September 12, 2025 • 20 mins
ICYMI: ‘Later, with Mo’Kelly’ Presents – “The Sex Doctor Is In” w/ Sam Zia, MA LMFT (#106352), PhD Candidate, Human Sexuality; asking the question - “Is Sex Addiction Real?” - on KFI AM 640…Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app & YouTube @MrMoKelly
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to Later with Mo Kelly on demand from
kf I, A M six forty.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
SAMSI Sex Doc. He's a Sam Stop stop stop sextet
stop the Sex Doctor Kelly Later.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Later with kf I, Later with Mo Kelly Live everywhere
on YouTube and the iHeartRadio app. Now the Sex Doctor
is in sam Zia and he will see us. Sam's
good to see you this evening. What's going on, brother,
Good to see you. And I'd like to just reiterate
what Mark said in the newsroom. It's sixty nine everywhere,
so the weather is here for me today too.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
Oh my gosh, we're off. Oh yeah to the racist
Oh yeah, Sam.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Or earlier in the week, you and I had touched
upon the idea of sexual addiction.
Speaker 4 (01:18):
Yeah. And I've had a friend I don't want to.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Reveal his name because he is somewhat famous, who was
accused of sexual addiction. I've had and heard varying opinions
about whether that's a thing.
Speaker 4 (01:33):
First, let me make it seem like it's a crime.
Speaker 5 (01:35):
He's being accused of sex adent.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
The way it was, he was shamed for it, So
let me put it out there.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
Okay, addiction, Yes, is sex something that can be a
part of what is considered an impulsive addiction that someone
can't control because of the disease.
Speaker 5 (01:55):
That's the question. Is sex addiction actually a real thing?
And you know, you've been hearing it with a lot
of different celebrities, especially when they have some kind of
controversy come up where they get caught.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
Tiger Woods is.
Speaker 5 (02:09):
A great example of that back in the day, where
people are like, you know, they get caught doing something
sexual and they are regretful of it and said they
you know what, We're going to go into a sex
addiction treatment facility and stuff like that.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
Well, they're celebrities and they do celebrity rehab stuff to
repair their image. But on a medical level, is there
any evidence to suggest that we know that addiction is
a thing? Yes, absolutely, we know that compulsive behavior is
a thing. We could talk about gambling, and I would
(02:43):
say that's the closest parallel. You have someone engaging in
possibly not dangerous behavior, but not necessarily sensible behavior at
their own detriment, you know, gambling way their rent or
their mortgage. Isn't there a parallel that could be drawn
between gam addiction and sexual addiction?
Speaker 5 (03:02):
Now that's the thing. Yes, there is a very good
parallel that can be drawn between the two. I mean
a lot of the same high risk behavior, the idea
of you know, risking everything you have to either gamble
again or to have a sexual experience, especially for those
who are in committed relationships where the other person is
(03:23):
not aware of the of their partner engaging in sexual
activity outside of the relationship. That's where a lot of
times people say, well, I'm an addict, and it makes
them feel very powerless to what like, because usually whenever
you look at addiction, we're pointing at chemical substance addiction,
and there's addiction there. You know, that doesn't mean that
there's the that is the only exclusive kind of addiction
(03:45):
is chemical substance addiction. Those are real, very real.
Speaker 4 (03:48):
Probably because that changes the brain chemistry or something else.
Speaker 5 (03:52):
It's something where you become addicted to the like to
whatever the substance is. It impacts your functioning as far
as day to day, you know, doing your day to
day responsibilities. It keep it makes it so that you
prioritize the substance over everything else.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
Oh, let me ask you that. But that's not on
a physiological level. That's just more like an emotional level,
and compulsive behavior sounds.
Speaker 5 (04:14):
Like compulsive behavior is part of what we call process addictions,
where it's we are addicted, quote unquote addicted to certain behaviors,
and that is something where you can we start to
get a little bit into the weeds with it, because
addiction is something that a lot of times people will
just classify something as addiction because it's what is easier
(04:35):
to like, it's just a way to make it a
lot easier to explain something that is something that's more
along the lines of impulse control. Okay, now that is
another diagnosis altogether. Now we got to get into the
two different schools of diagnosing. You have the ICD, which
is the International Classification of Disease. It's it's basically the
(04:55):
what the World Health Organization uses to classify disease is
medical conditions things like that. It also covers mental health
disorders and things like that. Now, on my side, because
I'm a mental health professional, what I do as far
as my diagnos, my diagnoses go go with the DSM,
the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Psychological Disorders.
