Change Your Brain Every Day - Affairs, Porn, and Pain: The Unsexy Truth About Sex Addiction

Episode Date: June 16, 2025

Sex addiction isn’t just about bad behavior—it’s destroying relationships, hijacking brains, and feeding a cycle of guilt and secrecy. In this powerful episode, Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana Amen sit down with leading expert Dr. Doug Weiss to expose what’s really driving unhealthy sexual behavior—from childhood trauma to modern porn culture. Discover the six types of sex addicts, how to know if you or someone you love is in trouble, and what real recovery looks like. Whether you’re struggling, in a relationship with a sex addict, or just want to understand the growing crisis no one talks about—this conversation is for you. 00:00 Intro 01:27 Sponsor 01:50 Doug Weiss 05:27 What is Sexual Addiction? 07:27 The Evolution of Sexual Addiction 09:59 The Arousal Template 13:37 The Battle for Sexuality 15:22 The 6 Types of Addicts 18:04 The Effects of Sexual Trauma 21:29 Recovery 25:40 Help for the Partners 27:41 Bordeline Personality Disorder 31:27 Finding Support 33:28 Infidelity vs Sexual Addiction 35:26 Intimacy Anorexia 28:12 More About Dr. Weiss 39:13 Sponsor 40:01 Wrap Up   drdougweiss.com sexaddict.com   Dr. Weiss’ new book, Forgiveness for Everyone: https://www.amazon.com/Forgiveness-Everyone-Dr-Doug-Weiss/dp/1881292592  

But when you're living with a commander woman who is starving you, emotional intimacy doesn't touch you, doesn't celebrate your birthday, doesn't see you. You are in pain. Now what you do with that pain is your decision. Some people will go medicate that pain by having an affair, or gaining 50 pounds, or getting a six-pack. Doug Weiss is a licensed psychologist and the executive director of Heart to Heart Counseling Center. He is a nationally recognized expert on sexual addiction and intimacy issues.

He's also a speaker, author, and television host. There are different types of addicts. So talk to us about the six types. The first is the biological, creating the sexual template, ring the bell, feed the dog, ring the bell, feed the dog. The second is psychological, there's pain in the soul, so you find yourself and you begin to use fantasy to compensate for what you're needing in your life. There is the sexual abuse. They actually duplicate either as perpetrator or as victim, the behavior. And there's the spiritual person.

They're looking for God in all the wrong places and as soon as they have a spiritual encounter, they're done with it. And then there is the intimacy and the erectsic sex addict. They're too busy for you, they blame you for the problems, they withhold love, withhold praise, withhold sex. What's the path to recovery? Day one, we find out what type of sex act they are.

Now this will surprise you. Every day, you are making your brain better or you are making it worse. Stay with us to learn how you can change your brain for the better every day. People come to AIM and clinics from all over the world for answers with 11 clinics in major hubs, Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, DC, LA, Miami, New York, Orange County, Seattle, San Francisco,

and Scottsdale. Expert brain care is closer than you think. Visit AEMONClinics.com. Care is closer than you think. Visit amenclinics.com. We are so excited to welcome you to the Change Your Brain Every Day podcast. We have Dr. Doug Weiss with us, who's a renowned psychologist, author, speaker, expert in sexual addiction recovery, intimacy issues, and faith-based counseling. With over 30 years of experience, he's the founder and executive director of Heart to Heart Counseling Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado. His center offers intensive therapy programs, support groups, counseling services for individuals and couples dealing with sexual addiction,

which we're going to talk about in the first podcast. He's going to stay with us for a second one on eating disorders. He's authored over 40 books, produced numerous therapeutic DVDs. He coined the term intimacy, anorexia. I'm so excited to learn about that. To describe the withholding of emotional, physical, and spiritual intimacy in marriage. He's also the president of the American Association of Sex Addiction Therapy, a certification training program for sex addiction partners of sex addicts, which we should talk about, and intimacy anorexia.

A devout Christian, Dr. Weiss integrates spiritual principles such as prayer, forgiveness, and accountability into his therapeutic methods, helping clients connect their faith with their personal development journey. So, Doug, thank you so much. Well, I'm so glad to be here. I'm excited to talk about these topics and to help people understand that there's hope

and there's freedom. You know, when you hear the word sexual addiction, sometimes it's like a cloud comes in the room. Yeah, it feels like it's more and more these days. I'm like 40 years clean and the sun shines bright. And I've seen thousands of couples get better and connect and men get free and, you know, quadruple their businesses and go into their callings and become better dads and women as well.

