Jezebel 
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New York, 10:38 PM
Sun Dec 20
19 posts in the last 24 hours
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12/19/09
12/18/09
I've been a Loveline radio listener since '95, and I think calling Drew a "phony" is ludicrous, because he has always maintained that people need to seek professional help - via therapy, psychiatry, or medical practitioner. It's the most common advice he gives. He does an excellent job of "triage" and referral. Due to the constraints of the shows, he needs to work with patients in the most expedited fashion that serves them best.
He's board-certified as an addiction medicine specialist, so as credentials go, he's earned the respect of a California Board of Physicians.
As an MD, he perhaps has not had the same exposure to psychotherapy training as a psych PhD., but he does work with them regularly in his practice. Not to mention that he's spent the past ~15 years listening to peoples' addiction issues on the radio, and developing a vast vocabulary of pathology with which to understand disease.
Sure, he probably is a bit of a narcissist, but in order to be successful on TV, radio, the Intarwebs, who isn't?
/rant.
12/18/09
12/18/09
Let me make this crystal clear then: A California Board of Physicians respects that he has met the criteria necessary to obtain the credential.
12/19/09
In his experience as a patient, he questions his knowledge of sex-addiction and capacity to treat it.
I think his criticism is valid, and it serves as an important reminder that doctors are faliable and aren't universally good at every aspect of their feild.
Clearly, Duncan doesn't think the show is reflective of his time in treatment and that his perception of Dr. Drew is vastly different from that he saw on TV. I'm not sure why it deserves a rant.
12/19/09
12/19/09
12/18/09
12/18/09
12/18/09
12/18/09
Wait. Is this really a fundamental part of a 12-step program? Why would that be? I guess I just don't know much about recovery programs, though I feel like if 12-step programs were inherently faith-based, a lot of people I know would not have used them.
12/18/09
Second, I think that Dr. Drew brought in a sex therapist(Jill) because he isn't one. And as far as I can remember, he never claimed to be one.
Third, I think this show was a revelation. I have learned a lot from it about myself and people I have known.
12/18/09
12/18/09
12/18/09
12/18/09
[en.wikipedia.org]
12/18/09
[www.12step.org]
12/18/09
When I read that stuff about AA I thought if it's so intrinsic to recovery that you take responsibility for your actions, how does that work with turning yourself over to a 'higher power'? But then, I am an atheist... Maybe a spiritual person would see those as not mutually exclusive.
12/18/09
11/23/09
I think I was probably "love obsessed" for most of my life. I never felt loved by my family (I actually still don't), and I sought that love from men, desperately trying to get them to stay when it was long over. I would say and do just about anything to keep from being alone.
I ended up marrying an abusive bi-polar sexual predator. He cheated on me so often and so flagrantly, it's almost comedic looking back on it. But I always took him back, because he had really good reasoning. He was a sex addict, and I wouldn't leave him if he had cancer, so if I left him because he was a sex addict, that would make me more immoral then he was. At least that was the story I bought. He told me that he knew what a rapist feels before they rape, and it made him feel uncomfortable, because he felt he was so close to doing it. I didn't leave him because I thought he was being so honest now, turning over a new leaf. He left the hospital after I had my son, for a day and a half, because he said he was kind of freaked out about being a father. The seed was planted in that hospital bed. I started to feel powerful. But I still didn't leave. I was starting to feel powerful, but also scared of being alone with a new baby. Turns out I was mostly alone anyway, weekends he'd be "at his mom's" or his "best friend's place to crash". I found hundreds of photos that he had taken with other women, almost all compromising positions, taken in the 6 months after the baby was born. The day I found the photos, I kicked him out. He refused to leave for another two weeks. The night before he left, he confessed that in college, he had been caught having sex with his 11 year old sister. Mostly oral, he said. And that it had been going on for years. She would have been 7 when it started. He thought it was a true confession moment that would make me take him back, you know, because now he's being honest. He'd never told anyone before, he said, not a soul knew the whole truth now except me.
I changed the locks when he went to work the next day. I called a crash-house hotel and made a reservation for him. He's still very mad at me for leaving the relationship, but at least he's got another girlfriend to unload his anger on.
So now I'm the opposite of love addicted. I'm love averse. I'm not sure I'll ever be able to trust a man in a relationship, not because I think they are all like my ex-husband, but because I don't trust my ability to judge a man for himself, and not just the love that I think he might give me.
11/23/09
I hope that you find strength within yourself to feel at peace and hopefully allow yourself to be vulnerable again, only this time with a lot more awareness of warning signs. I wish you all the best, you are incredibly strong.
11/23/09
And yes, obviously there's some more healing to do, but I'm busy taking care of my kiddo, working a full time job, a part time job, and going to school. So when I have time for relationships, in the healthiest manner that I can muster, then I'll work on that aspect. For now I watch Jon Stewart and read Jezebel.
11/24/09
11/23/09
I've had relationships with men that I completely obsess about, the last one was a total of 3 months, he broke it off and I still think about him...its been nearly 2 years since I've seen or heard from him. And he was the exact same guy as the first guy I had a relationship with who I also obsessed about for ages after we broke up.
