A 90 in 90 is basically attending 90 12 step meetings within 90 days with the goal of consuming so much time that there is NO TIME for acting out. This is followed up with accountability to the therapist. These meetings all focus on 1 of the 12 steps with a sponsor guiding the newbie through the first few steps. My wife has made partial progress on steps 0, 1, 2, and 4. I've listened in a some of the phone meetings with her invitation and, except for consuming time, I am failing to see what the point of these meetings are. She has gone to a few in person meetings but she has so far ended up being the only woman in a group of men... and I while my wife has issues with men and women, it seems counterpurposed to me to attend a meeting with a bunch of recovering sex addicts. Maybe you've felt the same way too. She's at one right now in fact, her 25th meetings or so and 30 days of sobriety from her inner circle behaviors and qualifiers.
What's that?, you ask - an inner circle? A qualifier? The inner circle is the core set of acting out behaviors an addict has. A drug addict might have their drug of choice, a sex addict might have hookers or masturbation. The qualifier is the person or people or circumstances the addict engages to act out... so the actual lover, affair partner, or what have you. It's weird to me.
Meanwhile, my wife has moments of insight from these meetings and with the IC holding her accountable, I suppose there's a shot. Recovery stats for sex addiction are hard to feel any level of confidence in but range up there with heroin addiction... because you can't really go cold turkey, or have a substitute, when sex is 90% mental and the easiest acting out is taking matters in their own hands so to speak.
Our kids have noticed her absence and phone calls for these meetings. It's hard to explain to them that the meetings are for "self improvement", which is such a high level truth it feels like a lie in and of itself. They don't really talk all that much about the inner circle other than to say, "My inner circle is XYZ and I've been sober for this long". They then read a passage from the 12 step program or a story of a recovering/ered sex addict and then they go around and have 3 minutes to share their thoughts. Graphic descriptions of acting out aren't allowed but seem to occur at some level in every meeting. Several times now men have gotten up and left when my wife entered and sat down. Several times people have said things and then apologized to my wife.
The odd thing is when she goes to general "addictions of all types" meetings. This happens mainly with our church where last Sunday my wife was in a small group with a therapist/member leading a cocaine addict, an anorexic teen with her mom, and a compulsive shopper. At one point, the anorexic turned to her mom and said, "At least I'm not like her!" pointing to my wife. What is it about sex that makes everyone else feel like somehow their particular addictions are a "better one"? I think it's because they see her wedding ring and know she's married... that somewhere behind her is someone like me.
Against all of this, my wife has a family history of bipolar and depression. I don't think my wife has either of these, but her IC thinks she has a lot of hypermanic tendencies... not enough to really say "Go see a pyschiatrist" but enough that it affects her in other ways. I'm just holding my breath for when her very well-established pattern of "I've done this enough and am done and it's time for <next thing>" kicks in. In the past, it was hobbies like reading or hiking or home schooling for a year. At some point, I wonder, "Will she declare her 12 step done, prematurely?" Like I said, recovery stats for sex addiction are scary bad with relapses - of course - taking the form of new affairs or what have you.
We are moving to a post-nup divorce agreement as a condition of not divorcing now. As the spouse, hearing about these meetings adn reading/researching it online, I keep finding myself thinking, "What is wrong with me that I'm still here?" I wonder if my wife is sitting in room full of recovering/ered sex addicts all looking at her and wondering if she's looking back at them.
Anyone else with experience in these, as a participant or spouse of? Do these things WORK?
Last edited by Tover26; Today at 06:49 PM. Reason: Clarify question at end
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