We have books on female sexual addiction, which is a whole nother topic. It's raging right now, especially on college campuses. And so I'm glad we're talking about this because this is where a lot of people live, but there's no sign out the door. You know what I'm saying? It says, hey, I'm struggling. And it's probably going to get worse with Oh, I have job security. I have job security. Yeah. I mean, for the last 20 years, you know, when myself, when we talk about Mark Lazer, when we started, I mean, you pretty much had to go find pornography. Now it's in your phone. You know what I'm saying? It's younger than that. And so we find that's eight,

nine year olds. And they get addicted to pornography and they get it robs your development neurologically. What it does to the brain, you know that and it's significant when you attach your sexuality, the most powerful thing you've been given to an object relationship. And so, yeah, it's a setup for failure. No, I've seen it in volunteering in classrooms. You know, I think as soon as kids were able to have phones with them is when I noticed it. Maybe it was happening earlier than that. No, absolutely. That's when it really expedited. And the ones who had older siblings, it was worse. Yes. Yeah. Because they got exposed to things they... Because when you're on the internet, you can go like when we were younger, you know, you had

Playboy, you had Penthouse. Okay. It's pretty tame compared to what in a second you can get into beastly. You can get into crazy stuff and you're six-year-old, you don't even have abstract reasoning to process what you're looking at. So, talk about what is sexual addiction? Well, I mean, sexual addiction, first of all, if you are one, you know you are. Really? Because you tried to stop. You made promises to yourself to stop. Sounds like addiction, right? You've had consequences oftentimes and you kept using beyond those consequences, but it's really using the sexual

behavior to medicate either past pain or current stresses in a way that's not productive in your life. And there's six types of sex addicts and we can talk about that, but there's different ways to be going down the road to arrive at the city of sex addiction. But once you're there, you have to get out. Can I ask you a question though? Absolutely. When you say you know you are, it seems to me like society keeps trying to make this

normal. Like pornography and all the, you know, the porn it seems to me like society keeps trying to make this normal, like pornography and all the, you know, the porn hub and all these things. Like it's a normal thing now. And so if we're trying to normalize it, then how do people know? At what point do they know that they're in trouble? Well, what happens is even though other cultures and Asian cultures and European cultures, they're ahead of us on that curve. Okay? And so, we've been raising kids in pornography for longer than we think. And but like, you have to made it popular, mainstreamed in our generation, right? But what happens is that the human spirit still knows when it's doing something, it ought not to do it.

Like, you can, you can steal the cookie in any culture and no, you stole the cookie. Does that make sense? And when you're looking at the nakedness of a person, which is really true holiness, because we're made in that image, you know you're doing something that's not appropriate. And if you can't stop, even when you want to, you begin to realize that maybe I am the problem. Do you start to, do you think shame is that's where shame starts? Well, shame becomes part of the cycle because you do something wrong and then you either

feel guilt or shame. Guilt is I did something wrong. Shame is I am something wrong. Well, if you keep doing something wrong long enough, you begin to believe that I am something wrong. And then shame fuels the whole addiction cycle whether it's alcohol, drugs, food, sex or any of those behaviors. So how have you seen it change since you started 30 years ago?

Well, it used to be like the single images, one page at a time. Now you can go fast, click, click, click, click, click. It used to be that people would crash. It would take 20 or 30 years to crash. And now they're crashing in their adolescence. They're crashing in their early 20s. In their 20s, they're not able to maintain a physical relationship with their partners or wives because of the high level of reinforcement,

the speed is going on. Plus with technologies, we're entering a phase, you and I will probably see this phase where men and women will be addicted to sex robots. We are already there in Japan. No, they have these dolls that you can... Okay, another conversation, but we're going to see... So, technology advances this, okay? And when they start programming these machines, I have a book called Upgrade Your Sex Life with how someone is actually designed to hear in the sexual space. They're going to become super addicted, super quick to these machines, which is going to really... We're going to face super addicted, super quick to these machines, which is going to really, we're going to face the challenge. I already have the website. So, we're going

to face this challenge. Okay. And so, technology is advancing that. And so, also the apps that have come out. Okay. You and I, we had to go find a pretty girl, right? We had to talk to them. We had to take them out to dinner. We had to buy, you know, we had to spend time with them, had to do all of that work. Now it's like they go. We had to buy, you know, we had to spend time with them. I had to do all of that work. Now it's like they go on an app and it's like, do you want to hook up? So it's so frustrating and you bring that up.

