Please call them if you need help. Some of these numbers can and will tell you where you need to go and what you need to do to get help. Please use them.

Abuse

Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (RAINN)
800-656-HOPE

Rape Crisis Centre (UK)
0171 8371600 or 0141 3311990

Alcoholism

Alcoholics Anonymous
1-212-870-3400

Hazelden Information Center
800-257-7800

ALANON
800-344-266

Cults and Gangs

Children's Defense Fund
202-628-8787

American Family Foundation
305-393-8193

Cult Clinic and Hotline
1-212-632-4640

Depression

National Depressive and Manic Depressive Association
312-642-0049

National Depression Association
312-642-0049

American Association of Suicidology
202-237-2280

National Depressive and Manic Depressive Association
800-826-3632

Depression and Cutting Yourself (Self-Injury)

Information Hotline
800-DONT-CUT

American Society for Dermatologic Surgery Information Hotline
800-441-2737

Drugs and Huffing

Cocaine Anonymous
1-800-347-8998

National Inhalant Prevention Partnership
800-269-4237

International Institute on Inhalant Abuse
450 West Jefferson Ave., Englewood, Co. 80110

Drugs telephone information service (UK)
0141 4201188

Eating Disorders

Anorexia Nervosa and Related Eating Disorders, Inc.
541-344-1144

National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders
847-831-3438

ANAD
780-831-3438

Eating Disorders Awareness and Prevention, Inc.
206-382-3587

American Anorexia/Bulimia Association
212-501-8351

Eating Disorders Association (UK)
01603 621414

Gay Services

The Hetrick-Martin Institute
212-674-2400

Indianapolis Youth Group
800-347-TEEN

Lavender Youth Recreation and Information Center
415-863-3636 (San Francisco area 800-246-PRIDE)

Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG)
202-638-4200

Grief Recovery

The Grief Recovery Institute
800-445-4808

Youth Crisis Hotline
800-448-4663

Teen Age Grief Incorporated (TAG)
818-997-0391

Pregnancy

Pregnancy Options
1-800-342-6688

Pregnancy Advisory Service (UK)
01564 793225

Runaways

National Runaways Switchboard
800-621-400 or 800-231-6946

Children of the Night
800-551-1300

STDs

AIDS/STDs (Canadian)
1-800-772-2437

Suicide

Suicide Awareness Voices of Education (SAVE)
612-946-7998

Teen Line (California only. 6pm to 10pm)
800-TLC-Teen

The American Association of Suicidology
4201 Connecticut Ave., NW, Suite 301, Washington D.C. 20028
310-855-HOPE

Distress, Suicide Helpline (Canadian)
1-800-232-7288

For extensive suicide information at HealthyPlace.com click here.

Mental Disorders

Social Anxiety Disorder

OC Foundation (for obsessive-compulsive disorder)
203-878-5669

National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (families of mentally ill)
800-950-NAMI

Teen Hotlines

Covenant House Nine Line
1-800-999-9999
www.covenanthouse.org

Kid's Help Phone (Canadian)
1-800-668-6868

Spanish Speaking Helpline (US)
1-800-344-SIDA

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The Disappearance of the Witnesses

I live through others. I inhabit their memories of me. Bits and pieces of Sam are strewn across continents, among hundreds of casual acquaintances, friends, lovers, teachers, admirers, and despisers. I exist by reflection. This is the essence of secondary narcissistic supply - the secure knowledge that I am replicated in the minds of many. I want to be remembered because without being remembered I am not. I need to be discussed because I have no being except as a topic of discussion. So, passive memory is not enough. I need to be actively reminded of my achievements, of my moments of glory, of past adulation. The constancy of these streams of memories smoothes the inevitable fluctuations in primary narcissistic supply. In lean moments, when I am all but forgotten, or when I feel humiliated by the gap between my reality and my grandiosity - these memories of past grandeur, related to me by outside "observers" lift my spirits. It is the main function of people in my life: to tell me how great I am because of how great I was.

I was a precocious child. Always the wunderkind with oversized spectacles, the freak. I befriended only men many years my senior. At the age of 20, the youngest of my best friends - among which I counted a mafia don, a political scientist, businessmen, authors, and journalists - was 40. Their age, experience and social standing made them ideal sources of narcissistic supply. They fed me, hosted me in their homes, bought me reference books, introduced me to each other, interviewed me, and took me on expensive trips to foreign lands. I was their darling, the subject of much awe and adulation.

