Origins and Solutions - A Personal Story

(The following is a personal story from one of our members.)

Something I read got me thinking again about the "origins" of my addiction, at least thinking about my past attempts to figure it out.

When I was in college I started seeing a counselor because of my sexual acting out behavior. I knew I had a problem, and I was looking for a solution. The way I figured it, therapy was supposed to help me discover why I had a problem so that I would then somehow "just know" how to be free of this problem. I was looking for the "knowledge-based" solution. Just tell me where this came from, and then I'd be able to do something about it.

Apparently either he was a bad counselor, or I was a bad client, but in either case, there was no obvious predisposing factor I could pin my sexual addiction on. Actually, I really did like him as a counselor, and he did a lot to help me in those years. But I did not find either an origin or a solution to my problem. Nothing I "discovered" about myself did anything to stop my sexual acting out.

To this day, I still don't know the "why" of it. I don't know where it came from. I don't have any specific memories of events that "caused" me to be this way. Nothing I've come up with. Maybe I'm an anomaly, but that no longer matters to me either.

But I know without the least doubt the "what" of it: I am a sexaholic. I am what I am. I can't cut it out of me. I can't will it away. I can't think it away. I can't gain enough understanding or knowledge to "beat it". Because "it" is me. I've had to just accept and embrace what I am: a sex addict who is powerless over lust, who's life had become unmanageable.

But in working the program of the 12 Steps with a sponsor alongside other addicts, I have had a "spiritual awakening" in which I have begun to connect rightly with God and others. And as I connect rightly with God and others in the moments of life as life comes to me, I am given the gifts of sobriety and recovery. God is doing for me what I could not do for myself.

Simply put, the God of my understanding "could and would if He were sought." So I seek Him through surrendering in this 12 Step program of action, and He takes care of "the addict" who is me. And that's been working when nothing else has.

Joy - A Personal Story

The following is a personal story from one of our members.

Often in meetings it's so easy to focus on what didn't go so well that week. But meetings really are amazing, and can be a place of real joy.

Besides our SA meetings, I have a different small group of men that I meet with every week. There's no other sexaholics in that group I know of. They know I'm recovering, but only two of them know any of the details. It's a great group of men, but it's not like my local SA group.

In my SA group, I can talk about my most painful memories and my worst shame. I know I'm safe there. I know there are others there who understand. I won't be judged or rejected. I need not hide anything. There is joy to be had in an SA meeting, if only I recognize the amazing things God is doing there in each of us and through our unity as well.

But I still think the joy that comes from experiencing being set free from the power of my lust tops the list. Sometimes I go for quite some time without thinking about what an amazing gift that really is. But there are lots of other times, particularly when I'm reviewing a day that had so many externals going wrong all around me, that I come to the end of the day and think, "Wow, I'm still sober, and I didn't have to be enslaved to my obsessions and compulsions today."

When I really stop to think about it, being sober today still amazes me. What used to be the "impossible" comes true each day, one day at a time. The feeling thar brings to me really is joy.

Despair quickly! - A Personal Story

The following is a personal story from one of our members.

In a meeting I heard another member share: 

Despair as quickly as possible of coming up with a better way to recover than the sober people have.

It's got to be a symptom of this crazy disease that so many addicts will do just about anything but what is necessary to gain sobriety. I did exactly that myself. That is until I finally gave up in despair.

For me, the journey to finally surrendering to God and the 12 Step program of SA started way back in 1989. I believe that is the year I first went to a thriving meeting of SA in the Chicago area. There was plenty of sobriety even then in that room, but I also kept those "sober fanatics" at arms length, and opted for my own "design it yourself" program. I was too proud and too lazy to do it anyone else's way. An "easier, softer way" would suit me just fine, thank you very much.

But I didn't stay sober. And I didn't have recovery and serenity and peace and freedom from the obsessions and compulsions.

Despair, yes I needed to despair. Pain is an amazingly powerful teacher and motivator. 

Fast-forward to today, and I no longer live in pain and despair. I don't have to act out today. I have freedom from the obsessions and compulsions. I don't have to be a slave to lust any more. I am connected to a Power greater than myself. And God does for me what I can't do for myself.

And all that has happened because I finally despaired of doing it my way, and instead surrendered and worked the 12 Steps under the direction of a sponsor as the path to a spiritual awakening that has connected me rightly to God and others.