Patrick Carries wrote that sex addiction is a disease which is not actually about sex but about great pain.
He stressed the necessity for a full exploration of the possibility of earlier sexual abuse because some clients have been so traumatized and there has been so much denial of their abuse that they do not realize that they have been sexually abused.
Escape — from stress, low self-esteem, the tedium of everyday life.
See also: Toxic shame, child abuse