RECOVERY…THE HERO’S JOURNEY

The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous says that the alcoholic is like a tornado roaring his way through the lives of others. Hearts are broken. Sweet relationships are dead. Affections have been uprooted. Selfish and inconsiderate habits have kept the home in turmoil. We do a better job of treating people with addictions than the family members. The person with the addiction often receives residential or outpatient treatment, individual therapy, referral to community support. But what about the people who love the person with the addiction? What about the children? Claudia Black, world renowned author of It Will Never Happen to Me and My Dad Loves Me, My Dad has a Disease says, No one deserves to operate from a place of fear and shame. We deserve far greater options. This podcast follows one woman's brave journey of living with her husband's alcoholism for years. Rosemary was married with 3 children when her husband began to exhibit signs of alcoholism. She describes encounters with the police, hiding in the basement with her young son, and years of verbal abuse. My kids don't remember him sober. She recounts these lost years with a sense of unreality, familiar to trauma survivors and wonders why she tolerated unacceptable behavior for so long. She describes the chaos and anxiety, the denial, and the traumatic wounding that happens within the alcoholic home, as well as the devastation that follows each relapse. Rosemary is brave and vulnerable as she shares what motivated her to take her three children and leave the alcoholic home. This is a story of a mother's love for her children and a desire to protect them. She shares how breaking the silence, supportive friends and Alanon helped her develop a strong, independent sense of self. She recounts a new sense of freedom and hope for the future, for herself and her children.

Addiction Psychiatrist Dr. Robert Malcolm joins us today to discuss the growing problem of cocaine and methamphetamine addiction. Dr. Malcolm is a well respected clinician and prolific researcher at the Medical University of South Carolina, and has devoted 35 years to conducting clinical medication trials in the hope of helping people struggling with Substance Use Disorders. Dr. Malcolm discusses the current trends in stimulant addiction and addresses the rising number of overdose deaths involving cocaine and methamphetamine and the alarming increase in people taking opioids and stimulants together. He describes the physical and psychiatric effects of cocaine and methamphetamine on the body and brain and addresses the following questions: Why are cocaine and methamphetamine cravings so difficult to control? Are there any medications to help these cravings? What drugs have been studied to treat cocaine and methamphetamine addiction? What psychosocial treatments work the best with cocaine and methamphetamine addiction? Join Dr. Malcolm as he supports people struggling with Stimulant Use Disorder and offers his best advice regarding recovery.

Charlotte Jackson, MA, is a therapist and supervisor in the Multi-Disciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) Phase III clinical trials researching MDMA assisted therapy for individuals with severe PTSD. Charlotte describes how PTSD impacts the brain and emotional life of afflicted individuals. Charlotte offers a brief overview of the early psychedelic research and how MAPS has built on this. She speaks to the known mechanisms of MDMA and also the known potency and purity of the MAPS medication vs. street drugs. She shares the exciting results of the MAPS study published in the journal Nature Medicine in May 2021, showing that MDMA-assisted therapy represents a potential breakthrough treatment for severe PTSD. Charlotte Jackson shares the characteristics of the study participants, average duration of PTSD, how the study defined remission and common experiences of the participants following experiential sessions. How does an experience with the study drug compare to an experience of social use? This study included people with serious comorbidity like substance use disorders, suicidality, depression, dissociation and childhood trauma. What were the findings with this very difficult-to-treat population? We discuss people's resistance surrounding the use of psychedelics to treat psychiatric conditions. Charlotte shares her experience with psilocybin-assisted therapy with terminally ill patients and her hopes to expand access to individuals with substance use disorders. Charlotte Jackson tells listeners how to contact MAPS if they are interested in participating in a study and outlines future areas of study for MDMA-assisted therapy.

Join Dr. Hilarie Cash, one of the nation's leading experts in the field of Internet Gaming Disorder. Dr. Cash is co-founder and Chief Clinical Officer of reSTART Life, the first residential treatment program for adolescents and adults suffering from addiction to the internet and video games. Dr. Cash describes the risk factors, consequences and mental health problems commonly associated with addiction to the internet and video games. She describes the withdrawal syndrome associated with online gaming and comments on the connection between online gaming and substance use. How do I approach my teen or loved one if I think he has a problem? What if he won't agree to get help? Dr. Cash addresses these questions and describes the treatment approach at reSTART Life, where the motto is Connect with life, not your device. Dr. Cash explains how exposing children to excessive screens at younger and younger ages interferes with normal growth and development, often leading to problems with healthy attachment and intimacy. She offers advice to parents on how to prevent an internet addiction in their children.