Now, twenty years and some later, these are old people and they are dying. Their kids are in their late twenties. They are out of the loop. And when they die, their memories of me die with them. They take to their grave my secondary narcissistic supply. I slightly fade with every passing one of them. They, the dying and the dead, are the only ones who know. They are the witnesses of who I was back then and why. They are my only chance at ever getting to know myself at all. When the last of them is interred - I will be no more. I will have lost my stab at proper self-introduction. It feels so sad never to know Sam. It feels so lonely, like a child's grave in autumn.

next: Physique Dysmorphique - Distorted Physical Self-Image

The narcissist feels omnipresent, all-pervasive, the prime mover and shaker, the cause of all things. Hence his constant projection of his own traits, fears, behaviour patterns, beliefs, and plans onto others. The narcissist is firmly convinced that he is the generator of other people's emotions, that they depend on him for their well-being, that without him their lives will crumble into grey mediocrity. He regards himself as the most important part in the life of his nearest and dearest. To avoid painful contradictions with reality, the narcissist aims to micromanage and control his human environment.

But this only one aspect of the pathology.

The second aspect is malignant cynicism. A healthy modicum of doubt and caution is... well... healthy. But the narcissist is addicted to excess doses of both. To the narcissist, all people are narcissists - others are simply hypocritical when they pretend to be "normal". They are weak and fear society's reactions, so they adhere to its edicts and behavioural-moral codes. The narcissist magically feels strong. immune to punishment, and invincible and thus able to express his true nature fearlessly and openly.

Consider generosity and altruism, the daughters of empathy - that which the narcissist is absolutely devoid of.

I cannot digest or fathom true generosity. I immediately suspect ulterior motives (though not necessarily sinister ones). I ask myself: Why the helping hand? How come the trust placed in me? What do they really want from me? How (unbeknownst to me) do I benefit them? What is the disguised self-interest which drives their perplexing behaviour? Don't these people know better? Don't they realize that people are all, without exception, self-centred, interest-driven, unnecessarily malevolent, ignorant, and abusive? In other words, I am surprised that my true nature does not show instantly. I feel like an incandescent lamp. I feel that people can see through my transparent defences and that what they see must surely horrify and repel them.

When this does not happen, I am shocked.

I am shocked because altruistic, loving, caring, and generous behaviours expose as false the hidden assumptions underlying my mental edifice. Not everyone is a narcissist. People do care for each other for no immediate reward. And, most damaging of all, I am loveable.

next: Living Through Others- Secondary Narcissistic Supply

• Watch the video on The Stupid Taking Over the World

I make it a point to triumphantly ignore and belittle figures of authority. Knowing that their options of retaliation are rather limited by my official position, or by law - I abuse them flagrantly. When a security guard or a policeman halts me, I pretend I haven't heard him and proceed with callous disregard. When threatened, I go unpredictably wild. In doing so I (very often) provoke repulsion and pity and (much less often) fear and amazement. Often I find myself in danger, always punished, forever the losing party.

So, why do it?

First, because it feels great. To experience immunity, shielded behind an invisible wall, untouchable, and, therefore, by implication, omnipotent.

Second, because I actively and knowingly seek to be punished, perceived as the "bad man", the corrupt, no good, vile, heartless, villain.

Third, I project my own shortcomings, deficiencies, pain, and rage onto these mother and father substitutes. I then react to these behaviours and negative emotions I perceive in others with righteous and furious indignation.

My inability to work in a team, to be instructed, to accept orders, to admit to ignorance, to listen to reason, and to succumb to social conventions, or to superior knowledge and credentials - transformed me into a reclusive and clownish disappointment. People are always misled by my intelligence into predicting a bright future for me and my work. I end up shattering their hopes. Mine is a heartless march to heartbreak.

So, what now?

I am a little over forty and a lot overweight. My teeth are rotting and my breath is bad. I am entirely celibate. I am a ruptured nervous wreck. I communicate almost exclusively through rage attacks and vitriolic diatribes. I cannot go back to my own disintegrating country - and am trapped in another. I desperately seek narcissistic supply. I delude myself regarding my achievements and status, fully aware of my self-delusion. It is surrealistic, this infinite regression of mirrors, true and false. Mine is the on going nightmare of reality itself.