Speaker 4 (05:17):
We are officially in the weeds now.
Speaker 5 (05:19):
Now this is where now this is the thing. DSM
is run by the APA, the American Psychiatric Association, versus
the WHO who recently in the last year or so said,
you know what, We're going to classify not sex addiction,
but compulsive sexual behavior disorder, and they treat it at
(05:40):
like it is treated as far as like you know,
actual medical treatment goes like an impulse control disorder.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
Okay, if I understand you correctly, because I'm just a
lay person, A disorder would be more in the mind
and the processing of information, whereas is a disease is
physiological and has to do with the body.
Speaker 5 (05:58):
Yes, exactly, and it's not a person disorder where it's
something where this is you know exactly who you are
no matter what this is like something that like people
have anxiety disorders, people are in their personality isn't based
off of anxiety. They have anxiety, you know, Whereas you
have bipolar personality disorder, their personality is fixed to the
(06:19):
actual criteria of diagnosis for that personality type. It's two
different things altogether, but in this you have two different
diagnosing groups. Basically saying sex addiction is not actually a
real thing, but compulsive sexual behavior as far as far
as the ICD goes, is a real thing as far
(06:39):
as the international community goes. Now here's the thing is
the whole purpose of both of those coding groups, the
ICD and the DSM, is so that insurance companies and
medical groups and psychiatrists and psychologists and all of them
can have a way to build for the treatment of
this stuff. And that's where I want to get into,
(07:02):
because the treatment of sex addiction is a huge business
that doesn't necessarily equate to anything more than the same
twelve step programs that you have for chemical addiction. But
it's not necessarily treating impulse control, and it doesn't necessarily
get to the root of what is actually causing problems
(07:23):
for them. It could be anxiety that's leading them to
those gates. It could be depression, it could be any
number of things. So we're treating it as if it's
an addiction, either for you know, for convenience sake, or
for you know, just so that people can just say, hey,
you know, this is the umbrella term that we can
classify all of this under. But it doesn't actually get
to the root of what is actually happening.
Speaker 4 (07:43):
If I understand you correctly and I may not, so
please correct me.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
It sounds like you're saying that sex may be the
end result of another disorder, and sex is just the
outward manifestation of some sort of anxiety or compulsive behavior.
Speaker 5 (08:01):
Yeah, a lot of compulsive behavior originates from, like, say,
for example, anxiety. If people having a serious problem with anxiety,
you're now brushing that over because you're treating an addiction,
where instead, if you treat the anxiety, it's like tipping
over the first domino, and you wait for all of
the dominoes to get to the sexual compulsive behavior, and
(08:23):
then all of those dominoes tip it over because you're
treating the first actual problem that's leading to it. And
a lot of these big businesses that are trying to
treat sex addiction are ones, especially like the ones that
cost a lot of money. You saw a lot of
celebrities going to places like I'm going to this reserve
in the middle of New Mexico or Arizona where they
(08:43):
pay tens of thousands of dollars to basically get twelve
step program treatment with a bunch of extra bells and
whistles like horse therapy and a bunch of other things
that people can do to almost make it it like
it's almost a performative treatment of the second ual compulsive behavior?
Speaker 4 (09:02):
Is it somewhat like AA where you have to do
this and do that and make amends?
Speaker 5 (09:07):
And absolutely it's the similar. It takes the similar same
twelve step approach to something that may be an impulse
control to order and not necessarily an addiction. And a
lot of these groups make sure that they have professionals
working with them who totally buy into addressing it from
an addiction model instead of from an actual mental health
(09:27):
like finding what the first domino is model.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
We got to pause there, but when we come back,
I want to talk about the real world implications of
everything we talked about. We may not have a sex addiction,
but we may have a partner who may deal with that,
and what that means for a spouse, what that means
for maybe kids in the family, and how that plays out.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
Can you do that for us? Absolutely?
Speaker 3 (09:49):
It's Late with mo Kelly, Sam the sex doctor is
in and he's making a house call. Ka if I
am six forty life everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from
KFI am six forty.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
KFI later with Moe Kelly. Sam the sex doctor joins me. Sam,
let's pick it back up where we left off. We
were talking about sexual addiction, and you were it was
it was complicated even for me as far as the
distinction between a disorder and a disease. But you said
there is money in treating it as a disease, if
(10:31):
I remember correctly, there's big money.
