(This post is a personal story from one of our group members.)
A fellow SA member shared with me about his attempts to resist his acting out behaviors. I could really relate to that feeling that I would only be able to resist for just so long, and then inevitably would act out again. We both had that experience over and over again. I think that's part of how I know I'm an addict. I could not resist even when I wanted to.
But, thank God, it didn't have to stay that way. Surrendering to God instead of resisting by my own effort was the key to staying sober without the inevitable build up and failure. There was a way to find freedom, and working the Steps with a sponsor was the way I learned what surrender really meant. And the Steps brought me into a right relationship with God and others.
There really is hope in this program, but it only seemed to happen for me when I was really ready to give up my own way of living and turn my will over to God.
Monday, December 26, 2016
Monday, October 24, 2016
Stopping myself, ... not!
(This post is from one of our group members.)
I'm a sexaholic. That means I'm powerless over lust. That means that lust will always win the battle if I try to stop my diseased mind from lusting. Powerlessness means the battle is already lost. There is no point to try to struggle any longer. I have nothing left to do but unconditional surrender.
When I first came to SA, I was looking for a little something to add on to what I already thought was true. From my culture and religious traditions, I had a fairly well-formed idea of God and right and wrong. SA simply needed to fit in with what I already knew, and everything would go just fine. I'd stay sober, and God would be happy with me.
But it didn't go just fine. It didn't work at all. I didn't stay sober or find freedom from lust and sexual acting out. It didn't work because I still needed something I thought I already had. I needed a right relationship with God, a God that was "for the sexaholic", a God who "could and would do for me what I could not do for myself."
I kept thinking that I needed to take care of my sexaholic problem myself, and then I'd have a right relationship with God. God had a different idea of how this was going to work. My way didn't work. His way did. My way was based on a high view of myself (pride and false humility) and my strength (to fight lust). His way required my real humility and His power over my lust. His way worked because He is God, and I am not.
I learned this through the experience of working the 12 Steps of AA/SA under the direction of a sponsor. Maybe there is another way it can work, but my experience and the experience of many other sober and happy and free SA's is that the SA way works when nothing else we tried did.
I'm a sexaholic. That means I'm powerless over lust. That means that lust will always win the battle if I try to stop my diseased mind from lusting. Powerlessness means the battle is already lost. There is no point to try to struggle any longer. I have nothing left to do but unconditional surrender.
When I first came to SA, I was looking for a little something to add on to what I already thought was true. From my culture and religious traditions, I had a fairly well-formed idea of God and right and wrong. SA simply needed to fit in with what I already knew, and everything would go just fine. I'd stay sober, and God would be happy with me.
But it didn't go just fine. It didn't work at all. I didn't stay sober or find freedom from lust and sexual acting out. It didn't work because I still needed something I thought I already had. I needed a right relationship with God, a God that was "for the sexaholic", a God who "could and would do for me what I could not do for myself."
I kept thinking that I needed to take care of my sexaholic problem myself, and then I'd have a right relationship with God. God had a different idea of how this was going to work. My way didn't work. His way did. My way was based on a high view of myself (pride and false humility) and my strength (to fight lust). His way required my real humility and His power over my lust. His way worked because He is God, and I am not.
I learned this through the experience of working the 12 Steps of AA/SA under the direction of a sponsor. Maybe there is another way it can work, but my experience and the experience of many other sober and happy and free SA's is that the SA way works when nothing else we tried did.
Tuesday, October 4, 2016
Pain is good
(This is a personal post by one of our members.)
Some other people's sharing got me thinking about my own weakness. I certainly am weak. All I have to do is look at the power that lust has over me, and I know I'm weak. That's the obvious one.
I'm glad it became obvious. That's why I finally "got" Step One. It was like being hit over the head by a big stick until the pain brought about enough realization that I was not only weak, but completely powerless. And I'm very OK with that today.
I think that the natural and spiritual consequences that exist in this world eventually catch up with at least some of us, and we finally "get it". That's been true of me. My own experience with God leads me to believe that it is gracious of him to withhold any special protection for me when I'm rebelling against him and harming others. I don't experience it as God particularly causing the specific painful consequence, but as him allowing what naturally follows to happen without intervening to protect me from it. How else am I ever going to know that something has gone terribly wrong, that I'm not living as I should? Pain is good.
In the same way as it doesn't do children any good to have their parents spoil them by making sure they never experience any pain (physical or otherwise) and always get what they want, it wouldn't do me any good to have a God who made sure I never experienced the consequences of my attitudes and actions.