And beneath it all, there is an ominous spring of sadness. The flotsam that is my being in the murky puddle of my pain. I do not feel it anymore, I just recognize its existence, like a presence in the dark.

I am devoid of energy. I am denuded of defences. I stumble. I get up. I stumble again. Floored, no one bothers to count to ten. I know I will revive. I know I will survive. I just don't know what for.

next: The Ubiquitous Narcissist - The Prime Mover and Shaker

Caught in the Net is the first serious self-help book to address Internet addiction with translations in German, Japanese, Italian, and Danish forthcoming. The book explains the warning signs and consequences of Internet addiction. Most importantly, it offers simple, practical, and concrete recovery strategies to help you deal with addictive use of the Internet at home, work, or school. Not only is the book suitable for Internet addicts themselves, but it is written for partners and parents of addicts, mental health practitioners, educators, and business executives.

Table of Contents

Introduction: A Controversial New Addiction

Chapter 1: The Dark Side of Cyberspace

While our culture heralds the Internet as a technological wonder, increasing numbers of Internet users have tumbled into patterns of addictive use that trigger significant problems in their relationships and families, and at work or school. Initial examples culled from my survey offer a revealing look at this other side of cyberspace, where ordinary students, homemakers, and professionals are losing control of their Internet usage and their lives. The chapter explores why Internet addiction fits our troubled times, and invites readers to take the Internet Addiction Test to assess their own degree of potential addiction.

Chapter 2: The Terminal Time Warp

"One more minute," a typical Internet user often says to a spouse or parent who years for their attention during a long on-line session. But before they know how or why it happened, that minute invariably turns into one or more hours - at the cost of the people and activities that more and more often are ignored. This chapter illustrates what makes specific Internet applications so time consuming, and outlines time management techniques that will help users regain control of their time.

Chapter 3: Profiles of On-lineaholics

Trends in my study indicate that those most vulnerable to this obsession include women and men who already suffer from depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, or the struggles with recovery from a prior addiction. Case studies reveal how these Internet users turn to newsgroups, chat rooms, or interactive games seeking temporary relief, only to find that the old problems they've been avoiding have stuck with them, exacerbated by their addiction to the Internet. Following each case study, intervention tools and new recovery strategies point the way toward curbing excessive Internet use while addressing the real-life problems behind it.

Chapter 4: The Faceless Community

On the Internet, you can conceal your real name, age, occupation, appearance, and your physical responses to anyone or anything you encounter on-line. Internet users, especially those who are lonely and insecure in real-life situations, take that freedom and quickly pour out their strongest feelings, darkest secrets, and deepest desires. This leads to the illusion of intimacy, but when reality underscores the severe limitations of relying on a faceless community for the love and caring that can only come from actual people, Internet addicts experience very real disappointment and pain.

Chapter 5: Cyberwidows: The Victims of Terminal Love

When a husband or wife turns to the computer for intimacy and sex - sometimes even ending a long marriage to run off with their Internet lover - the cyberwidow left behind must confront rejection, abandonment, anger, and confusion about what happened and why. This chapter addresses those feelings and illustrates how the quick and easy connections made through the safety of the computer screen undermine intimate relationships at home. Readers learn the basic warning signs that may indicate their spouse has engaged in a cyberaffair, and a step-by-step- plan outlines how to approach the spouse who has strayed.

Chapter 6: Parents, Kids, and a Technological Time Bomb

A precocious twelve year old boy in Missouri is cut off from his Internet use by his parents and then kills his mother and himself - an extreme example of family strife triggered by kids who bury themselves in their computers at the expense of their grades, their hobbies, their social life, and any opportunities for honesty and trust with their parents. This chapter educates parents about how the same technological tool that President Clinton insists must be installed in every classroom all too often leads kids down a path toward the adult-like psychological and emotional problems of addiction. Parents learn how to monitor their children's Internet use and ensure that it doesn't become a source of wasted time, distraction, and obsessive behavior more pervasive and destructive to young minds and psyches than television.

