Sex Addiction and Sexaholic interview from a person with years of recovery from sex abuse and addiction. This interview was on The Recovering CEO Podcast.
The Recovering CEO 0:30
Hey, welcome to the recovering CEO Podcast. Today. This is our first guest interview, we are interviewing someone who has a lot of experience, strength and hope. My friend Kevin in Missouri, how're you doing today, Kevin?
Kevin 0:44
Great, Derek. Thanks for having me. Oh, of course, man. Wonderful. So tell me I'm curious, how would you define a sexaholic or a sex addict? And do you consider yourself one? No, it's good question. Take a sex addict is somebody who has sexual compulsive behaviors that they cannot stop. Now, it could range from anything from acting out with other people to compulsive masturbation to watching pornography. It can be a whole range of things, but it's it's sexual behaviors is the way I look at it that I can't control and that I can't indulge in without going pretty crazy. And yes, definitely qualify for that definition.
The Recovering CEO 1:39
Okay, well, thank you for your honesty. And I think, you know, as you know, I'm doing the recovering CEO podcast, because I feel like there's a lot of people out there that may be suffering from sex addiction, no one, everyone's talking about it. It's kind of a sacrey thing and causes a lot of problems. So by sharing your experience, you're definitely helping someone out there. So. So tell us a little bit Kevin, how did your sex addiction start? What was the first catalyst you can remember?
Kevin 2:08
Well, I think there's a whole combination of things an array of things that, from my own experience, I grew up in a very loving home, and very, very restrictive home a lot of No, you can't do. My family comes from a very religious background my father was in was in the ministry. And that's all good things. You know, there's good things that have you do, but just like any other kid, I kind of discovered masturbation, but then the catalyst was, I had a family friend that was 10 years older than me, that introduced me to take advantage of me as a youngster as a teenager, and an early teen. And it was one of those things that, you know, you had to keep the secret, you couldn't say those things, you couldn't bring it on, in just typical sexual abuse type of things. It's people that you know, generally, it's not some stranger picking up off the corner. And I affectionately call that individual my, my sex sponsor, for lack of a better word. And they taught me how to be an extremely good sex addict. And how to hide with that relationship, they they taught me to, how to find how to find my sexual relations, how to, how to find my sexual exploits, how to hide it, how to stay safe. In it just blossom for the mere fact from being able to be in multiple partners. What for I got into recovery. I was averaging a new partner a week for three years because I was so scared that I was going to come down with something and take it to my family. I was keeping track so I knew when it occurred to happen. That's not counting repeat customers. That was new customers that I was doing for about the last three years. I was keeping a diary, so to speak, like we did, etc. And that individual was still in my life and not that we were still having sex but I'd have to report to him and talk to him and and it was not it was just absolutely deserved. But what I got started on To say the least. And it just, it just spiraled. From there in to get into about any part of the sex industry, you can think of. I got into. Yeah, well, that's, that's where I was gonna go. Next is, you know, where did your addiction take you? And what are some examples of things that you actually did in your sex addiction.