But the amazing thing about God is that he's capable of redeeming anything that has happened in my life. Not that the consequences are gone and everything is completely fixed, but that he can use those things to bring about growth in me and even to help others as I surrender all of that to him and let him direct my life for me.
Some other people's sharing got me thinking about my own weakness. I certainly am weak. All I have to do is look at the power that lust has over me, and I know I'm weak. That's the obvious one.
I'm glad it became obvious. That's why I finally "got" Step One. It was like being hit over the head by a big stick until the pain brought about enough realization that I was not only weak, but completely powerless. And I'm very OK with that today.
I think that the natural and spiritual consequences that exist in this world eventually catch up with at least some of us, and we finally "get it". That's been true of me. My own experience with God leads me to believe that it is gracious of him to withhold any special protection for me when I'm rebelling against him and harming others. I don't experience it as God particularly causing the specific painful consequence, but as him allowing what naturally follows to happen without intervening to protect me from it. How else am I ever going to know that something has gone terribly wrong, that I'm not living as I should? Pain is good.
In the same way as it doesn't do children any good to have their parents spoil them by making sure they never experience any pain (physical or otherwise) and always get what they want, it wouldn't do me any good to have a God who made sure I never experienced the consequences of my attitudes and actions.
But the amazing thing about God is that he's capable of redeeming anything that has happened in my life. Not that the consequences are gone and everything is completely fixed, but that he can use those things to bring about growth in me and even to help others as I surrender all of that to him and let him direct my life for me.
Friday, September 16, 2016
Does it get any easier?
(The following is a personal post from one of our group members.)
Someone asked me if it gets any easier as time passes. I have to think about what that question really means to me. I have to think about what it is I'm actually measuring and comparing between my past and my present.
If the question is, "Does it get easier to fight against lust and temptations?", then the answer I must give is, "I really don't know, but I don't think so." Honestly I'm not trying to be a smart aleck. I don't try to fight against lust today like I used to. I surrender lust instead, because I sincerely believe that if I start fighting against lust again, if I start to try to control it myself again using my own strength, I will be back to acting out again. I am powerless over lust. It's that plain and simple for me. I believe I can honestly say that I have entirely accepted Step One as true for me. So for these sober years I've been in SA recovery, I really don't know how hard it is to fight lust. I just don't fight it, but I don't give into it either.
If the question I ask myself is, "Does it get easier to surrender lust to God and as a result be set free from the obsessions and compulsions?", then the answer is an unequivocal, "Yes!" That's what Steps Two through Twelve have opened the door to. That is what God has done because He "could and would if He were sought."
Has it been hard work on my part? Certainly! They don't say "play around with the Steps." No, as the saying goes, it only "works if you work it." But the positive results of working the Steps of the program and increasingly being connected rightly with God and others have extended well beyond the problem of lust. And it certainly has been worth it!
Someone asked me if it gets any easier as time passes. I have to think about what that question really means to me. I have to think about what it is I'm actually measuring and comparing between my past and my present.
If the question is, "Does it get easier to fight against lust and temptations?", then the answer I must give is, "I really don't know, but I don't think so." Honestly I'm not trying to be a smart aleck. I don't try to fight against lust today like I used to. I surrender lust instead, because I sincerely believe that if I start fighting against lust again, if I start to try to control it myself again using my own strength, I will be back to acting out again. I am powerless over lust. It's that plain and simple for me. I believe I can honestly say that I have entirely accepted Step One as true for me. So for these sober years I've been in SA recovery, I really don't know how hard it is to fight lust. I just don't fight it, but I don't give into it either.
If the question I ask myself is, "Does it get easier to surrender lust to God and as a result be set free from the obsessions and compulsions?", then the answer is an unequivocal, "Yes!" That's what Steps Two through Twelve have opened the door to. That is what God has done because He "could and would if He were sought."
Has it been hard work on my part? Certainly! They don't say "play around with the Steps." No, as the saying goes, it only "works if you work it." But the positive results of working the Steps of the program and increasingly being connected rightly with God and others have extended well beyond the problem of lust. And it certainly has been worth it!
Thursday, September 1, 2016
Taking the Steps
(The following is a post from one of our members.)
I heard someone at a meeting share an analogy about taking a flight of steps in order to get through a door at the top. That image got me thinking.