Chapter 7: Fraternities of Netheads

Walk by any college computer labs late at night and you'll see hundreds of students frantically typing away on their computer terminals - but instead of school research and paper-writing, they're most likely spending several hours every night slaying monsters in MUDs or chatting aimlessly with Internet pals hundreds of miles or even continents away. This chapter reveals how the combination of unstructured and free, unlimited Internet use breed college communities of severe addicts, who are just beginning to awaken to the seriousness of plummeting grades and ruined social lives. Case studies, observations, and suggestions for a new outlook on the Internet in our universities serve as a wake-up call to students, faculty, parents, and counselors.

Chapter 8: No Work Today - Everybody's Gone Surfin'

Employees with Internet access on the job are abusing the privilege by spending hours sending and receiving personal email, perusing newsgroups, socializing in chat rooms, and playing interactive games. Managers either know or suspect what's happening, which leads to computer-related firings and a growing climate of misunderstanding and distrust. This chapter shares the attitudes, experiences, and perspectives of both sides of the office environment and presents a blueprint for managing this escalating issue with greater awareness and sensitivity.

Chapter 9: Staying On Track

Unlike physical addictions like alcoholism, Internet addiction does not require abstinence for a healthy and life-enhancing recovery. Building on the many suggestions and tools of moderation outlined in the Recovery Strategy woven throughout previous chapters, this final section ties it all together to make clear to Internet addicts and their families how they now can use the Net without abusing it. Special emphasis is given to additional outside resources that are becoming available to treat this addiction and which can help Internet junkies stay on track in the months and years ahead.

next:   Introduction to "Caught on the Net"
~ all center for online addiction articles
~ all articles on addictions

I went to one AA meeting (Alcoholics Anonymous) in my home town. I was the youngest person there and felt very uneasy around the people even though I brought my girlfriend with me to the meeting.

The people in Alcoholics Anonymous seemed to have it all together. I thought I really wanted to quit, so I did not drink that night. However, I just didn't get what the program was about from one meeting. I was sure to drink again and I did the next day. At one point, I was also kind of afraid that the AA program would work! After all, it did mean I would have to make drastic changes and I knew I felt uncomfortable about any kind of change.

My addiction lied to me. It said, "There was a certain comfort in my misery of this disease." I continued to drink for a few more months while unemployed. It was a 24 hour-a-day thing for weeks in a row. Blackouts were daily. I used a credit card to buy alcohol and spent a great deal of time using my girlfriend's new car without her permission. In other words, "stealing her car."

I spent the day underneath interstate bridges to escape the sun. My girlfriend wanted me out of her apartment because I was not able to pay my part of the rent. I drank without seeking anymore help to quit. I tried to quit by myself so many times. I suffered many, many times from the detoxification symptoms: the shakes, anxiety, agitation, headaches, short attention span, racing thoughts, delirium, diarrhea, feeling like there were bugs crawling on me, the awful nausea and internal aches. To drink seemed like the only way top get rid of many of these detoxification symptoms that the drinking itself had caused.

I finally moved back into my parents' house. I begged my old employer for my job back after I had quit. I still drank daily and drank some on the job. I began talking to people in AA via the internet. I was now very desperate to quit. Alcohol was taking quite a toll on me physically. I was hurting real bad when I wasn't drunk. I had pains in my stomach and muscles when I couldn't get enough booze to numb me. Alcohol had become my body.

next: Chapter 5: Unhappily Unmanageable
~ all Raw Psychology articles
~ addictions library articles
~ all addictions articles

Dear Stanton:

I wonder what you think about methadone maintenance. In two years I've detoxed from heroin 6 times - I never get beyond physical withdrawal (back using within 10 days, released from hospital after 5 days).

I have decided on methadone maintenance - I look at it like insulin - it is a small discomfort compared to the expense, etc. of using illicit drugs. I find my life is much more balanced and I have no problem maintaining a "normal" life. I know that I am leaning on & depending on methadone & should be able to be a complete person without it. The only discomfort I feel is that my medical insurance won't pay for it. The stigma from society stinks and I hate having to hide it, also. I do not want to have to struggle physically, anymore. I too many times have had to go back to work with aching joints, chills, gas, diarrhea ...get the picture?? I'll pay $35 per week and run my butt off a little extra to feel 90% "normal" - what do you think of my analogy?