So we've got girls, lots of girls that are just before college age and college age and just graduating college. And my biggest frustration, and I tell them all the time, your generation doesn't know how to date anymore. There's no such thing as courting. There's no such thing as intimacy. It's these apps. They feel to me like they've ruined everything.

Well, there's a certain part of the population, I have a product called Finding Mr. Right for that age, and showing them that there's boys and men and there's men of God, okay? And the questions to ask to find out what you're looking at, because male does not equal man. No. Right? And so there are really good men who aren't doing pornography

at 20 years old. OK, there are good men. OK, but you're right. The apps have made it for the lazy people. Gets them into expedited trouble, which they can become addicted to. Because why not have a different flavor every week? Well, now girls are beginning to think

that that's the expectation. They have every right to behave that way and is expected of them. And so they don't feel good about themselves, but I've noticed that they're doing this. And that's been going on since the 60s. So it's terrible. But you're right, it's exponentially worse.

And so we get into sexual addiction because like the one type of sex act is biological, neurological, right? So when you have a sexual release, you get the highest level endogenous opiates, it's the prefrontal cortex of the brain and boom, you attach to whatever you're looking at. And I mean, whatever you're looking at, it can be a person, a person of a different race, it could be same gender, it could be an animal, it could be an object, you glue and attach.

Or a child. And I can tell you a funny story about all that. This is the arousal template. The arousal template, yeah. We have a video on sexual templates because you create a sexual template. And here's the thing is these kids don't know that. And so they're interjecting the sexual template training, but they don't know who they're going to marry. So, wherever you were, whatever you were doing, whatever you were looking at, when you were

first around, begins to set up neural pathway. Absolutely. That you want to go back. So it could be even at somebody's shoes. All of a sudden you get the hatched issues. So I don't know how graphic, I won't be graphic, but this is a true story early in my career. And he's been free for over decades. Okay.

But when he was a kid, when he was, he lived on a farm. And so when he was being with himself, he, the noise in the house would go bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang,

bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang up or look down. So he was looking down and he got neurologically attached to his boots. When I met him, he had a boot collection like from here to that wall over there. Is that what's going on with your shoes?

And he wouldn't get up. No, there's topic. Okay. But he literally had that and he would never be sexual with a woman unless he was wearing boots. Oh, that's so interesting. Because he attached to the object relations. This is how we get into cross-dressing. This is how we get into fetishes because of the, what we do is we hijack the sexual template, say, no, not a person, this. I have a book I wrote called the brain and love. And there's a chapter in it called weird sex fiends and fetishes. And the patient actually shared with Mark that was addicted to cows. Oh no. And the section was, can you say moo? Well, this guy actually thought cows were enjoying it.

So yeah. Oh boy. So when you work in sexual addiction, you hear all kinds of stories. I've been doing it for 40 years. And, but you can attach to whatever you want. Now here's the beauty thing though. You can also, because you are neuroplastic,

you can train yourself to attach to a person, even if you spent decades in sexual addiction. I've taught many couples how to have incredible sexual relationship, eyes open, lights on, nurturing conversation, and attached to the soul and the being of the other person. So because we're so wonderfully made, no matter what you've done, you can heal. That's amazing. Now it takes a process, it'll take accountability, it'll take more work than, you know, you could think better fun, but the back end is beautiful. That's amazing.

This, we're opening so many doors now, but that just really got me thinking about where, where this is really an awful topic and I hate it, but how molestation starts, how it's, how it's continued on, why people molest children and how that cycle continues. And then exploitation. Exploitation. Absolutely. And like, I'm assuming it has something to do with this obviously. Project how to restore these girls and boys who've been sexually abused but then exploited. You know, having their fathers put their abuse, they videotaped on the internet. Oh, wow.

And Pornhub actually started a whole subsection of their but they're abused. They videotaped on the internet. Oh, wow. And Pornhub actually started a whole subsection of their platform so you can upload home videos during the COVID period. Yeah, we were definitely in a battle for sexuality. It started around the 60s and we'd lost. Okay, so we're trying to catch back up, but there's a lot of casualties.

