Doing What Comes Un-Naturally

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

Recently in our group meeting, we read the following section from the Sexaholics Anonymous book.  During this time in our meeting, we also pause to reading to allow members to share their own personal experience with the content. 

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Doing What Comes Un-Naturally

"Love" is one of the most abused words in the language. That's why we speak not of loving but of taking the actions of love. Just as with faith, love, we discovered, was not a feeling, but attitude in action. We took the actions we knew we should be taking toward others because we did not feel like it. The feelings followed. Love for us is doing—doing what does not come naturally. ....

   We start going to meetings and participating in the fellowship of the program before we feel we want to. We stop sexing, lusting, and resenting before we feel we can. And we start taking the right actions toward others before we feel like doing them naturally. This is the paradox of this "impossible" program.

   How can we do this when we feel so powerless and aren't sure we even want to? We have a God who works, that's why; His business is raising us out of our death! But "faith without action is dead." We receive that power as we take the action, not before.

"A hundred such incidents and I was beginning to learn that the key to doing what did not come naturally was surrender, the key to this whole program. The key to my own happiness. When I distrust my own feelings and just go ahead and do what's right, the miracle happens and I'm out of my dark hole."

   Many of us discovered that once these actions become customary and incorporated in our day-to-day living, we actually begin to change. We become better people and, as a result, happier with ourselves and others. (Sexaholics Anonymous, p146-147)

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The question gets asked, "How can we do this when we feel so powerless and aren't sure we even want to?" Then the author immediately answers with, "We have a God who works, that's why; His business is raising us out of our death!" 

I notice that the majority of sharing in the some of the meetings I participate in don't mention God. Now that doesn't surprise me very much at all. One of the reminders I've heard over the years is the slogan "If you spot it, you got it." Yeah, that was me too, especially in my early years in SA meetings. 

There was a lot I could talk about when I'd share in meetings, but God wasn't yet the main topic, the main point of the whole program for me. I wanted to figure out for myself what I was going to do to get control of my life, find a way for me to break free from my s-xual acting out. I, myself, my, me. The self-obsession is clear to me now. 

"...The key to doing what did not come naturally was surrender, the key to this whole program." "We have a God who works, that's why; His business is raising us out of our death!"

Surrender did not come naturally to me. It made no sense to me. It seemed to be the opposite of what I needed to do if I wanted to break free from whatever it was that I couldn't stop, couldn't get over, couldn't beat. Just a little more effort on my part, and I'd finally get there. That seemed to make better sense to me.

But no, the SA program said in Step One that I was powerless. And when I finally fully accepted that powerlessness, then, and only then, was I ready to surrender to a God who has all power (Step Three). 

Surrender didn't come naturally. I was doing something that seemed a bit crazy. But when I found that it worked, that God worked, then it became the pattern and eventually the habit. And that has made all the difference. 

Dealing with Resentments

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

Before I started working the SA program, I didn't know I was a very resentful person. The program Steps as directed by my sponsor ruined that delusion for me. 😆

I agree with the saying that "resentment is the poison I drink hoping the other person will die." That really is my experience with my resentment. It does nothing to harm the other person, but is certainly harms me! It is as much a part of my insanity as lust and sexual acting out ever were. And by comparison, I'm really slow to recognize resentment for what it is when compared to how quickly I can recognize lust showing up. 

My resentment responds to the same surrender process that my lust does. When I recognize what it is, I can surrender it. It becomes easier to surrender it when I have recognized "my part" in the resentment. Things like my selfishness, self-seeking, being inconsiderate, having unrealistic expectations. demandingness, making excuses for myself, holding others to my standards for them (and thus I make myself god), and other character defects all feed into my resentments. By doing an inventory on my resentment, I can see those things in me, and it helps me be willing to surrender the resentment to God when I recognize just how flawed I am, instead of keeping on looking at the other person. And then God can set me free from the burden of myself. 

And as I'm saying all of that, I also recognize and fully admit that there is definitely no "perfection" in my practice when it comes to surrendering resentment. But I am also reminded by our literature that "we claim spiritual progress, not spiritual perfection." Thank God that's true!

Moral Decline

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

I remember very well the progressive nature of my addiction to lust and the increasingly deviant thoughts and behavior that were part of that disheartening moral decline. I crossed many lines and violated personal boundaries that I had claimed I believed for myself. It did me no good to later try to justify and rationalize my character defects. Eventually being overwhelmed by the evidence that I was never going to be free from my slavery to lust and my sexual acting out was what it took to reach the point of despair in which I became willing to go to any length, to do whatever it takes to be set free. I couldn't do that, but God could and would.