M

Dear M:

I can't tell you how to react to methadone. You can tell me. Your story is evidence that methadone helps people. It helps you.

Initially, in Love and Addiction, I opposed methadone for the reasons you outlined. You are still addicted. I was especially influenced by a person whose work I have respected a great deal, Henry Lennard, who wrote Mystification and Drug Misuse, a classic that is now out of print. He published an article in Science with Mitch Rosenthal ("The methadone illusion, Science, 176, 881-884, 1972) that makes the point that the drug does not combat addiction; it simply replaces that object of addiction with one which may be more convenient.

The harm reduction movement in general has made me more sensitive to a point inherent in my work all along-most people have addictive susceptibilities, and we cannot aspire to perfection. If someone is assisted to function, even while addicted, this is a positive step. Our society's unfortunate prescription against drug use of all kind and insistence on abstinence as the cure for addiction (which I have spent a good part of my career in railing against in the case of alcohol) makes your life harder than it should be. There is no reason for this. You have proven that you can be a heroin addict, and that you can replace that with something that improves your life and is beneficial to society. It is craziness to ignore this positive movement in your life. I am sorry for that.

At the same time, you express your own internal misgivings. I cannot remove these for you. More than this, I share them. Being locked into methadone-even should it be made very convenient for you to take-may be short of your ideals for yourself. You can aspire to do better. There are data about how to do this. Methadone is one of the few drug treatments that has evidence behind it to show it works. However, this evidence indicates that it functions best when combined with social services and auxiliary treatments such as those that enhance skills at coping, internally and externally. 

Withdrawal is something people overcome all the time. It is the challenge of leading a drug free life by relying on more finely honed coping responses, ones in which you have learned to be confident, that signals emergence from drug addiction. It can be done, you want to do it, read at my site for ways to accomplish this, and I only wish that the provision and expense of methadone were not obstacles to your efforts to proceed in this direction.

Best wishes, Stanton

References:

A recent volume had a debate between two positions where those on both sides are people I deeply respect. The volume, Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Controversial Issues in Drugs and Society (Guilford, CT: Dushkin, 1996) included articles by Lynn Wenger and Marsha Rosenbaum (a good friend of mine), pro, and Robert Apsler, con, on "Should drug treatment services be expanded." Apsler's position is very much like mine on-site ("The results for drug reform goals of shifting from interdiction/punishment to treatment,"), showing that the most popular treatments in America-inpatient and outpatient drug dependence treatment-are ineffective. But he cites data showing that motivated addicts provided with supplementary and directed treatment along with methadone maintenance often show startlingly good results compared with addicts not receiving such treatment. However, Apsler doubts, if methadone treatment is used widely, that such effective supplementary care will be employed. Indeed, to the extent that methadone maintenance is alive today, it is horribly polluted with 12-step propaganda and coercion.

Wenger and Rosenbaum's article, which appeared in Journal of Psychoactive Drugs (Jan-Mar, 1994), describes a lot of people whose stories resemble yours.

next: What Do You Think of SMART Recovery?
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Behavioral therapy helps teen drug abusers stop drug use and remain drug free.

Behavioral therapy incorporates the principle that unwanted behavior can be changed by clear demonstration of the desired behavior and consistent reward of incremental steps toward achieving it. Therapeutic activities include fulfilling specific assignments, rehearsing desired behaviors, and recording and reviewing progress, with praise and privileges given for meeting assigned goals. Urine samples are collected regularly to monitor drug use. The therapy aims to equip the patient to gain three types of control:

Stimulus Control: helps patients avoid situations associated with drug use and learn to spend more time in activities incompatible with drug use.

Urge Control: helps patients recognize and change thoughts, feelings, and plans that lead to drug use.

Social Control: involves family members and other people important in helping patients avoid drugs. A parent or significant other attends treatment sessions when possible and assists with therapy assignments and reinforcing desired behavior.

According to research studies, behavioral therapy helps adolescents become drug-free and increases their ability to remain drug-free after treatment ends. Adolescents also show improvement in several other areas including employment/school attendance, family relationships, depression, institutionalization, and alcohol use. Such favorable results are attributed largely to including family members in therapy and rewarding drug abstinence as verified by urinalysis.

