Sober is Not Well

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

Recently in our local meeting we read through the chapter on Step Ten and shared our own experience with that Step. After taking us through the first nine Steps, the book's explanation of Step 10 takes us back to the reminder that sobriety is not the end goal. Here's what it says:

Sober Is Not Well

....
It is possible that, once relieved of the compulsion to act out our habit, we may feel cured and start coasting along with our tank on EMPTY. But the same personality defects that energized our addiction are still with us and, unattended, will take their toll again, sooner or later. Why are they still with us? Because they are us. Progressive victory over these defects, not their eradication, is the power of God at work in us. What we really do battle against is not other people but our old natures, the negative force within us we can obey anytime we wish, the force that is always willing and able to wrong another. This is why our program must come to fruition in our daily living or there is no recovery. (p. 130-131; final emph. mine)

I started off in SA by going to local meetings and "fellowshipping" with a group of guys after the meeting (hanging out, drinking coffee and eating pie). That was pretty much all I did for what I called "my program". I did read the SA book, and I did have some vague notion that working the Steps was what people who were serious about recovery did, but I was looking for sobriety in the easiest way I could get it, and those 12 Steps looked like really serious work, something I typically avoided. (And no kidding, they are serious work!)

Some people like to say "Step 4 separates the women from the girls and the men from the boys." There's something to that, but stopping short of working all of the Steps all of the way through to the "spiritual awakening" we are promised in Step 12 meant relapse was an inevitability for me. That's because I stopped short of the intended life-changing experience of connecting rightly with God, the Power that would keep me sober by continuing to change my attitudes and my whole life.

The problem for me early on was that any "success" in staying sober was evidence to me that I was getting it right and doing enough. I was under the delusion that I was gaining some level of control back from my powerlessness and unmanageability, and I was "measuring" that by my length of physical sobriety. I was thinking like a child, playing a child's game. ("Hey, look at that; I'm staying sober more days than I'm acting out!") That did not work.

"Sober is not well." And until I committed to working all of the Steps under the direction of a sponsor, I had not even taken Step 3! (My sponsor explained to me that Step 3 was a commitment to working the rest of the Steps.) That did eventually happen, but that was many years later after the "child's game" wasn't any fun anymore, and I was sick of myself and completely defeated in my efforts to do things my way and get "sober" without addressing the wrongs I had done to others and the character defects that kept me doing those wrongs over and over again.

The program of SA is designed to be a life-changing experience. It is in daily actions of living a new life of surrender of my whole self to God that I can be assured of his power over lust and over my character defects that so easily can drag me back down. This statement is so very true: "If I don't change, my sobriety date will."

Conscious Contact with God

(The following is a post from one our our group members.)

Recently in our local in-person meeting we read the Step Eleven chapter in the AA book Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions. Step 11 is all about prayer and meditation: "Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out."

The following quote is from what we read in that chapter (p. 97-98). This was a section that really stood out to me. 

...We liked [S.A.] all right, and were quick to say that it had done miracles. But we recoiled from meditation and prayer as obstinately as the scientist who refused to perform a certain experiment lest it prove his pet theory wrong. Of course we finally did experiment, and when unexpected results followed, we felt different; in fact we knew different; and so we were sold on meditation and prayer. And that, we have found, can happen to anybody who tries. It has been well said that “almost the only scoffers at prayer are those who never tried it enough.”

Those of us who have come to make regular use of prayer would no more do without it than we would refuse air, food, or sunshine. And for the same reason. When we refuse air, light, or food, the body suffers. And when we turn away from meditation and prayer, we likewise deprive our minds, our emotions, and our intuitions of vitally needed support. As the body can fail its purpose for lack of nourishment, so can the soul. We all need the light of God’s reality, the nourishment of His strength, and the atmosphere of His grace. To an amazing extent the facts of A.A. life confirm this ageless truth.

When I started to work the Steps of the program, I was practicing a minimal form of "conscious contact with God". That was pretty much limited to my panicked prayers of surrender of lust to God. I'm not saying that was terribly bad. On the contrary, for me that was absolutely necessary if I was going actually to stay sober. And I'd say that God was very gracious to me through those early days when my prayers were quite utilitarian, begging God to handle my lust, but not really interested in "an unshakable foundation for life." (p. 98) I was still trying to limit what I would let God control, preferring in so many situations to hold onto the control, no matter that my control was an illusion and often resulted in a bad outcome.

