I have to remember that my lust has not gone anywhere since I got into recovery. I’ve just been holding it at arm’s length. If I think I’ve got some sobriety so that now I can relax and I don’t need to work so hard to stay sober, my lust is right there ready to step back front and center in my life.

For my sobriety, I announce the nature of my addiction, or my act-out behaviors in every meeting I attend. I do this to practice honesty, because I need all the practice I can get. I hope someday to be as honest outside of meetings; however, I don’t trust people outside the program as much as I’ve learned to trust my fellow sexaholics.

My act-out behaviors include lusting after others, wanting to be lusted after, and pornography in ANY media I can find. I am a voyeur. I have relationships with married women. I frequent strip clubs. I have the ability to store up all those fantasies and use images to masturbate at the drop of a hat. For any act-out behaviors I haven’t mentioned, I have an on-going plan for in my head, I just haven’t figured out how to get away with them yet. I am grateful that today all of these things are just options for me. I no longer believe that if I don’t do them I’m going to die.

Even though I have sexual sobriety today, I still talk about my act-out behaviors in the present-tense because they have not gone anywhere. They are still right there inside my head, and my lust still wants them to come out.