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."

Sponsorship and thinking I know better

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

When I first started going to SA meetings, I heard that I should get a sponsor. So I did, more than one. Long story short, sponsorship didn't work for me.

They typically didn't tell me things I wanted to hear when I asked them questions. They had suggestions and directions that I didn't think I needed to hear or do. I thought I was smart enough to figure out how to work the program myself. I "knew" what I needed better than they did, because I knew myself better than they did, or so I thought

Long story short, I didn't find lasting sobriety and real recovery. My ideas, plans, understanding, and efforts didn't work. My chronic relapsing was the proof that I actually didn't know what I thought I did, and I couldn't get sober and stay sober and find freedom my own. My brilliance wasn't working.

What changed? I became desperate enough through my failures to become humble just enough to ask for help and finally give up and do what I was told. I had the change of attitude our literature talks about forced on me. That didn't happen because I somehow made myself better and stronger so that I could somehow make this happen. No, I became weaker and more helpless to the point I was finally willing to admit I had been thoroughly beaten with no other hope than to ask for help and do what I was told. I was desperate and defeated, not hopeful and victorious. I finally gave up my way and surrendered to someone else's.

"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." (SAWB p.81)

That's what happened, and yes, it's what I needed to have happen. Good thing someone was still willing to sponsor me, and good thing "God could and would if he were sought."

A Simple Program

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

My sponsor likes to say this about the SA program: "It's a simple program for complicated people." I really like that, especially because it is very true.

I spent a lot of time "in SA" but not working the Steps under the direction of a sponsor. I wanted to work them my way. I didn't stay sober. I wasn't happy, joyous, and free from the bondage of my addiction.

Everything changed when I had been thoroughly defeated by the addiction, and I had no other option but to give up and do what the sober members had done: work the 12 Steps under the direction of a sponsor.

Yes, it is God who keeps me sober. But working the Steps as my sponsor directed me to do them brought me to a right relationship with that God. And I can now say that I am happy, joyous and free!

Even though it is a simple program, it does work, if you work it.

Pain is good

(This is a personal post by one of our members.)

Some other people's sharing got me thinking about my own weakness. I certainly am weak. All I have to do is look at the power that lust has over me, and I know I'm weak. That's the obvious one.

I'm glad it became obvious. That's why I finally "got" Step One. It was like being hit over the head by a big stick until the pain brought about enough realization that I was not only weak, but completely powerless. And I'm very OK with that today.

I think that the natural and spiritual consequences that exist in this world eventually catch up with at least some of us, and we finally "get it". That's been true of me. My own experience with God leads me to believe that it is gracious of him to withhold any special protection for me when I'm rebelling against him and harming others. I don't experience it as God particularly causing the specific painful consequence, but as him allowing what naturally follows to happen without intervening to protect me from it. How else am I ever going to know that something has gone terribly wrong, that I'm not living as I should? Pain is good.

In the same way as it doesn't do children any good to have their parents spoil them by making sure they never experience any pain (physical or otherwise) and always get what they want, it wouldn't do me any good to have a God who made sure I never experienced the consequences of my attitudes and actions.

But the amazing thing about God is that he's capable of redeeming anything that has happened in my life. Not that the consequences are gone and everything is completely fixed, but that he can use those things to bring about growth in me and even to help others as I surrender all of that to him and let him direct my life for me.

Taken by Step One

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

SA's Step One: "We admitted that we were powerless over lust -- that our lives had become unmanageable."

On page 87 of the Sexaholic Anonymous "White Book" it goes on to says this:

This is why "telling all" is not taking the First Step. Such confession can be anything from boastful replay to anguished dumping or intellectual analysis. And even then, it's not really "all" and often is only surface material. In truth, we don't "take" the First Step; it takes us. It overtakes us. And if it hasn't yet, hopefully it will. The sickness and punishment sexaholism produces inside us keep pounding us until we're ready to give up, let go, and know we are powerless over lust.

The first time I made an effort to work Step One was probably back in 1989. I had a look at some material about how to do it, asked a few questions, and then proceeded to try to do it my way by writing out a "Step One Inventory". I polished it up, and with quite a few months of sobriety already (it might have been a whole year), I shared what I had written in our local meeting. I can look back and see that person and remember the pride with which I shared that inventory, basking in the attention of the group, receiving the "good job" congratulations after the meeting ended.

But regardless of how well I had followed the formula to prepare and share, I had not yet taken the First Step. And it should come as no surprise that I had many more years of relapses and acting out ahead of me before I would finally have a true Step One experience. As with everything else in this program, it's an inside job and it all starts with proper attitude that will then lead to proper action. Step One happens in the heart.

When I returned to SA more than six years ago, I was a very different man. I had been beaten. I had been humiliated (but not yet humble). I had already been to the point of despair. I had several months of tenuous sobriety when I finally became just humble enough to ask for someone to sponsor me. I knew that my ongoing sobriety and true recovery depended on working the Steps the way that had worked for some other SA who was sober and in recovery. I knew I needed help, and I needed to stop relying on myself, because I was powerless over lvst and my life had become unmanageable. I knew I had to take direction and do what I was told was good for me whether I understood it or not.

So six years ago when I started with my sponsor, in all honesty it didn't really matter what he suggested I do to work Step One. My Step One experience was already done. Rather than me doing anything, it had happened to me. The admission was already complete. I had been taken.

Getting Started in SA - A Personal Story

(This is a post from a member of our group.)

I "got started" in SA twice. The first time was way back when I was in my 20's.  I heard about SA, I found out where there was a meeting, and I went.  It was great.  I found lots of people like me.  

There were also a smaller number of people at the meeting who were not like me.  They were the sober ones.  They had recovery.  They had peace and joy.  They certainly did understand how it was for me, because they had been through the same experiences as me, and those experiences brought them to SA just like me.  But in SA, they had found a real solution.

I had not yet found a solution.  And so for the next 20 years, I went in an out of SA meetings, dabbling in the Steps, and relapsing often.  Sometimes I'd just give up entirely and resolve to the fact that I was never going to change.  At other times I tried a combination of SA meetings and other religious and counseling help.  Nothing I tried and nothing I came up with worked.

There came a day five and a half years ago when I "got started" all over again.  But this time was different.  I had finally had enough.  I had finally reached the point that our SA book talks about where I "really wanted to stop, but could not".  I was defeated, I was broken, I was hating myself, I was hopeless, and I was helpless.  Recovering people refer to this as a "pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization."  It was painful. And when that happened, I finally gave up doing things my way, surrendered to God by committing to find a sponsor and do whatever he told me to do.  And I knew enough to know that meant I'd be working the 12 Steps under his direction. 

How can someone get started in SA?  Go to meetings, find a sponsor who's worked the Steps and has what you want, and commit to doing whatever that sponsor says.  It's really that simple to get started in the SA program of recovery.

Despair quickly! - A Personal Story

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

In a meeting I heard another member share: 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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