Looking back at my history with SA, I can see that I spent years with the "crowd" that was milling around at the bottom of the steps. We went to meetings and participated in the sharing, but we didn't take the steps. We stayed below the doors just looking up the steps at the people who actually were walking up the steps. We saw people going through those doors, doors that opened to a new way of life, doors that led to serenity, peace, and freedom. But we weren't even sitting on the steps yet; we hadn't even started to trudge up those steps.
I felt good going to meetings in those early years. There was a sense of companionship being part of the crowd not yet taking the "Steps". It felt good to be with others who understood me and my obsessions and compulsions. People would listen to me as I shared about my latest failure to stay sober. In that crowd, failing to stay sober was the norm, so I felt right at home.
But it did me no good whatsoever to remain in the crowd at the bottom of the Steps and to not listen to the voice of someone who had reached the top and was offering to tell me how to take those Steps like he had. And until the pain of being me became a great enough motivator, I wasn't ready to leave the crowd. I wouldn't listen, and I wouldn't start taking those simple but hard Steps that led to freedom.
But thank God, the pain become enough, and I finally did take those Steps!
I heard someone at a meeting share an analogy about taking a flight of steps in order to get through a door at the top. That image got me thinking.
Looking back at my history with SA, I can see that I spent years with the "crowd" that was milling around at the bottom of the steps. We went to meetings and participated in the sharing, but we didn't take the steps. We stayed below the doors just looking up the steps at the people who actually were walking up the steps. We saw people going through those doors, doors that opened to a new way of life, doors that led to serenity, peace, and freedom. But we weren't even sitting on the steps yet; we hadn't even started to trudge up those steps.
I felt good going to meetings in those early years. There was a sense of companionship being part of the crowd not yet taking the "Steps". It felt good to be with others who understood me and my obsessions and compulsions. People would listen to me as I shared about my latest failure to stay sober. In that crowd, failing to stay sober was the norm, so I felt right at home.
But it did me no good whatsoever to remain in the crowd at the bottom of the Steps and to not listen to the voice of someone who had reached the top and was offering to tell me how to take those Steps like he had. And until the pain of being me became a great enough motivator, I wasn't ready to leave the crowd. I wouldn't listen, and I wouldn't start taking those simple but hard Steps that led to freedom.
But thank God, the pain become enough, and I finally did take those Steps!
Monday, August 15, 2016
Unconditional and Immediate Surrender
(The following is a personal post by one of our members.)
I was talking with my sponsor recently, and he shared that the program was distilled by a speaker he heard down to two words: "Let go." If I only had two words, those two might be the way I would put it as well.
When I heard that, my mind immediately jumped to a section in the Sexaholics Anonymous book (p. 82) that includes those two words:
In summary, for us surrender is the change in attitude of the inner person that makes life possible. It is the great beginning, the insignia and watchword of our program. And no amount of knowledge about surrender can make it a fact until we simply give up, let go, and let God. When we surrender our "freedom," we become truly free."
So maybe even one word can sum up the program: "Surrender."
And yet it seems to be in my very nature to fight instead of surrender. I certainly fought lust. I really wanted to stop. I really tried to stop. But I couldn't. I was no longer free not to lust. I was lust's slave, and I needed to be emancipated by a Power greater than me because I was incapable of breaking the chains that bound me.
I fought God as well.
The difference between lust and God in this battle of mine is that lust is a master that will not let me go, but on the contrary, God is a master only so long as I continue to surrender to Him. And when I surrender my "freedom" to Him, I become truly free. He does not take my freedom away, but He accepts the good and the bad that I freely give Him, and He returns to me the gift of freedom from the bondage I can not escape in my own power.
U.S. Grant is quoted as saying, "No terms, except unconditional and immediate surrender, can be accepted." I started working the Steps of this program with my sponsor by first committing to God, "I will do whatever my sponsor says." Early on in working the Steps with my sponsor, he asked me to write the date and the words "I will go to any length to stay sober" in the front of my AA book, when I was ready. Surrender. I was learning how to finally surrender.
I was talking with my sponsor recently, and he shared that the program was distilled by a speaker he heard down to two words: "Let go." If I only had two words, those two might be the way I would put it as well.
When I heard that, my mind immediately jumped to a section in the Sexaholics Anonymous book (p. 82) that includes those two words:
In summary, for us surrender is the change in attitude of the inner person that makes life possible. It is the great beginning, the insignia and watchword of our program. And no amount of knowledge about surrender can make it a fact until we simply give up, let go, and let God. When we surrender our "freedom," we become truly free."