Speaker 5 (10:33):
Yeah, well, it's a big money in treating it as
an addiction because you can open up addiction facility facilities
like you have substance abuse facilities. You have a bunch
of different ways like and all of them, depending on
how much you pay, kind of boil down to twelve
step programs with a bunch of extra bells and whistles
to it. But for sex and compulsive sexual behavior, I
(10:54):
don't necessarily feel like an addictive addiction model of treatment
is one that's going to be helpful or most effective,
because if you look at it, it's an impulse controlled disorder,
and the way we treat impulse control disorders are way
different than how we treat addictions, right right.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
Okay, And before the break, I said, Hey, I wonder
how this impacts a spouse, how this impacts a child
or family in the way that you may have a family.
And I'm not trying to be funny, but they may
sit down and say, you know, daddy's dealing with gambling issues,
or he's dealing with alcohol or substance issues. You, as
(11:35):
someone who is a mental health professional, how do you
think some of these conversations go if they go at all?
When you're dealing with some sort of sexual addiction and
its impacted the family.
Speaker 5 (11:49):
Well, here's the thing. One of the big issues when
you look at it from also an addictive model, a
lot of people are going to say, well, how much
is too much? And it comes also that comes down
to whether or not what you're doing causes you a
sense of distress. If it's bothering you. If it's causing
that sense of distress in you, then it's something that
can be diagnosed. If it's not causing distress, then it's
(12:09):
not hurting or harming yourself or anyone else. Whatever you're
doing is consensual, nothing wrong with it, then it's fine. Say,
if you're in a committed relationship and your partner is
on the same wavelength as you, you have a very
similar sex drive with each other, and you have open communication.
You may have an open relationship that allows for you
to pursue sexual encounters with people outside of the relationship.
(12:31):
That very same behavior may not actually be considered addictive
because it's something that's within their dynamic of a relationship. Right.
But if you're in a committed relationship, take that same couple,
but you only have one person who has kind of
a stronger sex drive or more of the urge of
the compulsion to engage in sexual behavior with people outside
(12:52):
of the relationship, then they're going to be engaging in lying,
deceit and doing one thousand and one other things to
cover up what they're doing. And that's the problem.
Speaker 4 (13:01):
Okay, But let me play the other side of the coin.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
Let's say you have the unfaithful husband and the woman
and the wife and the relationship maybe not have the
same sex strive, and the husband decides to find sex
outside the marriage. Is that actual sex addiction or garden
variety cheating and selfishness.
Speaker 5 (13:19):
It depends it. Really, you have to look at it individually.
It could be somebody with something where somebody has other
emotional needs that are not being fulfilled and they find
somebody who actually gives them that sense of being desired,
and so you know, there you can have someone who's
in a sexless relationship with someone and then they see
(13:41):
somebody outside the relationship who gives them that feeling of
being desired, and then they go and have sex with them.
That does not count as sex addiction.
Speaker 4 (13:49):
That's what I wanted to know.
Speaker 5 (13:50):
So it's a matter of, like, you have everything you
need sexually in your own relationship, but you gotta go
and do deceitful stuff outside of your relationship. And that's
the thing where it's similar to when you look at
gambling disorder, where it's a process addiction quote unquote addiction.
So it's compulsive behavior where you're continually engaging in high
(14:10):
risk behavior that threatens to destabilize everything of your life.
So if you're in a marriage, it will destabilize your
marriage if you get caught and cheating, just like if
you gamble away your life savings and you're in a
relationship with someone, it will destabilize that relationship. And a
lot of times they say the same thing with a
(14:31):
gambling addiction or a gambling disorder, it's not so much
that they are addicted to winning, they're waiting to lose.
Speaker 4 (14:41):
What's the difference there.
Speaker 5 (14:43):
If you're addicted to winning, then you're going to go
back and you want to win, and winning is going
to be give you that same great feeling. And every
time you lose, you're going to be upset, but you're
going to be like, well, I want to win, And
a lot of times that leads to doubling down.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
Got it.
Speaker 5 (14:56):
But when it's the waiting to get caught, you're not
getting any pleasure out of winning anymore.
Speaker 4 (15:03):
That is so weird.
Speaker 5 (15:04):
You're just doing it because you're like, yeah, it's me continuing, me,
just being me. I'm a gambler and I'm good at this.
This is what I do, and I continually keep amping
it up and pushing more and more, and I'm not
getting any more pleasure out of this anymore. It's just
me compulsively engaging in that behavior, waiting to lose everything.