And we didn't even mention the wives of these men are the husbands of these wives who really love and care for them, yet they're not enough, either because of the pornography or they're out, they're having relationships with other people. And the tragedy is a lot of time with sexual addiction, it's the external environment that has to tell you that you're not okay. It's the job loss, it's the getting caught, it's the police officer catching you, it's the wife who's caught you with an email or a cell phone or a text and your world comes together. You have to choose which world you're going to live in. And the beauty of that is they can still heal and get better if they get into some accountability groups, work the steps, do the program, you know,

we do five-day intensives at Heart to Heart Counseling Center. Our success rate's in the 90 percentile with sexual addiction. Okay? So, people can get better. That's amazing. Oh, we've been doing it for decades. We're not practicing at this point, right? He's not practicing anymore.

He knows what he's doing with stuff, right? And so, people, he's not practicing anymore. He knows what he's doing with stuff, right? And so people, there's freedom. And there's also hope for the ladies, because for so long, they were called the wrong thing. They were called codependents. They were called co-addicts and all that stuff that was wrong. They are actually partner-betrayal trauma survivors.

And the trauma of being neglected, we didn't talk about intimacy and erecticity yet, but the trauma of being with someone who wants to be with something or someone else on a regular basis is dramatic. Yeah, I've seen that. It has symptoms, it has real PTSD. We have a book on that.

So, there's so much to talk about. Let me organize us. You talked about the loss of control. You know you have a problem. Absolutely. And there are six different types. You know you have a problem. Absolutely. And there are six different types. And I like that so much. Actually wrote a book on addiction called Unchain Your Brain, Breaking the Addictions

that Steal Your Life. And to put everybody in the same program, sort of silly, because there are different types of addicts. There are impulsive addicts, there are compulsive addicts, there are sad addicts, there are anxious addicts or addicts who had a head injury and they can't control their behavior. So, talk to us about the six types. Sure. The way that we've paradigm that and we were the first one to kind of categorize sex addicts in different categories. The first is the biological. That's what we talked about,

creating the sexual template, ring the bell, feed the dog, ring the bell, feed the dog. You're conditioned. Okay. The second is psychological. There's neglect in the family. There's pain in the soul. And as a 12, 13, 14 year old can't go to the bar and tie one on. So you find yourself and you begin to use fantasy to compensate for what you're needing in your life. And, but that neurological response from the orgasmic response, you attach to that and

you become addicted in that process, psychologically dependent. Okay, there is the sexual abuse person. And then with this situation, they actually duplicate either as perpetrator or as victim, the behavior. Okay, and so like I had a young guy who would only go, he would go and have encounters with much older, heavyweight males.

Well, that was the person who abused him. And he kept perpetrating the same thing. As the victim. As the victim. And some people play the other role. They switch to the perpetrator, right? Then there's the spiritual person. I've only met a handful of these. They're looking for God in all the wrong places. And as soon as they have a spiritual encounter, they're done with it.

Okay? So they don't usually show up in my office. And then there is the intimacy and a rexic sex addict. Now this person's unique. So intimacy and a rexic is active withholding a spiritual, emotional, and sexual intimacy from your spouse. They're too busy for you, they blame you for the problems, they withhold love, withhold praise, withhold sex. They are unwilling, aren't able to talk about their feelings,

use anger and silence as a way to control, they have criticism of you, that kind of stuff. And you feel married and alone, but they're still having fun with themselves or others. Okay. And then the last one is more on your camp where there is a chemical imbalance, the mood disorder slash sex addict. They're treating their bipolar, they're treating their manic depression, they're treating depression, they're treating head injuries, another thing, but they're using the neurological balancing

that the ejaculation response gives or the orgasm response gives to help them modulate their brain, to put themselves to sleep, or to just get through the day sometimes. And so, there's different paths that people get there. So, I have a question about one of them. You said there's the type that they either play the victim or the perpetrator. So what about someone who's been sexually abused but they become like extreme protector or almost, you know, vigilante mindset

where they're gonna harm someone who hurt someone they love or? Sure, well you have. Where would that fall? Sexual trauma affects you in so many different ways. So if you took a hundred computers and put a bullet in each one, each computer would have a different problem.