Kevin 5:27
I tell people all the time, my sponsees people I sponsor and, and work with and in, in recovery with it. Don't ever be afraid to tell me something that you're embarrassed of, because there's, there's very few, if any things that I haven't done or participate in or read about, or heard that the sex addiction took. But there's a couple things that I didn't do, I didn't do any type of, you know, I didn't get paid to do it. I never pay, I was a pretty cheap sex addict. I didn't pay for it either. I was like, why don't need to pay for something that I could get for free at the time, and they did. But I did the whole gamut from seeking the people who were in the porn industry, from sleeping with people who are new or HIV positive, and not being protected, to putting myself into many situations that can fit have led me to be dead today. Or deathly, very ill. So like I said, there's just very few things wherever the imagination can take sex parties. I wouldn't even know where to begin, it's probably easier for me to tell you the things I didn't do in my sector, than it would be one understanding. You know, I don't ever make it look bad. I don't make it as a badge of honor. Because I really hated myself there many times through that time period, I just, I just didn't want to, I didn't want to live. I didn't like booking myself Mmm. And, and I, when I started off, I said that, you know, my sponsor, my sex sponsor, so to speak, taught me, they taught me well enough that I was married and forget. And then found out. And so, you know, that's how good I was trying to hide. And, and I could hide it the monks best. So, I can remember at one point during during the height that I had four apps that I was using to find sex partners on my phone, and they would contact me to try to hook up. And remember one time one of them popped up messages because I hadn't turned the messages off on it. And I got caught. It's just nasty insanity. He's gonna be around for kids and a wife that aren't gonna ever look at your phone and some pop up. You don't want to pop in there for a while. Wow. Wow. That's amazing. So hey, so how did you stop and why did you stop? Well, I think it's a fallacy that ever stop necessarily. I'm not doing those activities anymore. That's for sure. Why I got to a point where I couldn't look myself in the mirror. You know, a lot of people get into it, because, you know, the they got caught they had to. And very, very realistic for me. You know what, by the grace of God, I didn't get taught. I didn't have to stop. But I got to the point where I couldn't look myself in the mirror. I didn't like the person I had become. I didn't mind who I was. And something had to give. I was filled communications and the sex sponson in the hood. You know, tell me it's okay. It's all right. And finally got into therapy. And my wife didn't even know I was in therapy. And I was driving an hour and a half one direction after work to go to therapy and how it works my therapist for an hour and and I drive home an hour in the hands. And I was doing that two nights a week. And the therapist said you have a sex addiction problem and you need to get some help. And I'm going to give you some tools Do it. And
Kevin 10:03
I never will forget that day he goes up but timing to next get to the next meeting, our next session, I want you to look up the S programs, find a meeting to get to I live in kind of a rural Missouri. There's no I mean, everybody knows everybody in everybody's business. So finding a meeting wasn't going to be actually easy thing to do. And so I came back the next time and I got I got with my counselor, and then he was a recovering addict. So he, he can call BS pretty quick. And he said, do you find this being said, Yeah, I said, I only have one problem. Is that, like, an hour and a half away from me? And my wife doesn't know him? And what am I supposed to do about that? And he very pointedly said to me, said, Well, you've done a damn good liar for a whole lot of years. So I wanted to try and lie about something that's positive in your life, and it's going to make a difference. And that's when I knew that I had to, you know, the, the lying the deceit, the hiding of my entire life, I had to, I had to address it. Is that big a deal? And so as I got into the program, once I finally walked into the meetings and and started working on my recovery
The Recovering CEO 11:29
Alright, yeah, that's good. Curious, Kevin, how many years ago was that? And do you still have contact with your sex sponsor?
Kevin 11:42
Yeah, my, my actual recovery sponsor hates that term. And I got I was about six months into recovery. And I was in a, and I was in a therapy session with my therapist, and, as I told you, is an hour and a half away, and so my job allowed me to hide it for that long, because I could, I could say I had work and I was always had to go to particular town for work. So I use those things to my benefit. But some things one highway do is, is when we get done with a therapy session, I would go stay at their house. That way, I don't have to drive lay, and I could kind of hide it, and they had more work to do. And those type things. And it's not that I was acting out with them. I wasn't. But, you know, I had to, you know, that was a way of control. That was the way of their control over me that I didn't get someplace where I didn't need to be where would expose them. And there are things ways of doing things. But so, I let it slip one night in therapy. And I said, Yeah, I'm heading over, I'm going to stay there. Because my spot my therapist has been postponed to the meeting. I found a meeting that was right after my therapy session. and I said Yeah, and then I'm going to, I'm going to go afterwards, I'm going to go stay, XYZ his house to look for love to add or like you're going to where, you know, you're going to stay at their house, like Yeah, and so at that point, I had to cut everything off and not have any exposure in it. And they were they had ties to my entire family. They my mom and dad and my aunt and uncles and cousins and you might kit and my wife. And so I had to cut that off. And it was just a plate playing cold turkey you know, in some respects I as a as a younger I was sent out by him. And for no better, no better word. And so I've been in recovery now since 2012. And October. Okay, I did on a business trip and as long story to get to a very short answer was on a business trip and my dad used to massage parlour to act out with and I just I walked away from that just feeling like this the filthiest slimy person, and it wasn't because any one act that I had done was any different than I've ever done. And it's just a gift here I go again. And then my brother in law got married, and I left for the wedding. So I kind of redone my vows with my wife at that time, who said here I was already screwing up. And so that's how I got into it. And I've been in recovery since 2012. So nine years, almost ten years. Alright, I think that's, I think that's hard that nine years too and I'll share it i i know I'm just kind of rambling here on Derek. But when I first got into that, meaning that with my therapist that night, he says Well, I just want you to know this is about two to five year process.