Matt is a 40 year old attorney and partner in a well respected law firm. He developed addictions to alcohol, cocaine and opioids. His life at work and home became unmanageable and out of control. After multiple outpatient treatments failed, Matt entered an out of state residential treatment program that offered a specialized track for impaired professionals. Matt discusses the Hazelden/American Bar Association research that shows that attorneys are at a much higher risk for mental health and addiction problems than the general population. He shares his thoughts on how the legal culture has historically set attorneys up to develop addiction. What is it about practicing law and the legal culture that puts an attorney at risk for Substance Use Disorders and Workaholism? He outlines what the American Bar Association and some law firms are doing to increase awareness of the problem and focus on prevention and treatment of mental health and addiction problems. Matt outlines the reasons many attorneys keep their addiction secret and avoid entering treatment. He shares how he structures his practice to optimize work-life balance and sustain his recovery from addiction and offers advice to both people graduating from law school and attorneys who are struggling with an addiction problem currently. Matt shares his life changing experience in rehab and the importance of 12 step programs in his recovery. He explains the reason behind setting up an AA meeting specific to attorneys and his role in his State Bar Association's Lawyer's Assistance Program.

Eilene Zimmerman is an experienced journalist and regular contributor to The New York Times. She is author of the powerful and heart-breaking memoir, Smacked...A Story of White Collar Ambition, Addiction, and Tragedy. Eilene begins today's podcast with a shocking reading, in which she describes discovering her ex-husband's body in his home. She did not notice the track marks in his arms, nor the drug paraphernalia that surrounded his body on the floor until the coroner brought it to her attention. In a desperate attempt to fathom what happened to him and how she and everyone else in his world missed it, Eilene set out to create a map of Peter's life the year before he died. Peter was a high-powered, affluent attorney and senior partner in a prestigious law firm in Silicon Valley. Eileen shares research that illuminates the high risk of addiction and mental health problems among attorneys. We discuss the legal culture that promotes workaholism, isolation, depression and addiction. Eilene tells us what the American Bar Association and some individual law firms are doing to increase awareness and help prevent tragic endings like Peter's. Eileen is honest and personal as she describes her own personal journey and what has helped her heal. She comments on the impact that workaholism and drug addiction has on children and tells us why she decided to tell her children the truth about their father's death.

Dr. Aaron Black is a Fellow and Board Member of the American Group Psychotherapy Association and an instructor on faculty at the Center for Group Studies in NYC. Dr. Black bases his group work on Attachment Theory. He describes how insecure attachment patterns that develop in childhood typically manifest as dysfunction in our adult relationships. He believes that, using the group as a secure base, people can change their attachment style through ongoing group therapy and emerge as securely attached individuals, able to trust, regulate their emotions and connect more intimately with others. Dr. Black supports the idea that addiction is often the result of insecure attachment and discusses how traditional addiction treatment frequently falls short. We discuss how 12 Step groups frequently refer to anger as a character defect and discourage its expression in early recovery. Dr. Black explains the importance of learning how to express angry feelings in recovery and how suppression or denial of anger can harm ourselves and our relationships. We offer multiple examples of how group therapy can operate as a learning lab for people in recovery to practice identifying difficult feelings inside themselves and toward others and practice putting these feelings into words. He suggests that group therapy helps create more resilient individuals by inoculating them against criticism, fear of rejection, frustration, and disappointment. Dr. Black also offers examples of how group therapy based on Attachment Theory can help a person recover parts of themselves that were suppressed or lost, recover longings they didn't know they had and emerge more compassionate toward themselves and others.