I am always encouraged when I remember that other AA literature reminds me that "we claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection." Growth in my conscious contact with God is being made. I now enjoy spending more and more time in conscious contact with God in prayer and meditation. I have found that what starts out as something I feel I should do can become something I want to do if I simply make a commitment and then stick with it. Seems those old-timers in AA actually did know a thing or two.

"Staying Strong"

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

"Staying strong" was definitely my plan when I first stepped foot inside a SA meeting more than 35 years ago. I was looking for a solution to my compulsive use of portnography and sexual acting out. I thought I needed more self-control and strength in order to be able to fight the triggers and temptations. Getting stronger and staying strong was the plan, and I thought that I could figure something out by hanging out with other sexaholics, something that would give me a boost so that I could be in control. If that something was God, that would be ok as well, just as long as I was the one who actually stayed in control. 

Step 1 powerlessness was for me the crux, the tipping point into real recovery. Apparently it took me 20 years of trying to work "my program", my way before I finally had been thoroughly defeated and brought to the end of myself and my effort to exert my own power against lust. I admitted that I had lost the fight, that I was powerless over lust and that my life had become unmanageable. I knew that it would take God's power to set me free from the bondage of my addiction to lust and acting out. And I also had to admit that since my life had become unmanageable, I needed someone else to tell me what to do about the mess that I was in, someone to show me the path to take to find freedom. (Yes, that would be the 12 Steps.)

I often hear fellow members in meetings explaining their plans for what they will do in order to stay sober. Their words bring back memories of what I used to think and say about how I was going to stay sober. It was all just an attempt to become strong by doing what seems to come naturally to addicts: try harder to get control. What I missed (and I think what they are still missing) is that bedrock belief and acceptance of the truth of Step 1: powerlessness. Instead of getting control, I needed to surrender control.

For me, the Power had to come from another source that was not me. And as one of our common readings reminds us: "That One is God. May you find Him now." 

For me, the beginning of recovery was a lot of consciously and intentionally surrendering each and every moment of lust to God. That often seemed like uncountable times a day. I had finally accepted and fully embraced my powerlessness. There was no reason not to fully embrace powerlessness, because it was absolutely true. I "really wanted to stop, but could not." That to me is a really clear explanation of what being powerlessness is. 

So it was no more fighting something more powerful than me. I stopped fighting lust. I began to consciously and consistently surrender every moment of lust to God in prayer, out loud if the setting enabled that. And in doing that, I was learning through experience how to surrender my will and life to God as well (Step 3). And that made all the difference between chronic relapsing and real freedom from lust. 

Doing What Comes Un-Naturally

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

Recently in our group meeting, we read the following section from the Sexaholics Anonymous book.  During this time in our meeting, we also pause to reading to allow members to share their own personal experience with the content. 

---

Doing What Comes Un-Naturally

"Love" is one of the most abused words in the language. That's why we speak not of loving but of taking the actions of love. Just as with faith, love, we discovered, was not a feeling, but attitude in action. We took the actions we knew we should be taking toward others because we did not feel like it. The feelings followed. Love for us is doing—doing what does not come naturally. ....

   We start going to meetings and participating in the fellowship of the program before we feel we want to. We stop sexing, lusting, and resenting before we feel we can. And we start taking the right actions toward others before we feel like doing them naturally. This is the paradox of this "impossible" program.

   How can we do this when we feel so powerless and aren't sure we even want to? We have a God who works, that's why; His business is raising us out of our death! But "faith without action is dead." We receive that power as we take the action, not before.

"A hundred such incidents and I was beginning to learn that the key to doing what did not come naturally was surrender, the key to this whole program. The key to my own happiness. When I distrust my own feelings and just go ahead and do what's right, the miracle happens and I'm out of my dark hole."

   Many of us discovered that once these actions become customary and incorporated in our day-to-day living, we actually begin to change. We become better people and, as a result, happier with ourselves and others. (Sexaholics Anonymous, p146-147)

---

The question gets asked, "How can we do this when we feel so powerless and aren't sure we even want to?" Then the author immediately answers with, "We have a God who works, that's why; His business is raising us out of our death!" 

