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. 

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. 

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.

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. 

"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. 

SA Membership Requirement

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

Since "the only requirement for membership [in SA] is a desire to stop lusting and become sexually sober", it must be something very important for me (and anyone else who wants to join SA).  But the importance and the actual meaning of those words was not something I honestly accepted when I showed up at my first SA meeting in 1989. My desire was not to "stop lusting". My desire was to get control over my acting out behavior. I erroneously believed that sexual acting out behavior was my real problem, and if I could get control over that, I would have succeeded in my purpose for showing up at meetings. 

And at first, I started to "succeed". I'd only act out each week the day after the SA meeting just so that I could say that I had some "sobriety" the next time I showed up at the meeting, (Yes, pride is one of my character defects.) Eventually I started to string together longer periods of "sexual sobriety", and even achieved a year of sobriety at one point before crashing and burning and relapsing as a consistent pattern.  I stopped any regular attendance at SA meetings and the progressive nature of my addctn took its natural course. I became a "true addct", I had completely "lost control" instead of achieving my purpose of gaining control. 

But wanting to  be "in control" is precisely the opposite of "surrender". And surrender is what I needed, even if I didn't want it. What I truly needed was to have God in control of my life, a Power greater than me and greater than lust, One who "could and would" restore me to sanity and keep me sober and free of lust's bondage. I needed a right relationship with God, but that had to come on his terms, which is why he is God and I am "not God". 

For me to really "desire to stop lusting", I had to be beaten thoroughly, to lose the fight, to "give up, let go, and let God." I had to become thoroughly sick and tired of myself and to finally acknowledge that the problem was me, the problem was in my heart, not in my behavior. I needed a change of heart, and God was willing to do that when I surrendered to him. And when I had finally lost the fight and began to experience an attitude of surrender, I became willing to work all 12 Steps as directed by a sponsor. And that led to a "spiritual awakening" and a "happy and joyous freedom" I could otherwise never know. 

Step 12 - Carrying the message

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

My Step 12 experience is that in order for me to continue to live in this new life I've been given as the result of having worked the Steps and having had a spiritual awakening, I am going to continue to grow by trying to carry the message of recovery to other sexaholics (and to practice the principles of our program in all my affairs). Through this program, God saved me out of the mire in the pit of addiction to lust and sexual acting out that I had jumped into. My feet are now on solid bedrock, and I can continue to "trudge the road of happy destiny" as I continue to follow God. That is the message I can carry to other sexaholics. And it is a message that I must carry, must give away, if I want to continue to grow along spiritual lines.

That message is really not about me. It's about what happened to me as I simply continued to surrender to God and follow the direction of a sponsor to work the program. It's not about me and what I did right, because what got me into SA in the first place was doing everything wrong. It's a story about being saved by Someone else. Someone else is the Hero in my story.

A drowning person doesn't get saved by a lifeguard and then goes out telling the story about how they saved themself (unless they are a liar). Surrender is to stop fighting the Lifeguard and do what he tells me to do. God says to me, "Trust me, don't struggle, relax, I got this, give up, let go, and let me."  Before recovery, I wanted to do it myself (pride). But it was "myself" that got me into this mess in the first place. It was my core self-centeredness. Carrying the message is not self-centered. That message is God-centered and must be freely given to others as it was freely given to me. 

Going back to Step 1

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

I was listening to another sexaholic sharing about how he was "going back to Step 1" because of his recent relapse. I could relate. I did this many times in my early years of going to SA meetings. I had to do this because there was something still missing in my Step 1 experience (and experience is different from knowledge). 

As the Sexaholics Anonymous book reminds me, the truth is that I must be "taken by Step 1". For me that was at the point of complete despair, the "incomprehensible demoralization" the Alcoholics Anonymous book talks about. That was when I fully admitted and fully embraced the belief that I was powerless over lust and that in my own power I remain powerless over it for the rest of my life. I no longer had any delusion that I could work hard enough to gain power over lust. It is as if powerlessness had become part of my DNA, not something I could change by any effort of my own.

I have not  "gone back to Step 1" once I started really working the SA 12 Step program. I started working the program in earnest under the direction of a sponsor not long after I had been "taken by Step 1". Since then I have not relapsed. But I have not doubted for one minute that I am still powerless over lust. How can that be? The only wayt to explain it is to experience a Power greater than myself and greater than lust who is at work in me.  And if God were to withdraw his power, I would be lost. And that is where the rest of the Steps become so crucial as a path to a right relationship with God, a means by which I can stay "plugged into" God.

