Ep59 Sex Addiction Treatment | Sexual Recovery and Intimacy

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

Chris Langley: Hi, Welcome to Addiction Recovery Place Podcast. The podcast championing addiction treatment professionals around the world. I'm your host Chris Langley. I'm very pleased to introduce today's today's guest, Gary Katz.

Gary is the Director of Intimacy Recovery, which is located in New York, and serves many states states the country. country.

Gary is a Certified Sex Addiction Therapist and Certified Partner Trauma Therapist. Thank you very much for joining me today, Gary. So great to have you with us.

Gary Katz: It's my pleasure. I'm really glad to be here, Chris. Thank you.

Gary Katz: I really

Chris Langley: appreciate your time

and

I

really appreciate obviously very busy, Gary, so we're just going to jump straight the first question.

Can you tell us about yourself? Your journey to becoming the Director of Intensive Recovery?

Gary Katz: Sure, a hundred percent. I'll tell you about myself. That's always the hardest question I think. It's easier to say what someone does than who they are. yeah, I, this is a second career for me. I was in education for many years, for probably almost as long, 20 years, first, and also working as a rabbi. and, it was while in that world, I, was first exposed to, and then just started to, personally struggle with addiction myself, and then got sober, and that journey of recovery led me to a lot of changes.

I think that recovery, whether, recovery meaning 12-step recovery or therapy, just as a broad term recovery, therapy, is really about learning to be the most authentic version of ourselves that we can, living in our own authenticity, our own integrity. And so it really required me to learn how to listen to myself and to not be running around living a life of fear of what was expected of me.

And so that's not what I expected would happen when I got sober. I didn't think I would actually be able to get sober. I was like, this "will never work for me." But, so many things, as they say, like the gifts of recovery, so many things are. that I wasn't even expecting unfolded just by that first, taking that first step to get help.

One of the places that led me to was, after probably about, I don't know, seven years in recovery, wanting to change professions, realizing I didn't want to continue. I've loved teaching for many years of my life. I probably knew more people under the age of 13 than above, than adults.

Cause I was working with kids, summer camp, youth programs, private Jewish, schools primarily. but I, it wasn't feeling as fulfilling. And I also felt that things I wasn't equipped to really help the kids. I felt what I was teaching was meaningful to the students, but I saw students in class who were not able to learn like I knew they could because I could see they had stuff going on internally like emotions like they brought in from home and that felt very familiar to me to my experience as a student in school where things that were going on internally for me emotionally got in the way of being able to learn because I just had too many feelings going.

I didn't know how to deal with them. I didn't have the tools. I could provide care and help a student feel seen, but I didn't have tools to help them. So eventually, I went back to school. It was a second career and got my Master's in Social Work and worked at a number of places until I started my own practice, which, was terrifying.

Again, it was not, a career change was not the last thing I thought about when I thought maybe I'll become a barista. When I got sober, like maybe that's my future. I had lost a job as a result of my addictions and just didn't see much of a future, but, I was terrified to go back to school. I didn't feel very smart.

I didn't know how I'd fit it in with working full time, having my two kids living with me full time. I just started with like the first step of, I actually was talking about this with someone today. The first day I applied online, I just filled up my name and my address, and that was it.

I couldn't do it. I was too intimidated by the process. It felt so overwhelming. I have to get letters of recommendation? I have to write an essay? Anyway, it was like one of the best things I've ever done. And, eventually started this practice. The pleasure of working in this field feels so meaningful.

It's like a whole new lease on life. The ability to sit with people as they come in with where they're at and whatever they're dealing with individually as a couple groups, and also I found ways, I miss teaching after a number of years, so I found ways to find opportunities to teach by hiring staff and developing.

As the practice grew, I got to get my fix, so to speak, of teaching by training new staff, which is a big part of our practice also.

Chris Langley: So did you, start, your program, Intimacy

Gary Katz: I think I'm really not good with timeframes. I can remember everything about your family that you tell me and your feelings, but your timeframes are not good with. I would say, I think it's 2012. Yeah, I think so.

Chris Langley: And did you go back to school?

Gary Katz: That's how I figure it out. Like I think I graduated in 2009. I'm probably off a year, maybe 2010.

So I either started like 2012, 13ish. Maybe 14. Even I'm not it's I'm sure I'm it's documented, right? Like It was legal forms I had to fill out, but it, this is the, in this and song lyrics, they don't stay in my mind. I can't even sing my favorite Bruce Springsteen song on demand. I don't know. If I hear it, I can sing along.

So it's about, I would say somewhere between 2012 and 2014.

Chris Langley: Incredible.

Congratulations.

congratulations.

That's one heck of a journey you just described.

described. And,

Certainly, the right career for you.

Without a doubt. And, I'm really excited for you to tell the audience about some of the services you offer because this is quite a unique podcast for me as well.

I'm really interested to find out to about some of the services you offer.

