Sex addiction therapy in Austin: a men's intensive outpatient program

Iron Ridge offers sex addiction therapy and porn addiction treatment for men in Austin: an eight-week intensive outpatient program at our North Austin clinic, clinically directed by Ian Birdwell, LPC, CSAT.

Iron Ridge is Texas's only IOP built exclusively for the CSBD-presenting population, delivered in-person from our Austin clinic and by secure telehealth across Texas. Men reach the Austin program because they wanted a room built specifically around what they are carrying, not a mixed-diagnosis IOP where relational damage, betrayal, and CSBD-specific shame sit next to unrelated presentations. The program is calibrated for the vulnerability that specific work requires.

Iron Ridge Recovery runs an in-person intensive outpatient program in Austin at 4030 W. Braker Ln, Suite 410. The program is a specialized mental health IOP for men whose primary mental health condition presents through compulsive sexual behavior --- most commonly pornography addiction, though the same eight-week arc treats the full range of the pattern, not one behavior in isolation. It is not a residential program, not a substance-use program, and not a general mental health IOP. It is a mental health outpatient program built specifically for this population.

Choosing the best sex addiction IOP: when an IOP is the right level

An intensive outpatient program is the right level of care for two kinds of men. The first has already tried weekly therapy, even one or two individual sessions a week, and the pattern keeps outrunning it, because a session or two a week leaves the rest of the week for the pattern to reassert itself. He is still working and living at home, and he has not reached the point of needing residential care. The second is coming home from residential treatment and needs structure while he rebuilds his life at home: regulating emotions, recognizing triggers, and naming feelings in the environment where the pattern actually ran. For a man who needs round-the-clock care or medical stabilization, residential is the right level, and we will say so. Moving between levels of care explains how that decision is made.

Once an IOP is the right level, "best" depends on what a specific man needs, not a ranking anyone can honestly hand out. What it is reasonable to compare, program to program, is a short list of concrete questions:

Ask any program you are considering these same seven questions. The answers are how you actually compare, not a superlative on a website.

What in-person means at Iron Ridge

In-person means the client is in the same clinical space as the group, the individual clinician, and the treatment team, for the duration of the scheduled clinical hours. The Austin location holds group process, individual sessions, and the assessment work of the arc. Between sessions, clients live at home, work if their occupational picture allows it, and maintain the relational and family responsibilities of an outpatient level of care. The point of IOP as a level of care is that it delivers clinical intensity without removing the client from the life they are working to repair. See what to expect for the operational walk-through.

Who the Austin program is for

The Austin program is for adult men who meet the ICD-11 6C72 criteria for CSBD as the presenting picture, and who have a comorbid mental health condition, OCD, ADHD, an anxiety disorder, depression, PTSD, attachment trauma, or an adjustment picture, that treatment is aimed at. The client is medically and psychiatrically stable enough for an outpatient level of care. He can attend 9 to 12 clinical hours per week reliably. He is not in acute crisis. He is not in active substance-primary treatment need. See the treatment programs hub for the complete admission criteria and exclusions.

The Austin program is best suited to men who live in the Austin metro or who can commute reliably during the eight-week arc. For men elsewhere in Texas, the virtual IOP for Texas delivers the same clinical arc without the commute burden.

Clinical hours and schedule

The program delivers 9 to 12 clinical hours per week over eight weeks. The total clinical exposure across the arc is 72 to 96 hours. Hours are distributed across:

• Group therapy, the primary vehicle of the IOP. Group runs three sessions per week during the standard schedule, facilitated by clinicians including Nick Borges, LCSW, LCDC, CSAT-C. Admission is rolling: a man starts his own eight-week arc when he is admitted, and the group holds men at different points in the arc, so there is always someone further along.
• Individual therapy, at least one session a week with a primary clinician such as Joshua Heater, LMSW (supervised by Eboni L. Ceasar, Ph.D., LCSW-S, Texas license 53065), under CSAT guidance from Ian Birdwell, LPC, CSAT. This is where the underlying mental health picture is worked directly.
• Assessment and integration, scheduled at baseline, week 4, week 8, and six-month follow-up.

The standard schedule is evening-weighted so the program is compatible with a working schedule for most clients. Specific times are set at admission based on cohort composition.

What the clinical work looks like in the Austin setting

The clinical arc is organized in three phases across the eight weeks: stabilization in weeks 1 through 3, trauma and mental health processing in weeks 4 through 6, and relapse prevention in weeks 7 through 8. The clinical modalities used across the arc, cognitive-behavioral therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy, internal-family-systems-informed work, psychodynamic and attachment work, are the same in Austin as in the virtual program.

What is specific to the Austin setting is the physical group environment. Men attending in person are in a group room with peers who are working the same arc against the same clinical picture. The room is set up to hold a population that carries elevated shame, private entrance from the suite, non-clinical common areas, and a group room configured for confidential clinical work rather than a training-room feel. This is one of the operational details that decides whether the population Iron Ridge serves can actually use the program.

Partner programming in Austin

The Partner Programming track runs on-site in Austin as well, directed by Roxcy Brown, LMFT-Associate, CCPS-C (supervised by Billy Myers, LMFT-S, Texas license 201183). Partners are seen for their own clinical work, in their own scheduled hours, with their own clinician. Partner programming is coordinated with the men's IOP but is not a couples format, the partner is treated as a client with a primary clinical picture of her own. See the Partner & Family Program for the partner-facing entry point.

The Austin location

• Iron Ridge Recovery
• 4030 W. Braker Ln, Suite 410
• Austin, TX 78759
• (512) 877-8616
• intake@ironridgerecovery.com

The suite is in a professional office building in North Austin, off Braker Lane between Mopac and 183. Parking is on-site. The entrance to Suite 410 is not from a common lobby, access is designed to accommodate a population for whom privacy of arrival matters clinically.

Payment and confidentiality

Iron Ridge is out-of-network with insurance. Clients can have Iron Ridge bill their PPO out of network, pay directly and submit a superbill for potential partial reimbursement, or pay privately with no claim submitted to insurance. Because CSBD is coded in the ICD-11 impulse control chapter and not in the substance use chapter, the clinical record is governed by standard HIPAA rules, 42 CFR Part 2 does not apply to Iron Ridge. See how the superbill process works and DSM-5-TR coding when CSBD is the clinical picture for the mechanics.

Serving the Austin metro and Texas

Iron Ridge is the only IOP in Texas built exclusively for this population. The Austin location primarily serves clients from Austin, Round Rock, Cedar Park, Pflugerville, Georgetown, Lakeway, Bee Cave, San Marcos, and the surrounding metro. See Areas Served for the full list. Clients from Houston, Dallas–Fort Worth, San Antonio, and other Texas metros are typically served through the virtual IOP for Texas unless a specific clinical reason favors in-person work.

Men whose position makes privacy the first question, executives, physicians, attorneys and founders, should read how privacy works here before the first call.

What to do next

The next step is a clinical consultation. The consultation is a clinical conversation, not a sales call. Its purpose is to formulate the case, to determine whether Iron Ridge is the right level of care, and to answer the specific questions that decide whether the Austin in-person program is the right fit, versus the virtual program, versus a different level of care, versus a different specialization altogether.