Here's that section from the AABB (p. 30) that reminds me of my ongoing powerlessness, edited to fit my particular "drug of choice":

"We sexaholics are men and women who have lost the ability to control our lusting. We know that no real sexaholic ever recovers control. All of us felt at times that we were regaining control, but such intervals - usually brief - were inevitably followed by still less control, which led in time to pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization. We are convinced to a man that sexaholics of our type are in the grip of a progressive illness. Over any considerable period we get worse, never better."

An Easy Burden

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

There was a difference between what I thought I had to do and what I ended up doing to find sobriety, recovery, and freedom.

What I thought I had to do was to find a few key ideas that I could implement in my life to take care of this one problem that I had of sexual acting out. What I actually had to do was to give my life to God (surrender it) and allow him to change whatever he wanted to about it. That process is still ongoing and progressive.

I started out wanting to maintain my position as the lord of my own life, but I perceived that I had this one glaring problem, my sexual acting out, and to that I was seemed to be a slave. I wanted to become strong enough to master my own impulses, to be able to fight a battle and win it myself, to be able to lust without consequence.

What I had to do was to admit defeat, admit that I could never become strong enough to master myself. I had to find a true Lord of my life who was Master over all, a Power that could and would do for me what I could not do for myself. The program of the 12 Steps gave me a path to follow to connect rightly with that Lord and Master, to be open to the work of his Power in me to do the impossible in me.

What I had wanted was a few simple actions I could take that required no serious commitment on my part to real change. I feared real change, because I perceived it would require me to give up things I didn't want to let go of and to do other things I really didn't want to do. (About that I was correct.)  The program people said, "We beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start."  When someone starts with that as the intro, you might want to pay attention to what comes next!

What changed for me that finally pushed me off the top, that finally broke me and my will, that finally made the idea of Someone else running my life look truly appealing? For me it was the internal, spiritual pain of loneliness and self-loathing, the demoralization that the program people talk about. It was the recognition that I was completely in bondage to lust with no way out in my own strength.

It turned out to be a sweet defeat. That's where I found God waiting for me.

The path to defeat was easy. All I had to do was to run my own life, my way, do whatever I thought was right and best for me, and follow after the pleasures of lust. Easy; anyone can do that! But the consequences were devastating.

The path to recovery turned out to be far easier than I had feared it would be. Yes, it was hard work to be "fearless and thorough" from the very start. Yes, there were times of painful recognition of who I had become and what I had done. Yes, there was the admission of wrongs and the humbling of making amends. Yes, "clearing away the wreckage" of my past took effort. Yes, I no longer had an "easy" drug to temporarily dull the pain that reality brought to me when I stopped living in the illusion. But it has been far, far easier to live life this way than the constant pain and fear and harm that my old way of life was loading me down with, a burden I could never bear.

Through following the SA road to recovery, Someone lifted that unbearable burden from me. His "burden" of living rightly connected to God and others is light. I am never sufficiently grateful.

"My" recovery plan

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

Something I heard recently at a meeting caught my attention. The person was talking about having a recovery plan. I got to thinking about all the recovery plans I had made for myself.

No, they didn't work. If I had to boil it down to the main reason, they didn't work because they didn't make the surrender of my will and life to the care of God the very most important decision that had to be made. Those plans were all designed by me to keep me in control of my own life. They were supposed to make me strong enough to stand up to lust, take control of lust, and use just as much lust as I wanted without things going too far.

Insanity! Lust is my drug. I am a sexaholic, someone addicted to lust. I can't plan on controlling it or controlling myself (managing the unmanageable) without another Power coming to bear on my  problem.

That Power is God.  Connecting with that Power is the purpose of the 12 Steps. The "recovery plan" has already been laid out in plain language for anyone who is ready to take direction from a sponsor and work the program as it is suggested by AA/SA. I didn't come up with it, but I worked it. And it works!

Surrendering to Reality

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

On page 81 of the Sexaholics Anonymous book is a paragraph which just happens to be my favorite quote from the book.

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. 

It seems that in the 12 Step program, "surrender" can be defined very well by those phrases, "give up, let go, and let God".