Kevin 15:01
And I can to this day remember looking at him and saying you're full of shit. I want to be here a couple weeks. And I'm gonna be done. And I don't have two to five years to do it. And nine years later, here I am. was nine years last month is October 12? Or October? Yeah, October 12. Was my induction to recover. So it's taken me five plus.
The Recovering CEO 15:32
Wow. Wow. So I have to ask, did your wife ever find out? Did you ever discuss your addiction with her?
Kevin 15:40
Yeah. So one of the things that I worked through and you know, scared to death, working with steps and I was very blessed. You know, the first I told you that, my counselor said, go to a meeting. Hi meetings, I came back the next session says, Okay, I want you to go to a meeting by next week, I want you to have attended at least one meeting. And so I ended up going to a meeting then the next therapy session and restaurant twice a week. And he says, I want you to have a sponsor ministry. And what is a sponsor? I never been around 12 Step programs. What's a sponsored thing gonna do for me, and but then, but, you know, God does weird things, even though we're not, we're not aware of it. God has put a sponsor in place for me. And he had been in recovery since he was 19. In several addictions, including sex. And I just been a wayward child and had been, you know, basically had a degree that was in Harvard, you know, just many things that he had moved from Minnesota, and from Minneapolis. And so he gets hooked up and he works. One of the things I was struggling with is that kept looking at the steps and I'd have to do and I go, Well, I'm not gonna do step four, because the four what do we do? You know, we tell everybody, everything. We work on over resentments. And then we're supposed to insert five, tell everybody well, I thought that's what I had to tell my wife. So I didn't want to get there very fast. And then when we got to, then it was, okay, well, I don't have to do it, then. And then, you know, Step eight, you know, we're gonna make amends that you know, we are right down here by with her. In Step nine, we got to make amends. And thereby Well, I'm not doing that talk to my wife, but was my therapist with my sponsor. It was nine months as nine months sober. And I put together my my disclosure to my wife, and had to re arrange for all of the she didn't know what's going on she in our marriages, like crap, but she knew something had changed in all sudden I was as different person. And she kept having people come up to her and ask her within, like what got into Kevin, a different person in different circles that we'd run. And so we had had a before I got into therapy, we had a marriage counselor that we were going to Sage trying to make things work. And, you know, I'm a good addict, and I twisted it all around to make it all about her and her, her difficulties and problems. And so I suggest that we see her and what I had done is my therapist had gotten a hold of this therapist. And it was really important because my wife needed support because this was going to be a bombshell. It was going to be a huge bombshell. It was going to explain a lot it was going to explain why there was no connection sometimes, especially emotionally, and how I would just push her away. You know, we've been intimate, we have four kids, and we love them to death and we love each other. But I would not let anybody inside that circle to know who I really am emotionally. And so I set it up and we've met a counselor an hour away. And my counselor that I've been working with for nine months, drove down. And we had a two hour therapy session wasn't therapy. It was Kevin divulging his indiscretions or 30 Some years of marriage, well 2020 Some years of marriage at that time. So I disclose everything. I didn't disclose numbers, though it just been absolutely horrible. But I went through that and disclosed to her. And I just, I simply asked, I said, I think you can see, I'm working really hard at this. And all I ask is that you give me here. And one thing I will promise you is if I if I decided to get out of this and move on and continue doing this, I'm going to let you know I'm not going to continue to hide it. I'm just going to let you know and move on. But I just asked you to give me another year to work at it before you make a decision. Release me. So
Kevin 20:02
it was a test to test talk. tough talk. And, you know, she agreed, we had a lot of hard times. But, you know, nine years later, she's still with me in our marriage is probably the best it's ever been in, you know, it's, I didn't go into this to save my marriage, I really didn't. I really went into this, because I need to save my life. And, you know, how never will forget, or somebody walks in that first room. And the guy kind of looked at me looking at man. And he said, you know, Kevin, you need to be here. For one, one reason, one reason only, and that is to save your life, not your wife and your relationships. And so I kind of stuck to that. And that became my most important thing to do in life was recovery in the work on
The Recovering CEO 21:00
powerful and powerful story, Kevin. So Tony, you know, what do you recommend for anyone who thinks they may be a sex addict? Someone struggling with sexual addiction, like you have any sober tips to share?