I am COMPLETELY and ABSOLUTELY attracted to men that incapable of having a real relationship. As I tell my friends, if he's a HUGE douche, I'll fall in love with him, matter of fact, I'll pick him out from across the room as the guy I'm attracted to.
I've now not had ANY sort of relationship since that last guy and seeing things like Sex Rehab and reading posts here makes me wonder WTF I can do about it.
I'm completely aware of it but how in the F does one change what they are attracted to?
I meet nice guys but I have ZERO interest in intimacy or sex with them.
Sad.
11/23/09
11/23/09
I'm not sure if it rises to the level of requiring some kind of therapy, but if you think that it's unhealthy or hurtful it certainly could help to talk to a professional about the issue and see if there is something that you can do.
Don't feel too badly, it's normal to want what you can't have and want something grand and powerful (and to hope that your love will be returned if you just do the right thing or say the right words). I mean I could be off base.
11/23/09
Whenever I've tried to get into a relationship with someone who doesn't knock me on my ass when I first meet them I get disgusted with them and pretty much cut everything off and almost hate them after the fact. Its like trying to drink wine when you haven't acquired the taste for it, no matter what you do its never good.
11/24/09
11/24/09
11/24/09
Exhibit A: You aren't interested in guys who wants to have a relationship.
Exhibit B: You are very interested in guys who are incapable of having a relationship.
There ain't nothing wrong with a fling that stays just that.
11/24/09
When I meet someone and really like them, I want them to be MINE.
I very rarely find some attractive enough to want to be with them so when I do I definitely want a relationship, the idea of a guy I'm sleeping with being with anyone else is like a knife to the chest.
I WISH I could just have fuck buddies or flings, I think it would be better for me mentally, as I've gotten older I have realized I am not capable of that.
11/24/09
11/24/09
I remember even saying to friends, "I've NEVER been with a guy that is this nice to me. He is amazing."
He turned out to be a complete dick.
My radar is WAY off, or way ON to the same thing whether it be obvious to me or not.
11/23/09
...if only I had him as my therapist growing up le sigh
11/24/09
11/24/09
#tips
11/23/09
I finally just decided I didn't want to let him take over me anymore. I can't explain it any other way, I just stopped thinking about him gradually. When I was finally able to delete him from my Facebook friends, I was finally able to let go completely. But I still saw every time I left my house as an opportunity to find romance. Anyone who gave me any attention was the object of my obsession for a long time afterwards.
It's taken a long time, plus going away to college and a lot of therapy and antidepressants, but I've finally reached a place where I feel content with waiting for someone to find me. I'm not desperately searching anymore.
I feel deeply for Amber, and I hope she is able to find peace with herself soon.
11/23/09
I'm already planning to watch some of Sex Rehab to talk about how pop culture portrays it, but this will add to it.
11/23/09
11/23/09
I don't know if that's what she does, because I don't have a tv, so she might be a stalker. But this interview alone doesn't say "threatening" as much as "illness" to me.
11/23/09
I've been on the other side of this. When I was nineteen, a guy asked me out and could not get it into his head that I didn't want to be with him. He confronted me six months later when I started dating someone else, and broke down in tears begging me to answer why I wouldn't love him. It is scary. It is scary when someone is obsessed with you and writes you endless love poems and knocks on your door every night. All you want is to be left alone by this person you tried to be gentle to, and you're afraid of what's going to happen if you become angry at him, since the person doesn't seem stable to begin with.
From what she says, it sounds like she's not just facebook stalking the guy. As the doctor up there says, it's a matter of degrees. But she doesn't sound passive.
11/23/09
11/23/09
11/23/09
11/24/09
11/23/09
So, on the show, one guy was really putting in the work to get better and overcome sex addiction. However, he kept getting indignant/disgusted when, say, a woman's jeans were too low or one woman went into the bathroom to brush her teeth while another was in the shower. His argument was "I'm a sex addict and you're flaunting this in front of me! I have to picture two women in a shower together?"
Now. I understand he has an illness and they're in a place that's supposed to be safe from all of that, but where do you draw the line in accomodating him? It's like, "Yeah, you're a sex addict and I'll respect that but... dude! You're a sex addict: it doesn't take much to trigger you."
Did anyone else see that or have any thoughts?
11/23/09
I feel like the more you work around him, the worse he would get.
11/23/09
11/23/09
11/23/09
11/23/09
11/23/09
He lives in sex-rehab with women? I would hope there's a plan behind that. Like: better to get angry in controlled environments than out in the real world. Do the have group therapy and talk about this? If he's just holding his feelings in, he's bound to explode and fall back in to old behaviours.
11/23/09
11/23/09
@DudleyHeinsbergen: Yes, as I recall, he was beginning withdrawal that day.
11/23/09
11/24/09
11/24/09
11/24/09
Instead of it helping him become more sane, all the accommodating of his feelings just encouraged his 'craziness', and made me live in a crazy world constructed by his fears and delusions. It's better to live in a sane world than to follow him down the path to insanity. Pull him up (with treatment combined with a refusal to join him in the delusions created by his mental illness), rather than let yourself be dragged down. Or if he won't get help, extricate yourself.
#tips
11/24/09
11/25/09
#tips
11/25/09
#tips
11/03/09