The SA book says this stuff better than I can. The whole chapter on "The Spiritual Basis of Addiction" is amazing in its ability to cut through my denial about who and what I had become. Step 4 took me through a "moral inventory" that laid bare the wrongs I had done to myself and others. I had to fearlessly face the person I had become, accept the truth about who I really was, and that process was painful.

From the book: 

"God has apparently not chosen to eradicate my defective self so that I am no longer capable of lust, resentment, fear, and the rest. If he ever did that, I'd have no need of Him; I'd be an automaton. It's progressive victory over my defects that's the name of the game. I myself am what could be called a "sinner." But I take from God the power I do not have in myself to transcend my sins. Victory through powerlessness by the grace of God!

"That's the beautiful paradox of this program: In and through my powerlessness, I receive the power—and love— that come from above.

"And that's the difference between self-denial and surrender. Self-denial—white-knuckling it—brought misery and failure. Acknowledging what I am, surrendering, and relying on God's power bring release, freedom, and joy." (p. 168)

Surrender was the key that I had always been missing. I think that I could not see it because my pride said that I had to take care of this mess myself, that I had to fix myself. But I could not. I was powerless. But thank God that it is "victory through powerlessness by the grace of God!".

"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.

I Am Not Strong

(The following post is the experience of one of our group members.)

Almost 12 years ago I "hit bottom". I finally admitted and embraced the reality that I was not only not strong, but that I was powerless over lust. The difference on that day from all the other previous days when I had regretted my sexual acting out was that I finally gave up the delusional idea that I could ever become strong enough to win the fight over lust. My only option to be free from my slavery to lust was to have some other Power to set me free from the power that lust had over me. That Power is God, and God can and will do that for me.

Working the SA 12 Step program did not make me strong enough to fight lust. Instead of taught me how to connect rightly with God through surrendering my lust and my will and life to him. When I live correctly in relationship to God and to others, I stay sober and I continue to be set free from the power of lust.

I had to give up the delusion that I could become strong. I don't need to be strong, but I do need to be connected to Power. That is my experience as a sexaholic, as a person recovering from an addiction to lust.

"I just can't beat this!"

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

Recently a newcomer shared in frustration that they feel like they just can't beat this addiction! That was exactly my problem as well, being trapped in an addiction that I cannot beat. 

The irony of it is that the SA program literature (and witness of other recovering sexaholics) agrees completely that this is exactly my problem. That is precisely what Step One had been telling me all along. But the insanity of it all was that I kept trying to escape the trap by fighting back against my addiction to lust. Fighting it didn't work, and yet after another knock-down, I'd get up off the canvas and put up my fists and tell myself I was going to win the next round against lust. I'd beat it this time for sure! I was going to get stronger if I just kept at it. This is what "everyone" knows is true: "You can do anything you put your mind to if you just try harder!" And all the time my face was being bloodied and bruised all the more. But I kept swinging anyway, and kept getting knocked down over and over again. Insanity!

For me, it never worked. I never got stronger. I never won the fight. And when I finally couldn't even get up off the canvas anymore, I quit fighting. 

For the first few years after giving up the fight, I just fed my addiction whatever it wanted. I hated myself for it. I felt nauseated by it. I was disgusted with myself and my life. I accepted that I would go to the grave, a defeated man, hopelessly wallowing in lust and my acting out. There was no hope, and I had admitted my powerlessness. And yet, it needed to get even worse before I was finally ready to surrender to God and beg for him to save me and to ask for help from another sexaholic (a sponsor) who could guide me through the Steps of the program as I submitted to his direction as well. 

The SA book says it this way:

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) 

The rest of the story is working the SA 12 Step program in a way that changed my understanding and experience of and relationship with God (surrender). And based on that relationship that provided me with Power I didn't not have, my relationships with others were changed as well. How I see myself and feel about myself has continued to change. How I feel about myself is also fully based on that core relationship with God (not as the current "prevailing wisdom" would tell me to base it). 

Can I beat lust now after all these years? After all that's happened, why would I now be insane enough to go back to that fight?!! I prefer to live by the reasonably healthy amount of sanity I enjoy today. "God could and would, if he were sought."

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. 

Dying from lust, or dying to lust

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

I'm a recovering lust addict.  I was fully enslaved to lust, unable in my own efforts to break free from the prison and chains by which lust held me in bondage. Lust was slowly killing me, taking my joy, my good desires, my right purposes, my relationships, my freedom and my life from me. I was dying inside, and I hated myself and what I had become.