Research shows that among people seeking treatment for Substance Use Disorders, lifetime PTSD rates range from 30 to over 60%. This is a complicated group that tends to have worse outcomes when compared to either disorder alone. Dr. Lisa Najavits, world renowned expert in PTSD and Trauma Treatment discusses her award-winning, innovative treatment manual Seeking Safety, which treats PTSD and Substance Use Disorders concurrently. Dr. Najavits discusses the common myth that treatment needs to focus on the past, on the painful retelling of the trauma story and the intense re-experiencing of feelings associated with the trauma. She says this myth deters many people from seeking trauma treatment. Her manual is present-focused and teaches coping skills that help people manage PTSD symptoms, cope with cravings and take back their personal power that was lost through the trauma and the addiction. Seeking Safety offers 25 different topics, promoting both relationship skills and individual skills. These topics include Detaching From Emotional Pain, Compassion, Setting Boundaries in Relationships, Asking for Help, Coping with Triggers, Finding Meaning and Safe Self Nurturing. Dr. Najavits goes into depth as she explains some of the grounding exercises (physical, mental and soothing grounding) that help people detach from emotional pain. She offers some simple, practical and portable skills that give people the ability to shift their emotional state at any moment. Dr. Najavits offers hope to those suffering from comorbid PTSD and Substance Use Disorders, encouraging them to stay in the present moment and focus on what you can do now, today, in the present moment. You can create a new story for yourself and find a sense of meaning and purpose moving forward... This, she says, is an antidote to trauma and addiction.

Geraldine Burns is an absolute giant and tireless advocate in the promotion of benzodiazepine awareness and the fight against benzodiazepine harm. During this podcast interview, Geraldine shares her agonizing personal story... why she was originally prescribed benzodiazepines, what happened, how she came to realize that benzodiazepines were worsening her condition/causing symptoms of their own and her attempts to seek professional help. She discusses her connection to Professor Heather Ashton and how she was instrumental in the writing of The Ashton Manual Benzodiazepines: How They Work and How to Withdraw. Geraldine describes her motivation behind starting the first Internet support group in 1999 for people wishing to withdraw from tranquilizers and those who were already off and having problems. She discusses launching the BenzoBookReview.com website in 2006 and what it offers the public. Geraldine shares her motivation behind starting her podcast Benzodiazepine Awareness with Geraldine Burns. She discusses the harmful effect that benzodiazepines can have on a woman's menstrual cycle. Also, the potentially devastating impact of benzodiazepines on the parent-child relationship and the family's financial situation. We touch on her current involvement with legislation in the state of Massachusetts. We discuss her role in the upcoming documentary As Prescribed, due out in 2022, a documentary film project about benzodiazepine dependency and discontinuation syndrome.

Thomas Moore is the author of the groundbreaking bestseller, Care of the Soul: A Guide to Cultivating Depth and Sacredness in Everyday Life and 25 other books on deepening spirituality and how to cultivate soul in the ordinary aspects of one's life. He spent 13 years as a Catholic monk, then went on to earn a PhD in religious studies and became a university professor. Thomas Moore has been practicing depth psychotherapy for over 35 years and offers workshops on spirituality and soul psychology around the world. He has been on Oprah's SuperSoul Sunday. During this enlightening conversation, he defines the soul and what it means to lead a soulful life. He believes that someone who yearns for alcohol may be yearning for a sense of vitality/a sense of feeling connected/a sense of wholeness. He suggests that alcohol may be a kind of poetic metaphor and that yearning for something greater may actually be that person's strength and should be explored in great depth. He recounts one of his patient's dreams about alcohol during our discussion about AA's call for a spiritual awakening. He believes that we are born with spirituality...we don't need to learn it, but we do need to nurture that spiritual connection and keep it alive. He discusses the power of Nature and the Arts in caring for our soul. Thomas Moore delights in imperfections and failures, and, like Carl Jung, believes that The Dark Night of the Soul may be a catalyst for growth and the beginning of a spiritual awakening. He offers suggestions for how to reconnect with your soul, experience a spiritual awakening and bring depth to your life. Thomas explains why wonder is more important than religious doctrine. We discuss ways to find meaning and purpose in life and how to live more fully alive and awake.