Kevin 21:17
First, be honest, be honest with yourself. That's the first and foremost. You know, get a simple thing if you're scared. I tried counseling a couple times. And one of the things that I broached was the sexual abuse. And I didn't get into the sexual addiction, because I really didn't know I had that really got into it, because my views because I didn't know what that was sexual addiction was. But the simple thing is to take the test, you know, you can go on, you can go on the S fellowships website. And you can you can take a test. And I was really quick, I flunked it. I mean, probably one of the only tests ever ace in their life. And I think there was like two questions. I had never been arrested. Like two questions that, that I, that I made it through. That didn't answer yes to. So they take the test number one, that will kind of give you a better idea whether you are or not. And then you know, I find a local group, get yourself plugged in. And, you know, I was in a very big tech sector, sex addict. And so I went about four or five meetings. And I kind of caught this disease and everybody else had in there. And I got sicker and sicker as I went. But so first off, be honest, take the test, find out, you probably have a good idea already, if you're listening to this, or if you're looking at things you probably already know, that'll just kind of give you some confirmation. For me, therapy was very important. And that's not you know, the big book doesn't really encourage that totally. But it was very important for me, I had to work through some things that my sponsor couldn't, you know, even though extremely awesome. There's some things that I had to work through to help me to get where I'm at today. And then, as we say, in the program all the time, get yourself a sponsor that has what you want, and work with them. And then meetings and try to be the person that you wish you were to begin with. But the big thing is, is to be honest, like I said, I tried many times, and I wasn't honest with myself, I wasn't, there wasn't even my therapist or whatnot. It was I was wasting a whole lot of money. I couldn't be honest with them. So they're trying to cure something to help me out through something that I wouldn't even sharing honestly about. Now, I'd like to make it sound better.
The Recovering CEO 24:01
I can relate, I can relate. So this is one more question I have for you. Can you talk a bit about the daily struggles of living with the awareness that you're a sexaholic? And how it affects your life today, even though you're sober?
