Title: Addickted: 12 Steps to Kicking Your Bad Boy Habit Author: Kristina Grish Publisher: Polka Dot Press Publish Date: 2006 Pages: 190 Genres:: Self-Help, How-To Guide, Humor, Non-Fiction, Straight Reviewer: SexHerald Staff

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Do you find that the men who care about you the least are the ones you get hooked on having sex with? Feeling hurt and ignored by their unreliable ways but still feel the sexual thrill is more than worth it even when your out-of-control distress and tears say otherwise? Enter Kristina Grish.

In Addickted, Grish tells the story of her own obsession with the sex appeal and emotional highs of charming but uncaring bad boys who loved her body but not her. She was so hooked on excitement that she allowed herself to be treated, as she puts it, “like an emotional deaf-mute with a nice ass.” She overcame her addicktion with a 12-step approach cum aversion therapy cum with a nice man. When self-respect becomes the barrier blocking you from having a great orgasm with someone who doesn’t care about you, normally healthy personal priorities can get startlingly shuffled. Addickted asks and at least for Grish answers the question: Is it possible to retrain the female libido? Aye.

Although I started reading Addickted thinking it could be a book-long argument for the case of settling for less than excitement, it turned out to be exactly the opposite. She dissects the components that make bad boys as seductive as they are with a recipe she calls the “character” cocktail and counters it with examples of just how sexy a stable partner can be.

I would say Kristina’s book is most helpful to those who don’t find niceness and sincerity attractive in a man they think is otherwise good-looking as opposed to women who want nice men but can’t find one that’s both nice AND (to them) physically attractive. I’d also think twice about her suggestion to implement a 12-step program of apologizing to exes for your own past bad behavior. Although her intention is to allow the hurt to provide an open forum to air their feelings given the cans of potential worms it could open seems to run counter to the point of Addickted’s mission. She is a little heavy on the sarcasm at times but her observations of how women lie to themselves and make themselves crazy over men dead to their charm is dead right.

The point she drives home is you can’t find something more when you’re chasing something less. Although she champions the virtues of nice men and urges you to realize their sexiness is there if not on the surface, she also acknowledges that nice in and of itself is no guarantee that it will be enough. But it’s the best foundation on which to build a house of love. One of the best parts of Addickted as a self-help book is that Grish is empathetic and the antithesis of smug. She found a way to find relief from the pain of the temporary relief from pain as provided by the high of unstable sex and wants her readers to find it, too.