5 FAQs About Sex Addiction

In this episode of 5 FAQs, we’re joined by our very own, Lindsey Snaychuk, Clinical Psychology PhD Student and National Research Coordinator. She helps us explore Compulsive Sexual Behaviour (more commonly, but less clinically, known as Sex Addiction). 

We explore the psychology behind public Compulsive Sexual Behaviour, how it is different from other types of behavioural addiction and how it affects relationships.
 
THE 5 FAQs WE WILL ANSWER:   

1. What is sex addiction? 
2. How is sex addiction different from other types of behavioural addiction?  
3. What causes sex addiction?  
4. How does sex addiction affect relationships?  
5. What treatments are available for sex addiction?  

Learn more about EHN Canada and starting your own mental health treatment journey at ehncanada.com.

To learn about how EHN Guardians supports Military, Veterans and First Responder communities, click here: ehnguardians.ca.

Transcript

Jonathan Friedman (He/Him) (00:09)
Hey there, my name is Jonathan Friedman and you are listening to the Five FAQs podcast by EHN Canada. This is the show where we scour the internet for the most frequently asked questions (FAQs) about mental health and addiction and ask an expert for their answers to them. Today, it is my honor and my pleasure to introduce my special guest, Lindsey Snaychuk She is the National Research Coordinator for EHN Canada. Lindsey began implementing research initiatives at EHN Edgewood Nanaimo in 2018.

Her team has published multiple peer-reviewed articles on EHN Canada's treatment outcomes and is working on several projects dedicated to determining predictors of attrition. She's currently leading measurement-based care initiatives at EHN to inform treatment and maximize outcomes. Lindsey is also working towards

doctoral degree in clinical psychology and works closely with individuals with addiction, concurrent mental health concerns, which helps inform her research.

Lindsey, how are you doing today?

Lindsey Snaychuk (01:03)
doing well Jonathan thank you how are you

Jonathan Friedman (He/Him) (01:05)
I'm great. I realize now I have to work on saying the word doctoral better. We'll get there. We got there. Teamwork makes the dream work. Now, Lindsey, we have five big questions around behavioral addiction, specifically sexual addiction today. But before we get into that, I'd love for you to tell the listeners a little bit about yourself and your journey into the field of mental health.

Lindsey Snaychuk (01:09)
Okay, that's okay, we got there. Yes.

Yeah, absolutely. So I did my undergrad degree in psychology. did an honor psychology degree at Vancouver Island University in BC. And in that, I actually did a clinical practicum at Edward Treatment Center in Nanaimo.

And the reason I was able to kind of, you know, get in there is because the executive director at the time, Dr. Christina Basdo, who's actually our chief operating officer now, she was the executive director and she was also an instructor at my university. So I approached her and I asked if I could, you know, get some research practicum experience at Edgewood. And so that's essentially where it all started, I guess about, you know, my gosh, like six or seven years ago now at this point. And I...

explicitly told her like I have an interest in sex addiction. And so she actually gave me the opportunity to shadow one of our clinicians who facilitated the sex, and relationships group at Edgewood. And eventually after, you know, I gained enough experience, I had the opportunity to facilitate that group by myself, which is a really cool opportunity. And that's essentially what, you know, kind of solidified my love for this field and specifically behavioral addictions and more specifically sex addiction.

Jonathan Friedman (He/Him) (02:43)
Wow, what a journey. That's awesome. And are you currently in BC as well?

Lindsey Snaychuk (02:45)
Yeah.

I'm not actually. So after I did the practicum, I got actually involved in a very, very small research project, I think one of the first that we've actually done at EHN at Edgewood Nanaimo.

with Dr. Basedow and that actually took me into like a research coordinator position and then I was the research coordinator for Western Canada and then I was lucky enough to be able to stay on with the company when I moved out to Toronto where I am now to complete my doctoral studies in clinical psychology. So I am based in Toronto and I oversee all the research initiatives in the network now.

Jonathan Friedman (He/Him) (03:24)
We're so happy to have you here too, Lindsey. So, are you ready to get down to the nitty gritty? We have some big questions, we scoured the internet, and we're gonna get right into it. So our first question today is, what is sex addiction, and how is it different from other types of behavioral addictions?