And that's what sexual abuse does. So for some, they're gonna become super controlling because they wanna feel safe. Their need is to feel safe. Some are gonna become out of control. Okay, some will go to hyposexual, some will go to hypersexual. Some will go to risky behavior, some will risk to hypersexual, some will go to risky

behavior, some will risk for anything. So you can't, sexual abuse is one of the things where it's a bullet and who knows exactly what's happened here. It's very individualistic. Okay, I was sexually abused, but it didn't make me go to try to repeat that behavior. Okay, and I dealt with that a long time ago, did the work that we talked about in all the books that we have. And so you can heal from sexual trauma, but it's unique to you how it affected you because

there are people even in the studies that really there's almost no impact on them. So there's other people have a slight incident happen and they're totally devastated. So do you remember when we were dating and I couldn't say the word molested. I didn't think I had been molested because in my mind, I think it was a survival thing. It was like, well, other people had it worse. What happened to me wasn't as bad as what happened to other people and it wasn't.

So I think that's how I dealt with it. But it's still trauma to you. Well, but I never thought it was. If somebody had done that to Chloe, what would you do? And what was your answer? Ripped their beating heart out of their chest and feed it to my dog. You're right.

Like it's like, there's no question. And it was so weird because- And she's such a mild lady. Because I can see it, but I couldn't, I couldn't internalize it. Right. It's very weird. I've actually used that same technique with a lot of my clients over the 40 years. If that was your boy, if that was your daughter, what would you do?

And they have exactly the same response. Okay. Because sometimes you just can't see it when it's you. Because you've figured out how to adapt. Okay. And put it in its little box and you can't see it objectively. I can't tell you how many men I have had to tell, listen, when you were 13 and she was 19, that was sexual abuse. When you were 16 and she was 19, that was sexual abuse. When you were 16 and she was 35, that was sexual abuse. I didn't realize I was sexually abused by several older women. When I was in high school, I'd go out to bars

and I'd go home with three year olds and 20 year olds. I thought I was lucky until I was about five years sober. And I go, wait a minute, that wasn't right. They should have taken me home. I was only 16 years old. I should have been there. The question I would ask is why were you in the bar when you were 16? But he still was 16. I was 16. I was sexually abused. I never met my father. I was put in foster homes. And so, yeah, I had some issues going on. I was

drinking. And so, I was already sexually addicted. So, if you could combine alcohol and women, And so, and I was already sexually addicted. So, if you can combine alcohol and women, where you do that? In a bar. And I was like tough and mean. And you're 16. They would give me a drink and I would just sit there and there you go. So, so many men don't identify their sexual trauma, especially if it's connected to a woman. Yeah. So, but it's almost like what happened to me wasn't the same as if the same thing happened to someone else. You just can't. Right. So, let's talk about recovery. So, if someone comes to you and they go, I have a problem. And I suppose many people are there because their partner is

furious at them. Absolutely. And they're like, you need to go get help. Yes. What's the path to recovery? Well, if they're doing intensive, we first, so help. Yes. What's the path to recovery? Well, if they're doing intensive, we first, so day one, we find out what type of sex act they are. Now this will surprise you. A lot of women want to know the truth to heal their relationship and heal their heart. Oh no, I think I fully understand that. So oftentimes we'll give the man an opportunity to do a polygraph so he can do that.

That really helps to give them a polygraph. That would definitely be me. Because here's what happens. I like it. No, because the truth will set you free, right? So if he's still in secrets, what does he have? Shame. Shame is part of the addiction cycle. So if we can give her the shame on Monday and she's still there, which 99% chance she is going to still be there. She just wants to know, I know the truth. Women will know they know the truth. They can forgive almost anything. Women are incredible.

There'll never be a book that can comprehend the woman's heart to be able to absorb pain. Now men just don't have the capacity like that. And they're able to do like, hey, I'm all in if you're all honest. So we give them the opportunity to be all honest. Okay, and then we find out what's going on with her and we do couples counseling and then they go to groups

and they do that kind of stuff. But it is 12 step groups. So they'll be in groups for quite a while. They work their steps, they work their workbooks and they're able to start moving through what they gotta move through. Again, if they got sexual trauma, we deal with that during that week.

And some of them, we have a neuromodulation thing that we do and that helps them, especially the women, who've been through trauma. And so it just depends on what they're bringing to the table. It's not cookie cutter, because like you, you look at every brain, every brain's different, right? When I look at a person who's a sex addict,

I got to find out how did they get here, and now what do we need to get them better? So it's very individualistic, but there are principles that help them do that. And they can do this no matter where they are in the country. So, step one is know the truth. The truth will set you free. Ask for help. Ask for help. Yeah. Group is huge. Couples counseling. Now, I would, Dr. Lazer would send me

Now, I would, Dr. Lazer would send me mostly the guys and 70% of the time they had low frontal lobe activity. What did that tell you? Their break, the break in their brain was not as healthy as it could be. Very high percentage of them had either head trauma or ADD of one form or another. Balancing that at least improves their impulse control and their partners had trauma patterns. So I published a number of studies on PTSD in the brain. And I chose their emotional brains work too hard. Yes.