I notice that the majority of sharing in the some of the meetings I participate in don't mention God. Now that doesn't surprise me very much at all. One of the reminders I've heard over the years is the slogan "If you spot it, you got it." Yeah, that was me too, especially in my early years in SA meetings. 

There was a lot I could talk about when I'd share in meetings, but God wasn't yet the main topic, the main point of the whole program for me. I wanted to figure out for myself what I was going to do to get control of my life, find a way for me to break free from my s-xual acting out. I, myself, my, me. The self-obsession is clear to me now. 

"...The key to doing what did not come naturally was surrender, the key to this whole program." "We have a God who works, that's why; His business is raising us out of our death!"

Surrender did not come naturally to me. It made no sense to me. It seemed to be the opposite of what I needed to do if I wanted to break free from whatever it was that I couldn't stop, couldn't get over, couldn't beat. Just a little more effort on my part, and I'd finally get there. That seemed to make better sense to me.

But no, the SA program said in Step One that I was powerless. And when I finally fully accepted that powerlessness, then, and only then, was I ready to surrender to a God who has all power (Step Three). 

Surrender didn't come naturally. I was doing something that seemed a bit crazy. But when I found that it worked, that God worked, then it became the pattern and eventually the habit. And that has made all the difference. 

Facing the Great Fear

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

In our local group, we are reading our way through the Sexaholics Anonymous book. That has been our pattern ever since we founded the group more than 15 years ago, and we start over each time we get to the end. In a recent meeting we read the following quote from Step Four on page 106.

Without facing the truth about ourselves, there is no hope for lasting sobriety, serenity, and freedom.

"I could never figure out why knowing the truth about God never set me free. Or the truth about psychology or the Twelve Step program. But when I finally came to the place where I saw the truth about me—and despaired. . . . Well, that was the beginning."

What a relief to finally face the great FEAR—ourselves!

As I read this section, it really hit me when it said, "I saw the truth about me--and despaired." Despaired. Yes, I despaired as I looked at myself with enough honesty to see what I had become. But not only what I had become, but that I had to admit that I was hopeless, powerless to do anything about me. 

At that point, it didn't matter anymore what I thought I knew about God or anything else for that matter. What I had to have was a God who would do for me what I could not do for myself. And at that moment, that is all that mattered. 

Facing myself in Step 4 wasn't easy. It was painful. It revealed all sorts of things that I had been afraid of having to face, to honestly admit were true. But without facing that "great fear" head on, there was no way I was going to find freedom from the bondage of lust, the old drug that I had used to keep from having to take that honest look within. 

My sponsor once told me that taking Step 3 was to make the commitment to work the rest of the 12 Steps. That's a really good explanation. Without a commitment to take the next step, to really "face the great fear", there would be no honest working of Step 4. And without the work of Step 4 and all the Steps that followed, there would be no hope for continued sobriety for a sexaholic like me. 

Thank God that the Steps really do work and that God is both good and powerful. Sobriety and recovery really can happen. 

Long-term sobriety is a miracle (and possible)

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

I never thought long-term sobriety would be possible for me. Some people in the first meeting I ever attended already had years of sobriety, and I couldn't even imagine what that would be like. 

Fast forward a couple of decades (yes, it really was decades), there were three things I finally accepted as 100% necessary if I was ever going to find freedom from my slavery to lust: an SA meeting, an SA sponsor, the SA program of working the 12 Steps. 

God was preparing the path for me even when I didn't know what I was going to do. I "providentially" ran into another sexaholic who was also ready to get sober and stay sober, and we started a local meeting by just showing up together and following the meeting guide in the back of the SA book. (It's still my home group.) 

After being reminded by reading the SA book, I went looking for a sponsor who could give me direction to work the SA 12 Step program. Some guy named Ed was willing to be my sponsor if I was really ready and willing to do whatever it took to stay sober and work the SA 12 Steps. I was finally ready, and there is a note in the inside front cover of my SA book that says this: "I am willing to go to any length to stay sober." Ed told me that when I was really ready, I should write that.