Lindsey Snaychuk (03:26)
Thank you.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's a really, really great question. And interestingly, despite the fact that most of us are familiar with the term sex addiction, it's actually not like a clinically recognized term. And by that, I mean, like we don't have any sort of like diagnosis per se of sex addiction. So it was really like popularized by Patrick Carnes in the 1980s, who was a PhD level addictions counselor. He wrote a book called like, I think it was called Out of the Shadows Understanding Sexual Addictions. And that's really when the term

of like hit the mainstream, but we don't have a sex addiction diagnosis. There never has been actually. What we do have actually is a diagnosis of what we call compulsive sexual behavior disorder, and that's actually included in the international classification of diseases.

in our diagnostic and statistical manual that we typically use to make diagnoses of mental health and addictions, there is no sex addiction, there is no compulsive sexual behavior. So that's, think, something that not a lot of people are aware of.

Jonathan Friedman (He/Him) (04:44)
Hmm. So there's this big book, the DSM at five now. Is there a special edition?

Lindsey Snaychuk (04:50)
Yeah,

like a text revision of the DSM-5 Yes, you're right.

Jonathan Friedman (He/Him) (04:53)
Yeah.

And there's in that book, there's all sorts of different mental health disorders, addiction diagnoses, and that's kind of what like psychiatrists, psychologists are using to make a diagnosis. And sounds like what you're saying is sex addiction is not there at all. And so my question, it's not even one of the five questions, but I'm going to go there anyways, is like, what is the difference like as a clinician to you looking at

Lindsey Snaychuk (05:14)
I'm sorry.

Jonathan Friedman (He/Him) (05:20)
I'm gonna get this wrong, but compulsive sexual behavior? Got it. Sick. versus sex addiction. Why is that distinction important?

Lindsey Snaychuk (05:24)
Yep.

Yeah, it's a really good question. And I'll also just mention hypersexual behavior disorder or hypersexuality was actually proposed to be included in the DSM-5.

you know, a bunch of experts actually put together proposed criteria they expected to be accepted and it wasn't, kind of on the basis of lack of evidence. And so one of the biggest controversies with compulsive sexual behavior is how it should be conceptualized. And I personally think that's one of the reasons we've had such difficulty kind of figuring out where it fits diagnostically, because there's essentially like really three schools of thought.

One of them, obviously, is that it is an addiction, a behavioral addiction specifically, and that it should belong in the DSM alongside gambling disorder, which is the only behavioral addiction right now in the DSM-5, I believe. And in terms of where this school of thought comes from, it's because it's thought that...

know, sex addiction or compulsive sexual behavior has the same kind of core underlying features as other behavioral addictions and substance use addictions. But there's a lot of, you know, debate around that. And particularly, I think one of the issues that experts take is that we don't know necessarily that compulsive sexual behavior includes elements of tolerance and withdrawal, which are, you know, kind of core features of other addictive disorders. And because of that, kind of the

biggest opposing school of thought is that compulsive sexual behavior disorder is an impulse control disorder alongside like kleptomania and things like that and that is actually how it is classified right now in the international classification of diseases is as an impulse control disorder. you know kind of different schools of thought in terms of like what the core components are.

And then there's actually a smaller school of thought is that compulsive sexual behavior disorder actually falls on the impulsive-compulsive spectrum and actually might share some features similar to something like OCD, for example.

I would say probably less popular, but I think just personally in my own research that I've been doing on compulsive sexual behaviour for the last couple years, I think it's definitely possible that there's a lot of key features associated with obsessive-compulsive disorders.

Jonathan Friedman (He/Him) (07:53)
So correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like the reason that compulsive sexual behaviour is not quite in the DSM yet is because there are those opposing schools of thought. It might be in the DSM, it might become a more formal diagnosis when more research is done, there's more evidence and some clarity is given between those different schools of thought.

Lindsey Snaychuk (08:19)
Yeah, 100%. And I'm personally of the belief that perhaps trying to stick it into this nice little box in one of these three kind of categories is perhaps.

hindering our ability to assess and treat it better because we're so set on placing it in a particular category. So from my perspective, and this is where I'm going with my doctoral work, is approaching compulsive sexual behavior from a process-based perspective and really looking at the key components and specific areas of difficulty and treating specific areas of difficulty instead of getting so focused on which class of disorder it is, essentially.

Jonathan Friedman (He/Him) (09:00)
Really, really interesting. Well, I can't wait to learn more about that research. So we're talking a bit about, like, I guess, not diagnosis specifically, but diagnostic criteria. What are some of the underlying causes of sex addiction?