Which means it's hard for them to let go. Right. Right. It's like the trauma, it plays a movie in their head. Yes. And it loops over and over. And then we diagnose it wrongly histrionic. They're not histrionic.

They have histrionic features, but it's because of the trauma. I have a whole chapter on that. Oh, that's so interesting. And what it does is it's the PTSD symptoms trauma. I have a whole chapter on that. And what it is is that the PTSD symptoms, and instead of it being individualistic, I put it towards your marriage. And in that paradigm, they came into 90%

on almost every symptom of PTSD. Partners of intimacy and sex, partners of sex, and women have experienced infidelity. That's the part of a child trauma book, because there's so much information that women don't know and it helps them normalize it. Like, oh, okay, I'm raging. Yep, that's kind of normal.

Even in a car accident, if you ever go into an ICU unit, you find people yelling. Oh, yeah. I was a trauma nurse. You find people who are not themselves, right? So, yeah, you see, this is not the best version of them. No. Right? But then they come back six months later, oh, you were so sweet, wonderful.

They're so mean to you and you have to know it's not about you. It's not about you. Right. It's like the dog that's got hit by a car. They're not, they're not trying to bite you. Right. They're trying to get out of pain. So true.

Interesting. How do you help the partners who have this intimacy trauma? Well, for them, first of all, when we do their assessment, we make sure that it's not the only trauma that they've had. So we gotta go through the whole sexual history, including self-behaviors. We gotta go through family wars and stuff,

make sure that's what's that all about. Make sure there's not been any rapes or abortions because abortion's a trauma. And I can tell you so many women have never told anybody but me. We actually have a product called Grace After Abortion because that's a secret that so many women are traumatized by and they're still living a traumatized life because they haven't been open and honest about it and done the healing work on that.

So once we get that done, then they also, they go to groups because they need to be supported because this is not something you can go tell your friends. Okay. And they're going to say divorce them. And that's not what you need to hear. Okay. You need friends who are, yeah. You need to know other women who've gone through this who are choosing to try to work it out if he's willing and to be on the same page you're on. And so, the support groups help them with that.

Okay. And then they're also, there's a hundred exercises they work through. There's a step report they work through. And of course, they have a counselor ongoing to support them through the process for their ups and downs because they don't only have partner patrol trauma, they have grief. All the losses that they've experienced in a nanosecond can barely be computed. Past, present, future, all in like that. A woman realizes her life was not what it was. Those pictures have no meaning.

That vacation you acted out. When I was in the hospital, you did this. Oh my gosh, now presently, my finances are in jeopardy. My family's in jeopardy. My kids may not go to college. We may not make it. And future, what if I had to do, in a nanosecond, the woman's brain is just processing

all of that trauma. We never stop. And it's, you know, they are the heroes in the story. That's what I say. Because a woman who can take that kind of bullet, pull it out and still hug the person who had the gun. That's powerful. You know?

I love that. But I have a question. You know, we hear these terms like borderline personality women who have this risky behavior that, you know, risk taking. They'll go have sex in a bathroom when they're out to dinner with their boyfriend or their husband or they'll do crazy stuff like that. What do you think of that? I mean, that label? Well, borderline personality, there's a legitimate diagnosis for that, but sexual addiction is one of the options there. They could become just as addicted to shopping because for, to me, criteria, they usually have two addictions. Could be smoking, for that, but sexual addiction is one of the options there. They could become just as addicted to shopping.

Cause for, to me criteria, they usually have two addictions. Could be smoking, could be food, could be exercising, could be anything. Some of them, it looks more glamorous on TV if they're also sex addicts, right? You know, like we can think of some movies that go back in our history, right? And so, but I've never met a borderline

that wasn't sexually abused. Okay. And so that shatters them in ways and the way that they've dealt with it is by being this kind of impulsive, out of control, angry, not able to organize. Okay. And it's probably a lot to do with the brain more than anything because it's been through so much trauma. I have a cocktail for borderlines because often I see they have low frontal lobe function. They also have an obsessive pattern in their brain and their left temporal lobe is usually low in activity. And so stabilizing that really helps. Absolutely.

