Reports of celebrities, politicians, and newscasters being ousted because of sexual abuse and harassment charges continue to dominate the news. Good!

Conversations about the problem of unwanted sexual advances — and the abuse of power to exploit people sexually — are uncomfortable but really important. When the #metoo social media posts went viral it was a stark reminder of how widespread this problem is.

For a number of years I worked in the recovery field — specializing in sexual addiction — and I’ve had the occasion to deal with these issues a LOT. Hearing the stories in the news lately has brought up a lot of thoughts. Let me share some of them …

First off, let’s get clear about the terms

SEXUAL HARASSMENT — Webster’s dictionary defines sexual harassment as “uninvited and unwelcome verbal or physical behavior of a sexual nature especially by a person in authority toward a subordinate, such as an employee or student.” Guidelines of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) have formed the basis for most state laws prohibiting sexual harassment in the workplace. The guidelines state:

Unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature constitute sexual harassment when:

• submission to such conduct is made either explicitly or implicitly a term or condition of an individual’s employment,

• submission to or rejection of such conduct by an individual is used as the basis for employment decisions affecting such individuals, or

• such conduct has the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with an individual’s work performance or creating an intimidating, hostile, or offensive working environment.

SEXUAL ABUSE — Sexual abuse goes further than harassment in that it involves sexual contact (not just words) with someone unable to give consent (eg. a child, or someone with dementia) and thus involves some form of “forcible compulsion.” When force is immediate, of short duration, or infrequent, it is called sexual assault. The American Psychological Associate (APA) defines sex abuse as “unwanted sexual activity, with perpetrators using force, making threats or taking advantage of victims not able to give consent.”

RAPE — According to Wikipedia, “Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration carried out against a person without that person’s consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or against a person who is incapable of giving valid consent. The term rape is sometimes used interchangeably with the term sexual assault.”

Why these distinctions are important

Continue reading Sexual Harassment, Abuse, and Addiction: the differences, the overlap, and the treatment (part 1) →

Everyone agrees that whatever addiction you have, it starts out fun. Whether it’s the great taste and comfort of food, the mellowness or rush from a drug, or the excitement and stimulation of something like gambling or sex … there’s a reason we turn to it, and come back to it again and again. It’s exciting, it satiates a desire, and it feels good.

But at some point — usually much earlier than we realize — it turns on us.

Instead of controlling it, it controls us. We find ourselves going back to it even though we promised ourselves we wouldn’t, and the limits we set keep getting violated.

One of my favorite books this year is “Out of the Wreck I Rise,” by Niel Steinberg and Sara Bader. It is essentially a compendium of quotations by literary figures about addiction and recovery. Some are long, some are short … almost all of them are really really good. Not only that, Steinberg and Bader’s writing — which comes in the form of extended introductions for each topical chapter — is interesting and helpful too. Listen to what they have to say about our denial in addiction, and the crucial step of realizing it’s out of control and no longer “fun”:

Fierce denial is common, and so a jarring incident, or, more likely a series of escalating incidents, is usually required before change is contemplated. Those confronting their addiction begin by addressing the crisis and, only then, are forced to understand the routine that led to it. The beginning of a new life is the gradual realization — the honesty emphasized in AA — that there is a sameness to addiction, a dreariness, a drudgery. It is the identical thing happening over and over again, every day, with only one avenue of escape, one possibility of change, an option that, viewed by a person sunk in the routine of dependence, at first seems incredible, unimaginable, ridiculous.

That first step — whether taken on your own or pushed to it by somebody else — is recognizing that you aren’t doing this of your own will. It’s a compulsion. You don’t think using your substance is fun because it’s fun to be constantly scourged with the need for drink or drugs (or sex). You think it’s fun because it’s what you do all the time and you’re secretly terrified at the thought of not doing it, of enduring the awful hunger you suffer when you stop even briefly. It’s like a bad job that you keep telling yourself you must like, because you go there every day and it’s all you’ve got.

Addiction is not a bad choice. It’s an obsession: grinding, dictatorial, relentless. The great thing about recovery is that you don’t have to succumb to your addiction every day. You don’t have to spend your life doing this.