Recovery is about living a better life. Picture a life in recovery in which everything fits together like the pieces of a puzzle. Sexuality is a part of that picture--an important piece of the recovery puzzle that many people fail to examine. Sexuality is often fraught with confusion, embarrassment, fear, anxiety, shame, and avoidance. The goal of this workbook is to help you recognize the positive power and role of sexuality in your recovery, thereby creating hope and personal fulfillment in your life. By breaking the daunting subject of sexuality into smaller pieces, the workbook allows you to address sexuality in a safe and healing approach. Topics include healthy sexuality, healing from trauma, types of intimacy, relationships, disclosure of information, spirituality, healthy touch, cultural messages, sexual expression, mental health, body image, sexual functioning and many more. For many readers, this will be the first time you deeply examine sexuality and its connection to your chemical use. As you move through the workbook, questions for reflection are posed to help you examine the relationship between sexuality and your chemical use. Creative exercises move you toward an integrated experience of sexual health. I encourage you to discover, accept, and care for your true sexual self by embarking on this work.

Healthy sexuality within the context of recovery is rarely talked about openly, in part because the larger culture restricts the space required to name our experiences in open, honest ways. Matesa gives us that space by bringing the language of recovery to this more hidden part of our healing, allowing us to truly “practice these principles in all our affairs." Sexuality in the context of recovery is rarely talked about openly, in part because our broader culture may inhibit us from sharing our true experiences. For some, the prospect of sober sex feels like uncharted waters—in the past, we’ve rarely had sex without first numbing ourselves with drugs and alcohol. What does it mean to have an intimate relationship in sobriety? Exploring that question deepens our recovery journey. With this groundbreaking work, Jennifer Matesa uncovers the challenges real people encounter when they start taking their clothes off—without drinking or using in order to do so. Providing readers “a meeting between the covers,” Matesa blends first-person accounts bravely shared by diverse members of the recovery community, insights from experts, and her own perspectives. The result is a book that creates a space for a vital, new dialogue about sexuality and intimacy. As we find a common language for this more hidden aspect of our healing, we can truly “practice these principles in all our affairs.”

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There is an alternative to 12-step. Eliminate or reduce any type of addictive behavior with this practical and effective workbook. -- on back cover.

2. What is a Sex and Love Addiction? Definition of Addiction, The High, Tolerance, Dependence, Craving, Withdrawal, Obsession, Compulsion, Secrecy, Personality Change, Getting It All Together: Diagnostic Criteria. 3. The Disease Concept of Addictions: Competing Theories of Addictions, The Disease Model of Addiction, The Disease of Sex and Love Addiction, Severity of Sex and Love Addictions. 4. Short-Term Treatment and Recovery: Twelve-Step Programs - H.O.W., Bottom Lines and Triggers, Secrecy, Why Me?, Masks and Attitudes, Relapse and Relapse Prevention. 5. Long-Term Treatment and Recovery: Self-Affirmation, Support Systems, Families, Boundaries, Nurturing and Discipline, PTSD, Healthy Intimacy.

Fawcett provides a practical resource for recovery from methamphetamine and the restoration of healthy sex and intimacy. He outlines a path toward healing, describing the phases of physical, emotional, and sexual recovery and provides a broad range of supportive tools from managing triggers to mindfulness.

The first workbook to help partners of sex addicts cope with discovering their loved one has compulsive sexual behaviors.