Lindsey Snaychuk (09:04)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, and this is always a complicated answer. My answer would be the same. Yeah, my answer would be the same if you asked me about really any mental health condition or any addiction.

Jonathan Friedman (He/Him) (09:19)
I imagine so.

Lindsey Snaychuk (09:26)
There's no single cause that we know of. We know there's typically, you know, kind of a mix of different risk factors, some like biological mechanisms. There's some literature to suggest that certain neurological conditions are associated with like hypersexuality because like a potential impaired control and poor judgment and things like that.

What we do have is we do have research on risk factors associated with compulsive sexual behavior. In terms of demographic risk factors, we typically see that men are more likely to endorse compulsive sexual behavior compared to women, although there's a lot of limitations associated with assessing it in women because of stigma and all sorts of things, which is also some work that I'm doing right now.

We also see typically that younger age is associated with compulsive sexual behavior. And then in terms of clinical correlates, most research suggests this, my research has been able to support this. We see higher levels of mental distress, emotion dysregulation, impulsivity, and then high co-occurrence with other addictions. For example, my master's thesis, I actually used the data that...

my team collected over the last several years at Edgewood Treatment Center and we found that 25 % of individuals who were admitted to our core program for substance use disorder, 25 % of them actually met the criteria for compulsive sexual behavior as well. Yeah.

Jonathan Friedman (He/Him) (10:53)
really interesting.

So in lots of conversations some people might be talking with their friends about having like a really high sex drive what's the difference between something like that and compulsive sexual behavior or hyper sexuality or addiction?

Lindsey Snaychuk (11:10)
Such a good question. And again, the answer is similar to other addictions and other mental health conditions. We want to be careful in our field to not over pathologize behavior. And so really like the core feature it comes down to is, are you experiencing difficulties because of this behavior? And just kind of going back to a question I think you asked me that I didn't answer is like,

Jonathan Friedman (He/Him) (11:34)
So many questions

today.

Lindsey Snaychuk (11:35)
Yeah, so many questions. It's okay. My brain moves so fast. It is like how is compulsive sexual behavior, you know, potentially different from other addictions and other behavioral addictions?

some of these behavioral addictions are particularly tough and the same argument could be made for something like a food addiction is that sex is a regular normal part of our lives. It's something that typically most of us don't endorse problems with and it's not something that's super easy to just cut out of our lives as opposed to something like gambling or something like that, not to imply that that's easy to stop necessarily, but sex is a normal part of our lives. So I think that's where it gets a little bit

bit

extra complicated. Yeah, and remind me what the original question was.

Jonathan Friedman (He/Him) (12:21)
Yeah, absolutely. how can we differentiate somebody having like a high sex drive or something like that versus this sort of compulsive sexual behavior that you're talking about?

Lindsey Snaychuk (12:27)
Yes.

Yes, thank you. I went back to your other question and then I forgot the one we're talking about right now.

Jonathan Friedman (He/Him) (12:38)
No, you're crushing it, Lindsey.

Lindsey Snaychuk (12:42)
So yeah, it's really like looking at like consequences essentially. So I actually just made a note so I wouldn't forget about what the actual ICD criteria is for compulsive sexual behavior disorder. And it's really like a failure to control intense repetitive sexual urges resulting in this kind of problem behavior. And in order to meet diagnostic criteria, it has to be like a central focus in the person's life such that they start to like neglect other responsibilities. They try to

change,

abstain from or reduce the behavior and are unsuccessful. They continue to engage in the behavior despite adverse consequences or they continue the behavior if they're no longer driving satisfaction from it. And so when we talk about consequences, that can be all sorts of consequences from interpersonal consequences, particularly like an intimate partner relationships. We see that a lot with compulsive sexual behavior because there's this added piece of infidelity in these types of things. We've even seen like

occupational functioning, and then ultimately just kind of like higher levels of like mental distress from engaging in a behavior that is causing issues in your life. So that would really be the one key feature that we look at for all diagnoses is, this causing issues for you in your life?

Jonathan Friedman (He/Him) (14:00)
really interesting and I want to get more into the relationship component in a second. I think it brings up an interesting point with any addiction or mental health concern where it's like, like even if you take something super, I'm not trying to oversimplify, like a simpler idea, something we all experience like anxiety or sadness. When do those things that we all experience become a disorder and what are some of the

Lindsey Snaychuk (14:15)
Yeah.

Totally.

