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. 

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.

"Figure it out" is not one of our slogans

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

I don't know if my experience is like anyone else's or not. But not only did I never "figure it out", trying to figure it out became a roadblock to surrendering (give up, let go, and let God) and kept me from having the necessary change in attitude and taking the action Steps necessary to connect rightly with God and find sobriety and freedom from lust.

For me, "figuring it out" was my attempt to gain control over lust, over myself, and over the world around me. But I couldn't control any of those things; I was powerless. I needed power I didn't have. It had to come from somewhere else, from Someone else.

Trying to figure it out kept me distracted and kept me living deep in my illusions and delusions, instead of having to face the simple truth that I had been thoroughly defeated. Trying to figure it out kept me from abandoning myself to God's grace and power. It kept me from surrendering to God and working the Steps as my sponsors suggested I work them. It kept me wrapped up trying to do things my way. But doing things my way never gained me freedom.

Today I have sobriety, recovery, healing and freedom. I didn't need to "figure it out" to get here. But I did have to lose the fight, surrender to God, and work the Steps under someone else's direction in order to connect with the Power that would free me.

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.

Giving in or giving up

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

In the Sexaholics Anonymous book there's a chapter titled Getting Started (p. 63). It's fresh in my mind, because I have just read through that chapter with a newcomer who asked me to sponsor him. The specific section I want to reference is titled The First Test--Surrender (p. 66). Here is what it says:

Joining a group doesn't automatically make the problem vanish. Most of us had tried stopping countless times. The problem was we couldn't stay stopped; we had never surrendered. So, the first time the craving hits again, when we get that urge for a fix, we give it up, even though it feels like we'll die without it. And at times, in our new frame of mind, the craving may seem stronger than ever. But we don't fight it like we used to; that was always a losing battle, giving it more strength to fight back. Neither do we feed or give in to it. We surrender. We win by giving up. Each time.

After reading through that section, I shared from my own experience how I had never found freedom, never stayed sober, because I had never truly surrendered my lust (and my will and life). Just as the paragraph explains, I spent years vacillating between fighting lust or giving into lust. Naturally, feeding it and giving into it was the easier of the two options. Fighting it was terribly difficult and required so much effort that my strength eventually failed every time. The best I could ever muster by fighting it was to temporarily postpone the inevitable. Eventually my strength would fail, and I'd be feeding and giving into it once again.

Surrender was the only solution that actually worked, and kept on working. I had to give up control to a Power greater than my own, a God who has all power.

Who's in charge?

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

There's a great section in the Sexaholics Anonymous book "Getting an SA Sponsor" (p. 72-75). There is this really important sentence right in the middle of that section that is highlighted and set apart for emphasis in the book. Here's what it says:

"I wanted to stay in charge. That's why God and healing could never get to me."

I made this mistake. And I think every person I've ever sponsored has also made this mistake to varying degrees. I wanted to stay in charge!

Early on when I was dabbling in the SA program (a really insane thing to do, btw), I looked for just the right person who I thought would be just right for me. And then when he agreed, I went to work doing the Steps the way I thought they would work for me. When I talked to him, I would tell him my ideas about how I was doing things, and then I would ask his opinion, just in case he had something small to add to my well thought out plans.

The relationship did not last very long. I wanted him to be what I wanted him to be and to say what I wanted to hear, and to never tell me I should do something I didn't feel like I needed to do.

The problem was my attitude. I had not yet acquired the requisite humility to be willing to follow a sponsor's suggestions and do thing someone else's way. I needed a lot more humiliation, and I needed to experience my own version of the "incomprehensible demoralization" before I could start to develop the proper attitude of surrender to another human and thus learn how to surrender also to God.

Surrender and staying in charge of my recovery were incompatible. Finding just the right person was not only unnecessary, but truly impossible. God may be perfect, but the rest of us surely are not. And when I finally had the necessary humility (barely sufficient) and submitted to a sponsor and did what I was told to do someone else's way, the Steps actually worked!

Giving up

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

I had some things I had to give up in order to find sobriety, recovery and freedom from lust and sexual acting out.

• I gave up fighting lust.
• I gave up struggling against lust.
• I gave up doing things my own way.
• I gave up designing my own program for recovery.
• I gave up the illusion that I knew what was best for me.

Instead, I got a sponsor and worked the 12 Steps of the SA program as he suggested and as described in the AA Big Book.

And I've heard a whole lot of stories by people who have years of sobriety that they did the exact same thing. And I've heard a whole lot of stories by people who are still trying to do those things I gave up trying to do, and sobriety, recovery and freedom still escape them.

There really is a solution, but it requires that I give up my own way of doing things in order to experience it.