And once that happens, if you have a relationship with people,
(15:25):
that's where a lot of times these diagnoses come. These
diagnoses also come into play not just for the sake
of billing and insurance. It's also as a way a
lot of times to signal to the individual. This is
a problem. If you diagnose someone with impulse control disorder,
they're going to be like, okay, well that's kind of
a vague general term. I have difficulty controlling my impulses.
(15:47):
But if you say you have gambling disorder, you're going
to be much more likely to say I have a
specific problem that I need to get specific treatment for.
Speaker 4 (15:54):
And people view that differently. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
You know, you can listen to a commercial and they'll
say problems with gambling one to eight hundred gabbler and
you know, dot com or whatever it was. But I'm saying,
you know, we look upon gambling addiction and alcohol addiction
very differently.
Speaker 5 (16:13):
Yeah, can you agree absolutely both of them. We tend
to acknowledge the powerlessness that people have when they are
afflicted by these disorders. Whenever they have substance abuse issues
or gambling issues or set like we're talking sex and
sexual sexual or compulsive sexual behavior issues, it's similar along
(16:33):
those lines. But when you have a chemical dependency, it's
obviously different. Your body does not craves and desires the thing,
and you have withdrawal symptoms and things like that, where
the withdrawal of not gambling or not having sex usually
leads to more anxiety, tension, and wanting to do whatever
it takes. You will you will break whatever boundaries or
(16:54):
rules it takes in order to engage in that behavior
and try to keep it hidden from the people around you.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
If we were to look five years from now, do
you think that this will be a sexual addiction will
be viewed through a lens of greater respect and taken
more seriously than it is today. Wherever that is, or
will we might move in the other direction.
Speaker 5 (17:19):
I think it will be ultimately classified as a diagnosis,
But I mean, honestly, I would much rather have it
classified as impulse control disorder with a subset of you know,
compulsive sexual behavior, because it's a matter of how it
gets treated. I don't want to see sexual addiction, or
the idea of sexual addiction, the treatment of it, of
(17:39):
compulsive sexual behavior being treated along the lines of an
addiction model, versus what we how we treat stuff for
impulse control disorder like pyromania is considered impulse control disorder,
kleptomania impulse control disorder. The way you treat those things
are significantly different than how you treat addiction. And using
(18:00):
a twelve step model.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
So you're saying that sexual addiction, I'm just using a
phraseology is closer to pyromania and kleptomania.
Speaker 5 (18:08):
It's an impulse control issue, yes, but we just want
to call it something else. We call it an addiction
because it's way easier to talk about it.
Speaker 4 (18:17):
You know.
Speaker 5 (18:17):
It's like, as far as celebrities go, it's a it's
basically an umbrella term that we can throw whatever compulsive
sexual behavior, compulsive masturbation, compulsive whatever sexual under that umbrella
and say that's an addiction.
Speaker 4 (18:31):
I think it for me, it gives it a different connotation.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
If you say to me, there is impulse control, it's
something that I think is something wrong with the person
that they're choosing not to address.
Speaker 4 (18:45):
Yeah, where if you say addiction is well, it's out
of my control.
Speaker 5 (18:48):
It's beyond my control exactly, And that changes how people
individually look at how they have those issues.
Speaker 4 (18:55):
I've talked to people about this before.
Speaker 5 (18:57):
A lot of times when people look at like, say
I have sex addiction, like they look at that in
the same lens that they look at substance abuse and
chemical addiction. Where I am powerless to this I am,
I'm going to relapse, I am, and they just allow
themselves to be powerless to it. Where if you call
it impulse control, that gives people more of a sense
(19:18):
of maybe I can control this impulse, this feeling that
I have in this moment, I have more power over
this than it has over me, where if you have
to call it addiction, you're basically saying, you know, I'm
powerless to this, and you have to go through the
whole twelve step program, say that you've you are powerless
to this. You have to accept a higher power into
(19:39):
your life. And for people who are atheists, that's a
hard buy. There's a lot like so for atheists you
can't do twelve step. There's an eleven step I guess
program for them.
Speaker 4 (19:47):
But there's it.
Speaker 5 (19:49):
You treat these things differently than you would like. You
would treat impulsive behavior differently than you would can you
would treat addictive behavior.
Speaker 4 (20:00):
We could do this all night long, no pun intended.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
But it's fascinating how sophisticated just the concept of sexual
addiction has become.
Speaker 5 (20:09):
And it's going to be something where in order to
make it easier to get built, you know, process through
insurance so make sure people are covered for their treatment.