We were studying Step 3 in group the other night, and the idea of turning away from lust and turning toward God really fit well for me. There has been plenty of turning in my experience of recovery. But because the deepest core of my addiction is not my outward behaviors, but is my inner attitudes and character and beliefs, the crucial turning, the necessary attitude change of unconditional surrender, had to take place for lasting sobriety to take root in my life. Everything else I had done for decades before to try to gain freedom in my own was doomed to failure because I had never surrendered to God as a core change of attitude. Step 3 had never truly happened because I still thought I had some power over lust. And if I didn't have to surrender to God, why would I? (I am not a saint.)

I had to surrender my fantasy world that I had counted on to immediately give me everything I wanted with no negative consequences. That world was not reality. That is not how the real world works. Escaping from reality into my fantasy world was my drug to deal with everything that I found unpleasant in the real world. And I needed something other than just another drug to replace my fantasy as the "solution" to all my problems. The real world was not going to change; I had to change!

I "came to believe" in a Reality at the core of all that is real. I came to believe that Reality not only has the power to free me from my bondage to lust, but to free me from the bondage of myself, my selfishness and self-seeking, and a myriad of other character defects as well. And all I had to do was to surrender to that Reality. The reality is that I am not god. But the reality also is that a loving God is real and desires to free me from the bondage of self that I may better do his will.

Fighting it alone

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

A thought rearranged itself in my brain. It was this: whenever I was fighting lust and my sexual obsessions and compulsions, I was alone.

I'm not saying that I was not in the physical presence of other people. But I can be in a crowd and still be alone. I can be alone in my own head, with my own thoughts, connected to no one, alone.

But when I am surrendering to God, surrendering my temptations and triggers and lust, I am not alone. I am talking to God. I am connecting with him. I am recognizing the reality that he is present with me (as he always is whether I recognize it or not).

When I was acting out with porn and sexually, I would lie to myself that I was alone, that God was not there. Then I began to believe that lie and act as if it were true. I was in my insanity tying to wish God out of existence so that I could be alone. The consequences of that delusion were devastating.

Then when I decided I'd had enough of being in bondage to lust and my sexual obsessions and compulsions, I still continued to act as if God was not there. I was powerless over lust, but couldn't see the obvious conclusion that if I was powerless, I could not fight against lust and win. Fighting lust was yet another way for me to be alone, to do it myself. So I fought that harder and harder. But that didn't work at all, and eventually led to that sweet despair that made me ready to have a change of attitude and belief.

I had felt like I was between a rock and a hard place. So instead of fighting both lust and God. I decided to surrender to the "Rock" and let him take care of my will and my life and lust as well. Ever since then, I purposefully and consciously "bring God into" my life, and my problems, and my temptations and my joys and my daily routine.

I no longer even try to fight lust. I surrender it to the One who can take care of it. I am never alone.

The Maze of Addiction

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

Being an addict can feel like you are in a maze. And trying to start recovery can feel the same way, especially when you think you are headed in the right direction, but something's still wrong. The Sexaholics Anonymous book puts it this way:

All this was scary. We couldn't see the path ahead, except that others had gone that way before. Each new step of surrender felt it would be off the edge into oblivion, but we took it. And instead of killing us, surrender was killing the obsession! We had stepped into the light, into a whole new way of life. (p. 61)

When I started out in the SA program, it was like I was in the middle of a maze of really high bushes. I first started in SA by going to local face-to-face meetings. I didn't have a clue about what eventually was going to be needed to get out of the maze I had lost myself in. I needed help, because I "couldn't see the path ahead." That I thought I could see the path clearly enough to take it on my own was part of the insanity that kept me from taking the Steps in the right direction right from the beginning. So I wandered around in that maze, mostly taking one or two steps in some direction that looked good to me, but then returning to my starting point having made no real progress for all my effort.

There were people in the meetings who clearly had gotten out of the maze. They were at peace. They seemed to be somewhere above the maze, able to look down at it from some other vantage point, able to describe the path out that they had taken.

I wanted to be where they were, but I also wanted to find my own way out of the maze, to "self-help" my own path out. For me that mostly meant shuffling around a bit with the first Step or two of the program, doing little more than kicking up a little dust. I definitely wasn't ready or willing to take each Step in the same way that those others who had gone before me had taken them.

When I finally got sick enough of myself, I was ready to become just humble enough to take the Steps out of the maze as someone else suggested I take them. That "someone" was what our program calls a sponsor. And the Steps he led me through brought me into a right and growing relationship with God, the one Power that could and would keep me sober and restore me to sanity, one day at a time.