I also made a commitment to God in prayer that whatever this guy told me to do, I would do it, even if it killed me. As I followed Ed's direction down the 12 Step path, I found that it really wasn't that complicated if I just did what he directed me to do. But I also discovered that it was very hard work and quite painful at times. Changing a life can be like that. But it was entirely worth it! 

Taking the 12 Steps started me down that path of change, and the 12 Steps gave me the basic tools to continue that process of change by continuing on that path. It is still quite simple, but at times, still quite painful. I've had to grow up. I've had to surrender again and again and again. I've had to do things I really didn't want to but I knew I had to. I've had to sacrifice. Thank God for providing for me as I've continued to have help from the fellowship of my local group, other SA groups, and my spiritual growth partners.

 Through this program, I stay connected to the Power I need to stay sober and free. Without that connection to God, I'd still be a slave to lust. By the grace of God and the help of others, I have long-term sobriety. And that's a miracle.

The Solution

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

Recently our local group read "The Solution" on pages 204-205 in the Sexaholics Anonymous book. Those two pages are a great summary of the process of working the 12 Steps.

I noticed that the first sentence starts with "We saw that our problem...." Yes, we certainly have a problem, a seemingly impossible problem, a problem of being powerless over lust with no way to escape. That was my problem, and my problem brought me to SA.

Fortunately it doesn't stop there, mired in the problem forever. As we read on, my mind drifted to a short paragraph in the first section of the SA book titled "To the Newcomer". Here is that paragraph from page 2: 

"We have a solution. We don't claim that it's for everybody, but for us, it works. If you identify with us and think you may share our problem, we'd like to share our solution with you."

I am so grateful that the SA solution was available to me when I was completely demoralized and without hope of ever being free of my slavery to lust and sexual acting out. As one of our members likes to summarize it, the SA program is to work the 12 Steps as directed by a sponsor within the fellowship of the group. And that worked for me, thank God!

The final paragraph in "The Solution" summary section shows me what we can look forward to when we've have had the promised "spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps" mentioned in Step 12.

"We began practicing a positive sobriety, taking the actions of love to improve our relations with others. We were learning how to give; and the measure we gave was the measure we got back. We were finding what none of the substitutes had ever supplied. We were making the real Connection. We were home."

It feels great to be at home, living in a right connection with God and others. Yes, I did have to walk the Steps to get there, and those Steps were hard work and sometimes painful to take. But it certainly was worth it to find freedom by surrendering to God. 

How fortunate we sexaholics are!

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

"How fortunate we are, then, to be so needy that we have to find what our lust was really looking for—the loving God who is our refuge and our strength." (Sexaholics Anonymous p. 136)

I was shocked the first time I read the line "how fortunate we are, then, to be so needy that we have to find what our lust was really looking for." I saw in this statement that I should consider myself to be fortunate to be a lust addict, and that was not something I was ready to accept. I wished I had never become a sexaholic, and being "so needy" was definitely a blow to my ego. I wanted to solve my problem myself. 

At the beginning, I was not striving after God. I was striving to gain control over something that had me completely under its control, and I saw that as my sexual acting out. But after many years of relapses and of going in and out of SA, I finally reached my own "bottom", my unequivocal admission of total powerlessness over lust. At that moment, I did not feel "fortunate" at all!

But then something surprising happened. By fully accepting and embracing my powerlessness, I found that God had been there all that time, patiently waiting for me to move toward him instead of running from him, always willing to fill that "great void" in my life and give me freedom from lust. 

As the Alcoholics Anonymous book puts it, "God could and would, if he were sought." I doubt I would have ever developed a growing relationship with God if I had not been a sexaholic. And now I can agree that I am indeed fortunate to be so needy that I had to find that kind of God. 

Dealing with Resentments

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

Before I started working the SA program, I didn't know I was a very resentful person. The program Steps as directed by my sponsor ruined that delusion for me. 😆

I agree with the saying that "resentment is the poison I drink hoping the other person will die." That really is my experience with my resentment. It does nothing to harm the other person, but is certainly harms me! It is as much a part of my insanity as lust and sexual acting out ever were. And by comparison, I'm really slow to recognize resentment for what it is when compared to how quickly I can recognize lust showing up. 