Gary Katz: When I, opened my practice, I threw a lot of stuff against the wall to see what would stick. I thought I would be really interested in working with substance abuse because I had a personal recovery background in that.

I thought I'd want to work with kids because I had worked with them for 20 years. I thought, I also worked like with older adults for about nine years. I taught senior citizens. I ran a summer camp for senior citizens. So I just had all these different niches, and I had worked with sex addiction, and had also interned and worked at a practice in it.

I put all, tried all these different things plus others, and this is the one that really stuck. I didn't really want it to be just sex addiction, because it felt to me that even that was too narrow of a lens. And really, the lens through all the work we do at the practice is really about intimacy.

It's in the name, Center for Intimacy,and what I mean by intimacy is the ability for someone to be intimate with themself, and only that after that being able to be intimate with others. Meaning like we have so many different parts of ourselves. We have the parts we really like about ourselves that parts you might put on social media that look really great to the world.

Those parts were in touch with, but we also all have parts that we don't feel good about ourselves, or that we don't even want to know. Because in internal family systems, they're called exile and exile like it's a part of ourselves that we like I can't even like maybe even know it's there.

It's too painful, or I know it's there, but I don't like to really interact with it. I don't know, pettiness. Maybe the fact I get jealous at someone else's success, or someone else gets invited to a party, and I don't. But I don't like that about myself, so I don't want to acknowledge that. Or anger, or for some people addiction, or the pain of vulnerability.

All these parts that are uncomfortable, or the feelings of I'm not enough, or I'm broken.

In order to really be an authentic, whole person, I have to be aware of all of my parts. Parts that I'm ignoring are usually going to come back out sideways in a destructive way often. Intimacy for me, with myself, means I'm aware of these different parts. Even when they're hard to look at. Because, and if I'm, only going to let you see them if I'm willing to look at them, because if I don't have the ability or the tolerance for the pain to see these parts of myself that I don't feel good about, I'll never, I'll hide them from you because I think you're going to judge me too.

So it's helping people really know themselves and then, with the right people, having the trust and safety to share that. So we also look at a lot of. But the thing is you gotta start moving forward in new ways and strategies that people develop to avoid intimacy with themselves.

Because it's really scary. Like our hearts are very fragile, and they're tender. And all of us have some kind of relational experience as children, Whether at home, or school, or something else, That creates this tension, and leads to tension, and leads to tension, and leads to tension, and leads to tension and, Creates these little wounds or cuts or nicks in our heart.

And so we all find ways to try to avoid that pain, which is a really healthy response. and for some people being the best student is a response to that pain. If I'm really good, if I'm the good son, the good daughter, the good student, the best athlete, the funniest in class, the best in show, people are going to like me and then I'm not going to feel that pain.

And then they'll want to be my friend, or they'll want to date me, or they'll want to marry me, or they'll want to hire me. I get words from that. For other people, a way to not deal with that pain is to, maybe shut down. Dissociate. Maybe depression. Maybe numb out. Through substances. Through food.

Through sex. Through getting validation that, "oh, you think I'm attractive?" I feel good again through work. There's all these ways that we can numb out, or disconnect from ourselves, and we all develop so many strategies around them. so helping people to understand those strategies. Many of the strategies are very helpful in some areas and unhelpful in others, right?

one of the primary areas of our practice is working with sex addiction, where people are using sex, either the act or the pursuit of it or the romance of it. The feeling of desire, the feeling of validation, to either numb out or feel better about themself. Which, there's nothing wrong with that, right?

Sex can be, sex is, there's so many reasons for sex, from procreation to pleasure to passing time, for connection, for love. But, when it becomes problematic, right? either when it's causing me to live outside my value system or when I'm hurting other people with, by maybe keeping secrets or having secrets or living a secret sexual life.

So we deal with a lot of that. a lot of that, like much addiction, I know, and probably your listeners know after all these episodes that you've created that Much of addiction is really a response to something else, right? I'm going to drink, or drug, or act out sexually, or eat, or not eat, or shop, or work in a way to either numb out or to get high, to feel really good.

One of those, like an upper or a downer, one of the, there's two directions basically. So there's nothing wrong with seeking sex and all these things, but when it starts to cost me things, Whether external things like a job, maybe I did something inappropriate at work, or maybe high risk behavior illegally, or maybe cost me a relationship because like I'm in a relationship, but I'm doing something else and that cost me the relationship, or my respect, of my children if I did something in my relationship and hurt their mother or, modeled not what I want for my children to see, or my partner, who trusts and identifies that we have an exclusive, mutual, monogamous relationship, and I'm lying to that person. so then it becomes problematic. That's where we look at, is it problematic? And, or if I'm internally feeling problematic, I don't feel good. Sex should feel good. Relationships, mostly, should feel good. none of them feel good all the time because it's human nature and we clash, but overall, they should provide

safety and comfort and pleasure and care and nurturance and all these things we all want and need. and when I'm feeling shame or I'm feeling bad about myself, I have to, I want to understand why. So that's like an internal reason that someone would come in. So we will help people look at those. and as I said, like there's just symptoms like alcohol, drugs, sexual behaviors, all these, Compulsive or addictive patterns are really symptoms of something else.