Kevin 24:17
It's a really good question. I think the easiest way to explain that is that I wake up every day, and I have a choice and a choice that I can go down this path or I can have a choice that I can remain sober. And I get that choice. I was something that I had to work on very early in recovery was because it was hard for me understands it's hard to it was hard to understand, you know, I if I masturbated you know, once a day, I mean that was you know, it was okay. In my addiction and formulated so much that I really get to read through and where I masturbated or where I look pornography because I wanted to fix something was somebody, I wanted to have sex with somebody. The other thing was just kind of tight over and, like, do that. So. So it's everyday have to wake. So I had to understand that I had the choice, because sometimes it's kind of like growing up and you know, mom and dad would tell me, oh, you can't do this, you can't do that you can't do this, you can't do that. Because if you do, you're going to, you know, you're going to hell, you're gonna, you're gonna do these things. Well, as soon as I get freedom to do whatever I want to do, it is exactly what my thought processes must be really good candy, come on, try it, you know, made me sick. But it tastes really good. And I'm going to go try it. And so I have to. So in early in recovery, it was really hard to say that I can never masterbate again, I can never look at porn again. I really didn't care at that time. Or I'm never gonna have sex outside my marriage. But the for me everyday, I have to understand that. I mean, twice. But if today I want to do that, I can be sober. But I have that choice to I get, I get a choice, it's not something that I cannot do. And I can't do it if I want to have the lifetime habit. And that's that is understanding that I had to get to understand that I have free will. And I can do that. Now. It's not on willpower alone, that I have to do it, there's a whole lot of other steps that that because I become overwhelmed. Just as my drug of choice is how I dealt with life was through sex and to deal with pain to deal with injuries to deal with feelings to deal with. Disappointment, excitement. And so I dealt with it, that's how I soothe everything. And the thing is, is that I had to find different ways to deal with it. One of the best fellowships talks about circles and circles, things, objects that you want to set, objects you don't want to work, or don't want to do anymore, obviously, are things that you do that if you do, you're going to get into a circle that you don't want to. And then there's an outer circle of things that are healthy things for you. And I had a really hard time on that outer circle. Because I had not I didn't have anything that I really enjoyed doing. Because to be honest with my career was about sex is about having sex as other people, etc. And I really struggled in. I used to race bicycles. Every weekend, I was on thing racing team as my six months. And we would travel all over the place. And then I'd get ticked off because I wasn't very competitive. Or I've had a bad night, well, when you're out having two or three sexual partners, and then until two or three at night, and you're going to do a competitive race, you really think you're three or four hours sleep, for nutrition, etc. It's just not going to happen. So I kind of lost at some things that were positive to me as being you know, things that I like to do. I didn't have those. And so I've had to rebuild those and that's been really important to me is rebuilding those things that I can do. They're, they're healthy for me. I don't didn't like to read comes back to my childhood and have an ADHD. I couldn't concentrate would didn't comprehend what I did read. so thick I ramble on really long without any and it'd be okay, it's wonderful man, I really, you know, any final thoughts or anything related to your addiction or anything that you want to share before we wrap up? You know, I think I think meeting the meetings are good. You know, this or this, you know, we did nine, you know, people talk about new 90 meetings in 90 days. And I found in the phone meetings and, you know, I don't think gets me a lot of good people around the country and across the globe.
Kevin 29:25
Through that, in my first year, I ended up doing like, I don't know, it's like, almost 400 meetings, in person and phone. And so I just really had to engulf myself, immerse myself and into those and really indoctrinate myself into a new way of living in. The other thing is, is I want to give everybody a sense of hope that it is it. You don't have to feel like a piece of junk You know, you don't have to feel like, crap that asked on the other side. Nine years later, what do I have, I have a wife that loves me more than ever. And I love her. I have my kids. So I have my had my career. I am in a different place spiritually than I ever was before. I actually have people that I can actually talk to, and they can understand when I say this or that, and they can identify and can empathize and tell me that they have the same issues and struggles. And I don't have to feel isolated alone. As the as the White Book says, you know, I stayed afraid, you know. And so it's all doom and gloom. And there is hope. And the other side is a much better picture, and a much better thing for all involved. And so if you are struggling, I would encourage you to get help. And, you know, I'm not gonna say it's easy. I mean, there's, it's hard work. It's a, it's a very easy program. It's a very easy program, it takes a lot of hard work. But if you do it, it's worth it. And, as we say, in the meetings, and your horse that
The Recovering CEO 31:45
I appreciate I appreciate the message of hope. I think. I mean, what an amazing story. You know, I mean, as you know, we're here to help other addicts, and help them to find recovery so that they can have hope to write and live the lives they were meant to live. Because when I say Kevin, thank you so much for your time. And again, this is the recovering CEO podcast for sex addiction, drug addiction, alcohol addiction, how it impacts people's lives and keep coming back. Keep listening. Have a great day, everybody.
