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.

Not knowing why

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

Sometimes I just have no idea why things are the way they are. For example, I was on a long solo bike ride the other day. From something like 20k into it, I started having a lot of intrusive sexual images and thoughts just pop up into my head from seemingly nowhere. (Actually the "nowhere" is obviously my own head.) I wasn't seeing any triggering images around me. I wasn't struggling with resentment or other character defects. Bike riding long distance is not atypical for me. There really wasn't any special explanation for what was happening.

...That is, no special explanation other than the undeniable fact that I am a sexaholic. It shouldn't surprise me at all that sometimes my brain will flip certain switches without me having any idea why, switches that bring back a lot of junk to my consciousness that I'd rather not think about anymore, junk that I used to think was fun to fantasize about and obsess over. Junk I don't want anymore.

I recall the clear sound of certainty and seriousness in the voice of one of the SA old-timers as he said one simple sentence that has stuck with me ever since: "I don't want to lust anymore." There was resolve in that voice, each word spoken with intent and force. He was done with it. He wanted no more of it. That feeling and resolve fit the description our literature when it says, "Until we had been driven to the point of despair, until we really wanted to stop but could not, we did not give ourselves to this program of recovery. Sexaholics Anonymous is for those who know they have no other option but to stop, and their own enlightened self-interest must tell them this." (SAWB p. 202)

Although my bike ride seemed like an unlikely situation to have those thoughts, although I would not have chosen to have that happen if I had any control over it, I was not forced to respond to those thoughts either with indulgence or with fear. I've been working this program and living a new life for long enough now to know that God is faithful, and he will do for me what I can't do for myself. I have enough experience to know that this too would pass and that I could count on God to receive from me that which I truly surrendered to him.

External triggers may come my way. Memories and old thought might return at any moment. Temptations may arise at any time and in any place. I might not ever know why. But surrendering all of that, including my will and life to God, means that I am connected to a Power that will keep me sober and free. And I love being free!

Just One Bad Choice - A Personal Story

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

I always remember that I am just one bad choice away from acting out again sexually. But that's an OK place for me to be at this point in my life. And that's because my choice is actually not what I previously thought it was.

I used to think that I could choose to not lust or act out. But I lost the ability to make that choice somewhere on my way to becoming a sexaholic. Since I am a sexaholic, I am powerless to fight lust and sexual acting out. And since I am a sexaholic, I can't be strong when it comes to lust and sexual acting out. I am weaker than lust; it beats me every time.

But what I do still seem to have the "strength" to do is to just give up and surrender. In my powerlessness, I just ask God to accept the lust that is starting to form in my mind as I let go of it and surrender it to Him. I then go and do the next right thing, or to ask God what His will is for me and then go and do that.

I used to try to fight the battle against lust in my own strength.  But when I failed at that enough times to finally give up trying to fight and trying be strong, then I was finally ready for the SA solution: surrender (including surrendering to work the 12 Steps as directed by my sponsor).

So my potential "one bad choice" would be to choose to try to fight lust instead of surrendering lust to God and surrendering myself to His will. As long as I'm surrendered to Him, I really don't have anything to worry about, because I will stay sober.

As the AA literature reminds me, "God could and would if He were sought."