They're usually There's a line I love which was, what was the solution became the problem. Meaning for many people, drinking, or sex in this case, was a solution to something else. I don't feel okay in my own skin. I have social anxiety. I'm going to have a drink to feel better or I'm going to be flirty or I'm going to get it.

I feel a little about myself. So I'm going to make someone like me and now I feel okay about myself. So there started as a solution to another problem, like a way to regulate, but then they'd be taken on their own. life and become a problem in itself. So we really look at that in a non shame based lens.

There's nothing negative about sex. We try to actually help people to learn how to have a healthy relationship with themselves, with sex, and with others. And we also work on the other side of a relationship. Someone has been in a relationship with someone who's been doing some of these secret sexual behaviors on the impact on their partner.

it's traumatic. if you think that you're a partner and you are living one thing, reality, and then you discover that they've had a whole different secret relationship or life or series of relationships or secret sexual life, it's traumatic. It's, it's a traumatic experience to find out that information.

And in the nineties, a woman named Jennifer Freyd wrote a book called Betrayal Trauma, and she was talking about betrayal from a parent to a child. The impact when a parent doesn't provide what a child needs is so impactful on that child because. A parent child co-regulate, like the parent co-regulates the child.

They're their attachment object. That's how you develop your sense of worth. And so she really started talking about betrayal trauma around parent child relationships. And over the last, 30 something years, as our understanding of attachment has grown and that we understand "oh, the way I experienced attention as a child with my caregiver is now how I show up as an adult in my relationships."

As that understanding has grown, we've started to understand that after our caregiving relationships from our, as a child to, from a parent, the next closest relationship mimics that is our significant other. They regulate our nervous system, right? Like you walk in from a rough day at the office out in the world and your partner gives you a hug.

And it's it just relaxes you, like I'm home, I'm with you. and so that co regulation between two people is so powerful, so when one of them betrays the other, it's so dysregulating to the other person, it's a traumatic impact and it creates a lack of trust of their spouse, but it also creates, or partner, but it also creates a lack of trust of themself, like how did I not know?

How did I not catch this? What's wrong with me? It also makes them doubt their own reality, if we were If I thought all these things were one thing, but now I'm discovering that this whole time you've been in touch with him or with her or them, all the doing these things, and I didn't even know what was going on around me.

It's very destabilizing for that partner. So we work a lot with the what we call betrayed partners about that also.

Chris Langley: Goodness me.

Gary Katz: And then if I can just add, there's we also work on, we also do other, I would say standard sex therapy issues, things that individuals or couples struggle with around sex that are not about secrets or betrayal, but like function, whether it's erectile issues, vaginismus, different levels of desire, one person wanting sex more or less than their partner, or it's not working, other things are not working well, we deal with all that.

Gary,

Chris Langley: Sounds very highly complex, but Gary, you're the first person I've had on this podcast who's, a sex therapist. I'm finding the conversation already so fascinating with

fascinating.

Gary Katz: I can't believe I'm the first person, because here's the thing, right? You're probably, you're mostly having on substance abuse, right? I think, aren't you? 40 percent of all, I don't know where I read this years ago, but 40 percent of some of people struggling with substance abuse have an unhealthy relationship with sex.

Like every substance abuse treatment program, I think, really, everyone's either having or had sex or they're going to have sex. it's an integral part of who we're all sexual human beings, whether we're, I don't just mean being actively having sex, but it's part of who our essence is.

So when they're talking in recovery about allergy of the body or like your physical recovery, your spiritual, your emotional recovery, What about your sexual recovery? Because they're all having, especially programs for young adults. I remember speaking to a group of young adults who are in substance abuse recovery, and they're like, amazing that they're doing it, but they're all thinking about sex.

They're all either having sex. It's the thing that trips most people up in relapse too, around substances. It has to get talked about, and most people have some sense of shame, even if they're not having a compulsion, but many people have shame around sex. I think it's why it's not talked about, probably, in many treatment or therapy things.

Chris Langley: That makes complete sense to me.

Thank you so much for explaining this to us, Gary. I'd just like to ask you about

about, your team, because I've obviously spoke before, and I've looked on your website.

and I've looked you have a very extensive team of experts you have. Just tell us about some of the members of your team.

your team you have at Center for Intimacy Recovery?

Gary Katz: we have, I, love our staff, they're just wonderful.

They're so diverse. They're so smart. They have such different backgrounds and trainings. And, the practice was first just me. And then as time I realized, I can't do all this. So I hired a few people and the pandemic hit. And, from the place where I, one of the places where I was trained, I learned that having really good training is so essential for the development of a therapist.

So we, everybody, we have three hours of supervision a week. Every staff person is in three hours, two hours of group supervision and one hour of individual supervision. So they're getting support, whether they are a recent graduate or they've been in the field for 15 years. We all still need to learn. I need to learn.