My resentment responds to the same surrender process that my lust does. When I recognize what it is, I can surrender it. It becomes easier to surrender it when I have recognized "my part" in the resentment. Things like my selfishness, self-seeking, being inconsiderate, having unrealistic expectations. demandingness, making excuses for myself, holding others to my standards for them (and thus I make myself god), and other character defects all feed into my resentments. By doing an inventory on my resentment, I can see those things in me, and it helps me be willing to surrender the resentment to God when I recognize just how flawed I am, instead of keeping on looking at the other person. And then God can set me free from the burden of myself. 

And as I'm saying all of that, I also recognize and fully admit that there is definitely no "perfection" in my practice when it comes to surrendering resentment. But I am also reminded by our literature that "we claim spiritual progress, not spiritual perfection." Thank God that's true!

Moral Decline

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

I remember very well the progressive nature of my addiction to lust and the increasingly deviant thoughts and behavior that were part of that disheartening moral decline. I crossed many lines and violated personal boundaries that I had claimed I believed for myself. It did me no good to later try to justify and rationalize my character defects. Eventually being overwhelmed by the evidence that I was never going to be free from my slavery to lust and my sexual acting out was what it took to reach the point of despair in which I became willing to go to any length, to do whatever it takes to be set free. I couldn't do that, but God could and would.

The SA book says this stuff better than I can. The whole chapter on "The Spiritual Basis of Addiction" is amazing in its ability to cut through my denial about who and what I had become. Step 4 took me through a "moral inventory" that laid bare the wrongs I had done to myself and others. I had to fearlessly face the person I had become, accept the truth about who I really was, and that process was painful.

From the book: 

"God has apparently not chosen to eradicate my defective self so that I am no longer capable of lust, resentment, fear, and the rest. If he ever did that, I'd have no need of Him; I'd be an automaton. It's progressive victory over my defects that's the name of the game. I myself am what could be called a "sinner." But I take from God the power I do not have in myself to transcend my sins. Victory through powerlessness by the grace of God!

"That's the beautiful paradox of this program: In and through my powerlessness, I receive the power—and love— that come from above.

"And that's the difference between self-denial and surrender. Self-denial—white-knuckling it—brought misery and failure. Acknowledging what I am, surrendering, and relying on God's power bring release, freedom, and joy." (p. 168)

Surrender was the key that I had always been missing. I think that I could not see it because my pride said that I had to take care of this mess myself, that I had to fix myself. But I could not. I was powerless. But thank God that it is "victory through powerlessness by the grace of God!".

Third Step Prayer

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

At our local face-to-face meeting we are reading through the Alcoholics Anonymous book (AABB). In our last meeting, we read through the first half of Chapter 5, How It Works. That section contains the "Third Step Prayer". Here it is from page 63:

"God, I offer myself to Thee--to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of life. May I do Thy will always."

Our local group prays this prayer together almost every week, and that's great. But one of the downsides of repeating something so often can be a tendency to not really think about what we are saying to God about. 

The phrase that stood out to me the most as we read it this time was this: "Take away my difficulties,...." I am asking God to do something for me that seems to me to be something almost everyone would desire if they really believed there was a God who "could and would" do this for them. 

Asking for God to do this for me is an admission of my powerlessness. If I could do it myself, why would I be asking God to do it for me? And when I approach my difficulties with this acceptance that I need God to do this for me, then I can "bear witness" not to what I have done, but for what God has done for me that I could not do myself.

"The Steps never freed anyone...."

 (The following is a personal post from one our our group members.)

I was attending a conference of another Step program recently. Since I had been hosting the keynote speaker in my home, I had a lot of time to talk with him about the freedom we experience as we connect to the Power that frees us from the bondage of our past. It was truly exciting to see how each of us had come to the same place in our journeys even though we had started from two very different perspectives.

He shared a statement in one of his talks that I fully agree with because it has been my experience as well. He said, "The steps have never freed anyone from their bondage; only God can do that." That happened for me as I began to truly experience my own surrender to God and as I continue to grow in that surrender.

When I first started to attend SA meetings a very long time ago, I was not truly ready to surrender to God. What I wanted to do was run my own life my own way and have God boost me up just enough to get over this obsession and compulsion in which I felt so completely bound. I wanted freedom without having to actually surrender anything. But apparently for this addict, and many others I know, this is not possible. I had to surrender to God, and I had to have his power in order to find real freedom. 

