This is a book about sex addiction and computer hacking, and how those two things led to one man’s life imploding in front of his eyes. That man is Luke Bozier, a digital politics specialist who advised Tony Blair but then incurred the wrath of the New Labour establishment by defecting to the Tories. He made them even angrier when he set up a putative rival to Twitter with the then Conservative MP, Lousie Mensch, called Menschn. He and Mensch no longer talk.

But this is not just Luke’s story, it’s also a book that explores the whys and wherefores of sex addiction and how damaging it can be. A friend once blurted out to be that he was a sex addict and attended Sexaholics Anonymous meetings. I resisted the temptation to snigger and wondered what the definition of sex addiction actually was. Surely, I thought, it was just that some people like more sex than others. What on earth is odd about that? It appears I was wrong. This book explores how addiction to pornography can lead to a very perverted view of natural sex. Dr Michael Herkov defines sex addiction in the following terms…

Sexual addiction is best described as a progressive intimacy disorder characterized by compulsive sexual thoughts and acts. Like all addictions, its negative impact on the addict and on family members increases as the disorder progresses. Over time, the addict usually has to intensify the addictive behavior to achieve the same results. For some sex addicts, behavior does not progress beyond compulsive masturbation or the extensive use of pornography or phone or computer sex services. For others, addiction can involve illegal activities such as exhibitionism, voyeurism, obscene phone calls, child molestation or rape. Sex addicts do not necessarily become sex offenders. Moreover, not all sex offenders are sex addicts. Roughly 55 percent of convicted sex offenders can be considered sex addicts. About 71 percent of child molesters are sex addicts. For many, their problems are so severe that imprisonment is the only way to ensure society’s safety against them. Society has accepted that sex offenders act not for sexual gratification, but rather out of a disturbed need for power, dominance, control or revenge, or a perverted expression of anger. More recently, however, an awareness of brain changes and brain reward associated with sexual behavior has led us to understand that there are also powerful sexual drives that motivate sex offenses.

So that’s clear then.

Luke was in New York when someone hacked into his computer and started posting naked pictures of him online, together with messages he had been sending random people setting up sex dates. He was literally stripped naked online. One of the pictures was of his erect penis. One of the emails concerned his apparent liking for looking at pictures of 16 year old girls. Other emails related to gay encounters. The prurient had a field day. Meanwhile Luke’s world had collapsed in on him. He was 3,000 miles away and being accused of being a pervert and a sub-paedophile. He did what most of us would do. Think about ending it all. He phoned his business partner Louise Mensch expecting a shoulder to cry on and her moral support. Instead, she told him she was phoning the Metropolitan Police and proceeded to drop him like a stone. (EDIT: I should say Louise Mensch disputes this version of events and says she was very supportive up until the moment she a picture of a girl on his hacked emails.)

He had to phone his partner to tell her what had happened. He was 27. His life in ruins. How do you recover from that?

I know Luke a little. Not well. We’ve met two or three times. I liked him. I still like him. When I read what had happened to him I texted him in the way that you do when people you know are in the middle of a crisis. It was a ‘if there’s anything I can do’ type of text. We ended up having a long conversation. Sometimes that’s the best thing you can offer in these situations – an ear. I’m not sure I said anything especially helpful, but he seemed to appreciate that someone cared enough to listen. I suspect it was a period when he found out exactly who his real friends were.

A few months later, he sent me a draft manuscript of this book. It was hot stuff. Brutally honest, searingly anecdotal, but also hugely well researched. Luke wanted to know what I thought of it – did it work as a book? It certainly did, although I could foresee a few legal problems on the horizon. My heart wanted to publish it, but my head told me that a firm like mine couldn’t possibly do it justice. We publish politics, not books about sex. Well, usually. I mentioned it to a couple of colleagues without showing them the manuscript but they were so dead against it, I didn’t pursue it any further. Now I wish I had. Luke was very happy to self-publish it and that’s what he has done, both as a paperback and as an eBook. And I am glad he did.

There’s a rawness to this book that sometimes causes the reader to wince out loud, if you know what I mean. There are also, if most readers are honest with themselves, a few ‘yup, that could be me’ moments. It’s an uncomfortable read at times, and there are other times when you want to give the author a slap and say ‘how could you be so stupid’, or ‘how did you think no one would ever find out?’ But that’s the thing about sex addiction – it’s that element of danger, the feeling that you’re living on the edge, that provides part of the thrill. Not, er, that I would know, naturally!

’Don’t Bite the Apple’ is available in paperback at £7.99 and as an eBook at £4.11