References:

Azrin, N.H.; Acierno, R.; Kogan, E.; Donahue, B.; Besalel, V.; and McMahon, P.T. Follow-up results of supportive versus behavioral therapy for illicit drug abuse. Behavioral Research & Therapy 34(1): 41-46, 1996.

Azrin, N.H.; McMahon, P.T.; Donahue, B.; Besalel, V.; Lapinski, K.J.; Kogan, E.; Acierno, R.; and Galloway, E. Behavioral therapy for drug abuse: a controlled treatment outcome study. Behavioral Research & Therapy 32(8): 857-866, 1994.

Azrin, N.H.; Donohue, B.; Besalel, V.A.; Kogan, E.S.; and Acierno, R. Youth drug abuse treatment: A controlled outcome study. Journal of Child & Adolescent Substance Abuse 3(3): 1-16, 1994.

Source: National Institute of Drug Abuse, "Principles of Drug Addiction Treatment: A Research Based Guide."

next: Employee Drug Testing
~ addictions library articles
~ all addictions articles

Trying is detaching.
Trying my best, is detaching.
My best is detaching.
I'm at my best when I'm detached.

Section I. The Addictive Pull

"What?"

"Detach?" "From what?" (I'm not sure what it is I'm trying to detach from)

Answer: The "Pull" of being used as an object of addiction or using other people as objects of addiction. ____________________

Foreword

I am an addict. I have also been trained to be an object of addiction. Today as I write this guide I choose not to be an object of an addiction.

When an addict feels bad inside they are compelled to do something to alter those feelings. Their concern is to control the feelings they are having by using something outside of themselves to feel better. In this way they become dependent on whatever it is that they are using.

Consider some booze and its relationship to the addict. The addict uses the booze to feel better and the booze has no complaints. The well being of the booze is of no concern to the addict nor does he or she have compassion for the booze. The addict has no need to control the booze since it is nothing but an inanimate object. The addict need not talk to the booze nor ask the booze if it minds being used. The booze has no personal identity or face, it's just booze. It has no feelings nor does it fight to prevent itself from being used. From the booze's standpoint, a lack of intimacy with the addict exists. That is to say that the addict need not share anything about himself or herself with the booze. The addict and the booze need not share anything together except the addict's need to consume (use) the booze.

The booze's role in this relationship is to be inactive. The addict's expectations for the booze are as follows:

• To be compliant
• To do nothing to frustrate the addict

As long as the booze is easy to use the addict is happy.

next: Behaviors that Hurt and the Loads to be Carried
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Discover the warning signs and treatment of cybersexual addiction and find out what makes cybersex addictive.

Cybersexual Addiction has become a specific sub-type of Internet addiction. It has been estimated that 1 in 5 Internet addicts are engaged in some form of online sexual activity (primarily viewing cyberporn and/or engaging in cybersex). Early studies show that men are more likely to view cyberporn, while women are more likely to engage in erotic chat.

• The Warning Signs of Cybersexual Addiction
• Understanding what makes Cybersex addictive
• Treatment for Cybersexual Addiction

Warning Signs of Cybersexual Addiction:

1. Routinely spending significant amounts of time in chat rooms and private messaging with the sole purpose of finding cybersex.
2. Feeling preoccupied with using the Internet to find on-line sexual partners.
3. Frequently using anonymous communication to engage in sexual fantasies not typically carried out in real-life.
4. Anticipating your next on-line session with the expectation that you will find sexual arousal or gratification.
5. Finding that you frequently move from cybersex to phone sex (or even real-life meetings).
6. Hiding your on-line interactions from your significant other.
7. Feeling guilt or shame from your on-line use.
8. Accidentally being aroused by cybersex at first, and now find that you actively seek it out when you log on-line.
9. Masturbating while on-line while engaged in erotic chat.
10. Less investment with your real-life sexual partner only to prefer cybersex as a primary form of sexual gratification.

People who suffer from low self-esteem, a severely distorted body image, untreated sexual dysfunction, or a prior sexual addiction are more at risk to develop cybersexual addictions. In particular, sex addicts often turn to the Internet as a new and safe sexual outlet to fulfill their compulsions without the expense of costly 900-lines, the fear of being seen at an adult bookstore, or the fear of disease among prostitutes.

Understanding what makes Cybersex addictive.

