Confessions of a 22-year-old sex addict

If you tell people you have a sex addiction, they usually laugh and pat you on the back. How can having sex all the time be a bad thing? Most people think you’re extremely lucky and there may even be some jealousy. Little do they know, it can quickly turn into something both serious and dangerous.

By most accounts I’m a pretty normal girl. I’m in my twenties. I graduated from a good university. And for about a year and a half I was addicted to sex. It was one of the strangest times of my life and I look back at it now and feel nothing but shame. I can’t pinpoint when it started, but all I know is that I liked the thrill of the chase and a warm body next to me in bed. I got off on the fact that someone found me attractive enough to sleep with me.

At that point in my life, my self-esteem was in tatters, but I could walk the walk and talk the talk. Very few friends knew that I was depressed and had no confidence. I put on a convincing facade. Everyone thought I was the life of the party. I’d crack jokes, make everyone smile and drink anyone under the table. But it was just a way of hiding how bad I truly felt. I thought that if I did all of these things, I’d forget how awful I felt about myself.

Usually when you read about sex addiction it’s focused on older men, usually married. They often talk about how it broke down their relationship with their wives or family. In my case, it never really affected my relationships. I think a few friends had their suspicions but luckily, I had a group of extremely accepting friends. I wasn’t in a relationship and I didn’t have a partner. I think that my sex addiction came about because I had been in a long term relationship that ended and when it did, it broke my heart, so I was too hurt to commit to anyone afterwards. I wanted to have regular sex and to feel wanted and that fueled the sex addiction. There was one point where casual sex became not so casual; it became something I had to have. I liken it now to scoring drugs. The only difference is that my stash was sex.

Being at university, my sex addiction was relatively easy to hide. I know people who went out every night or every other night and just had a good time drinking and dancing. For me, it was a wasted night out if I didn’t sleep with someone. So the main mission of any night out wasn’t to have fun – it was to pick up someone to have sex with. If I failed in the mission, I’d actually get so low that I’d feel like crying. I blamed myself. It meant that I wasn’t desirable or attractive because in a club full of hundreds of people, no one wanted me. I was unwanted. I was unlovable, even for the night.

Quickly though, the situation spiralled out of control. On average, I was having sex every night, although I might decided on a Sunday to have a night to myself. In a week, I’d have slept with around four or five people; sometimes I would just sleep with a fuck-buddy for convenience.

But surprisingly, I didn’t think about sex that often. During the day, when I was out and about studying and going to classes, sex was the last thing on my mind. But once I was in a nightclub, it was my every thought. My nights revolved around who I was going to sleep with. I didn’t have to go to desperate measures for sex and I never paid for sex, but I would sleep with people whose name I couldn’t remember. I just had to have someone. Funnily enough, even though I had company at night, that was the loneliest point of my life. It was also the most desperate. I’m not sure how many people I slept with in that year and a half and I certainly can’t remember their names, but my guess is that it was a lot, although I did have regular friends with benefits that I slept with more than once.

I never actually received therapy for my sex addiction. I was getting counselling anyway, but that was for a long term mental health problem that I’d had for years. My therapist did bring up my sexual escapades and lifestyle in general, but she used it as an opportunity to shame me rather than help me. You could tell she was just judging me and tutting away here and there. Then she finally told me how she felt about it. She told me I was disgusting and had no morals – which is strange because therapists pride themselves on being non-judgemental. She never helped out with my mental health problem. I asked the counselling service to switch therapists and they were happy to oblige, but the other therapist I saw never brought my sex addiction up. In hindsight, I could’ve done with specialist therapy for my sex addiction but because I was a student at the time, I couldn’t afford to pay for specialist help and I was relying on university counselling.

I regret so many wasted nights, laying in bed with a stranger because my self-esteem was that low that I felt a compulsion to sleep with anyone I could. It did genuinely become an obsession. At one point, I remember feeling as though I didn’t want to do it anymore, but something in me told me I had to. I was too weak to fight off that compulsion, so I gave in, night after night.

As with any addiction, there’s a point where you slowly realise you’ve hit rock bottom. You realise that what you used to do for fun has now become a chore and you’re a slave to whatever vice you’re using. I was becoming a slave to sex. I wasn’t enjoying it anymore, but it was something I had to do.

I was in the middle of having sex with someone I can’t even remember when it hit me: I have a problem. It’s not normal to do something you don’t want to do. It’s not normal to feel like you have to do something to stop yourself from feeling so low. Sex, like drugs, can become highly addictive because you’re getting the high of being wanted. Any addiction comes down to the fact that there is something wrong with how you’re feeling and rather than deal with that problem, you’re deflecting and using anything you can to hide from confronting your feelings.

I don’t know how, but I managed to beat the addiction. I think graduating and being shoved into the real world helped because it was evident that there was no time for my destructive behaviour if I wanted to be successful and lead the lifestyle I have always dreamed of. Now I’m completely celibate, and I’m glad it’s behind me, allowing me to lead a successful, wholesome and promising life – one that I am in charge of, not my sex addiction.

But the compulsion is always rearing its head at night when I’m drifting between consciousness and sleep. And I don’t know how to stop the past from haunting me.

Related stories recommended by this writer:

● Why you’re better off never knowing anything about your partner’s sexual history 
● 19 things you’ll only understand if you’re completely addicted to attention 
● Am I an alcoholic? A psychotherapist tells us when drinking becomes a problem

@TheTab