Is It a Purge or Real Recovery? Understanding Binge-Purge Sex Addiction

Conversations on Sex, Addiction, and Relationships

They haven’t acted out in a while but is it recovery… or just the purge phase?
In this episode, Dan Drake Jeanne Vattuone and Tim Stein take on a powerful listener's question about the binge-purge subtype of sex addiction. When someone stops their acting out behavior for long stretches of time, it can look like sobriety but is it actually recovery, or just a temporary pause in the addiction cycle?
The discussion explores what binge-purge really means (and how it's different from recovery, sobriety, or even cross-addiction), how to identify signs of “acting in” behaviors like emotional shutdown or passive-aggressiveness, and why some partners still feel unsafe even when no sexual acting out is occurring.
They also discuss the “whack-a-mole” pattern of addiction and how to spot deeper patterns of compulsive coping, even when sex is off the table.
#BingePurgeAddiction #SexAddictionRecovery #BetrayalTrauma #WhackAMoleAddiction #ActingInVsActingOut #DryDrunk #EmotionalRecovery #PartnerSupport #AddictionEducation #TraumaHealing #CompulsiveBehaviors