And so in the pandemic, it was like really meaningful. Every week we would meet virtually. And, it's hard to remember because it was only five years ago, but it was really scary, especially we're in New York, which was one of the first places really hit hard in America. Where I lived in New York City, I would hear sirens all the time.

there are people dying all around. You can see from my window, ambulances on the highway across the, over in Brooklyn from where we were living. It was really a scary time and we're all stuck at home not knowing what's going to happen. So the weekly group supervision meetings that we had felt so important, just for connection.

And I, we were having need for more therapists and, but I didn't want to, after we got to six, staff of about six, I just felt if I, what am I supposed to keep hiring, just making it bigger and bigger? It didn't feel right to dilute the intimacy, it's the name of the practice, of the staff also.

They really had a special bond so I decided to hire an entire parallel staff and have two separate staffs. I mean they're allowed to mix but run two that run them a separate track so that they could each have a team that they felt closer with. Instead of having let's say 20 people in one meeting, which is like a lot on a computer.

People get lost. How often are they going to talk? We had 5 in each or 10 in each eventually. where, they're able to have a better, more intimate conversation. training experience. and then we have a wonderful Clinical Director, Nancy Tricamo. She's been in the field for over 30 years. She's taught at NYU.

She's worked at really wonderful places and, this practice would not exist without her. she supervises people, the staff for their individual supervision. It's very rare to, I hired her when I realized I couldn't do it all. To have someone come in and be liked by all the staff, Either they're giving out candy to everybody or they're just a really good person and she really is such a wonderful, caring supervisor that does such an amazing job in training staff.

And so part of our, the whole feel of our practice is I want it to be like similar to a teaching hospital, where that are, they're really geared towards teaching new doctors to become better. And like we constantly have, I have, trainings every month. I encourage people to continue to be lifelong learners because there's no therapist that knows it all.

I haven't found that person yet. I found people that think they know it all, but there's no therapist who knows it all. and there's so much to learn just to be able to give someone more and more tools to be able to help people heal.

Chris Langley: Supervision is the cornerstone of therapy, I think, to get support from

each other. It's a very powerful thing to have, but it's so much needed, but often forgotten, I think.

Gary Katz: I, agree. I was at a dinner Monday night here in New York City that we organized for a bunch of therapists to create community, which is important. And we were discussing between the different practices that all of us were at, what is supervision like? And, it really, I took a lot of pride for how our practice does it, where we create an environment where people are asking the rest of the staff, I'm struggling with this.

They feel comfortable to say, "I don't know what to do with this client. I want to help them. Here's where I feel stuck." And there's so much brain power and I would say heart power in the room. It's really beautiful.

Chris Langley: Thank you so much for explainin that. It seems like you've got a very solid team.

Gary Katz: Yeah, Yeah, they're wonderful.

Chris Langley: which is so important. I just wanted to ask one thing about your, you have a two week intense program, which I saw, along with many other programs. Can you explain to us how this works? And how such intense therapy can benefit someone? someone from

Gary Katz: Yeah,

we have thanks Chris, we have a two, we have two different types of two week intensives. one is specific for like sexual addiction, and the other one is more specific to trauma.

they have some overlap because all of them look at trauma, they both look at trauma. But we get from time to, we got from time to time clients who come in crisis. around sexual addiction. It might be they just got discovered by their partner and they finally are, are compelled to give it up and to get help.

And they might be in various stages of denial still about that or completely ready to do the work. Or someone's just in real crisis based on their trauma history. And, 50 minutes a week for therapy. Once a week, it, it would take them close to a year, to get 40 to 50 hours of therapy.

So part of the idea of the intensive is like in a short period of time, you can accelerate, they can create a really strong foundation and accelerate your healing process by diving in deep. And giving yourself a really strong cornerstone and foundation. so as we saw the need, we started to create this.

And the one thing I didn't want to spend time doing was like stressing about, will we have enough people or not? I don't want to be in the counting beds or counting how many people are signed up business. Cause that's just stressful. And you never can know when people are going to need the help. We created a personalized intensive, like many intensive programs, if you go to, Whether online or in person, they're 95 percent group therapy.

You're in this group, you're in that group. Ours are the exact opposite. And then maybe the average one you go to have individual therapy once or twice a week maybe. Ours are the opposite. They're 95, actually 98 percent individual one on one therapy with your own therapist, and then group once a week.

And we used to run them in person before the pandemic. Since the pandemic and still we're, still doing them virtually, although I think we're going to move in this year back to doing them in person too. basically on virtual, you can't have someone in on camera for eight hours a day.

They will go doing emotional, real emotional work. It's, if anyone's working virtually eight hours a day, they're checked out at some point, including myself. it's just not possible. It's exhausting. it's about four to five hours per day. And we cover things, a range of things from family of origin issues, trauma history, relationship and attachment timeline, and then building it out, whether it's based on trauma or a sexual addiction, like creating, let's like, here's what we're identifying, and here's, and you have the same therapist for two hours a day, and then you have one or two other individual therapists as well for different supplements.