It may just become something where it becomes a diagnosis
just for sake of convenience.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
Sam the Sex Doctor, Always good to see you, Always
a pleasure. We'll talk again next week.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from
KFI AM six forty
You're listening to Later with Mo Kelly on demand from
kf I, A M six forty.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
SAMSI Sex Doc. He's a Sam Stop stop stop sextet
stop the Sex Doctor Kelly Later.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Later with kf I, Later with Mo Kelly Live everywhere
on YouTube and the iHeartRadio app. Now the Sex Doctor
is in sam Zia and he will see us. Sam's
good to see you this evening. What's going on, brother,
Good to see you. And I'd like to just reiterate
what Mark said in the newsroom. It's sixty nine everywhere,
so the weather is here for me today too.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
Oh my gosh, we're off. Oh yeah to the racist
Oh yeah, Sam.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Or earlier in the week, you and I had touched
upon the idea of sexual addiction.
Speaker 4 (01:18):
Yeah. And I've had a friend I don't want to.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Reveal his name because he is somewhat famous, who was
accused of sexual addiction. I've had and heard varying opinions
about whether that's a thing.
Speaker 4 (01:33):
First, let me make it seem like it's a crime.
Speaker 5 (01:35):
He's being accused of sex adent.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
The way it was, he was shamed for it, So
let me put it out there.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
Okay, addiction, Yes, is sex something that can be a
part of what is considered an impulsive addiction that someone
can't control because of the disease.
Speaker 5 (01:55):
That's the question. Is sex addiction actually a real thing?
And you know, you've been hearing it with a lot
of different celebrities, especially when they have some kind of
controversy come up where they get caught.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
Tiger Woods is.
Speaker 5 (02:09):
A great example of that back in the day, where
people are like, you know, they get caught doing something
sexual and they are regretful of it and said they
you know what, We're going to go into a sex
addiction treatment facility and stuff like that.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
Well, they're celebrities and they do celebrity rehab stuff to
repair their image. But on a medical level, is there
any evidence to suggest that we know that addiction is
a thing? Yes, absolutely, we know that compulsive behavior is
a thing. We could talk about gambling, and I would
(02:43):
say that's the closest parallel. You have someone engaging in
possibly not dangerous behavior, but not necessarily sensible behavior at
their own detriment, you know, gambling way their rent or
their mortgage. Isn't there a parallel that could be drawn
between gam addiction and sexual addiction?
Speaker 5 (03:02):
Now that's the thing. Yes, there is a very good
parallel that can be drawn between the two. I mean
a lot of the same high risk behavior, the idea
of you know, risking everything you have to either gamble
again or to have a sexual experience, especially for those
who are in committed relationships where the other person is
(03:23):
not aware of the of their partner engaging in sexual
activity outside of the relationship. That's where a lot of
times people say, well, I'm an addict, and it makes
them feel very powerless to what like, because usually whenever
you look at addiction, we're pointing at chemical substance addiction,
and there's addiction there. You know, that doesn't mean that
there's the that is the only exclusive kind of addiction
(03:45):
is chemical substance addiction. Those are real, very real.
Speaker 4 (03:48):
Probably because that changes the brain chemistry or something else.
Speaker 5 (03:52):
It's something where you become addicted to the like to
whatever the substance is. It impacts your functioning as far
as day to day, you know, doing your day to
day responsibilities. It keep it makes it so that you
prioritize the substance over everything else.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
Oh, let me ask you that. But that's not on
a physiological level. That's just more like an emotional level,
and compulsive behavior sounds.
Speaker 5 (04:14):
Like compulsive behavior is part of what we call process addictions,
where it's we are addicted, quote unquote addicted to certain behaviors,
and that is something where you can we start to
get a little bit into the weeds with it, because
addiction is something that a lot of times people will
just classify something as addiction because it's what is easier
(04:35):
to like, it's just a way to make it a
lot easier to explain something that is something that's more
along the lines of impulse control. Okay, now that is
another diagnosis altogether. Now we got to get into the
two different schools of diagnosing. You have the ICD, which
is the International Classification of Disease. It's it's basically the
(04:55):
what the World Health Organization uses to classify disease is
medical conditions things like that. It also covers mental health
disorders and things like that. Now, on my side, because
I'm a mental health professional, what I do as far
as my diagnos, my diagnoses go go with the DSM,
the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Psychological Disorders.
Speaker 4 (05:17):
We are officially in the weeds now.