Sexual compulsivity over the Internet is not just a result of deviant individuals engaged in acting out, but with remarkable speed, the mental health field has witnessed those with no prior criminal or psychiatric history engaged in such behavior online. The ACE Model of Cybersexual Addiction is used to explain how the Internet creates a cultural climate of permissiveness that actually serves to encourage and validate sexually deviant behavior. The ACE Model examines the Anonymity of online interactions that serves to increase the likelihood of the behavior, the Convenience of cyberporn and sexually-oriented chat rooms making it easily available to users, and finally, the Escape from mental tension derived from the experience which serves to reinforce the behavior leading to compulsivity.

The anonymity of electronic transactions provides the user with a greater sense of perceived control over the content, tone, and nature of the online sexual experience. Unlike real life sexual experiences, a woman can quickly change partners if her cyber-lover isn't very good or a man can log off after his orgasm without any long good-byes. What if a man privately wondered what it would be like to have sex with another man? What if a woman always wanted to try bondage? Within the anonymous context of cyberspace, conventional messages about sex are eliminated allowing users to play out hidden or repressed sexual fantasies in a private lab, without the fear of being caught. For anyone who has ever been curious about bondage, group sex, urination, homosexuality, or cross-dressing, cybersex offers a private, safe, and anonymous way to explore those fantasies. Therefore, individuals are more likely to sexually experiment as online users feel encouraged to engage in their adult fantasies and validated by the acceptance of the cyberspace culture.

This leads to the second variable of the ACE Model, the convenience of cyberporn and adult chat sites provides an immediately available vehicle to easily fall into compulsive patterns of online use. Industry estimates that 9.6 million users, or about 15% of all Web users, logged on to the 10 most popular sex sites in the month of April 1998 alone. There are an estimated 70,000 sex-related Web site with 200 new adult web sites that include pornography and interactive chat rooms are being added per day (Swhartz, 1998). The proliferation of sexually oriented chat rooms provides a mechanism that encourages a person's initial exploration. A curious husband or wife may secretly step into the "Dominance and Submission Room", the "Fetish Room", or the "Bisexual Room", only to be initially shocked at the erotic dialogue, but at the same time, sexually stimulated by it. The ease of availability serves to promote sexual experimentation among those who normally would not engage in such behavior. The most vulnerable individuals seem to be those who suffer from low self-esteem, a severely distorted body image, untreated sexual dysfunction, or a prior sexual addiction.

Many people may automatically believe that the primary reinforcement of the online sexual act is the sexual gratification received from the experience. Studies have shown that sexual stimulation may initially be the reason to engage in cybersex, however, over time, the experience if reinforced through a type of drug "high" that provides an emotional or mental escape or an altered state of reality. For example, a lonely woman suddenly feels desired by her many cyber-partners or a sexually insecure man transforms into a hot cyberlover that all the women in the chat room want. The experience not only provides sexual fulfillment, but allows a subjective mental escape achieved through the development of an online fantasy life where a person can adopt a new persona and online identity. The courts have already argued the role of online compulsivity as a mental disorder in the defense of online sexual deviancy cases. For example, one landmark case, the United States versus McBroom, successfully demonstrated that the client's downloading, viewing, and transferring of Internet pornography was less about erotic gratification and more about an emotional escape mechanism to relieve mental tension.

Gender significantly influences the way men and women view cybersex. Women prefer cybersex because it hides their physical appearance, removes the social stigma that women shouldn't enjoy sex, and allows them a safe means to concentrate on their sexuality in new, uninhibited ways. Men prefer cybersex because it removes performance anxiety that may be underlying problems with premature ejaculation or impotence and it also hides their physical appearance for men who feel insecure about hair loss, penis size, or weight gain.

Treatment for Cybersexual Addiction:

If cybersex has impacted a significant relationship, then click on the link to learn more about our exclusive new booklet: Infidelity Online: An Effective Guide for Rebuilding Your Relationship after a Cyberaffair.

If you and your marriage have already been hurt by Cybersexual addiction, then read Caught in the Net, the first and only recovery book on Internet addiction to help rebuild your relationship. Click here to order Caught in the Net

If you need immediate help, please contact our Virtual Clinic to receive email or live chat counseling sessions.

For spouses:find out how spouses deal with cyberaffairs

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