Secrets, Lies, Double Life

"It is not the lie that passeth through the mind, but the lie that sinketh in, and settleth in it, that doth the hurt."

— Francis Bacon

Secrecy is a hallmark of sexual addiction (addiction thrives on secrecy).

"We are only as sick as our secrets".

Sex addicts have a large number of secrets - e.g.: cyber sex lovers, secret credit cards, keeping a list of favorite porn web sites, secret emails, ...

Secrets themselves are a problem (they take toll on you/ they bring negative consequences):

emotional stress of knowing "I am dishonest"
hard work, anxiety of trying to remember what lies has been told to whom
fear of discovery of the truth
the worst is that you end up believing some of your lies and distortions

Compartmentalizing a life of hidden sexual behaviors, the sex addict finds himself wrapped in a web of lies and manipulations, consistently hiding from those close to him, while using justifications, rationalizations and outright denial to lie to himself.

Most addicts try to hide their obsessions and compulsions.

Secrecy heightens the excitement as well as the intrigue, and therefore improves the high or kick of the romantic or sexual encounter.

An important part of an addiction is secrecy. All addicted people are dishonest to some degree in their addictions, at least until they get into a recovery process. They keep secrets and lie a great deal. They are most dishonest with themselves and most deceitful with others.

Lies and Lies by Omission

Addicts live lives of secrecy and shame. Addicts lie. They lie to maintain their double lives.

Reality is turned inside out, so the real emptiness of acting-out is seen as "really living"

Lying and secrecy is helping the sex addict to experience "the high" of acting -out.

There are a number of reasons why sex addicts lie:

Some sex addicts learned to keep secrets and to lie as part of a pathological family system. Sick families feel a need to hide their problems from others, and make a point of teaching children that "some things stay within the family", "no talk" rule about family business.
This usually is directed at keeping family secrets like alcoholism, verbal or physical violence and abuse, and mental illness within the confines of the immediate family.
Keeping family secrets can be very destructive to people because such lessons are ingrained quite deeply and carry over even into adulthood. If fact, some adults who have followed a code of secrecy and lying since childhood even lie when it would be easier to tell the truth.
When children from rigid family make a mistake, fail, or do something foolish, embarrassing, immoral, illegal, or wrong, they are afraid to tell their parents because they fear harsh reactions of punishment, rejection, criticism, and shame. As a result, they may try to hide the truth.
Fear - sex addict lie to maintain their double lives.
Lying becomes a habit (lying by reflex, habitual lying)

Even when the sex addict is confronted by the truth, he may insist that the lie is the truth (he may actually believe the lie).

How a recovering sex addict can detect that he is lying:

do you feel fear?
you need practice learning to detect this signal
?

Try to understand the rootsof your lying.

Understanding how you came to be a liar is important because it helps to strengthen your compassion for yourself. You did not learn to lie because you were a bad person. You learned to lie because you were a frightened child protecting himself. That understanding is not a justification for continuing to lie. The understanding helps to remove obstacles to living in the truth. And living in the truth is a central thread in the fabric of recovery.

To make our addiction work, we had to indulge our rationalizations and denials. To make recovery work, we have to face the ugly truth of who we have become: liars, cheaters, thieves, and more. It is only by being honest about who we are at this moment that we can make a change by standing on the solid ground of truth.

Honesty is the key to sobriety - a ritual of "checking in" helps to learn to be honest.

I want to affirm <nnnn>Tom for your honesty tonight. What you said, <nnn>, was helpful to me.

Addicts are skillful at getting other people to participate in the cover-up. Often, spouses and family members are embarrassed about the out-of-control sexual behavior and are willing to make excuses and invent lies in order to keep the family secret.

Sex addict are very successful at keeping the double life.

Long histories of involvement in pornography, masturbation, adult bookstores, and prostitutes never come to light. Love addicts are able to manage to have multiple affairs and sometimes even multiple marriages and families without their partners knowing what they have been up to.

To fully recovery from sexual addiction there can be no secrecy, since the addiction thrives on it. Secrecy and shame are connected.

Sex addicts are dishonest to protect themselves (never works):

out of fear (never works)
to protect the other person (never works)
to minimize the after effect (never works)

Double Life

Well-known, respected, and admired in his visible life (a mask, pretense, projection), but secretly engaging regularly in sexual acts that would be shocking to those who know him.

Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde

The price of dishonesty, lying, secrecy, double-life

The price is loss of self-esteem. In their hearts, sex addicts know that they are not being truthful with themselves or with anyone else. Even though they act as if they believed their own lies, they feel phony

inside. Even people who come into an addiction with fairly solid feelings of self-worth cannot survive the daily erosion caused by all the dishonesty. By the time most addicts ask for help, their sense of self-worth has been almost completely destroyed.

For some families and friends of sex addicts, the transformation of their loved one is rather obvious.

A warm, tender, kind, and loving man is becoming more withdrawn, irritable, demanding, self-centered and, finally, verbally and physically abusive to his wife his children.

Sex addict decision making and judgment becomes worse and more impulsive. He becomes irrational and desperate.

Making up lies and excuses, sex addict becomes more distant, critical, and touchy. His wife and children blame themselves because he tells them that they are bothering him and that he "needs his space." They have no idea what is going on in the other half of his life. He lives in fear that he will be arrested or that somehow his secret will come out and destroy his family's relationships with him. On one level, his family knows that something is going wrong, but they assume that it is their fault.

"Honesty is the Key to Sobriety"

"We come together in this group to get honest with ourselves and each other; what is said in the group stays in the group; honesty is the key to sobriety." These are the basic ground rules for the group: honesty and confidentiality.

"honesty is the key to sobriety."

The sex addict must also learn to be completely honest with him about the nature and extent of the addiction. Most addicts have been most dishonest with themselves.

This "honesty step" requires that the sex addict take a truthful and in-depth ("exact") look (step four)

The pretense needs to be erased. The cons need to be dropped, the lies need to be eliminated, and the distortions need to be straightened out. This may take some time depending on the length and extent of the addict's departure from truth and reality.

Polygraph

The polygraph, a technology that is effective in detecting deception - an important asset in treatment and supervision, providing independent information about compliance and progress used some therapists and some ...