Speaker 5 (05:19):
Now this is where now this is the thing. DSM
is run by the APA, the American Psychiatric Association, versus
the WHO who recently in the last year or so said,
you know what, We're going to classify not sex addiction,
but compulsive sexual behavior disorder, and they treat it at
(05:40):
like it is treated as far as like you know,
actual medical treatment goes like an impulse control disorder.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
Okay, if I understand you correctly, because I'm just a
lay person, A disorder would be more in the mind
and the processing of information, whereas is a disease is
physiological and has to do with the body.
Speaker 5 (05:58):
Yes, exactly, and it's not a person disorder where it's
something where this is you know exactly who you are
no matter what this is like something that like people
have anxiety disorders, people are in their personality isn't based
off of anxiety. They have anxiety, you know, Whereas you
have bipolar personality disorder, their personality is fixed to the
(06:19):
actual criteria of diagnosis for that personality type. It's two
different things altogether, but in this you have two different
diagnosing groups. Basically saying sex addiction is not actually a
real thing, but compulsive sexual behavior as far as far
as the ICD goes, is a real thing as far
(06:39):
as the international community goes. Now here's the thing is
the whole purpose of both of those coding groups, the
ICD and the DSM, is so that insurance companies and
medical groups and psychiatrists and psychologists and all of them
can have a way to build for the treatment of
this stuff. And that's where I want to get into,
(07:02):
because the treatment of sex addiction is a huge business
that doesn't necessarily equate to anything more than the same
twelve step programs that you have for chemical addiction. But
it's not necessarily treating impulse control, and it doesn't necessarily
get to the root of what is actually causing problems
(07:23):
for them. It could be anxiety that's leading them to
those gates. It could be depression, it could be any
number of things. So we're treating it as if it's
an addiction, either for you know, for convenience sake, or
for you know, just so that people can just say, hey,
you know, this is the umbrella term that we can
classify all of this under. But it doesn't actually get
to the root of what is actually happening.
Speaker 4 (07:43):
If I understand you correctly and I may not, so
please correct me.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
It sounds like you're saying that sex may be the
end result of another disorder, and sex is just the
outward manifestation of some sort of anxiety or compulsive behavior.
Speaker 5 (08:01):
Yeah, a lot of compulsive behavior originates from, like, say,
for example, anxiety. If people having a serious problem with anxiety,
you're now brushing that over because you're treating an addiction,
where instead, if you treat the anxiety, it's like tipping
over the first domino, and you wait for all of
the dominoes to get to the sexual compulsive behavior, and
(08:23):
then all of those dominoes tip it over because you're
treating the first actual problem that's leading to it. And
a lot of these big businesses that are trying to
treat sex addiction are ones, especially like the ones that
cost a lot of money. You saw a lot of
celebrities going to places like I'm going to this reserve
in the middle of New Mexico or Arizona where they
(08:43):
pay tens of thousands of dollars to basically get twelve
step program treatment with a bunch of extra bells and
whistles like horse therapy and a bunch of other things
that people can do to almost make it it like
it's almost a performative treatment of the second ual compulsive behavior?
Speaker 4 (09:02):
Is it somewhat like AA where you have to do
this and do that and make amends?
Speaker 5 (09:07):
And absolutely it's the similar. It takes the similar same
twelve step approach to something that may be an impulse
control to order and not necessarily an addiction. And a
lot of these groups make sure that they have professionals
working with them who totally buy into addressing it from
an addiction model instead of from an actual mental health
(09:27):
like finding what the first domino is model.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
We got to pause there, but when we come back,
I want to talk about the real world implications of
everything we talked about. We may not have a sex addiction,
but we may have a partner who may deal with that,
and what that means for a spouse, what that means
for maybe kids in the family, and how that plays out.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
Can you do that for us? Absolutely?
Speaker 3 (09:49):
It's Late with mo Kelly, Sam the sex doctor is
in and he's making a house call. Ka if I
am six forty life everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from
KFI am six forty.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
KFI later with Moe Kelly. Sam the sex doctor joins me. Sam,
let's pick it back up where we left off. We
were talking about sexual addiction, and you were it was
it was complicated even for me as far as the
distinction between a disorder and a disease. But you said
there is money in treating it as a disease, if
(10:31):
I remember correctly, there's big money.