SA has a solution. We admit it's not for everyone, but it does work. It is summarized and introduced in the section from which I copied that one paragraph above. That section is called "The Solution", introduced on pages 61-62 of the SA book. As good as reading about it is, what really works is taking the 12 Steps under the direction of a sponsor and having a "spiritual awakening" to God, which really is the whole point of the program, even if I didn't understand that from the beginning, and even if I didn't believe it from the beginning.

Am I willing to go to any length?

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

I found myself fully confronted with this question back when I started working the Steps in earnest with a sponsor. Up until that time, I had been willing to settle for periodic "lengths" of sobriety. Because I'm an addict and quite insane when I'm lusting, I had figured that was good enough. Proving I could make progress in my fight against lust meant I would stay in the addiction a lot longer than I would have if I had just admitted from the start that I couldn't do this.

So having failed yet again after a really good stretch of sobriety, I was smacked in the face once again with the reality that I was truly hopeless if left to my own ideas and effort, and I didn't know what to do about that. It must be that enough "enlightened self-interest" kicked in, and I finally went looking for a sponsor who could tell me what to do. That was the first good choice I made in the process of becoming "willing to go to any length".

I remember upon receiving my sponsor's offer of sponsorship that I prayed to God and said, "I will do whatever he tells me, even if it kills me." Granted that I was pretty sure he wouldn't tell me to do something that actually killed me, but that was the second good choice I made in the process of becoming "willing to go to any length".

As my sponsor started directing me through working the Steps, he told me that when I was ready, I should write in the front of my AA book the date and the words, "I am willing to go to any length to stay sober." That was the third good choice I made.

When he led me through Step 3, he told me that Step 3 was a commitment to work the rest of the Steps. That was the fourth good choice I made along the path of being "willing to go to any length" to connect rightly with God and others, and to be given freedom from lust and the obsessions and compulsions.

So for me the SA program of going to any length to work the Steps as a path to connect rightly with God really has worked. And I'm very confident at this point that if I stay in that path and continue to grow along spiritual lines through a life that is progressively surrendered to God, I will continue to receive God's gracious gift of sobriety, recovery and freedom.

It's Not Self-help

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

When I started out attending SA meetings, I was still thinking for myself and not ready to listen. I was looking for some ideas that I could pick from others to give me a set of tools that I could use to solve my own problem in my own way. I wanted to "help myself" to just as much of the program as I thought I wanted. I was still being my own god.

Sure, I've heard the 12 Step program (AA/SA) referred to as a "self-help" program plenty of times. It's not.

What the program is for me is a "God will" program. My part in this is to surrender to his will for me, moment by moment, and let him do whatever he wants with my life. Step 3 says that I made a decision to turn my will and my life over to care of God. The rest of the Steps are about keeping me in that attitude of surrender to God as a pattern for life. And as I've experienced how to stay connected rightly with God by working through all of those Steps, I know I can trust that "God will" continue to do for me what I cannot do, and to do with me whatever he thinks best.

The "self" in all of this is simply that which I must surrender to God. Sure, we will say it's "progress not perfection". But it's pretty hard to make good progress when you start out headed in the wrong direction. The 12 Steps, worked under the direction of a sponsor and not just my own sick thinking, are in the right direction.

A new life vs. substituting another problem

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

The reason why lust and sexual acting out are so attractive to me is because they are so very powerful at what they do in me. Initially they were my "solution" to other problems. Eventually I became addicted to them, and they failed to be solutions and became their own problems. But I didn't have an alternative "solution" that would work and not enslave me just as lust and sexual acting out had done.

The reason there is such a variety of 12 Step groups for a variety of addictions is because all of those "alternate solutions" are also addictive. I'm quite sure I would very quickly enslaved by anything I used to "substitute" for lust and sexual acting out. That of course is my natural tendency, so I have had to find a real solution instead of a substitute that would also become my next problem.

That real solution is the "spiritual awakening" that Step 12 refers to. It is the right connection with God and others. It is a new way of life. It is living life on life's terms. It is accepting reality that includes hardship and pain instead of always believing I should have a way of escape into a fantasy world of my own making. And the amazing thing about God is that he is a master that doesn't enslave me. He only accepts what I willingly give to him. I am free to take my will and life back at any time that I might foolishly decide to make that insane decision.

That new life was the result of surrendering to God and working the Steps under the direction of a sponsor. The program works when I work it. And I believe it will work for others as well.