I had seen this happening in the lives of some of the members of the SA groups I attended, so I figured they had figured out how to control lust themselves. But when I tried that, it didn't work. The truth is it doesn't work. That's not what they did. What they did was to truly surrender their lust and their will and their life to God. It wasn't the Steps that gave them power, it was God. The Steps showed them a path to connect rightly with God in order to have his power at work in their lives.

And now I can say that I have had that experience as well. God can and will continue to do for me what I can not do for myself as I surrender to and connect with the Power that frees me.

Substitution was no solution

 (The following is a post from one of our group members.)

The first time it occurred to me to substitute some other form of sex to satisfy my lust was when I was approaching marriage. I was already getting sick of all of the porn and sex with self. I hated that I had begun feeling like I was out of control, powerless and in bondage to sex and porn. I figured that if I was having sex with this "real" person (that I was also lusting after), that would certainly satisfy me, and I would be free from looking elsewhere. 

That didn't work. 

It didn't matter what my wife did or didn't do, she was no match for my lust. Lust was insatiable. Lust was the fantasy world as shown to me in the magazines and on the screen and conjured up in my own twisted mind. That was the un-real, as our literature reminds me, and it could not be real no matter how much I wanted it and tried to make it happen. 

I was left with two realistic options: continue to surrender to the overwhelming power of lust, or begin to be freed from lust by surrendering to a Power greater than me and my lust. Yes, I had tried a third option, but now I can see that was never a realistic possibility. I tried to struggle against lust and become powerful enough to win that fight. That was nothing more than continued insanity. 

So after many years of bondage and pain, I finally surrendered to God, got a sponsor, and followed his instructions on how to work all the way through the 12 Steps. And that connected me with God, the Power that could and would free me from my slavery to lust. I had to find what none of the substitutes had ever supplied. I had to find a loving God.

Inadequate, unworthy, alone, and afraid

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

"Many of us felt inadequate, unworthy, alone, and afraid. Our insides never matched what we saw on the outsides of others." (Sexaholics Anonymous, page 203)

I definitely felt "inadequate, unworthy, alone, and afraid" for as long as I can remember. My sexual addiction made all of those feelings far worse. 

When I stopped long enough to look inside, I hated what I saw. And given that self-hatred was not a particularly pleasant feeling, lust and sexual acting out was a quick "pill" for those horrible feelings I had about myself. But then I'd "wake up" out of my latest lust/sex binge and hate myself all the more. Repeat, repeat, repeat ....

My "horribleness" was what drove me away from God and others. I was unacceptable to myself, so how could anyone else accept me, truly love me, if they knew what was really going on inside me and through my acting our behaviors? 

Turns out that my first step in the right direction was to admit that I had completely lost the fight and was completely hopeless if left to myself (powerlessness). Then I dared to consider that if I was to have any hope at all, it would have to come from a God who not only already knew everything about my horrid state of affairs, but who loved me anyway. I had to "come to believe" that God was not as I had imagined him to be. And with that as my confirmed hope, I could turn my will and life over to God who could and would do for me what I could not do myself.

And what about my insides that didn't match what I saw on the outsides of others? I no longer care much about what I see on the outsides of others. I figure that generally they are either faking it just like I was, or they are already growing along spiritual lines and will welcome me to join them. This way of life is so much better!

Acceptance and Step 11

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

 "Until I could accept my [sexaholism], I could not stay sober." (AABB p.417) This specific acceptance was absolutely necessary and foundational to all that has followed. Fighting my lust and my addiction was not only impossible, it made sobriety and the resulting recovery impossible as well. I often share in meetings that I "embraced" my sexaholism. I am a sexaholic; I accept that without reservation; I embrace that reality; I do not attempt to change that truth about myself. And by doing so, I accepted that I had no other option but to work the Steps of SA under the direction of a sponsor in order to become rightly connected with God and others and to live a changed life based on the 12 Step principles. 

One of the ways I continue to do that is to continue a practice that I began more than 12 years ago. Whenever I am triggered from without and tempted from within, I "turn away", take a deep breath and exhale a prayer in conscious contact with God. I say, "God, I surrender this to you, because I can not handle it." I consciously bring God into this moment, this thought, this feeling. Although the God of my understanding is always present with me, I need to consciously bring him into my mind and heart, or I remain alone. This remains a consistent part of my working of Step 11. It is the way in which each trigger and temptation is "redeemed", turned into something positive in my life and recovery. 

