I came into SA a little over three years ago, when I was 19. By the grace of God and thanks to this program, I have been blessed with sobriety one day at a time since my first meeting, a few days after my sobriety birthday on March 8th, 2012. I’m grateful for this opportunity to share my experience, strength, and hope with the fellowship—as well as the events that led up to it.

Growing up, I never felt close to my parents. I experienced a lot of neglect and abuse from the very beginning of my childhood. Sometimes the abuse would get physical, because I was supposedly a “troublemaker.” My family would often watch violent horror films, and this violence became normal to me. I would respond in violence and anger toward my parents because I found that I got more attention that way.

At home I was an angry child, but at school I was literally the sweetest boy on the playground. I did this to get attention from my teachers, as well as from as many girls as possible. My elementary school teachers stated that I was a gentleman from the age of six. These tricks seemed to work for a while, but by this time I already enjoyed living a double life. The adrenaline that was triggered through watching the violent horror films resonated with me and led me to seek this same high in my addiction.

I felt powerless being the youngest child in my immediate family, and I was often criticized and beaten for doing wrong things as a little boy. In elementary school I tried to see the female body by looking up women’s skirts or pulling down their blouses, but I would be caught by my father when I attempted these tactics in public, and I would be physically punished for it. This was confusing to me because I saw my father being intimate with women other than my mother, and he did not pay this much attention to me in any other aspect of my childhood. I found his pornography stash six years later when I was 12. The female body became forbidden territory for me.

I first looked at pornography online when I was 10 or 11, and I was shocked by what I saw. I immediately closed the webpage. However, after a few minutes I realized that I got the same high that I had been looking to repeat for so long. I sought adrenaline and physical touch, which skewed my perception of relationships with people. Love was not love, it was lust—and lust was a violent way of disrespecting someone else’s body. I only see this now that I am distanced from my acting out.

I dove deep into my addiction. I never thought that what I was doing was that bad. I never realized at the time that my addiction was getting progressively worse.

From the ages of 11 to 18, I was involved in acting and performing arts in my school and in my community, and I toyed with the idea of acting as a profession. After thinking about this for a while, I developed an alter ego—which in reality is my addict.

I started chatting with strangers online, lying about my age when I was 13 through 17, but telling these strangers I was 18. It was easy to lie. I thought I was the best liar. I knew my parents believed everything I said, and my friends admitted I was the best at lying straight through my teeth, with a smile on my face. I would use this to my advantage because I came across as an innocent guy.

I found in porn, sex, and manipulation what I never felt growing up. I felt power and—in a way—intimacy. It was never true intimacy, but it was good enough, and I would tell myself that the next time would be better. I was really losing my life.

Before I was 15, I manipulated three of my closest friends (male and female) to act out with me on separate occasions. I also successfully hosted multiple boy and girl sleepovers in middle school, because my father was never home due to his business and sexual affairs, and my mother worked night shifts.

I first started drinking when I was 14, and the sleepovers were just excuses for us to get drunk and try to act out with each other. I was trying to make lust and sex normal for myself by projecting it onto my friends and their behavior. This was when I was in middle school, and it continued into high school.

I saw my parents’ relationship deteriorate right in front of me throughout my entire childhood. They began the divorce process when I was 14. That was one of the worst experiences of my life. My father, I believe, was addicted to sex (he had many affairs during his marriage), and in him I saw the full potential this addiction has to ruin people’s lives. My best friend would come rescue me from my house because of my parents fighting. I wasn’t even old enough to drive.

A year into my parents’ four-year divorce process, my addiction to pornography was peaking. I was only 15, not old enough to drive, but I needed to get out of the house to escape the chaos of my parents fighting. My best friend would often drive over to rescue me. Then one day he was killed by a drunk driver.

I was in shock. I felt as if God was punishing me for acting out sexually, drinking alcohol, and doing drugs. My mind immediately turned to pornography. I felt I needed to escape, and lust was safe and would never let me down. Or so I thought.

At this point I had been conversing with a man for about two years on a pornography website. I was 15 but I told the man I was 18. I think I entertained this relationship because I was lacking a father figure and this man was giving me attention. He invited me to visit him, and he said he would help pay for my plane ticket. I thought, “Yes.”

I wanted to escape. I hated my parents’ divorce and their domestic violence, and I was still trying to deal with the death of one of my best friends. So, being the talented liar that I thought I was, I lied to my parents, confused everyone, and ended up in another country visiting a complete stranger. I intentionally let myself be sexually abused. I couldn’t believe the series of events. I thought God hated me.

When I got back home, I began acting out with strangers who I found on-line. I acted out in public places with people I had never met before. I would get drunk at high school parties, and I would try to take advantage of the girls that I thought I could manipulate most easily. I thought this would fill me up, but I had a bottomless pit within my soul that was asking for more. So I couldn’t stop there.

When I finally turned 18, I thought, “This is perfect!” I thought that I would feel better because now I would be considered “legal” to go into adult places in the U.S. But that very week I reached new bottoms. My addiction drove me to strip clubs, sex shops, and eventually bathhouses. This all happened in the span of a week, and I went back for more throughout the year. But after every encounter, the adrenaline wasn’t enough.

On a few occasions I consumed drugs while acting out to feel a higher high. For a while I thought I could not act out without drugs. I was acting out with strangers—and I putting my life at risk every time I acted out, because of some of the things I would ask people to do.