So maybe even one word can sum up the program: "Surrender."
And yet it seems to be in my very nature to fight instead of surrender. I certainly fought lust. I really wanted to stop. I really tried to stop. But I couldn't. I was no longer free not to lust. I was lust's slave, and I needed to be emancipated by a Power greater than me because I was incapable of breaking the chains that bound me.
I fought God as well.
The difference between lust and God in this battle of mine is that lust is a master that will not let me go, but on the contrary, God is a master only so long as I continue to surrender to Him. And when I surrender my "freedom" to Him, I become truly free. He does not take my freedom away, but He accepts the good and the bad that I freely give Him, and He returns to me the gift of freedom from the bondage I can not escape in my own power.
U.S. Grant is quoted as saying, "No terms, except unconditional and immediate surrender, can be accepted." I started working the Steps of this program with my sponsor by first committing to God, "I will do whatever my sponsor says." Early on in working the Steps with my sponsor, he asked me to write the date and the words "I will go to any length to stay sober" in the front of my AA book, when I was ready. Surrender. I was learning how to finally surrender.
Monday, August 1, 2016
Slipping
(The following is a personal post from one of our members.)
Some time ago I was talking with my wife about some things I was experiencing while working the program. Based on my prior experiences with slipping (aka relapsing), I knew I was in no position to try to fool myself or anyone else (her included) and make a claim to "never go back out there."
Instead I simply said, "I'm only ever one bad choice away from a relapse." And it doesn't even have to be a big choice or an obvious choice. One subtle, little choice, and I can be on the road to a relapse. And because I'm a sexaholic, that choice will be an "easy" one to make. That's been my past experience many, many times, and I don't doubt it can happen again.
I'm told by the old-timers that all I have is a "daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of my spiritual condition." Here it is in context:
"It is easy to let up on the spiritual program of action and rest on our laurels. We are headed for trouble if we do, for [lust] is a subtle foe. We are not cured of [sexaholism]. What we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition." (AABB, p. 85)
So what really matters in the end is my "spiritual condition." I've got to continue to ask myself, "Am I currently in right relationship with God and others?" (cf. Step 10) "Am I growing spiritually in conscious connection with God?" (cf. Step 11) "Am I trying to help others and sharing about who I really am and the story of what God is doing to change me in all areas of my life?" (cf. Step 12)
But without working the first nine Steps of the program with a sponsor, there wasn't any way I was going to know what the last three even meant, let alone do them.
I sincerely believe that if I am in continual right connection with a "loving God" that "could and would if He were sought," relapse simply won't happen. But if I walk away from that connection and start to once again "rest on my laurels" and believe I can do this on my own, then that "one bad choice" has already happened, and I'm on my way to that relapse, because I'm on my own.
Some time ago I was talking with my wife about some things I was experiencing while working the program. Based on my prior experiences with slipping (aka relapsing), I knew I was in no position to try to fool myself or anyone else (her included) and make a claim to "never go back out there."
Instead I simply said, "I'm only ever one bad choice away from a relapse." And it doesn't even have to be a big choice or an obvious choice. One subtle, little choice, and I can be on the road to a relapse. And because I'm a sexaholic, that choice will be an "easy" one to make. That's been my past experience many, many times, and I don't doubt it can happen again.
I'm told by the old-timers that all I have is a "daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of my spiritual condition." Here it is in context:
"It is easy to let up on the spiritual program of action and rest on our laurels. We are headed for trouble if we do, for [lust] is a subtle foe. We are not cured of [sexaholism]. What we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition." (AABB, p. 85)
So what really matters in the end is my "spiritual condition." I've got to continue to ask myself, "Am I currently in right relationship with God and others?" (cf. Step 10) "Am I growing spiritually in conscious connection with God?" (cf. Step 11) "Am I trying to help others and sharing about who I really am and the story of what God is doing to change me in all areas of my life?" (cf. Step 12)
But without working the first nine Steps of the program with a sponsor, there wasn't any way I was going to know what the last three even meant, let alone do them.
I sincerely believe that if I am in continual right connection with a "loving God" that "could and would if He were sought," relapse simply won't happen. But if I walk away from that connection and start to once again "rest on my laurels" and believe I can do this on my own, then that "one bad choice" has already happened, and I'm on my way to that relapse, because I'm on my own.
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