And yet lust still attracted me. This was the insanity of it all! I longed for, sacrificed for, pursued, cherished, coddled, pined for, begged for the illusion of what lust could do for me.  The fantasy of lust remained attractive to me no matter how much I hated the bondage it brought. 

Something deadly serious had to happen. Either I was going to die from lust,  or I would have to die to lust.  But I had become powerless over lust, unable to be free of it, and certainly unable to kill it in me.

Instead of fighting lust and successfully killing it myself, I needed Someone to be my Savior over lust. I needed a Power greater than me and greater than lust to win the fight for me, to take on my lust for me, because I could not bear it or be free of it. 

"Every time I surrendered a wrong in process—temptation to lust, resentment, or fear, for example—and would say something to the effect, "I don't want to bear this; I want You to bear it for me; I cast it onto You," it worked. Someone has to bear my wrong, and Someone does." (SAWB, p. 121)

For me, God does make this happen. God, in his graciousness, accepts the lust I surrender to him and puts it to death. He makes it possible for me to have life in him. But God is not my errand-boy who simply wants to keep taking my lust while I go on about my life playing my own games and living life as the master of my own destiny. Believing I could be the master of my own life got me into this trouble in the first place. No, I needed a new Master, one who knows what is best for me. I need to surrender my will and life to the "One who has all power," to a "loving God" who "could and would" restore me to sanity. 

I must be willing to be changed by God from the inside out. And this is where the Steps of the SA program come to bear on the whole process of recovery. The Steps can, if done with the proper attitude and actions of surrender, bring me into a right relationship with God and others.  And when that happens, lust begins to lose its attractiveness. Its dishonesty and delusion become transparent. I find that I really do want to be rid of it, to be dead to lust. Surrender becomes easy as the default action to take when temptations to lust appear in my sight and mind. 

God takes care of the lust, and in that moment of renewed freedom, I respond, "What's next God?"

Step 12 - Carrying the message

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

My Step 12 experience is that in order for me to continue to live in this new life I've been given as the result of having worked the Steps and having had a spiritual awakening, I am going to continue to grow by trying to carry the message of recovery to other sexaholics (and to practice the principles of our program in all my affairs). Through this program, God saved me out of the mire in the pit of addiction to lust and sexual acting out that I had jumped into. My feet are now on solid bedrock, and I can continue to "trudge the road of happy destiny" as I continue to follow God. That is the message I can carry to other sexaholics. And it is a message that I must carry, must give away, if I want to continue to grow along spiritual lines.

That message is really not about me. It's about what happened to me as I simply continued to surrender to God and follow the direction of a sponsor to work the program. It's not about me and what I did right, because what got me into SA in the first place was doing everything wrong. It's a story about being saved by Someone else. Someone else is the Hero in my story.

A drowning person doesn't get saved by a lifeguard and then goes out telling the story about how they saved themself (unless they are a liar). Surrender is to stop fighting the Lifeguard and do what he tells me to do. God says to me, "Trust me, don't struggle, relax, I got this, give up, let go, and let me."  Before recovery, I wanted to do it myself (pride). But it was "myself" that got me into this mess in the first place. It was my core self-centeredness. Carrying the message is not self-centered. That message is God-centered and must be freely given to others as it was freely given to me. 

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.

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.

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.

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 Humanly Impossible

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

On page 50, the Alcoholics Anonymous book has this to say about "the humanly impossible" (emph. mine).

   On one proposition, however, these [recovered] men and women are strikingly agreed. Every one of them has gained access to, and believe in, a Power greater than himself. This Power has in each case accomplished the miraculous, the humanly impossible. As a celebrated American statesman put it, “Let’s look at the record.”
   Here are thousands of men and women, worldly indeed. They flatly declare that since they have come to believe in a Power greater than themselves, to take a certain attitude toward that Power, and to do certain simple things, there has been a revolutionary change in their way of living and thinking. In the face of collapse and despair, in the face of the total failure of their human resources, they found that a new power, peace, happiness, and sense of direction flowed into them. This happened soon after they wholeheartedly met a few simple requirements.  

What I like about that quote is that it goes beyond simple "believe-ism" and gets at the core of my problem. The core of my problem wasn't that I didn't believe in a Power greater than myself (God), it was that I was unwilling to "take a certain attitude toward that Power, and do certain simple things" that the sexaholics with real recovery, freedom from lust, and a changed life had done. But when I finally had been completely defeated by lust and fully experienced Step 1 (admitted and accepted powerlessness), I became willing to change my attitude toward God and do those certain simple things. And having connected rightly with God, he took care of the rest.

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!

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.