We look at, like, how, what's this person's relationship to shame? How do they respond when they feel shame? Because people respond to shame differently. Some people criticize others to feel bigger and better, others attack themselves, some just withdraw. We look at some, something that you've mentioned to me before, which is like codependency

And stuff like that. So we're looking at a whole bunch of things and then building out a strategy and a plan for what's going to happen when this is over.

And moving forward, how are you going to incorporate all these lessons and integrate them into your regular daily life?

Chris Langley: We just mentioned codependency work earlier. Can you tell us about how this can have such an impact on someone who is experiencing addiction? Yeah. It's

who's experiencing addiction?

fascinating. So I've had other specialists

specialists on who describe codependency, and I love the subject.

I it I love the subjects. I gets,

as well.

Gary Katz: Yeah, there's a certain world nowadays where it gets a bad rap.

I think it gets distorted.

I had a supervisor who used to, Chris Samuels, she used to say if you scratch an addict like in a, like on a scratch off card, you'll find a codependent underneath, right? Codependency is the abandonment of self. That's really what it is. addiction is also a form of self abandonment, even though it's self indulgent, of course, I'm not giving you the drugs, I'm taking the drugs.

I'm acting out sexually. I'm eating. It's all for myself. So it's, but it's a form of self abandonment. I'm not doing what's healthiest for me. they have a very similar thing, and, yeah, my experience has been anyone struggling with some addictive behavior has that, and it's so much more nuanced, right?

substance abuse. Alcohol abuse, isn't, yes, there's nuances, of course, but it's like you're either using it or you're not in some form. It's not, it's it's fairly black or white. so if are you sober, you're not sober. Food and sex, more challenging to define. How do you define sobriety with food or sex?

Because you need them to live. So it's more about Developing a healthy relationship to food or a healthy relationship to sex, you know So codependency like how do you define healthy or unhealthy? It's so subtle I can say to you what movie should we go to Chris and you're like I want to go see Paddington in Peru and I'm like, "sure no problem" and it could be what I'm saying,

"sure. No problem" because I'm scared that you won't like me if I tell you I don't, I already saw Paddington in Peru. I was at the opening night for Paddington in Peru and I want to go see, I don't know what else is out in the movie right now, but like I don't want to see it but I'm scared maybe you won't like me so I abandon what I really want to do and myself to make you like me by agreeing with you.

But I could also say sure no problem Chris I'll go see that movie because I like you, and it's not my first choice, but maybe last time we went to the movie, I wanted to go see. So I'm being a good friend and be like, no problem. Cause I'm compromising, right? So it's so subtle,

or action. It really depends on what's happening internally for me.

So the codependency recovery is typically a much more subtle thing than substance abuse or sex or food, because I have to really be aware of what's going on internally to know why I'm doing something. And it's really impactful, to people when they're in a relationship because, in a romantic partnership or relationship, There's negotiation going on all the time.

I don't mean like transactional negotiation, but if your partner says, you want to, where do you want to go for dinner? I want to go for Chinese. I want to go for Italian. How do we decide? Sometimes we fight it out and don't go out and just eat leftovers. Sometimes we say, all right, I'll go to Italian.

All right, I'll go to Chinese. But what's motivating those things? Is it compromise? I love you. I know you're in the mood for that. Let's go do what you want. And with a full heart, or is it like, okay. I never get my way. She doesn't, she controls me. She's my boss. and so it's really subtle.

A person has to really get honest with and be, have self awareness about what they're doing. So it also means I have to know what's true. I have to be in touch with myself at all times. What are my true feelings about this? And that's hard for people who are used to abandoning themselves. Typically, people deal with this issue, like the first up is substance abuse and alcohol, usually, it's because it's also creating the biggest problems.

Then it's sex and food, slash work, shopping, whatever. Gambling, maybe, if that's an issue for some people. And then this codependency thing, it's been going on all the time, but that gets addressed later on. It's typically like a later recovery experience. In my experience.

Chris Langley: You do amazing

work with couples, Gary. You really do. But do you also help the partners one to one as well?

Gary Katz: We do individual therapy for people going through betrayal, trauma partners, who've been betrayed. we also provide groups for them as well. getting discovered by, so by your spouse that you have.

a secret sexual life is really embarrassing and shameful. And you're isolated, right? who do you talk to? You're not going to talk to your buddies at work. You're not going to call your parents, usually. who do you talk to? it's often very isolating, just like getting discovered about having a substance abuse addiction.

that person often gets put into treatment really fast. Whether 12 step recovery, they get support. But they're Spouse or their partner. They also often don't want to tell people they just discover it. Let's say they discover their husband's or wife has been having affairs for 30 years, or maybe struggling, it was like some other type of sexual act.

it's not the kind of thing they're going to share it like carpool drop off with their friends or at work with their friends. Like they have their own level of shame about it. Plus if they're not sure if they want to stay in the relationship or not, they're considering staying. They're often scared.

