You may think the bullying you endured in middle school is far behind you. Or the insults hurled by your mother are a thing of the past. Or the beatings you took from your older sibling have been long forgotten.
But that may not be the case. In fact, a large majority of individuals who struggle with sexual or pornography addictions have unresolved childhood pain points that still haunt them today.
They encountered negative events that activate suppressed memories of emotional, mental, or physical distress suffered as children. Although the pain endures was bad enough, what made the situation worse is caregivers did not comfort these individuals in their time of need. For many reasons, parents were not emotionally available to help soothe the distress and teach that the pain will not last forever.
Instead, these children had to face traumatic events alone and their solution to dealing with the distress was to not think about the situation. And to accomplish this, they learned to distract themselves with too much television, food, or fantasy. With this defense mechanism, they had entered the beginning phase of what would become behaviors that lead to addictions.
The following is part one of a two-part interview that details how the Inner Child uses our childhood pain points to drive our sexual or pornography addictions.
Eddie Capparucci is a Christian therapist and licensed by the State of Georgia. He is certified in the treatment of sexual and pornography addiction, and he and his wife, Teri, have a private practice working with men struggling with sexual and pornography addictions, as well as their wives who are dealing with betrayal. Among his many clients, Eddie has worked with professional athletes, including NFL and MLB players and television personalities.
He is the creator of the Inner Child Recovery Process (ICRP) for the treatment of Sexual and Pornography addiction. This unique treatment method helps individuals get to the root issues of their addiction and provides them with the tools and insight to manage the disorder. It is endorsed by many leaders in the sex addiction field. The Inner Child Recovery Process is the subject of his new book, Going Deeper: How the Inner Child Impacts Your Sexual Addiction. He also is the host of the webcast entitled Getting to the Other Side: Helping Couples Navigate the Road to Recovery.