of acknowledging a problem is the hardest step.)
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Some of these are from “The 21 Questions of Sex Addicts Anonymous” (an organization patterned after Alcoholics Anonymous) and others are taken from Contrary to Love: Helping the Sexual Addict by Patrick J. Carnes.