Customer Reviews

Love Sick: One Woman's Journey through Sexual Addiction

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Sue William Silverman reveals herself so honestly, I can only admire her. It seems trite to say she is "courageous" but yet cannot think of a better word. (I don't think I'd be able to do it!) And she does it with so much insight that telling it all has a real purpose and is not self pity. She clearly has come through a lot and is to be commended for sharing her newfound insight with those of us who are too good at hiding the truth to get proper help! I spent some years living a sexually compulsive life and have found the path away from it to be long. At this point I can't even recognize myself, I've changed so much, but still found reading this book to be very healing and affirming, and that her insight helped clarify some issues that have come up for me, as I deal with the truth.

Review of Love Sick: One Woman's Journey Through Sexual Addiction by Sue William Silverman (Norton, 2001) Memoir. ISBN: 0-393-01957-8

What is sexual addiction? How does one recover from this addiction? Sue William Silverman answers these questions in her heartbreaking and heartwarming autobiography. Even if a reader does not experience an addiction of any kind, no time is wasted while reading the book because the prose is so expertly crafted.

In her first book Because I Remember Terror, Father, I Remember You, (University of Georgia Press, 1996) Sue William Silverman writes about the childhood sexual abuse she experienced. She had an incestuous father and a complicit mother. The tragedy of incest leaves any child feeling that she is unlovable, and the confusion that sex equals love. The incest was woven with the elements of secrecy, danger, and destruction. In Love Sick, Sue shows the reader how those elements became a blueprint for her relationships.

As with any addiction, sexual addiction is a narrow one-dimensional drive serving only to feed itself. Sue was starved for real love as a child, so she uses unhealthy behaviors to search for love; she literally does not know better because she was not shown unconditional care. In college, she is caught in an affair with an emotionally unavailable married man, who has a son her own age. She also meets (for sex) a random obscene phone caller who is a stranger. Incest leaves the victim with instinct askew, so Sue literally believes that this strange caller was meant to meet her to show her how loveable she really is. Sue later marries Andrew, and confesses: "I first had sex with Andrew while married to someone else." Andrew is unable to comprehend Sue's turmoil except in terms of how it affects her role as his wife. He says, "I'm tired of shouldering all the responsibility. She could at least try to get a job teaching..."

Sue's primary responsibility becomes recovery from childhood abuse and its ramifications. After trial and error therapy with ten counselors, Sue meets a therapist named Ted. He learns that Sue cannot will herself to stop seeing yet another married man, even while she is married to Andrew. Ted says, "Love doesn't result in sitting alone in motel rooms. Addiction results in sitting alone in motel rooms." Ted encourages Sue to enter a facility with a program for sex addicts. Sue learns that she is as much a predator (searching for love via sex) as she is a victim. She writes, "I am not your victim because you are not a predator any more than a bottle of scotch stalks an alcoholic." That sentence offers enlightening information regarding the vicious cycle of addictions. Sue offers the reader reasons to have compassion for those struggling with sexual addiction by giving us glimpses into the psyches of others in the facility. During the recovery program, Sue searches her soul for genuine feelings that are not in context with a man.

As an author and advocate, I read this book twice: once to become informed about sexual addiction (or any addiction) in reference to victims of abuse, and again for the creative writing that Sue William Silverman is so keenly able to craft.
review by Lynn C. Tolson

When I picked up this book, it was because I was curious about how something as common and ordinary as sex could be an addiciton. I assumed that only perverts and creepy old men were "sex addicts". Silverman brought her recovery as a female sex addict into focus in a way that can only be described as deeply intimate. I felt myself right by her side during each of the 28 days of her treatment (and chapters), crying when she was writing about her "addictwoman," her lonliness, and her search for "family." Her writing allows for a deep sense of understanding and familiarity with the part of her that has controlled her life. For anyone woman has ever even joked about being "addicted" to love, men, relationships or sex, this book will certainly move you.

This book was helpful to me in understanding my wife, who is a sex addict. It was insightful to read the words of the author who suffers from the same compulsion and how it has governed her life.

I stumbled upon this book by accident and am very glad I did. Even though I don't have this addiction that Sue Silverman describes, I still find it a fascinating account. For one thing, addiction, in general, is such a part of our culture, that Silverman is, in a way, describing more than "one woman's journey." She describes the way so many of us live addicted lives, regardless of the addiction. The book is also beautifully written. She's a real writer. She is also a role model, showing the way for how the rest of us might live more spiritually and more humanly. I hope many, many people read this compelling memoir.

This book described me and my life. If you have suffered incest, rape, divorced parents or dysfunctional family patterning that set you on a path in search of that "love high" then this book is for you.

If you have ever applied the term "looking for love in all the wrong places" to yourself and you have had sex with many "wrong" people in order to be loved (if only for a few hours) then you will find yourself described on every page of this painfully honest, brilliantly written and enlightening book.

Thank you Sue for writing about an addiction that is more about love than sex and is as powerful and destructive as any other. An addiction that is, when rarely spoken about, completely misunderstood.

Sue William Silverman's Love Sick is a powerful pageturning tale told with clarity and dispassion, a marvelous achievement considering the subject. Though a personal story, it is of universal interest. It is, on the one hand, a blueprint for narrative nonfiction: perfectly structured and rendered without one wasted word. The book gives insight about all persons stuck for whatever reason in a cycle self-destruction. There is no moral here. The emotions you will have will be your own.

WHEN IN DOUBT ABOUT WHO YOU ARE,READ IT. YOU WILL GET THE ANSWER.I DID!

There was a contradiction between how she described her 28 days in treatment in the book and the account the author gave in a live interview on the internet.
In her internet account it is described as a rather uneventual experience. In the book this is not the case. I would like to know which account is closer to reality.

I have an interest in psychology and since I have some friends that have had similar experiences to the author, I found this book riveting.

For me, hearing about her history and understanding how her actions reflected her past abuse was fascinating. I felt this really gave me a window into her mind, and a window into how people can overcome some deep wounds. I think one of the more subtle experiences of this book is that it shows how difficult for women who get caught in the heartless side of sex addiction to get out of it and begin to approach life in a healthier, more confident way.

I wish at the end of the book, she would have provided some sort of explanation as to her progress after the story ended.

If you have any interest in psychology this is a definite must.