While most of us experience sex as a pleasurable experience with few negatie consequences, Sex Addicts are more likely to define their sexual exploits as driven, secretive and shameful, rather than fun, playful or intimate. Sex (and Love) addicts repetitively engage the pursuit of sex, romantic intensity and the sex act itself, much like the alcoholic takes a drink, to tolerate emotional and life stress, dissociate from past trauma or in a misguided attempt to feel in-control. Addiction to sex is similar to gambling addition in that these behaviors stimulate complex biological and neuro-chemical changes in the brain, which create the desired distractions of intense excitement and emotional arousal. Sex addiction can also be accompanied by other addictions, both chemical and behavioral.