Am I a SEX addict? Here are the signs (video)

Seth Auberon, Crystal Quintero, Wisdom Quarterly; Katie Couric; Dr. Pinsky, Lewis Howes

(HLN) Constance calls in with a question about abuse and sex addiction. Dr. Drew answers.

• "Porn isn't your problem" says Jason Mahr (TEDx)
• VIDEO: Female therapist on 3 signs of sex addiction

Is there a "Buddhist" solution to addiction?

RefugeRecovery.org/about edited by Wisdom Quarterly

We have a weekly "Refuge Recovery" in North Hollywood: Dharma-Punx-Valley

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There's a book, too: Refuge Recovery

Refuge Recovery is a mindfulness-based addiction recovery community that utilizes Buddhist philosophy as the foundation for recovery.

Drawing inspiration from the core Buddhist teachings called the Four Noble Truths, instead of Christianity, emphasis is placed on knowledge, practice, and empathy as a means of overcoming addiction and its causes.

Those struggling with any form of addiction greatly benefit when they are able to understand the suffering that addiction has created while developing compassion for the pain they have experienced. RR hopes to serve you and meet you on the path.

 

RefugeRecovery.org is a nontheistic, nonprofit organization with a mission to:

• build a network of Refuge Recovery groups,
• hold daily 12-step meetings, and build
• sobriety-support communities

that practice, educate, and provide Buddhist teachings and meditations for anyone seeking recovery from addiction.

 

The peer-led Refuge Recovery nonprofit organization operates 100% independently from the professional addiction treatment centers called Refuge Recovery.
 

What is it?

Perhaps the first step to stopping any addiction is to...stop. Then we can cure it.

 

Refuge Recovery is a practice, a process, a set of tools, a treatment, and a path to healing addiction and the suffering caused by addiction.
 

The main inspiration and guiding philosophy for the Refuge Recovery program are the teachings of Siddhartha (Sid) Gautama, who became the Buddha (the “Awakened One”), a man who taught in India twenty-six hundred years ago.

Sid was a radical psychologist and a spiritual revolutionary. Through his own efforts and practices, he came to understand why human beings experience and cause so much suffering (dukkha).

 

I meditated until I awoke.

He referred to the root cause of suffering as “uncontrollable thirst or repetitive craving.”

This “thirst” tends to arise in relation to pleasure, but it may also arise as a craving for unpleasant experiences to go away, or as an addiction to people, places, things, or experiences.
 

This is the same thirst of the alcoholic, the same craving as the addict, and the same attachment as the codependent.

Eventually, Sid came to understand and experience a way of living that ended all forms of suffering. He did this through a practice and process that includes meditation, wise actions, and compassion.

After freeing himself from the suffering caused by craving, he spent the rest of his life teaching others how to live a life of well-being and freedom, a life free from suffering.

Sid became known as “the Buddha,” and his teachings became known as the Buddha-Dharma or what we now call Buddhism.

The Refuge Recovery program has adapted the core teachings of the Buddha as a treatment of addiction. Why?
 

Buddhist 12-step MEETINGS daily

Buddhism recognizes a nontheistic approach to spiritual practice. The Refuge Recovery program of recovery does not ask anyone to believe anything, only to trust the process and do the hard work of recovery. More

 

Psychology of Healing Addiction and Trauma

Host Lewis Howes

Here is a powerful interview with Dr. Drew. Such interviews and inspirational videos are posted every Monday and Wednesday. This one is audio podcast number #419 with Dr. Drew Pinsky of Loveline, MTV, HLN, and KABC fame (Website: lewishowes.com)