Balancing their brain helps, but many of them, like you say, have trauma. And if you balance their brain, and then we like EMDR, specific psychological treatment for trauma that can be so helpful. When I heard the chaos Tana grew up in, her ACE score for childhood experiences, an eight out of 10, my first gift to her was 10 sessions. I'm like, don't shrink me. So I think I'm the opposite camp. I'm like very controlling over my environment.

Like martial arts, like very controlled. You were gonna be safe. Absolutely. You were gonna be safe. At all expenses, at all costs. Tell us a story that's like close to your heart on how your work has helped somebody. Oh, I can tell you thousands.

I mean, we're a couple comes in. Oh, I can tell you thousands. I mean, we're a couple. Yeah, I'll give you a general story. A couple comes in on Monday and they've been married for 20 years. He's cheated on her. She didn't know it. Right. She finds out she gets the truth on Monday and they start to repair. And what happens is love grows. Okay. He starts clearing up because now he doesn't have any shame. There's no secrets between him and her. Usually by Wednesday or Friday, they're being physically intimate.

We give them exercises where they look each other in the eyes and they pray, they share feelings, they build the blocks of marriage that they just didn't have the skills to do. No one taught them how to have a marriage. We give them those skills and they start using them and instantly they start feeling closer and attached. And they leave holding their hands and feeling that they can do happily ever after. It's going to be work, but we can do this. Yeah. We are, we're designed that we want to be healthy spiritually, emotionally, sexually,

relationally, financially. We want that. And a lot of times you have to give people skills. Addicts miss skill development. We have a book called Emotional Fitness because they don't know how to process emotions. When they get overwhelmed emotionally, what do they do? Boom, they go off to their addiction. All addicts do that.

And so when you teach them how to have their feelings and how to do that with their wives or their husbands and be present, now they have a place where the skill development can happen and intimacy can attach. And the neurologicalness of attachment can happen because they're looking into someone else with their heart, they're looking into another heart and they can see that person and be seen. And that's really what we really want is to be seen

and to be able to see the other soul. I love looking into my wife's eyes and see her heart. It's just like, wow, what a privilege. That's amazing. But it almost seems like, because I've heard so many people talk about situations like this, and they're not able to do that very easily.

It seems like having the right person help you obviously guide you. Man, your intuition is so right. It also seems like the spiritual component is critical because if you don't have something beyond yourself and why you're justified in being angry, it seems like it'd be pretty challenging. Well, all addictions use the 12 steps

and that's a spiritual program, but your intuition is correct in that someone who is an addict, they are causing pain, but our model, the first model of sexual addiction treatment, which Mark was part of, treated the addict, but didn't really know what to do with the partner or the marriage.

Our model is triune. We treat the addict, the partner with child trauma, and the marriage all at the same time. So, our results are expedited. She's not waiting a year to get a disclosure. She gets a disclosure on Monday. Okay. She can start doing her anger and grief and losses Monday, okay. They can start doing couples work on Monday, okay. And so as he's recovering, the marriage is recovering and she's recovering. So she's not staying in that rage for eight months or a year. How long is the program? Well, it's a week.

So we go for five days, right. But then you're in support groups for six months or a year because you want to be supported as you're going through the process, right? And a lot of these people end up helping other people starting support groups where they are. Well, that's the best way to get well. Yeah, it is. Because once you build a community of like-minded people, you can get there. And one of the best things that happens in Intensive is not just the counseling, but they go into a room and that we have community groups. And so these people have been,

they've been sober five, 10, 15, 20 years, some of them. And they go into a group and they see a guy who's dumber than them and they go, wow, he's clean for six years, I can do this. Oh, interesting. Our wife who's going through pain and going, wow, she's been here and she's gotten well, I can do this. Right, so what is the difference? And I know this to be on the flip side too. She's been here and she's gotten well, I can do this. Right.

So what is the difference? And I know this to be on the flip side too. It's not always just the man who's having affairs. Right, absolutely not. What is the difference between someone who's had an affair, maybe they felt emotionally starved for a long time. I don't know, whatever it is. They've had an affair, maybe not a bunch of affairs versus someone who's a sex addict.

How do you make that determination? Well, that not a bunch of affairs, versus someone who's a sex addict. How do you make that determination? Well, that's a great question. You add a question within your question. Men do work with this differently. We have a DVD called The Betrayed Man, because men deal with betrayal differently than women. They don't have, it's a different dynamic, and they got to understand that.