Speaker 5 (10:33):
Yeah, well, it's a big money in treating it as
an addiction because you can open up addiction facility facilities
like you have substance abuse facilities. You have a bunch
of different ways like and all of them, depending on
how much you pay, kind of boil down to twelve
step programs with a bunch of extra bells and whistles
to it. But for sex and compulsive sexual behavior, I
(10:54):
don't necessarily feel like an addictive addiction model of treatment
is one that's going to be helpful or most effective,
because if you look at it, it's an impulse controlled disorder,
and the way we treat impulse control disorders are way
different than how we treat addictions, right right.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
Okay, And before the break, I said, Hey, I wonder
how this impacts a spouse, how this impacts a child
or family in the way that you may have a family.
And I'm not trying to be funny, but they may
sit down and say, you know, daddy's dealing with gambling issues,
or he's dealing with alcohol or substance issues. You, as
(11:35):
someone who is a mental health professional, how do you
think some of these conversations go if they go at all?
When you're dealing with some sort of sexual addiction and
its impacted the family.
Speaker 5 (11:49):
Well, here's the thing. One of the big issues when
you look at it from also an addictive model, a
lot of people are going to say, well, how much
is too much? And it comes also that comes down
to whether or not what you're doing causes you a
sense of distress. If it's bothering you. If it's causing
that sense of distress in you, then it's something that
can be diagnosed. If it's not causing distress, then it's
(12:09):
not hurting or harming yourself or anyone else. Whatever you're
doing is consensual, nothing wrong with it, then it's fine. Say,
if you're in a committed relationship and your partner is
on the same wavelength as you, you have a very
similar sex drive with each other, and you have open communication.
You may have an open relationship that allows for you
to pursue sexual encounters with people outside of the relationship.
(12:31):
That very same behavior may not actually be considered addictive
because it's something that's within their dynamic of a relationship. Right.
But if you're in a committed relationship, take that same couple,
but you only have one person who has kind of
a stronger sex drive or more of the urge of
the compulsion to engage in sexual behavior with people outside
(12:52):
of the relationship, then they're going to be engaging in lying,
deceit and doing one thousand and one other things to
cover up what they're doing. And that's the problem.
Speaker 4 (13:01):
Okay, But let me play the other side of the coin.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
Let's say you have the unfaithful husband and the woman
and the wife and the relationship maybe not have the
same sex strive, and the husband decides to find sex
outside the marriage. Is that actual sex addiction or garden
variety cheating and selfishness.
Speaker 5 (13:19):
It depends it. Really, you have to look at it individually.
It could be somebody with something where somebody has other
emotional needs that are not being fulfilled and they find
somebody who actually gives them that sense of being desired,
and so you know, there you can have someone who's
in a sexless relationship with someone and then they see
(13:41):
somebody outside the relationship who gives them that feeling of
being desired, and then they go and have sex with them.
That does not count as sex addiction.
Speaker 4 (13:49):
That's what I wanted to know.
Speaker 5 (13:50):
So it's a matter of, like, you have everything you
need sexually in your own relationship, but you gotta go
and do deceitful stuff outside of your relationship. And that's
the thing where it's similar to when you look at
gambling disorder, where it's a process addiction quote unquote addiction.
So it's compulsive behavior where you're continually engaging in high
(14:10):
risk behavior that threatens to destabilize everything of your life.
So if you're in a marriage, it will destabilize your
marriage if you get caught and cheating, just like if
you gamble away your life savings and you're in a
relationship with someone, it will destabilize that relationship. And a
lot of times they say the same thing with a
(14:31):
gambling addiction or a gambling disorder, it's not so much
that they are addicted to winning, they're waiting to lose.
Speaker 4 (14:41):
What's the difference there.
Speaker 5 (14:43):
If you're addicted to winning, then you're going to go
back and you want to win, and winning is going
to be give you that same great feeling. And every
time you lose, you're going to be upset, but you're
going to be like, well, I want to win, And
a lot of times that leads to doubling down.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
Got it.
Speaker 5 (14:56):
But when it's the waiting to get caught, you're not
getting any pleasure out of winning anymore.
Speaker 4 (15:03):
That is so weird.
Speaker 5 (15:04):
You're just doing it because you're like, yeah, it's me continuing, me,
just being me. I'm a gambler and I'm good at this.
This is what I do, and I continually keep amping
it up and pushing more and more, and I'm not
getting any more pleasure out of this anymore. It's just
me compulsively engaging in that behavior, waiting to lose everything.
And once that happens, if you have a relationship with people,
(15:25):
that's where a lot of times these diagnoses come. These
diagnoses also come into play not just for the sake
of billing and insurance. It's also as a way a
lot of times to signal to the individual. This is
a problem. If you diagnose someone with impulse control disorder,
they're going to be like, okay, well that's kind of
a vague general term. I have difficulty controlling my impulses.