Jonathan Friedman (He/Him) (14:28)
the things that we should be noticing in our friends, our family, our loved ones, our colleagues, to say, hey, you know, maybe this isn't like a standard level of anxiety. Maybe this is something that is stronger. And to your point, think it's, and correct me if I'm wrong, but it's when things are affecting your work and affecting your relationships, affecting your ability to do the things that you love to do or...

Lindsey Snaychuk (14:40)
Totally.

Jonathan Friedman (He/Him) (14:55)
It affects the people that you really want to interact with and then make you feel fulfilled in that way, right?

Lindsey Snaychuk (15:02)
100%, that's exactly it. It's when you notice the behavior is disruptive, causing distress, causing impairment, really kind of getting in the way in your life in some way.

Jonathan Friedman (He/Him) (15:13)
And before we get to that next question, I challenge all of our listeners. Think about people in your life who, like not everyone is going to be able or at that time be able to reach out about something that is going on in that way. Again, think about something like sadness versus depression. And I encourage you, check in on your peers, check in on your family, your friends, your loved ones, because asking questions like, hey, is everything all right?

Even something as simple as that can bring up some really interesting conversations and help push people to maybe ask for the help that they need that they may not even be interested in at that point.

Lindsey Snaychuk (15:54)
Yeah, 100%.

Jonathan Friedman (He/Him) (15:56)
Awesome. Moving on to our next official question. How does sex addiction affect relationships? I think that's a really interesting dynamic.

Lindsey Snaychuk (16:04)
Yeah, and of course, again, we know with a lot of mental health conditions and addictions in particular, it can be very tough on interpersonal relationships. But again, I think with the compulsive sexual behavior, there's this added piece of potential infidelity. So I don't recall if I specifically kind of gave examples of what compulsive sexual behavior can look like. But it can be like frequent sexual activity with others, like physically in person.

frequent solicitation of like, you know, sex workers, adult entertainment venues, these types of things, cyber sex. What we see a lot of is what we call problematic pornography use or PPU. And that's kind of subsumed within the compulsive sexual behavior umbrella. But I would say that's kind of like the hottest area in the research right now because of our, you know, unlimited access to the internet, unlimited access to pornography.

Because of these types of things, there's this added element of infidelity and perhaps questions around loyalty and things like that in intimate partner relationships. So I would say more so than other addictions, we see that lack of trust with regards specifically to that intimate partner relationship because the person affected by compulsive sexual behavior is often seeking out.

whether it be in person or pornography online, kind of this other type of like stimulation essentially.

Jonathan Friedman (He/Him) (17:33)
So we've spent a lot of time today talking about the features of what compulsive sexual behavior can look like, some of those distinctions between what is, you know, more of a typical sexual behavior versus when it is disordered in that way. What treatments are available for sex addiction? Because as you noted at the beginning, it's kind of an interesting place where sex is a part of many people's lives.

Lindsey Snaychuk (17:49)
Night.

Jonathan Friedman (He/Him) (18:00)
treating it must be kind of complex.

Lindsey Snaychuk (18:03)
Yeah, it is. And again, I'm gonna give you a similar answer that I would with other addictions is we don't necessarily have one single treatment that's going to be effective for everybody. It's good though. We have kind of, know, multiple tools in our toolbox.

And oftentimes we use like a combination of treatments. That being said, I would say in the grand scheme of treatment research with regards to like other, you know, mental health and addictions, there's not as much research on compulsive sexual behavior. And I think part of that is because there's been a lot of questioning just around its validity as a diagnosis, just in general. I mean, you know, I think oftentimes there's this idea that, you know, sex addiction is something that people, you know, blame poor behavior on in relationships.

relationships

and so because of that I think that's really kind of slowed down our progress with regards to treatment research that paired with like how it's conceptualized and how we should be treating it. But we have kind of like a range of like psychopharmacological and psychosocial interventions. So even though to my knowledge, I don't think there's any like actual FDA approved treatments in terms of like psychopharm options for compulsive sexual behavior.

Jonathan Friedman (He/Him) (19:15)
the Federal Drug

Association.

Lindsey Snaychuk (19:17)
Yeah, yeah, federal drug administration or something like that. You might be right.

Jonathan Friedman (He/Him) (19:21)
one of the A's.