To share it with support people in their life, like family members or friends, because A, they don't want to be judged for staying, because everyone thinks, oh, if you get cheated on, you should leave until you're in that spot. And also, they don't want to burn the bridge, so they may not tell their family.

Because if they're thinking I'm going to stay with him or stay with her and I tell my family, they're going to hate my spouse and that's not going to be good. So they often, they get isolated. So it's so important. I appreciate your question, Chris, because it's so important that they get individual therapy and we try, some are not ready for it or don't want it.

We really encourage them also to go into group therapy where they can have a place to talk about this thing because it's like probably the biggest thing going on in their life at that moment. And when they go out to lunch with their friends, and they can't even talk about it, they start to feel disconnected from family and friends because they have this huge, Secret, in a sense.

privacy, but they feel like they're holding back the biggest thing in their life, so they're not even being authentic. It's very isolating and very shameful for them, too. 100%, we really encourage them to get individual therapy. Sometimes they don't want to, they're like, I didn't cause this. Why do I have to go to therapy?

And they're a hundred percent right. It's not fair. but we want to provide them support. That's really what I think. It's not like you didn't do anything wrong. We're not here to fix you. You're not, it's not your fault. You're really hurting probably. And maybe we can help you through this. Probably one of the most painful points of your life.

Chris Langley: It must be incredibly supportive a partner to know that helps, that they've got somewhere safe to offload their stress and anxiety and

anger.

Chris Langley: And it must be quite empowering for someone to have someone as supportive as you and the members of your team to talk them through the process.

Yeah.

it's a very different dynamic as well, I think,

Gary Katz: Yeah, look, when I got trained this, it wasn't this way. It's changed in the last 15 years or so. That's earlier when I said that I think codependency gets a knock, a negative connotation in some areas, some places today. It's because of this type of thing, meaning in a substance abuse world, you might have a alcoholic or a person with drug addiction struggling and their family members are told like, what are you doing that's enabling their behavior?

You're being codependent, right? It's almost a level of blame sometimes. How do you say to, let's say, a woman whose husband has been cheating on her for 30 years, what did you do that about, what is it about you that attracted you to that kind of person? It's not gonna, it's re traumatizing them, and it's, but that's how I was trained, that you help, just like you might say to a spouse of someone with substance abuse, What about you?

What is it about you that wants this, was attracted to this kind of person? The same thing here. So initially that's how people were trained, is to help make the partners look at what's their part? And they're like, what are you nuts? Like it was re traumatizing to them in therapy. And a number of people, about 15 years ago, really developed the idea I described earlier of betrayal trauma, and a better understanding of it and realizing like you're traumatizing the victim by laying blame at their feet.

So that's why some people, they miss, I think, misuse the term codependency to create blame, whether for a spouse or a family member of a substance abuse victim. person or a spouse of a person with acting out sexually because it's not their fault. They didn't know. Sometimes maybe they had clues, but they had what I would call like betrayal blindness.

Like the information was too overwhelming and painful to acknowledge to themselves. So they hid from it. Because it's just too much like your whole life is about to fall apart if this is all false but eventually the Information becomes overwhelming, but I would never ever It's one of the things that we talked about in their healing is like they didn't cause this if somebody has a pervasive History of doing this was just part of what usually comes out often comes out This wasn't because one night you wanted them to do the dishes, or because you didn't have enough sex, or because you put on 10 pounds after your kids.

Like this, that's not why they're doing this. This isn't it. Of course it feels profoundly personal, the wounds, and it is. It's a feeling of like, why didn't you choose me? Why wasn't I enough? That's what they all feel. It's so profoundly personal, but we really want to make sure that they don't. We really want to help them to not blame themselves because it's not their fault.

100%.

Chris Langley: left out of the process and it's such a, they're the glue

Gary Katz: Yeah. And also for aftercare, like just the whole thing, like someone goes back into a family system. We need to help the family in its entirety to help the one person, both the cause and the solution.

Chris Langley: Absolutely.

One last thing I'd like to ask you about your service, Gary. you help those who are experiencing post traumatic stress disorder. So disorder. So how does PTSD

pose such a risk to someone to someone who has an addiction?

addiction?

Gary Katz: It's a great question. I think one answer is what I said earlier, that line, it's from a, one of the 12 step books around sex addiction, which is, what was the problem becomes a solution, what was the solution becomes the problem.

What was the original problem? It's sometimes PTSD or trauma. So then an addiction is sometimes the solution to that. If I don't know how to sit with this pain, I'm going to distract myself. So a high school kid who's got, let's say, really rough things going out home and just feels so broken and less than, and their friends are out having beer in the parking lot from behind the trees at school and it's fun.

Wow. And they do it. It feels good. I'm going to go back again, because it's where I feel more comfortable. And then again, or let's say smoking or whatever, or eventually drugs. And the same with sex. If a teenage boy is doing what, or girl, is exploring their body, and let's say masturbating, which is a healthy thing to do for people, for kids, and it's soothing and comforting.

