Boundary #5: Self-Boundaries

At Front Range Counseling Center, we recommend setting boundaries for sexual addiction recovery.  Here is information on boundaries:

Boundaries are what keep you safe and place a protective barrier around you to keep you from sexually acting out.  Sexual addiction involves patterns of thought, association with others, and behavior that frequently lead to sexual acting out.  Boundaries help to identify “risk situations” or past patterns which have been associated with your acting out.  The sex addict has viewed thousands of images that have conditioned his brain to sexually arousing visual sex objects.  The sex addict has certain characteristics that arouse or trigger his brain to desiring his drug of choice more than others.

To clarify ones boundaries is to say  “I am going to take responsibility to keep myself safe by avoiding places, people, images, media, and activities that are triggers for me, and therefore dangerous to my recovery.”  To break a boundary is to head toward slip and potentially toward a full relapse.  Just as a fence protects a valuable crop from being decimated, boundaries protect you from deadly influences.

Choosing to stay out of risk situations always involves some “cost” (some are more costly than others).  For example, to give up consuming alcohol is relatively a low cost but to give up using the internet may result in a very costly choice, perhaps needing to change to careers.  Some risk situations are high risk and other risk situations are low risk.

The sex addict will need to establish boundaries around himself to avoid being triggered into sexual ritual patterns.  In the tasks that follow, you will be asked to setup boundaries of what to avoid: place, people, objects, internet, fantasies/thoughts, television, movies/media, printed materials, and other triggers.  You will identify all past, present, and/or potential triggers that will need a boundary establish.  You will share this list of boundaries with your group, therapist, and sponsor.

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Kevin Leapley, MA, LPC, CSAT

Sexual Addiction Therapist at Front Range Counseling Center

Kevin Leapley specializes in both marriage counseling and sexual addiction therapy for men. Kevin has received specialized training by Dr. Patrick Carnes and obtained his CSAT (Certified Sexual Addiction Therapist). Kevin has also received extensive training in Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) and is a certified Emotionally Focused Therapist .

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