As this mother told me this story, and disclosed this part, a look of anguish creased her face. "I told him that I didn't think he ever was, and he told me that at the facility, therapists had told him that not only was he an alcoholic, but that he was a addict as well. And that his sex addiction must have come from being sexually abused."

The lady's son sadly died a few weeks after that, from complications related to his severe . For a decade, this poor woman has lived with tremendous and , guilt that her son might have been sexually abused, something she didn't prevent, or even know about. She was anguished that the unknown abuse, and her apparent unknowing neglect, might have contributed to her son's tragic life and loss.

I was the first person this woman ever heard, who said that sex addiction was a myth, a moralizing and unsubstantiated label that people throw around callously and casually. I gave her some peace, she told me, because for the first time in a decade, she could see that her son probably hadn't been abused, and wasn't addicted to sex. These therapists were merely riding the train of sex addiction, throwing that diagnosis at anything they could lasso with it, regardless of the consequences. If they could convince her son that he wasn't just an alcoholic, but a sex addict too, what did they get out of it? Who knows? Maybe money. Or maybe they just saw every problem in the young man's life as a form of addiction, and threw that label around to impress themselves and make them sound like they had credibility.

A few decades or so ago, therapists believed they could recover memories of abuse, uncover buried memories of sexual, physical and even satanic abuse, in their patients. Because they saw symptoms they thought were related to a history of abuse, it didn't matter that the patient said "Hey, I wasn't ever abused." But it turned out the patients were right and the therapists wrong. Lives were ruined, people went to jail and families were devastated because of the therapist's well-intended arrogance. They thought they were helping. But hundreds of lawsuits and settlements have now shown that those therapists hurt people. The myth of sex addiction hurts people too. This is why I'm challenging it every chance I can get. To demand that these therapists be responsible with the power they wield over people's lives and fears.

I've seen countless people who were stigmatized and shamed by the label of sex addiction. Where is the voice for them, and their suffering? I am relatively unique in standing up and publishing this book to challenge this concept. Why is that? Even though most licensed clinicians don't believe in this disorder, they are going along with it—why? I think that's a very interesting story, and reveals the economic conflict of interests of the sex addiction industry, and the way in which this concept has become a moral , rather than a medical diagnosis.

My book, The Myth of Sex Addiction, covers all these issues and more, and is available on Amazon. Ultimately, my goal is to engage and facilitate the debate, and speak for those many people whose voices are not heard.