This podcast features Dr. Kathleen Brady and Dr. Sudie Back, two world-renowned, prolific researchers and clinicians who have devoted their careers to studying the complicated interrelationship between PTSD and Substance Use Disorders. People with PTSD are 2 to 5 times more likely to have a Substance Use Disorder and, among people seeking treatment for SUD, 20-60% have PTSD. For years, treatment centers have acted on the myth that we need to treat the patient sequentially...treat the Substance Use Disorder first, then treat the PTSD. Research shows that treating the Substance Use Disorder does not lead to a reduction in PTSD symptoms. Dr. Kathleen Brady and Dr. Sudie Back share the research supporting their successful, widely used COPE MANUAL, a treatment manual that treats both PTSD and Substance Use Disorder concurrently using prolonged exposure under the direction of one trained therapist. The experts engage in a lively discussion regarding the nature of PTSD, the brain changes underlying the disorder, the differences between men and women, how PTSD affects the person's beliefs about themselves and the world around them. Prolonged exposure (imaginal and in vivo) is explained in depth, in addition to coping skills taught by the manual aimed at coping with cravings and relapse prevention. In addition, Dr. Brady discusses some FDA approved medications that may be helpful adjuncts for the person struggling with PTSD and Substance Use Disorder.

This unique episode combines a young man's personal story of recovery from a lifetime of negative thinking and subsequent Alcohol Use Disorder with a Clinical Psychologist whose clinical expertise lies in treatment of anxiety disorders. Merrick suffered from perfectionism and obsessive negative, self-attacking thought spirals his whole life. He was a slave to unrelenting negative thoughts. He began to drink in an attempt to quiet the critical voices in his head, but they worsened as the drinking escalated to out of control levels. Merrick describes his journey of recovery and how sobriety has given him tools to manage the negative thinking. Dr. Lauren Wadsworth, a clinical expert in Anxiety Disorders and their treatment, offers insight into negative thinking. She comments on common thinking traps like black and white thinking, fortune telling and mind reading. Dr. Wadsworth offers suggestions on the following: What are these negative thoughts and where do they come from? How do I challenge my negative thoughts? How do I create distance/take a break from the critical voices in my head? How do I manage feelings of shame/ not feeling good enough? How do I break free from a negativity spiral? Dr. Wadsworth describes her favorite CBT strategies to help people manage their negative thinking effectively. She comments on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in working with anxiety. Both she and Merrick discuss the power of Mindfulness and living in the moment. They also share their thoughts on the power of fellowship (connection) and meditation. Dr. Wadsworth offers some helpful resources and explains how to find a CBT trained expert and Merrick shares his rehab and halfway house information.

Worldwide, Alcohol Use Disorder kills 3.3 million people every year. It is the leading cause of death in working men around the world. Alcohol problems are responsible for 10 times the number of fatalities from all illicit drugs combined. Dr. John F. Kelly is a Professor of Psychiatry in Addiction Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Founder and Director of the Recovery Research Institute at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). Dr. Kelly led the most rigorous scientific review of Alcoholics Anonymous performed to date. This review, published in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, is based on 27 rigorous studies (21 RCT's) done over the past 25 years, involving over 10,000 participants, 150 scientists and 67 institutions. The review reveals that AA and Twelve Step Facilitation not only perform as well as other interventions like CBT and Motivational Enhancement Therapy (MET), but actually do better at helping many more people achieve sustained continuous abstinence and remission. AA and Twelve Step Facilitation produce increased rates and lengths of abstinence when compared to other common treatments. Dr. Kelly shares the research behind why AA is so successful and how AA tends to benefit men and women differently. He draws from decades of scientific research to address the following questions: On average, how long does it take to achieve one year of continuous sobriety? How long does it take to rewire the brain during abstinence, thereby reducing the risk of Alcohol Use Disorder to that of the general population? When talking to a person with Alcohol Use Disorder in early sobriety, how would you explain the changes in his brain? Dr. Kelly offers hope as he comments on the percentage of people with Alcohol Use Disorder who actually achieve full sustained remission. Dr. Kelly normalizes ambivalence and explains how Motivational Interviewing can help move a person toward readiness to change. He shares the 5 most important factors that predict successful long term recovery. Dr. Kelly speaks to the suffering of family members and offers helpful suggestions. We discuss collegiate recovery programs and other sober support networks, like Smart Recovery. You won't want to miss an hour with brilliant Dr. John F Kelly, a man who has dedicated his entire career to scientific research aimed at helping people affected by Alcohol Use Disorder and their families fully recover and reclaim their lives.

