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. 

"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.

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. 

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.

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.

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 delusion that I can fight

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

When I started in SA, I was still talking about the struggle and fight against lust. That made all the sense in the world to me at that time. I figured if I didn't struggle against lust and the desires, obsessions, and compulsions, there's no way I could ever stop my acting out. I was wrong.

Step One tells me that I have to admit powerlessness over lust. But my ongoing struggle against lust meant that I still believed that I had some power over lust. So I had never even gotten through Step One! My actions, my effort to fight lust, proved I had not yet admitted my powerlessness over lust.

SA actually offers a completely different solution. It never suggests fighting against lust. It would be a contradiction if it did so. The problem isn't what the SA program is telling me to do. The problem is me and what I am trying to do. I've not understood. I've got it wrong. I've done it wrong. I don't have the power to do it right. But God does.

The SA solution is to surrender to God, the One who has all power. Surrender is not fighting or struggling. When I surrender, I "simply give up, let go, and let God" (SAWB p. 81).  The 12 Steps are the path to get rightly connected with God, and those Steps do work if I work them. God can and will do for me what I cannot do for myself. But I had to stop fighting both lust and God in order to be set free from the tyranny of lust by living surrendered to God.

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.

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.

"The Toughest Act in Town"

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

Steps 1-3 brought me into the SA program (vs. just participating in meetings). Steps 4-9 under the guidance of a sponsor took me though the process of reconciling with my past and connecting rightly with God and others. Steps 10-12 keep me in right relationship with God and others and show me a path ahead to keep growing spiritually.

The Sexaholics Anonymous book introduces Steps 4-10 by titling them "The Toughest Act in Town". (p. 97)  Nobody is saying these Steps are not hard work! But I agree wholeheartedly that they are necessary for real growth to happen (vs. just working Steps 1-3 and just staying sober). "Sadly, many men and women with years of physical sobriety in Twelve Step programs never make the breakthrough into the heart of the program and true recovery. The biggest obstacle seems to be Steps Four through Ten—the core substance of the program." (SAWB p. 97)

Steps 4-9 provided me with some painful experiences, completely necessary pain if I was ever going to grow up and face reality. The thorough inventory work on my past (Step 4), confession of my wrongs to myself, God and my sponsor (Step 5), and facing my many character defects honestly enough to really want to be rid of them (Step 6), could not be called "happy days".  But finishing that process by taking it through to the direct amends to others in Step 9 meant that I really could "clear away the wreckage" of my past.

I no longer have to hide from myself and other. I know I can admit my wrongs to myself, God and others. I know that God loves me and will continue to do for me what I can't do for myself. I know that I have done (am doing) what I can to make things right with others. That "dreadful load of guilt" has dropped from my shoulders. I can "lift my head, look the world in the eye, and stand free." None of that could have happened without working Steps 4-9.

Selfishness and being a victim

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

Here's an important principle for me to remember: "Selfishness - self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles. Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity, we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate. Sometimes they hurt us, seemingly without provocation, but we invariably find that at some time in the past we have made decisions based on self which later placed us in a position to be hurt." (AABB p. 62)

Before working the Steps of this program, I was pretty good at living in the self-delusion that I wasn't really being selfish, because I could convince myself (and often others as well) that I was the one who was wronged. I could point out that I had the right to stand up for myself and protect myself. I was in the right and didn't deserve the treatment that I got.

Doing Step 4 inventory work and sharing that with my sponsor helped change that delusion. By the time I reached the final column on the inventory sheet, everything else had been stripped away, and I was only left with admitting my wrongs in each and every situation. In the end, it didn't matter what anyone else had done. It was clear that "selfishness - self-centeredness" was at the root of my troubles, even when I had convinced myself that I had been wronged and had a right to hold onto my resentment.

The SA program is all about working the 12 Steps. My experience is that working those Steps really was the start of a new way of life in which I'm set free from lust and selfishness as I surrender those to God. The Steps have led to a "freedom I could otherwise never know."

Hope for Freedom

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

One of the greatest hopes in recovery for me has been the realized hope for freedom. I say "greatest", because I didn't believe it was possible for me to have freedom from the obsessions and compulsions of my addiction. As an addict, I am powerless over lust, so what hope could I have? As I sat in meetings in the earlier years, the majority of us were still showing up week after week to report on our latest acting out episodes. I was definitely part of the majority. The majority clearly had no hope for freedom.

But there it was in the literature: "If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness." (AA The Promises)  "We discovered that we could stop, that not feeding the hunger didn't kill us, that sex was indeed optional. There was hope for freedom, and we began to feel alive." (SA The Solution)  And there it also was in the experience of the few. There were of course those few members who somehow had realized the "hope for freedom" that the rest of us said we wanted, but never saw happen.

As for me (and I suspect for the others in the majority as well), I now know that it was because I still wanted to play with lust, but not have to suffer the consequences. I wanted to be free from lust's power, but still depend on my own power to win the battle. I wanted God's help, but still wanted to avoid turning my will and life over to Him. I wanted to be rid of the habit, but still be able to keep the rest of my life running on my terms. ("If we want the old life intact, simply minus the habit, we don't really want healing, for our sickness is the old way of life." SAWB Step 12)

Immersing myself in the literature, going to meetings, and working the 12 Steps as my sponsor told me to do them was the key to beginning to have hope for freedom. And that hope has been realized. Today, God gives me freedom from lust and the obsessions and compulsions of my addiction! It is true. It will happen. But it comes at a price, a price I now wondered why I ever questioned if it was worth paying.

Does SA really work?

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

Does SA really work? The clear answer from my own life is yes. I know it works, because it has worked for me.

But does it work for everyone? The more nuanced answer is no. Our own literature makes it clear that SA is not for everyone. And as I read the SA literature, there are quite a number of "ifs" in there that make it very clear that there are plenty of reasons why it won't work for some people. "If" they won't work the program as it was designed, "if" they won't surrender to God, then I certainly don't expect "SA" to work for them.

It didn't work for me for a lot of years. But if I'm honest about that, that was really because I refused to work the SA program as it was designed to be worked. I was prideful, and I refused to turn my will and life over to the care of God. And without God, I had no hope in fighting and battling against the power of lust. But when I finally surrendered to God and worked the program as my sponsor told me to do it, I found freedom from the obsessions and compulsions. It worked!

And as the classic line we repeat at every meeting reminds me, "It works if you work it!"

Freedom is possible

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

I recently returned from a business trip to a large Asian city. I found the contrast between my previous days prior to working the Steps with a sponsor and being in recovery and what is happening today to be quite striking. I love the freedom that God has given me from the obsessions and compulsions, and that was in evidence during this trip.

For me, surrendering lust and the ongoing work of the program's "maintenance Steps" means that acting out simply isn't going to happen. It's not that I have confidence in myself, it's that I have confidence in God. God has proven himself faithful to take care of whatever I surrender to him.

Certainly I wasn't in control of many things while on this trip. The "exotic" nature of this city was obvious everywhere. Yes, vendors literally shoved pornographic videos in my face, many people were obviously dressed to be sexually attractive, and the brothels were obvious as well. There was nothing I could do about any of that.

But not only did those things not result in acting out behavior for me (compulsions), I was able to remain free from the obsessions that previously would occupy vast amounts of my mind-space when I was in similar situations in the past. I continued to surrender, and God continued to be faithful to keep me free. I was able to be present in the moment, focused on the people and content of the conference I was attending.

Freedom is sweet! And it really is possible, even though I didn't believe that prior to my own experience with working the SA program (working the 12 Steps with a sponsor in the fellowship of others who are doing the same). As our literature reminds us, God can and will if he is sought.