Then next time that they, they might do it again. I feel like, wow, that feels really good. And then it starts to get associated sometimes with soothing and comforting. And so then if somebody smokes a cigarette, whenever they get upset, eventually their brain says, Oh, I'm upset. Have a cigarette.

I'll feel better. So the same thing, it can be with food or with anything, right? We do it like comfort food, similar things. So it evolves. Sometimes it starts out as a strategy. Adaptive to whatever's going on traumatically for them. And then it results in becoming maladaptive. It permeate permeates into something maladaptive.

And for a lot of people, PTSD symptoms, we think of trauma or impact on people, especially on children as. event, like something terrible that happened, an assault, physical assault, sexual assault, an accident, car accident, war, but I actually heard just last night, a study, released from the Department of, the National Department of Health about children who were maltreated.

70 percent of them, the maltreatment was neglect and 26%, the other is doing the math quickly. 26 percent was actual abuse. So a lot of PTSD or a lot of traumatic symptoms. And I think The majority probably, that come into many offices, are not where the kids are beaten horrifically or sexually abused. That happens, and those happen, and they happen too much, of course.

But the majority of it is what we call relational trauma that comes from the lack of being cared for the way they needed to. Sometimes in like basics, like housing, shelter, food, nourishment. Not having those regularly, but more so from not having the things that every child needs like comfort. Care, nurturance, presence, things like that.

Presence meaning being present, not giving a present. the lack of that, children internalize, like, why doesn't my parent want to hang out with me, or why are they on their phone all the time? Most because they don't, I'm not lovable. Developmentally, children are self centered. Their world revolves around them.

From a baby, where it actually revolves around them. As they get older and as you mature, we learn to no, it doesn't revolve all around me. That's part of human development. But when things happen to us and we're children, it's normal to think of that as it's my fault. So often,

that's how children often develop like a low self esteem or some kind of internal messaging of like shame or I'm broken, I'm not good enough.

Cause they've internalized something that's going on around them as being a result of like their fault. Parents get divorced, the kid thinks they caused it. they didn't cause it. Most, almost never. It's the kids, right? But it's a normal child's reaction. So adaptive behaviors, if they're done too much, can become maladaptive.

And that's, so that's really where, the work that we do, any addiction work often is going to hopefully end up going down to trauma, especially relational trauma.

Chris Langley: I'd just like to ask you one last question about your service, Gary.

how do you receive referrals?

you receive

you?

Gary Katz: the easiest way to find us is to listen to your podcast. Now, the easiest way to find us is

on the internet, the name of the practice is Center for Intimacy. You can put that in the internet. You can also just type in intimacyrecovery.com. that's probably, and then on our website, there's plenty of ways to contact us.

Another way to contact us, you can contact me directly, whether you're seeking therapy or you're a therapist and you want to discuss a case, I'm always. I always want to like chat with other therapists and if there's something I can help advise like on a case or consult, I'd love to do that. or if you're thinking, oh, I, as a client, potential client, I have an issue, do I, what would be the best way to get treatment?

I'm also happy if not to work with you or have someone on my staff work with you, but to help just give you a plan, like here's what I would do. Here's what I would suggest, like if you want to go deal with something. and so that people can reach out to me directly, my, Email is my name, garykatz@intimacyrecovery.com.

Chris Langley: I'd just like to ask you, we met through media, and we feel very blessed to have spoken to

like to ask you, we met through NAADAC, which I feel very blessed to have spoken

many amazing members, and you're one of them. But can you tell me why you joined this national organization, and what have been the benefits of becoming a member?

a member,

especially if you're newly qualified or trained in terms of the recovery sector.

sector?

Gary Katz: Yeah, that's a great question, Chris. I joined for a couple of reasons.

I always want to find community. I really value community and I feel like it's available so less and less with All the wonders of technology, unfortunately, and the ability to create community through it, which they do, but they can also isolate, And so I sit at home three days a week.

I don't even go into an office. I'm more isolated, even though I'm connecting with you, but I'm not connecting with community. So one reason was wanting to have community, and then wanting to have a community of professionals. who are really dedicated to helping people heal, from addiction. And, like, we joked earlier, probably the majority of them are dealing with substance abuse or alcohol, alcoholism.

But, I guarantee that any therapist dealing with any type of substance abuse, addiction, or alcoholism, 30 to 50 percent of their caseload is dealing with something around sex. If I can help therapists feel more comfortable, because I get many clients who come to us and we're like, whether it's couples, for couples therapy or individually, and they're like, We never talked about sex in our therapy.

I'm like, when there's such, so if I can get, I think one reason is many therapists don't feel comfortable talking about it. if we can help therapists to be more comfortable and make it part of the, whatever the therapy is about, whether individually or, like we talk about everything else in the person's life.

That's another reason why I joined it to try to help with a therapist too.