But to your question as far as separating, usually the question is posed to me, well, what if a guy wants to have sex, you know, X amount of times a week? Is he an addict? You know, it's not about the time, it's about whether he's connecting to the person or not. Intimacy. Okay. Someone can have an accidental, not accidental, but they can have an affair for whatever reason and it's a fluke. Okay. And they're not sex addicts. There's no pattern of neurological attachment to objects or porn. There's no pattern, there's no patterns.

Now, and I've had a few of those guys in my office over four years, they got flown in because they had an affair and you know, she thought for sure he was the sickest dog in the world. And I have to say, no ma'am, he's just stupid. He is clinically stupid, but he's not a sex addict. Okay, because there's none of these other things, but sometimes they say, well, okay.

And then they still might want to polygraph once a year to verify that he doesn't get stupid again. I'm like, you know what? I can live with that and so can eat. Okay. I mean, dumb dogs usually can learn, but. Right, but there's a person who makes a mistake, but then there's a person who continues

to do the same behavior. And oftentimes the affair is a result of behavior. They have been with themselves sexually and with pornography for years, often before they cross that line. And it fuels it. And that's why the women are like, well, he just does pornography. Right now, that's all he's doing. But that is a seed which will grow into a certain kind of plant, and that plant will

cause a lot of pain. Do you think if one of the partners is neglected long enough, it can actually drive the other person to do something like that? We haven't gotten into intimacy erection, but when you're living with an intimacy erection commander woman who is starving you of emotional intimacy, doesn't touch you, doesn't celebrate your birthday, doesn't see you, you're a manager in their life, you feel like you don't have any value, right? You are in pain. Now what you do with that pain is your decision. Okay, so yeah, some people will go medicate that pain by having an affair or gaining 50 pounds or getting a six pack. Okay, the pain is because of

the spouse, the process that person goes through is theirs. Does that make sense? So, it's not cause and effect exactly because some people can be starved for 10, 15, 20 years and be faithful to that person. Okay, some people are starved for a couple years like, this is not fun. I'm going to go X, whatever X is for them. So, it's not cause and effect, but the pain does create a set of circumstances where you have to deal with the pain. Well, there's also mismatched libidos. And people fall in love often when they're young, when their testosterone levels are healthy.

But then over time, as they wane, now you have these mismatched libidos and one person's just never interested and the other person's still interested, that sets them up. Dr. Justin Marchegiani, M.D. It sets them up. There's one other thing we're just thinking, given a lot of our patients like hormone replacement and I'm a fan, you know, the reason hormones drop as you age, it's the planet's way of getting rid of you. So, I'm sort of not okay with that. But if the doctor overdoes it and your testosterone level goes too high,

your empathy goes down and your libido goes up, which is a prescription for divorce. Or going to jail or having an affair or... Right. Yeah. Again, those are influences that that person has to manage. Absolutely. But the neglect is real. Okay. And a lot of people listening to us are in that situation. We'll talk about that another time, but I've never seen someone who had an affair because of pain feel good about themselves. Even though they medicated. I've had ladies like in my office on Monday, she finds out it wasn't one person, it was 15 people. And she wants to say, you know what? I'm going to go out and have an affair.

I go, ma'am, let's not- You're going to hate yourself. I want you not to do that for six months. Can you promise? Let's just not do that for six months, okay? Because I've never met one who didn't hate themselves the rest of their life. Let's heal you up first and then you can make a decision later down the road. But please, don't react in that way because I've never seen a woman recover from that really well. I love that advice. We have to wrap this up. How can people learn more about your center and you? Sure. They can go to a couple of websites, drdougweiss.com or sexaddicttheT.com or they can call 719-278-3708 and if they Google me they'll find you know all that stuff

out there is available. And also talk about your book. Oh this book, new book is called Forgiveness for Everyone. This is for all of us who've been hurt and it has a lot of the exercises we've done in counseling and it's very very super helpful. That's a wonderful thing that's coming out right now and so like you I like to write and so it's usually a continual thing. So thank you so much for being with us. You're going to be with us on the next

one. You're listening, watching Change Your Brain, everyday podcast. Tana and I are grateful to you. Please subscribe, leave a review, be part of our community and check out Dr. Doug Weiss. There are days when I need to be at my best, whether it's back to back clinic sessions, long writing days, or just keeping up with life. That's when I take Geek Energy from BrainMD. It gives me clean, steady energy without jitters or crashes. And I'm not the only one who loves it. It just won a 2025 Nexty Award,

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