Keith Greer is a passionate, sought-after Keynote Speaker and Recovery Coach. In addition to working with individuals and families affected by addiction, Keith trains Recovery Coaches at Recovery Coach University. He is also the host of The Helping Conversation Podcast. He believes that a person struggling with Substance Use Disorder is his own best resource, that each person is the expert on their own life and is ultimately capable of designing and charting a direction for their future. Keith sees his clients through a lens of autonomy...he starts where the client is at and is deeply interested in where they want to go from here. Following one of Stephen Covey's principals, he asks his clients to begin with the end in mind and asks where they'd like to see themselves in 3, 6 and 12 months from now. Join Keith Greer as he explains what's involved in co-creating an atmosphere of safety and trust. He normalizes ambivalence. Keith leads us through a series of questions based on motivational interviewing, geared toward helping the client move from a place of pre-contemplation to a place of readiness to move forward in recovery. Keith discusses stigmatizing language that hurts clients and families alike and offers alternatives. He talks about the what's important to know about the complicated suffering involved when working with families affected by addiction. If you are a person struggling to motivate yourself to develop a recovery plan, I suggest that you follow along and answer Keith Greer's questions during this podcast. You'll be amazed at the internal shift you'll feel by the end of the show. If you are a therapist, you'll feel like you've just been to an outstanding motivational interviewing training session and will walk away with a refreshing new way to view and approach clients. Keith will explain what a Recovery Coach has to offer and where to find one.

Robert Kanter, International Recovery Advocate and Legislative Activist, is hopeful over the recent groundbreaking 26 billion dollar settlement reached by 3 of the largest opioid drug distributors in America and manufacturer Johnson and Johnson. Most of the money will go toward addiction treatment in communities hardest hit by the opioid epidemic. He is honest and authentic as he recounts his own personal recovery from substances and that of his daughter's, who recently celebrated 3 years of recovery from opioids. Mr. Kanter describes the desperation he felt as the parent of a child with Opioid Use Disorder and how her struggles became the genesis of his advocacy work. He talks about learning how to connect with her in a loving way , using a de-stigmatized approach based on harm reduction, which ultimately led to her entering treatment. He speaks to parents of children suffering from Opioid Use Disorder, advising them to do research in order to arm themselves with tools and information. He offers 3 websites that can help families navigate treatment services and build a community of support. By learning how to navigate the system, parents can access available life-saving resources and tools. Mr. Kanter describes the Family Support Services for Addiction Act of 2021, legislation that he helped establish. He comments on his latest article in Psychology Today, Commitment Yields Success in 12-Step Programs, which explains what someone needs to do to fully recover from Substance Use Disorder. He offers advice to people struggling with Opioid Use Disorder and their families. Robert Kanter is deeply passionate and personal as he offers help, hope and inspiration for people affected by the opioid epidemic.

Interview with Shane Kenny, Irish broadcaster, journalist and creator of the 2016 acclaimed documentary, “BENZODIAZEPINES: THE MEDICAL DISASTER,” which skillfully exposes the harmful effects of long-term benzodiazepine prescriptions. Mr. Kenny describes his own agonizing 13 year struggle to recover from benzodiazepine-induced injury to his Central Nervous System, including a failed taper in 2009 and a successful taper in 2010. He recounts his in-person interviews with Dr. Malcolm Lader and Dr. Heather Ashton, two famous psychiatrists who devoted most of their medical careers to speaking out against the doctor-induced problem of benzodiazepine overprescribing. Mr. Kenny expresses his outrage that their concerns and repeated requests for judicious prescribing and research proposals into the long term effects of benzodiazepines have been ignored by the medical community and the FDA for decades. Both believed in discontinuation of benzos after only 2-4 weeks of use. Mr. Kenny shares his thoughts and feelings surrounding the FDA’s most recent change in their Black Box Warning for Benzodiazepines and offers his own suggestions for future changes. He is fierce and passionate as he advocates for millions of people world-wide whose lives have been ruined by taking long term benzodiazepines as prescribed.

Join Alexandra Wilcosz, eating disorder expert and Clinical Director at Monte Nido and Affiliates (a residential treatment center for eating disorders), for a discussion on effective treatment of Binge Eating Disorder. Binge Eating Disorder is the most common eating disorder worldwide. It affects 3 times the number of those diagnosed with Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa combined. It is often accompanied by social isolation, shame, disgust and self loathing. Often not recognized as a legitimate psychiatric/medical disorder, people are often stigmatized, even by their own families and physicians...they tend to be looked down upon and seen as just not having enough will power and self control. On any given day in America, 25% of men and 45% of women are on a diet. Studies show that 95% of all dieters will regain their lost weight within 1 to 5 years. Binge Eating Disorder is not about finding the right diet. Alexandra Wilcosz describes research supported treatment for Binge Eating Disorder and leads us through multiple CBT and IPT exercises aimed at challenging our thinking about food and diets, developing strategies to avoid binges, and developing healthy interpersonal relationship skills necessary to prevent relapse. Also discussed are emotion regulation skills, ways to boost self esteem, develop a healthy relationship with your body and lose the self-loathing.

