Awaken Your Sexuality: A Guide to Connection and Intimacy After Addiction and Trauma

This compassionate, comprehensive guide offers hope for those seeking to reconnect--or connect for the first time--with their sexual selves.

Addiction, trauma, and shame can shatter your experience of intimacy and sexual joy. But healing is possible--and you are not alone.

Awaken Your Sexuality addresses the complex intersections of trauma, addiction, and sexual healing with depth and sensitivity. Written by leading experts, this groundbreaking guide unlocks the path to pleasure, intimacy, and connection.

Inside, you'll discover:

Practical exercises to process sexual history and heal from past wounds Ways to explore and embrace pleasure without judgment Support for your unique journey to healthier intimate relationships Real-life stories of sexual recovery

Drawing from cutting-edge research and decades of clinical experience, Awaken Your Sexuality goes beyond traditional recovery literature and considers sexuality an integral part of what it means to be whole and well.

Statistically, 1 in 6 women experience sexual violence, and many turn to substances or compulsive behaviors to cope. This book offers a lifeline--a compassionate guide to reclaiming your sexual agency, joy, and power.

You deserve pleasure. You deserve healing. You deserve connection.

Your sexual recovery starts here.

A must-read for survivors, therapists, counselors, and anyone committed to sexual healing and empowerment.

Author: Stephanie Covington,Vanessa Carlisle
Publisher: Hazelden Publishing & Educational Services
Published: 10/07/2025
Pages: 360
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.10lbs
Size: 8.40h x 5.30w x 0.90d
ISBN: 9781636340920

About the Author
Stephanie S. Covington, PhD, LCSW (she/her) is an internationally recognized clinician, organizational consultant, lecturer, and author in the fields of addiction and trauma. Dr. Covington serves as the co-director of the Institute for Relational Development and the Center for Gender & Justice. For nearly four decades, she has created gender-responsive and trauma-informed programs and services for use in public, private, and institutional settings. Author of the first manualized treatment program for substance use disorder, Dr. Covington went on to create twelve trauma-informed, gender-responsive treatment curricula. Her most recent works include the 30th anniversary edition of bestseller A Woman's Way Through the Twelve Steps and Hidden Healers: The Unexpected Ways Women in Prison Help Each Other Survive.

www.stephaniecovington.com

www.centerforgenderandjustice.org

Vanessa Carlisle, PhD, MFA (they/them), is an author, coach, and educator in the fields of gender, sexuality, and trauma. Dr. Carlisle's lived experience includes over twenty-five years in sex work and fifteen years of advocacy for the sex-working community. As a survivor of both intimate partner and institutional violence, Dr. Carlisle now crafts programs that combat stigma and improve conditions for their communities, including trauma-informed self-defense training, somatic coaching, and end-of-life care services. Along with many essays and articles, Dr. Carlisle authored the award-winning novel Take Me with You about a queer sex worker who must face her grief to be able to build the life she wants.

www.vanessacarlisle.com