If you or someone you love is suffering with sex and/or love addiction we can help.

At Banbury Lodge we use a blend of evidence based therapies to enable you to understand, explore, and resolve processes and experiences that may be contributing to your love and sex addiction.

In this safe, supportive, and non-judgmental environment we help you uncover, accept and move beyond your addictive thinking and behavior.

We use an integrative approach, blending a variety of focused therapies, mindfulness practices, and skills building sessions that focus on developing healthy interpersonal dynamics, increasing self-esteem, and encouraging resilience.

Our compassionate and accepting treatment team can help you to learn to love and accept yourself, whilst developing healthy and authentic relationships with others.

If you have any other co-occurring issues such as depression, anxiety, substance abuse and eating disorders they can also be addressed at Banbury Lodge as part of your treatment programme.

The goals of love and sex addiction you may set in treatment at Banbury could be;

• Stopping the addictive behaviour
• Building healthy relationships
• Setting appropriate boundaries
• Achieving genuine intimacy
• Building self esteem
• Developing interpersonal skills
• Developing assertiveness tools
• Gaining an introduction to 12-step support groups such as Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous
• Learning to regulate emotions without the use of unhelpful behaviours

Whilst no two addicts are the same, trauma often plays a part in developing sex and love addiction so some deep therapeutic work may be appropriate. We have an experienced, expert therapeutic team who can guide and support you at every step.

It can be a very powerful experience to come to realise that your unconscious processes may be driving you into painful situations. From a place of understanding and acceptance you can choose to change! This kind of uncovering and understanding is important in breaking the cycle.

What Is Sex/Love Addiction?

The underlying causes of love addiction are complex and unique to each person. However, there are often shared contributing factors such as childhood neglect or abandonment, rejection, and physical, emotional or sexual abuse.

As a result of insecure attachment, because of difficult relationships in childhood, you may have struggled with social connection, with confidence, and with having a clear sense of self or clear boundaries. Sometimes the effort to maintain relationships may be quite painful and desperate.

Sex and love have a very similar impact on the neurotransmitters in the brain, like dopamine, as do many drugs. The same brain pathways associated with energy, focus, euphoria and craving are linked to both substance and non-substance/process addictions. Both sex addiction and love addiction are disorders of emotional intimacy. Both are characterized by obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviours, in much the same way as any addiction is.

Love and romance are a healthy part of relationships, but relentless pursuit of the romantic or sexual “high” can actually hinder the development of genuine intimacy with others.

The driving forces behind sex and love addiction are often not thrill seeking or hedonism, instead often its roots can be found in lack of self-esteem and lack of self-love. Sex and love addiction has a number of potentially devastating complications from possible medical complications including contracting sexually transmitted diseases, to decreased performance at work due to obsessive behaviours, and to isolation and shame.

At Banbury Lodge we can help you recover and to develop healthy interpersonal skills, self-love, and a life that is free from addiction.

The Difference between Sex and Love Addiction

Whist there are similarities between sex and love addiction there are also differences that separate the two disorders.

Symptoms of Sex addiction include;

• A preoccupation with sexual behaviour or preparatory activities
• An excessive amount of time spent in finding sex, being sexual, or recovering from sex
• A need to increase the intensity, frequency, riskiness of the behaviour
• Discontent, restlessness, or irritability if unable to engage in the behaviour

Symptoms of Love addiction include;

• Feeling unable to stop seeing a particular person despite negative consequences
• A sense of getting “high” from romance and fantasy
• Using “relationships” to try to deal with problems or to fix your feelings
• Feeling desperate longing to be with your sexual partner

Sex addiction and love addiction are different but both leave sufferers with disordered intimacy patterns. Preoccupation sex and love actually creates a barrier between people. If you are suffering with love and sex addiction you can recover. At Banbury we provide specialized treatment designed to help you:

• Challenge your unhealthy patterns of thinking and behaviours that create a barrier between the addict and another person
• Develop skills and tools to enable you present in a genuine, intimate relationship
• Learn to regulate your mood and cope with life without the use of addictive behaviours
• Help you develop coping mechanisms that will aid relapse prevention
• Enable you to develop a support network of understanding peers who are all on the journey of recovery

Codependency

The term codependency was originally applied to the partners of alcoholics, but it soon became apparent that codependent behaviour was far more prevalent in the general population than had previously been imagined. Research found that you might display codependent traits if, for example, you were raised in a dysfunctional family or had an ill parent, and that it didn’t necessarily relate to addiction or alcoholism.

