451 - Believing Sexual Addiction is Just About Sex

Pure Desire Podcast

Pure Desire Ministries

Healing, Aa, Christian Recovery, Sa, Self-improvement, Christianity, Sexuality, Celebrate Recovery, Sexual Addiction Recovery, Recovery, Porn Recovery, Health & Fitness, Religion & Spirituality, Betrayal Trauma, Porn Addiction Recovery, Biblical Recovery, Education

4.8 • 750 Ratings

🗓️ 24 February 2026

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In today’s episode, we confront one of the most deceptive assumptions in the recovery world: the belief that sexual addiction is “just about sex.” With guest Robert Vander Meer, we unpack how this false narrative minimizes the emotional, relational, and neurological drivers beneath the behavior, making relapse far more likely because the real wounds go unaddressed. We identify common signs of this mindset—statements like “I just need more willpower” or “at least I’ve never crossed physical lines”—and explore how even those engaging only with pornography, fantasy, or lust can still be caught in the same trap. We also offer guidance for spouses and group members who recognize this belief in others and want to speak truth without shaming, rescuing, or lecturing. Together, we name why sexual addiction is fundamentally about pain, attachment, coping, and disconnection—not merely sexual acts. Finally, we discuss subtle ways this belief can linger even in long-term sobriety and how to continue growing in honesty, humility, and emotional freedom.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello there, good listener. I am your host, Nick Stumbo, and you are listening to the Pure Desire
0:10.1	podcast, your biblically based and clinically informed approach to healing from betrayal and breaking
0:15.9	free from all forms of compulsive sexual behavior. And whether today is your first day in recovery or your 10,000th day,
0:23.5	we hope that you'll hear conversations today that will encourage you
0:26.8	and provide hope and direction in your story.
0:30.0	Today is episode 451 and here joining me throughout this series is my co-host,
0:35.2	the one and only Stuart Blade.
0:36.9	Stuart, welcome back to the
0:37.9	podcast. Yeah, great to be here. Yes, we're in part two of five in this series that really
0:44.3	came about from the heart of our founder, Dr. Ted Roberts, who was seeing men and women who
0:49.8	had experienced a time of healing or sobriety fall back into a pattern of relapse and he was scratching
0:55.4	his head saying why is this happening and he identified what he called five brain bugs that are
1:01.6	really the five parts of this series things that get stuck in our thinking that create ongoing relapse
1:06.9	and the one we're discussing today is this false belief that sexual addiction is just
1:12.4	about sex. What do we mean by that? Yeah, I think we just, if you are questioning what we said,
1:18.7	we said that correctly. Sexual addiction is not just about sex. And that reality is that,
1:26.2	well, wait, did I hear that correctly?
1:28.3	And as we dive in today, we're gonna, like, there's more to this of what is underneath the
1:33.3	surface that led to the coping mechanisms or the escape or whatever it is we were trying
1:39.3	to avoid.
1:40.3	And that's what we dive into today.
1:42.3	Yeah.
	...

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