When I was 18-and-a-half, I considered online prostitution. By this time, I knew that I should stop. I thought, “This could be bad, but maybe I’ll feel better.” I see now the flaw in my thinking. I considered stopping multiple times, but my thinking was cloudy. I had no idea what was wrong with me, or what to do about it.

Just before I turned 19, I started going back to church after a two-year hiatus. I began attending the church my roommate was attending, because deep in my soul I knew I was drowning in my addiction. I was desperate to find relief.

A few months later, I very hesitantly signed up for a men’s sexual purity group in that church. I was blessed with accountability from the moment I joined the group—and, when I was 19, this group introduced me to SA. I must admit that much of my recovery began because of people pleasing and approval-seeking. I would not act out for fear of having to tell anyone in my group what I might have done. I constantly sought approval from my SA sponsor and others in the program. I thought that if I waited awhile to act out, I’d be fine.

When I first came into SA, I felt as if I had been hit by a train. I was in shock. But I tried to completely change my life around. I thought, “If this is what I need to do, and if I can trust my Higher Power, then I will dare Him to let me trust Him through this process.” It worked. I begged God to let me trust Him, and that worked for me.

I heard a voice from within telling me to just wait. I didn’t know what this meant, but I told myself to wait to act out. So, I did. I kept waiting and slowly the days added up. I “waited” the first six months. Then I did my Step Three with my SA sponsor, and I gave my will over to God’s will. I didn’t know yet the power of surrender, so I would literally cry to not act out. I would talk to my Higher Power and ask for help. I just kept waiting, not just to act out, but in general. I needed to wait.

I was the youngest person in my SA home group (and maybe in my state), and I felt isolated because of this. I thought nobody else my age was as bad as I was. But I knew I just had to wait. So I kept going to meetings.

At first I kept quiet and just tried to listen to everyone in the meetings, for fear of looking dumb—but also, honestly, to learn. I knew that what I had been doing was wrong. I got a sponsor (or really, my sponsor got me), and he had me start the Steps and call him every day for the first 90 days. I didn’t know how to check in with him, but I would still do it! I made meetings and Step work a priority—just like a class and homework—as part of my schedule. Gradually, I learned that if I were to do well, I would have to show up.

Some of the most amazing things happened during my first 90 days of sobriety in SA. At times I would feel that urge to act out, and I would turn to God. Then I would immediately get a phone call from my accountability partner from the purity group (who was also in SA). After this happened for the third time, I knew it wasn’t a coincidence. My Higher Power was doing for me what I could not do for myself.

So I kept waiting, not just to act out, but in general. I needed to wait. Through this waiting period I’ve grown older and wiser. I continue to grow as I attend meetings, meetings, meetings; work the Steps; and make phone calls. I never thought it would be possible to not act out. I didn’t think sobriety was possible. I thought that SA members were crazy. But in those first few SA meetings, I constantly heard my story coming from other members’ shares, and I knew that I was exactly where I needed to be. That is the reason I felt that I had been hit by a train, emotionally and mentally. The SA program saved my life. It gave me back my life. I had been putting my life in other people’s hands, because I literally could not function or live without lust.

This program works. I love SA—I have to. God has worked through the members of SA in my life on a global and local scale. I have been blessed with so many opportunities in SA. For example, I don’t have much money but I love to travel, and I’ve met many SA members this way. I was able to stay with a member in Warsaw, and I made it to meetings there. Another time I had nowhere to stay while traveling on the East Coast, so I trusted God, and I let Him know that I was okay with sleeping on the streets of a foreign city as long as I stayed sober. But then I surrendered to His will, and another member opened up his home to me. My recovery probably helped me under these circumstances as well. I’ve realized I can’t do anything if I don’t stay sober.

I’ve been blessed through the SA program of recovery. After attending meetings for only three years, I’ve already seen the miracles that regularly happen in these rooms. My recovery has been a gradual process, and I’m still a naive 22-year-old at times. But because of SA, I get to experience the youth that I never felt I could experience because my father stepped out when I was 15.

Another miracle that occurred because of SA is that I began to apply myself more in school. Then my projects got better, my portfolio got better, and my Higher Power led professors, employers, peers, and others to notice me in ways that never happened before. God was and is doing for me what I could not do for myself.

I never thought I would get sober. Sobriety is a gift I have only today. In my immaturity I sometimes feel limitless and I think, “If I’m sober then what’s stopping me from trying to achieve my dreams?” I want to see how far my Higher Power will take me if I surrender to His will. I would never have felt this hope without recovery.

I’m getting ready to graduate now from a private design school. At times the stress can feel like too much, but through the process, as I stay up late working on projects, I’ll pray the prayer that always helps me pull through: “God, I offer myself to Thee—to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help, of Thy power, Thy love, and Thy way of life. May I do Thy will always!” (SA 95)

I’ll be graduating in June, and I’ll turn 23 right after that. Sobriety is a gift I have for only one day. Lust is still a daily battle, and I still struggle with immense amounts of shame, but one day at a time, I am surrendering the shame to my Higher Power. I am grateful for SA, and for the Twelve Promises, and for the gift of sobriety that was bestowed on me through God in SA.

The best years in life are not the ones when we are young but the ones when we are sober. I’ve been told (and I have to remind myself) that everyone’s recovery is different. I’ve learned that I cannot expect another person’s miracle through the program to be the same as my miracle.

I’m running a marathon and it’s about endurance. I trust that my Higher Power will show me when I need to change my “pace,” if He needs me to do so. Until then I want to endure, and I’m willing to wait. I’m ready for whatever God brings my way. I pray for not my will, but His will to be done.