Terminally unique

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

One of the problems I had early on when I started in Sexaholics Anonymous was that I thought I had to understand everything, figure everything out, and design something that was just for me in order to have a program that would work just for me. I suffered from a malady others have referred to as being "terminally unique". It was just another variation on being selfish, being prideful, having to be in control, and being fearful of actually having to change.

The solution turned out to be the same "boring" suggestions I hear from recovering s-aholics and alcoholics everywhere: go to meetings, get a sponsor, work the Steps. I had to stop wasting my time worrying about and planning for how I was going to solve all my problems. I simply had to start doing what the sober, recovering people had done and were doing. But as long as I tried to stay in control, figure it out and avoid change, I stayed wallowing in the problem.

Freedom is so much 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."

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.

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.

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.

Unconditional and Immediate Surrender

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

I was talking with my sponsor recently, and he shared that the program was distilled by a speaker he heard down to two words: "Let go."  If I only had two words, those two might be the way I would put it as well.

When I heard that, my mind immediately jumped to a section in the Sexaholics Anonymous book (p. 82) that includes those two words:
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."

So maybe even one word can sum up the program: "Surrender."

And yet it seems to be in my very nature to fight instead of surrender. I certainly fought lust. I really wanted to stop. I really tried to stop. But I couldn't. I was no longer free not to lust. I was lust's slave, and I needed to be emancipated by a Power greater than me because I was incapable of breaking the chains that bound me.

I fought God as well.

The difference between lust and God in this battle of mine is that lust is a master that will not let me go, but on the contrary, God is a master only so long as I continue to surrender to Him. And when I surrender my "freedom" to Him, I become truly free. He does not take my freedom away, but He accepts the good and the bad that I freely give Him, and He returns to me the gift of freedom from the bondage I can not escape in my own power.

U.S. Grant is quoted as saying, "No terms, except unconditional and immediate surrender, can be accepted." I started working the Steps of this program with my sponsor by first committing to God, "I will do whatever my sponsor says."  Early on in working the Steps with my sponsor, he asked me to write the date and the words "I will go to any length to stay sober" in the front of my AA book, when I was ready. Surrender. I was learning how to finally surrender.

Why did this happen?

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

Before I finally started to listen to a S.A. sponsor and follow his directions to work the 12 Steps of the S.A. program, I was very interested in figuring out the answers to my questions about why I was addicted to lust and why I kept doing these things that in the end caused me pain and despair. I thought it was important to figure out "why" because I was still under the delusion that if I could figure it out, then I could do something about it. But that meant that I still had not really admitted and accepted that I am a sexaholic (Step One) and that I really am powerless over lust in any form. And I wasn't ready for this program until I finally got to that point of really admitting Step One was completely true for me.

The answer to the "why" questions are rather simple for me today. The answer is that I am a sexaholic, and I am not God. That's really all there is to it.

And that means that it would be essential for me to learn how to rightly connect with God in an attitude of complete surrender. And that happens for me as I work the 12 Steps of S.A. the way my sponsor suggested I do it.

Accepting Others & The Solution - Personal Story

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

I appreciate the reminders I get of how my life is so much better when I finally give up trying to change other people.  I continue to learn that attempting to change other people is simply a battle I can not win, and as such, all I succeed in doing is to frustrate myself and others when I try to do it. It's just one of those "accept the things I can not change" situations.

Granted, if someone really wants my help because they are really ready to change and will go to any length to do that, that's a different story. In that case I need to be unselfish enough to actually offer the experience, hope and strength that I've been given because of what God has been doing for me, and because of the help I got from other people in the program. Specifically, I can try to suggest that there is a solution that works if someone is willing to work it.

And I don't think it can be said too often that the solution is to get a sponsor and follow the sponsor's directions to work the 12 Steps as a means to connect rightly with God (who keeps me sober) and others (which means I don't have nearly as much pressure/temptations/triggers to return to the lust drug I used addictively for decades).

I guess it really is a simple program. It's just 12 simple Steps that if taken with the right attitude of surrender, result in a life-changing, spiritual awakening. Yeah, it's hard work, but it's worth it.