(15:47):
But if you say you have gambling disorder, you're going
to be much more likely to say I have a
specific problem that I need to get specific treatment for.
Speaker 4 (15:54):
And people view that differently. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
You know, you can listen to a commercial and they'll
say problems with gambling one to eight hundred gabbler and
you know, dot com or whatever it was. But I'm saying,
you know, we look upon gambling addiction and alcohol addiction
very differently.
Speaker 5 (16:13):
Yeah, can you agree absolutely both of them. We tend
to acknowledge the powerlessness that people have when they are
afflicted by these disorders. Whenever they have substance abuse issues
or gambling issues or set like we're talking sex and
sexual sexual or compulsive sexual behavior issues, it's similar along
(16:33):
those lines. But when you have a chemical dependency, it's
obviously different. Your body does not craves and desires the thing,
and you have withdrawal symptoms and things like that, where
the withdrawal of not gambling or not having sex usually
leads to more anxiety, tension, and wanting to do whatever
it takes. You will you will break whatever boundaries or
(16:54):
rules it takes in order to engage in that behavior
and try to keep it hidden from the people around you.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
If we were to look five years from now, do
you think that this will be a sexual addiction will
be viewed through a lens of greater respect and taken
more seriously than it is today. Wherever that is, or
will we might move in the other direction.
Speaker 5 (17:19):
I think it will be ultimately classified as a diagnosis,
But I mean, honestly, I would much rather have it
classified as impulse control disorder with a subset of you know,
compulsive sexual behavior, because it's a matter of how it
gets treated. I don't want to see sexual addiction, or
the idea of sexual addiction, the treatment of it, of
(17:39):
compulsive sexual behavior being treated along the lines of an
addiction model, versus what we how we treat stuff for
impulse control disorder like pyromania is considered impulse control disorder,
kleptomania impulse control disorder. The way you treat those things
are significantly different than how you treat addiction. And using
(18:00):
a twelve step model.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
So you're saying that sexual addiction, I'm just using a
phraseology is closer to pyromania and kleptomania.
Speaker 5 (18:08):
It's an impulse control issue, yes, but we just want
to call it something else. We call it an addiction
because it's way easier to talk about it.
Speaker 4 (18:17):
You know.
Speaker 5 (18:17):
It's like, as far as celebrities go, it's a it's
basically an umbrella term that we can throw whatever compulsive
sexual behavior, compulsive masturbation, compulsive whatever sexual under that umbrella
and say that's an addiction.
Speaker 4 (18:31):
I think it for me, it gives it a different connotation.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
If you say to me, there is impulse control, it's
something that I think is something wrong with the person
that they're choosing not to address.
Speaker 4 (18:45):
Yeah, where if you say addiction is well, it's out
of my control.
Speaker 5 (18:48):
It's beyond my control exactly, And that changes how people
individually look at how they have those issues.
Speaker 4 (18:55):
I've talked to people about this before.
Speaker 5 (18:57):
A lot of times when people look at like, say
I have sex addiction, like they look at that in
the same lens that they look at substance abuse and
chemical addiction. Where I am powerless to this I am,
I'm going to relapse, I am, and they just allow
themselves to be powerless to it. Where if you call
it impulse control, that gives people more of a sense
(19:18):
of maybe I can control this impulse, this feeling that
I have in this moment, I have more power over
this than it has over me, where if you have
to call it addiction, you're basically saying, you know, I'm
powerless to this, and you have to go through the
whole twelve step program, say that you've you are powerless
to this. You have to accept a higher power into
(19:39):
your life. And for people who are atheists, that's a
hard buy. There's a lot like so for atheists you
can't do twelve step. There's an eleven step I guess
program for them.
Speaker 4 (19:47):
But there's it.
Speaker 5 (19:49):
You treat these things differently than you would like. You
would treat impulsive behavior differently than you would can you
would treat addictive behavior.
Speaker 4 (20:00):
We could do this all night long, no pun intended.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
But it's fascinating how sophisticated just the concept of sexual
addiction has become.
Speaker 5 (20:09):
And it's going to be something where in order to
make it easier to get built, you know, process through
insurance so make sure people are covered for their treatment.
It may just become something where it becomes a diagnosis
just for sake of convenience.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
Sam the Sex Doctor, Always good to see you, Always
a pleasure. We'll talk again next week.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from
KFI AM six forty
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