It’s that point after a breakup when you’ve totally tapped out the support of your friends and family. You can’t stop analyzing that final voicemail your ex left and refreshing his Facebook page every 10 minutes.
You may be an exaholic. And the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem.
Fortunately, there’s a new website that provides an outlet for down-and-out singletons.
By treating breakups like addictions, exaholics.com provides a 12-step plan modeled after Alcoholics Anonymous — which can take a few weeks or a few months, depending on your pace — plus inspiring articles and tips posted by experts, and online chat forums where misery can find company.
The new site has about 1,500 registered users and nearly 10,000 monthly visitors.
“An exaholic has a very difficult time moving on,” explains Dr. Lisa Bobby, the Denver-based therapist who created the program for the New York-based site.
“They’re hooked into the relationship, and it’s difficult for them to heal and move on. They will use words like ‘devastation’ and talk about the loss — they tend to think fairly obsessively about their ex and have trouble in day-to-day life as a result of that.”
Natalia, who lives in California and asked that her last name not be used, broke up with her boyfriend more than two years ago. She stumbled upon the site about a month ago while Googling terms like “boyfriend obsession.”
“It’s so embarrassing that I didn’t talk about it with friends anymore. It was a dirty little secret,” says Natalia, who previously tried therapy. “I’m not an addictive personality, but this was an obsession. I couldn’t stop trying to find out information — Googling his name every day.”
The 56-year-old has found compassion from her new online friends on the site and credits the 12-step program with getting her to a point of neutrality — neither loving nor hating her ex.
“It was about two and a half months or so after the breakup, and while I have lots of friends, I was pretty sure I had exhausted them at that point — that they were screening my calls,” Lee says, laughing. “I was looking for an outlet for people in a similar circumstance — not that everybody hasn’t been through a breakup, but it tends to be easier for people who are going through something to understand.”
Lee says she sometimes uses the site to vent — it helps her not contact her ex — but she really likes helping out others joining the site fresh off their breakups.
Bobby says that, like in AA, the final steps of the program involve mentoring other members.
“It helps to engage with a supportive community and have a way of fighting back against isolation that is so common,” Bobby explains. “They’ll leave this process able to grieve and process the loss — and get their self-esteem back.”