By embracing my sexaholism and consciously surrendering every lust temptation, I am set free from lust's power and my fear of it, and instead connected with my loving God. 

Practicing a positive sobriety

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

"The Solution" is a common reading at many local SA groups (SAWB p. 61-62). I really like how the SA program is summed up so well in just two pages. (Of course the book then goes on to walk us through the 12 Steps of the program in the following 93 pages, all worthy of being read and reread many times over.)

We began practicing a positive sobriety, taking the actions of love to improve our relations with others. We were learning how to give; and the measure we gave was the measure we got back. We were finding what none of the substitutes had ever supplied. We were making the real Connection. We were home.

When I first started in the SA program, I was pretty much focused in on myself. In a number of ways, that was what I needed to do. Much of what I was doing was reacting to lust and temptation and doing inventory work on the "wreckage of my past",  I couldn't "give away what I didn't have", and true love for others was not something that I had to give. 

But then again, I could choose to "take the actions of love" regardless of whether or not my motive was right or whether or not I really meant it or whether or not I was having a very negative emotion at the moment. All of those things were just excuses I gave myself for not being a loving person. But choosing to act in what I know would be for the best benefit of the other person, that is something I can do regardless of what else is going on inside of me. 

One tiny example of "taking the actions" for me is when I wash the dishes. My hatred of washing dishes started when I was a teenager both in my parents home and in my first real paying job as a dishwasher in a diner. From that point on, it didn't matter where or when, I did not ever want to wash dishes or help with dish cleanup. And then a "miraculous" thing happened; I developed an allergic reaction to dish soap. ;-)  I now have the perfect excuse for never washing dishes again! 

But the dishes need to be washed, and there are ways to deal with my skin problems. So instead of making excuses for not doing what I don't want to do, I use that as an opportunity to show love to my spouse. I take the action of love, and sometimes even with the right motive, because I now do have something I can give away. And that came as I worked through the Steps under the direction of a sponsor and found that God was doing for me what I could not do for myself. And for that I am grateful.

Fortunate to be a sexaholic

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

The Step 11 section in the Sexaholics Anonymous book says this about "prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God":

"Improve our contact with God? When did we ever have any real contact? Along our journey through Steps One through Ten, unless we were fooling ourselves. Our admission of powerlessness should have been surrender to God. Our change of attitude resulted in commitment of our lives to God. The moral inventory was our admission of what we really were to God. Those thousands of "telegrams" for help—getting moment-by-moment relief from our obsession and defects—was resorting to God instead of to self. And atonement with those we had hurt and estranged marvelously opened the way for restored union with God. 

"Little did we realize that in taking all these actions for survival, sobriety, and serenity, we were finding our God! So long as we held on to our lusts, He was lost to us. But now, with our having torn down the wall of our wrongs, with nothing between, there He was, within. ...

"How fortunate we are, then, to be so needy that we have to find what our lust was really looking for—the loving God who is our refuge and our strength."

Along with being a sexaholic, I have a number of character defects that require the work of the Steps to recover and find freedom from. One of those is an extreme case of "I'll-do-it-myself" (with chin up), even though the evidence of my life shows that when I try to do it myself, I often make a worse mess of whatever it is. It took years of being beaten into having to surrender lust, to finally find freedom, and that would never have happened if I never became a sexaholic. 

So today I no longer regret it when I say, "I am a sexaholic." I embrace the reality that I am so needy and powerless that I have to find God and surrender to his will for my life.

"God, grant..."

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

I really love the concept  of (and experience of) "God, grant..." in our 12 Step recovery program. It shows up in so many forms. I need something God has, and I'm requesting him to give me what I need.

The Serenity Prayer starts out "God, grant...." It then goes on to ask God to give me what I need, but what I don't naturally have in myself. If I already had it, I wouldn't need to ask for it. That's why most of us are praying. We are seeking something from God that we need, including seeking God himself, which actually is our greatest need. 