The good news is that codependency can be healed.

Symptoms of Codependency

The following is a list of symptoms of codependency and being in a codependent relationship. It is not exhaustive, and you don’t need to have them all to qualify as codependent.

Low self-esteem

Feeling that you’re not good enough or comparing yourself to others are signs of low self-esteem. Guilt and perfectionism are often intertwined with low self-esteem.

People-pleasing

Some codependents have a hard time saying no, because of the anxiety that accompanies that process. You may go out of your way and sacrifice your own needs to accommodate other people, for fear of rejection.

Boundary issues

You may feel responsible for other people’s feelings and problems or place the responsibility for your own on someone else. Conversely some codependents have rigid boundaries which make them seem unapproachable or withdrawn. Often people flip back and forth between the two. It is a painful and exhausting relational style but you can work on your interpersonal skills and recover.

Caretaking

Perhaps the most well-known of the codependency traits is caretaking. It’s natural to feel empathy and sympathy for someone that is struggling, but if you are suffering from codependency you may find yourself focusing on fixing someone else’s problems to the detriment of your own life.

Control

None of us want to live in constant uncertainty and chaos, but codependency and the need to exert control may be limiting your ability to take risks and share feelings. Interestingly control is not always exerted in the traditional sense – people-pleasing and care-taking can be used to control and manipulate people very effectively.

Dependency

Codependency can leave you in a painful place where you are afraid of being rejected or abandoned. You may feel that you need to be in a relationship and find it hard to leave relationships even when they are painful or unhealthy.

Problems with intimacy

If you are codependent you may find it really challenging to be in an intimate relationship. You may find yourself struggling with fear of abandonment and fear of being judged to the point that it is really difficult to be yourself. This is obviously a really painful and unhelpful way of relating to other people. Through skills training, and interpersonal group you can build resilience and assertiveness and get on the path to long term recovery.

Codependency creates stress and difficult emotions like shame, fear, and low self-esteem or anger, resentment and hopelessness. But you can recover, at Banbury Lodge we can facilitate recovery and change for people who are codependent.

Our Guarantee

If you choose to become a client at Banbury Lodge for sex and love addiction we will do our upmost to:

• Help you – to overcome barriers to recovery from sex and love addiction, such as feeling stigma, self-doubt, or shame.
• Enable you – to set a goals for you recovery beginning with stopping your addiction in its tracks, whilst helping you stay motivated and prepared for long term recovery.
• Equip you – will skills and tools that to address the emotional, psychological and lifestyle issues that have contributed to your sex and love addiction.
• Empower you – at Banbury Lodge you will receive a rigorous programme tailored to your individual needs and goals.

Our approach is:

• Integrative, meaning that the therapeutic approach used will be the one that best fits you
• Confidential

If you are struggling with sex and love addiction we are here to help. Call us now to find out more about our tailored therapeutic programmes.

What Happens After Rehab?

We hope that when the time comes for you to move on from treatment at Banbury Lodge you will be feeling a mixture of pride and excitement. Through hard work you will have built a great basis for this new, sober phase of your life.

At Banbury we know that people can feel vulnerable to relapse in the first weeks and months after leaving rehab. But rest assured you will not have to do this alone. We are committed to providing ongoing care and will work to minimize the risk of relapse by providing a supportive and comprehensive aftercare package consisting of:

• Aftercare sessions alongside your peers and an addictions counsellor to help you sustain your sobriety and peace of mind.
• Ongoing contact with your counsellor so you can process experiences and feelings as they come up.
• Contact with your GP, if appropriate we can provide your GP with discharge information to make sure that continuing care can be put in place should you need it.
• Support Groups, we provide an introduction to the local area Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous fellowships, as a source of ongoing support.

Before you leave Banbury you will have developed a thorough relapse prevention plan, with the help of your peers and your counsellor. This plan will include steps to take when you find yourself in triggering situations such as phoning a friend in recovery, attending a local support group, or calling us at Banbury Lodge. You will also be equipped to understand when you are becoming at risk, through becoming mindful of your processes you can stop relapse in its tracks and choose a different path.

Rehab at Banbury Lodge will equip you with a wide selection of skills and tools for not only dealing with the urge to relapse, but also for building a life that you really do love.