Chris Langley: It's an amazing

Wonderful organization.

I said earlier, it's

It's always a privilege to

a privilege

speak to

speak to,

dedicated members and professionals. It's a thing, It's quite humbling for me as well to do this. I really appreciate you coming to talk to me. a question I always ask is, stigma.

Stigma. About stigma, and how this is attached to having an addiction. Why do you think so many clients experience stigma before coming to your service or any service for treatment?

Any service around addiction?

I'm so glad you brought that up.

It's a doozy.

Gary Katz: that's what we were just talking about before about even therapists, the stigma of talking about sex. I forgot her name. There's a woman in L. A. who recently, about three years ago, wrote a book on love addiction and sex addiction. She was already sober from alcohol and drugs. And she had, she said a line, which I remember, which was, she said like in AA and alcohol addiction recovery, we say that like AA is the last house on the block and people feel a lot of shame about it, but this is all you got.

This is the last house on the block. She's like in sex addiction recovery. It's like the shack behind the last house on the block. There's so much more shame. if you just think about, Without addiction, alcohol, sex, and the amount of shame around each of those, or drugs and sex. There's so much shame in the world in general around sex for lots of reasons.

So then when you get sex and like addiction, you've got a double shame around that. it's an issue. Like people are, if you think like even in popular culture today, right? Like when you read about a celebrity who shares that they're sober from alcoholism or drug addiction, they're like, wow, they're cool.

Even look good for them. They've got this edge, but they're also like aware of themself now and reform bad boy or whatever. And here's someone who's a sex addict. What do you think? Ew, perv, trench coat. It's a very, that's the stigma right there, so right away there's so much shame and about it.

Chris Langley: Yeah,

It's just such a shame in this day and age we can't move past that word. I agree. It really is sad. very

but

much.

you very much for that

I asked all my guests this question because I think it's a very interesting and varied answer, but can you tell me your opinion of harm reduction and how it could play such a role in recovering from addiction?

Gary Katz: That's a great question. It's a little different. I don't have a full answer. It's something I've thought a lot about and talk with friends about. I feel like there's a bit of a difference with Substance abuse and alcoholism than sex, because as I mentioned before, like the goal of sex, sexual sobriety, let's call it that, is not to never have sex again, right?

Most substance abuse recovery, that's the goal, right? Don't do the substance again. So harm reduction with substances means, I get, let's, okay, the person's going to drink or going to use, but let's do it in a way that can reduce the harm to them or to others. How do we at least somehow bring that down so they're not still creating as much harm to themselves or to others?

And in a certain way, that's exactly what we're trying to do through sexual recovery too. How do we have them a relationship with sex where it's not causing harm to them or to others? So I think that in a certain way, it's actually, it is, it's all about harm reduction. But what I think you mean by the question is, how do you work with somebody who's not willing to give up their harmful sexual behaviors?

I almost was able to dodge the question. how do you help them to give up the sexual, harmful sexual behaviors? Yeah. I think, if somebody, let's say has a whole host of compulsive sexual behaviors, including having unprotected sex with people they don't know, right? There's a high risk for serious sexual transmitted diseases. That's a really big risk. So if they instead can masturbate even compulsively, to me that's a win because they're making themselves and other people, in case they're carrying STDs, safer.

of course there's a concern, will it escalate? Back into that thing if they're still doing it, I do they have the ability to keep it at a reduced level That I would work with them at but I would definitely want to have somebody Find a way to still act out sexually in some form that's unhealthy to them, but as much less risky

Chris Langley: That's the Just the answer I was looking for. I knew it was going to be a different answer to what I'm getting.

I wasn't sure whether I was going to ask this because obviously it's a very different kind of question. But it's fascinating. so much.

much for that.

Last question. Do you have a message for anyone who's listening to this podcast?

Yeah. You don't have to be alone. Every type of addiction I know, whether it's sex or substance abuse or others, it's it feels so alone. I, people will not like me if they know me. That's the belief. And so it's it's not true. there are people who will like you and love you and care for you and support you while you heal and while you can change.

And if you think that you're worse than everybody else. Probably not true. I haven't met that person yet. I know I thought that. I thought, I actually thought at the same moment, I'm worse than all these other people in this room, and I'll never get better. And at the same time, they're way worse than me.

I'm so much better than them. Like that flip, that dual ego and inferiority piece. And so if you're feeling that you're broken and worse off, it's not true. It's true you feel that way. That can change. And if you can Believe that it could change for me or for many other people. You don't have to believe it can change for you.

But if it did change for us, it could probably change for you and reach out and I'll, I'm happy to talk more about that.

Gary, it's been a real privilege and an honor to speak to you, and I'm very grateful for your

Same.

I've found this last hour has just sped past. It's been absolutely fascinating to speak to you today, and I've really appreciate your

Gary Katz: thank you for having me, Chris.

Chris Langley: being part of this podcast. It's been great.

Gary Katz: My pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Do, do, do, do, do.