Do me a favor. Think back to those first moments of falling in love with someone. Do you remember the tingles and the thrills when you saw or thought of them? What if they suddenly broke up with you and your relationship came crashing down? Or maybe you cheated on them, or they cheated on you — but you both stayed in the relationship. And even though you treated them like crap or they treated you like crap, you couldn’t stop being with them. You got back together like, eight times, and each time your self-esteem shrank.
Maybe you found another partner right away to take away the bad feeling. Or you started to stalk your ex everywhere they went. Maybe you even started to sleep with all their friends to get back at them. Or you followed their new lover on social media. Maybe you broke into their house and then set up spy cameras.
No? Did I lose you way back at “treating you like crap”? If that’s the case, it’s probably because you aren’t driven by compulsion and a disease called sex and love addiction. But I am.
I could go back to the beginning and tell you how and why I started acting out with men at the young age of 13, but let’s go straight to one of my “bottoms” as they call it in Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous (SLAA), a 12-step program along the lines of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Your “bottom” is a moment when your whole world comes crashing down around you, and you’re looking at the horrible mess you made and thinking to yourself, “Crap, I created this drama and now I have to figure out this disaster of a life I’ve messed up.”
The beginning of the end started in