Lindsey Snaychuk (19:22)
One of the A's, one of the A's, exactly. But there are a lot of different medications that are used kind of more off label, just as we do with a lot of other addictions actually. So particularly like SSRIs, so selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors like fluoxetine, citalopram, there's some evidence there. And the way that those work is really by reducing the frequency and intensity of sexual urges and preoccupation with sexual behavior. Another option would be like an opioid agonist, something like Naltrexone

which we use for other addictive disorders, which binds to endorphin receptors basically to reduce the pleasurable or euphoric effects associated with that problem behavior. And then we actually have a lot of promising research around psychosocial treatment approaches. Historically, I would say probably the most widely used approach is like...

12 steps or abstinence based approach. So we see, know, like sex addicts anonymous, sex and love addicts anonymous, things like that. And those have been really helpful for a lot of people for a long time.

The research on them is just not super, super high quality, so it's kind of hard to draw really strong conclusions about the mechanism of change there. Other than that though, CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy, that we use obviously at EHN and a lot of our treatment programming, has also been shown to be really, really helpful for compulsive sexual behavior.

And CBT works by identifying triggers for behavior, bolstering coping skills, restructuring cognitive distortions, and providing the patient with relapse prevention skills as well. And so many people will opt for some combination of both, like they do with a lot of other addictions, is some sort of like psychopharm intervention and then more of like a therapeutic intervention as well.

Jonathan Friedman (He/Him) (21:12)
let's say I know someone in my own world and I'm thinking, yeah, like I know some individuals that may fall under this category. As sort of Jonathan the Everyman, should I be going to my friend and saying, hey, like I'm worried about this or should we be offering to say, hey,

Go chat with your doctor. If they have a therapist, go chat with your therapist about these things. Because it sounds like you can't individually necessarily make a decision right away that you should specifically be going to get that specific type of treatment. It might be more of like a psychologist who's saying, hey, based on what I've been learning, here's sort of the lay of the land and what we should be trying for second, third, fourth.

Lindsey Snaychuk (21:56)
Mm-hmm, absolutely.

I definitely think it's important to be aware of these things and the people around you and just really trying to offer support. And as somebody like you who kind of knows what types of resources we have in the mental health world, I would say it's really important to get a formal diagnosis. We oftentimes tend to self-diagnose and a lot of times it's because of accessibility issues for actual diagnoses. But getting a proper diagnosis is really important so that we can inform treatment planning. And so somebody like me who's

my PhD in clinical psychology, like a psychologist or a psychiatrist would be able to do actually like a structured clinical interview to determine if you're actually meeting criteria for compulsive sexual behavior. And I would say with this condition it's particularly important because we actually see over reporting of this condition.

And I think a lot of that has to do with this idea of like moral incongruence, which really speaks to acting in a way that's not consistent with your morals. And, you know, because this is, you know, based in sexuality, we see a lot of that. And so oftentimes people might think that they would qualify for a diagnosis because of this. But really, if it's just on the basis of moral incongruence rather than actually market distress or impairment.

it might not meet criteria, so it is important to consult like a professional.

Jonathan Friedman (He/Him) (23:20)
Well, I know this is kind of a frequent theme on the show, but like even in my own life and some of my friends, like especially since COVID, a lot of material is showing up on TikTok, showing up on Instagram around if you have these five things, you have ADHD or if you have so on and so forth. And it's good in a way because more and more people are talking about it and trying to understand whether or whether or not that's something that applies to them.

But I think to your point, it's really important that we're always going to a professional who studies this who can kind of plan what that would look like and see if that is even the treatment plan that would be right for you because it can look so different in so many different people.

Lindsey Snaychuk (24:02)
That's just it. And I just, I want to just like hold some space for this idea of self-diagnosis because the reality is, is, you know, gaining a diagnosis is a privilege, right? It can be hard to access. Oftentimes it can be expensive. And so that's not to say it's easy to obtain one, but if you have the option to do so, it's obviously ideal for treatment planning because you're right. We see, we see all these tech talks of people saying, you know, if you tick these boxes, you meet the criteria for X and.

I think for a lot of people that have felt kind of left behind by the systems that we have, it can be really validating and it can provide some hope. And so maybe some of those things provide some basis for them to reach out to their healthcare provider and maybe it's just their GP or something saying like, hey, I've actually been experiencing this. Can we look into this?

Jonathan Friedman (He/Him) (24:51)
And the conversation can really be as simple as that.

Lindsey Snaychuk (24:53)
Yeah, absolutely. And it can be a little bit intimidating because a lot of people have been, you know, brushed off by medical practitioners, mental health professionals. But, you know, advocating for yourself can be so important if you really feel like you're facing struggles in, you know, this domain or other domains.