Expert, Dr. Mary Tantillo, author of ground breaking Multifamily Therapy Group for Young Adults with Anorexia Nervosa...Reconnecting for Recovery (2021), describes eating disorders as diseases of disconnection. Dr. Tantillo explains that the eating disorder wants to disconnect people from themselves (one's genuine thoughts, feelings, needs and bodily states) and from one other. She has decades of experience leading Multi-Family Groups for people with eating disorders and their families. Dr. Tantillo believes that the relationship is greater than the sum of its parts and says that there is more power in a relationship than in an individual. She believes that the family is a huge part of the solution and puts up to 7 patients and their families in the same room every week to heal through connection. Join us as she describes the powerful healing work that occurs in her Multi-Family Groups as patients and their families learn how to nourish and empower the we in their relationships. Addiction wants to separate the person with the addiction from loved ones. Naming these disconnections, learning to separate the person from the addiction (in this case the eating disorder) and learning how to stay connected to self and others in spite of the eating disorder are discussed. Dr. Tantillo teaches certain emotional and relational skills that can help the person and the family heal and recover from eating disorders. This episode can be helpful for any person suffering from an eating disorder and anyone who cares about them.

Meet the director and main subject of the award winning 2020 documentary, Medicating Normal, a brave and honest film which focuses on the harmful effects of psychiatric medications. It follows the journeys of a newly married couple, a combat veteran, a waitress and a teenager whose doctors prescribed psychiatric drugs for stress, mild depression, insomnia and trauma. These people went on to suffer serious physical and mental side effects as well as neurological damage from taking these medications as prescribed and severe complicated withdrawal when they attempted to stop. Filmmaker and director, Lynn Cunningham, describes the motivation behind the documentary, advocating for millions of people world-wide who suffer because of the epidemic of overprescribing. These are people, she says, who didn't feel right on their medication, believed they were getting worse and were not believed by their doctors or families. Cunningham felt that this is a story that has to be told. She objects to people with manageable human problems being put in a category of mental illness and created the documentary to create a forum for discussion. Angie Peacock, a main subject in the film and war veteran, returned from war torn Iraq in her early 20's. Suffering from trauma, she was immediately overmedicated by psychiatrists, and given multiple psychiatric diagnoses. And the whole time, she felt she was getting worse. No doctor ever told me that it could be my meds that were making me sick. She describes years of excruciating withdrawal from benzodiazepines and other medications and how she managed to survive. Angie describes the loss of community, our culture's tendency to pathologize normal human problems of anxiety, depression and loss and offers advice to people looking to taper off their psychiatric medication.

Dr. Alexandra Katehakis, world renowned Sex Addiction Therapist and Director of the Center for Healthy Sex in Los Angeles shares a wealth of information today. What is Sex Addiction? Is it real, or just an excuse for bad behavior? She believes that compulsive sexual behavior is a way of masking very deep pain and extreme emotion dysregulation that typically originates in childhood. Dr. Katehakis explains that most sex addicts suffer from an early Attachment Disorder. Case presentations are discussed to highlight the complicated sexual arousal template that develops in the face of early childhood trauma and how shame, humiliation and fear are all fused with sympathetic arousal. The resulting compulsive sexual behavior is sometimes an attempt at self-soothing and sometimes a manifestation of trauma repetition-compulsion. “Shame is both the cause and effect of the Sex Addiction itself.” Dr. Katehakis discusses her most significant contribution to the field…long term psychotherapy for long term change and making the Carnes model a sex positive one. Her ultimate goal for her clients is a healthy sex life and healthy intimate connections. We underline the importance of group therapy as a vehicle to develop a capacity for intimate connecting with others and shame reduction. Other topics of conversation are the difference between sex and love addiction, the impact of sex addiction on the partner, the effect of the hundred billion dollar porn industry on our children and on the sexual functioning of young men, and what kind of conversations parents should consider having with their children about sex and pornography.