The ancient root word for "pray" means "ask earnestly, beg, or entreat," That should be what I am doing when I pray, and my inner attitude should align with my earnest request.

I'm thinking about the Third Step Prayer as suggested in the Alcoholics Anonymous book. In that prayer, I ask God to "take away my difficulties,"  and then go on to say "that victory over them may bear witness to Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of life." In my early days of going to SA meetings, I was looking for God to take away just enough of my difficulties so that I would be able to handle the rest in my own power. I still wanted to be in charge of my own life, so I only wanted a little boost. I didn't pay attention to the first part of the Third Step Prayer where I would say "God, I offer myself to Thee--to build with me and do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will." And I definitely wasn't approaching God with the bedrock acceptance that I was indeed "powerless over lust". I wanted the power to wield as I saw fit. I wanted the victory to be mine, not his.  Apparently God wasn't interested in that arrangement, hence my many, many years of defeat and slavery to lust. 

It takes humility to "ask earnestly, beg, or entreat" God (or anyone else). I often hear "I'll do it myself" from the lips of little children, and it's sometimes quite amusing to watch what happens next. But for me, the "fun and games" had long-since ended, and the results of years of pride and failure wasn't funny at all. I needed to have a change of heart, to develop a willingness to ask for help and be willing to align my behavior and attitudes with whatever God was willing to grant.  

Thank God that he actually wants me to "succeed". I needed saving. I needed a Power greater than myself that could and would do for me what I couldn't do myself. And I needed the humility to "ask earnestly, beg, and entreat" God to do all of that. And he has. 

Sobriety Milestones

 (The following post is the experience of one of our group members.)

In my earliest days of SA meeting attendance, I reported my length of sobriety along with everyone else at our local face-to-face meeting. So it was something that I tracked for that purpose if nothing else. But when I started to get longer lengths of sobriety, I did become prideful of "my achievement", and that attitude was a disaster waiting to happen. As expected, disaster did happen, with many years of relapsing and "going back out there" as the consequence.

In my earliest home group, some of the "old-timers" with longer lengths of sobriety started to introduce themselves by saying "I'm sober today" as a way to avoid making people with shorter lengths of sobriety feel "uncomfortable." Acting like I was following their lead, I started using that same "I'm sober today" line as a way to hide that I wasn't maintaining sobriety at all. (Everything really does boil down to my own attitudes and motives.) But when it got discussed at a group conscience meeting, the clear consensus from those of us with shorter terms of sobriety was that we needed to know that long-term sobriety was desirable and, more importantly, was truly possible. 

In my current period of sobriety, I had finally accepted that I was truly powerless over lust (Step 1). And with that admission, I had fully accepted that "my sobriety" was a gift from God, since I myself am powerless over lust. There is nothing to feel prideful about when all I am doing is accepting the work of God in my life through surrendering that which I am powerless over. 

Today I would say that more times than not, I have slid past my anniversary date without recognizing it until I introduce myself at the next meeting and am a bit surprised that yet another year has passed. 

Today I know that there is no "good reason" for me to ever act out again. Certainly I can start making a whole series of really bad choices that once again separates me from God and his power actively working in my heart and mind. And if I do that, I am most certainly well on my way to a relapse. But if I continue making the principles of this program my daily lifestyle, there is every reason to believe that God will continue to do for me what I cannot do for myself.  That is simply part of his loving nature.  And that still happens one day at a time, regardless of how many days that totals up to be.

I Am Not Strong

(The following post is the experience of one of our group members.)

Almost 12 years ago I "hit bottom". I finally admitted and embraced the reality that I was not only not strong, but that I was powerless over lust. The difference on that day from all the other previous days when I had regretted my sexual acting out was that I finally gave up the delusional idea that I could ever become strong enough to win the fight over lust. My only option to be free from my slavery to lust was to have some other Power to set me free from the power that lust had over me. That Power is God, and God can and will do that for me.

Working the SA 12 Step program did not make me strong enough to fight lust. Instead of taught me how to connect rightly with God through surrendering my lust and my will and life to him. When I live correctly in relationship to God and to others, I stay sober and I continue to be set free from the power of lust.

I had to give up the delusion that I could become strong. I don't need to be strong, but I do need to be connected to Power. That is my experience as a sexaholic, as a person recovering from an addiction to lust.