This morning I coached a guy who is a love addict.
I mean it. He’s had a lifelong cycle of falling madly in love with women way too much.
He came to me for ADHD coaching.
He’s got a special needs adult son who is now thriving in a stable situation in an adult residential home where the client currently lives.
The father’s work has moved to WFH and he can really be anywhere.
He just bought a place where he wants to move and then retire.
He can fly private.
He wants to plan clearly and effectively and find more happiness and less stress in this later part of his journey.
Coaching is self-directed and at first he was set on figuring out how to get comparable living for the son where he was moving, so he can feel emotionally more free moving states full-time by moving the son as well. Coaching was very logistics-oriented.
He also wanted career coaching, as he’s thinking about making a move. After a few sessions he is clear that he is moving here after year end (bonus time). He likely can’t find comparable living for his son where he is moving, and if so, to do it the way he wants, he has discovered that he’s better searching after a move when he can meet people and network with others in a local special needs community.
He’s decided to make 2023 the year to make a move from his work and to use 2022 to move and evaluate potential job and business opportunities. I look forward to our coaching on that.
So now, he could choose any area of life for coaching for this session. We moved into his addiction and lack of a recovery plan.
He has no drinking or other substance problem and is NOT a sex addict.
He IS addicted to love. Like being in love.
We discussed clearly, the cycle of obsession (knowing you will eventually give in) , giving in (the “Fuck-Its”), negative consequences after the high wears off and swearing you’ll never do it again). Which creates the obsession which starts the cycle again.
He’s logistically got it all, but he sabotages relationships and finds the wrong women over and over and again. If you don’t think this is a thing, I invite you to read any book on addiction and you’ll discover just how many poor behaviors people become quite, sometimes fatally addicted to.
As Russell Brand says in Freedom From Our Addictions:
"If you’re addicted to bad relationships, bad food, abusive bosses, conflict or pornography it can take a lifetime to spot the problem, and apparently a lifetime is all we have."
Addiction is when natural biological imperatives, like the needs for food, sex, relaxation, or status become prioritized to the point of destructiveness.
I’m his coach not his therapist. My recommendation was to take on recovery as his priority, or else the rest will continue to be a perpetual change of people, places, things and circumstances to solve problems.
He risks having it all and still being very unsatisfied with whichever woman he is with, unless he recovers from the addiction. It just looks different than alcohol.
We discussed future approaches to recovery that we can discuss, and he was left with a movie to watch, a meeting to attend online (SLAA Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous) and lots to think about.
I am hoping we can get some results in happiness like we have in function
For more information about ADHD/Recovery Coaching, ADHD/Recovery information, please visit our website https://www.coachingwithbrooke.com/ or email us at info@coachingwithbrooke.com
-Coach Mike