Jonathan Friedman (He/Him) (25:09)
I think that's a really lovely segue into this next question, which is, what does the future of treatment for compulsive sexual behavior or sex addiction look like in your ideal world? Like, what's the landscape? What's the future? What are you seeing in the trends? And like in 10 years from now, opening up that eye, like, what do you hope to see?

Lindsey Snaychuk (25:28)
Yeah, and I guess I'll give kind of like the disclaimer that this would be kind of like my ideal based off of my research thus far. And just kind of mapping on to what I said earlier on about taking a more kind of individualized like process based approach to this condition, I think can be really, really beneficial instead of again, kind of insisting it needs to fit on in this one box to fit into this specific kind of treatment program. I think there's a lot to be said

for modular treatment approaches such that we're using specific skills to target specific difficulties. somebody might be facing a lot of difficulties with emotion dysregulation. Somebody else might be facing a lot of difficulties with impulsivity. And the good news is we can draw from dialectical behavioral therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy. We already have a lot of these tools for these particular core domains.

distress tolerance, emotion regulation skills, these types of things. from my perspective, like I do kind of wonder, and again, this is sort of, you know, aligned with my dissertation work, if it makes sense to just be kind of looking at the specific areas of difficulty and then.

applying skills for those areas of difficulty instead of feeling like somebody needs to kind of tick every single box because it's just not that simple, right? Like we have these really awesome manuals like the DSM and the ICD. Those are really meant to guide us, but there's really kind of like a degree of clinical judgment involved, right? And as far as I'm concerned, treating somebody for the areas that they're experiencing difficulties could be really helpful.

Jonathan Friedman (He/Him) (27:11)
of that and actually like just to share a brief personal story for me, like I struggle with a social anxiety and other types of anxiety too. Last year I went through a really tough time and my therapist was right before I joined EHN actually. And my therapist at that time was like, you know, we're doing the CBT thing. We're learning to like do more public speaking. We're learning to overcome those skills. And as I started to drift like more into a depression, my therapist at times would be like,

Lindsey Snaychuk (27:24)
Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Friedman (He/Him) (27:39)
Okay. We're going like today is a DBT session and we were able to switch through that. And then as I started to, you know, go through the interview process, like I'd have one session that was very DBT, one session that was very CBT. And we even had a session where he's like, Jonathan, if you're open to it, I think today is a good day for coaching and moving into more of like that kind of skills training. So I really appreciate that move into this modular approach. I know it's had a lot of impact for me too.

Lindsey Snaychuk (27:58)
Yeah.

Yeah, that's fantastic. Thank you so much for sharing that. think that, you know, just kind of like illustrates exactly what I'm talking about.

That's kind of my goal and the type of clinician that I want to be is I want to be very integrative in that, you know, I can draw from these different modalities and these different skills, but in a very thoughtful way, as opposed to just kind of, you know, throwing things until they stick, like thinking about, you know, what's going on for this person right now? What's difficult? And what tool do I have in my toolbox that may be able to help them? And then, of course, the end goal is that, you know, particularly with CBT and DBT, we eventually, you know, send them on their way with that toolbox after

we've shown them how to use the tools.

Jonathan Friedman (He/Him) (28:49)
Yeah, I love that. That's fantastic. Lindsey, it's been an absolute honor and pleasure to have you on the show. If you were to leave the listeners with one piece of advice around starting their own journey with mental health or addiction, what would you tell them? The big question.

Lindsey Snaychuk (29:02)
goodness. That's a big one.

That's a really big one. I would say advocate for yourself as best as you can. You know yourself better than anybody else and if you are experiencing difficulties, reach out to somebody that you feel safe talking to. Whether it's a friend, a family member, somebody involved in your medical care, a therapist.

It can be really, really difficult, but starting that conversation can be really helpful for long-term symptom relief.

Jonathan Friedman (He/Him) (29:36)
Lindsey, this was fantastic. Thank you so much. Recovery is possible in EH in Canada as the place for both virtual and inpatient treatment programs for mental health and addiction. To learn more about EHN Canada and how you can begin your own recovery journey, please go to ehncanada.com. To listen to even more episodes of the Five FAQs podcast, you can check it out on your favorite streaming platform, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or even our website. Lindsey, thank you so much, and we'll see you next time.

Lindsey Snaychuk (30:03)
Thank you so much, Jonathan. It was a pleasure.