Hamburg, Germany at Christmastime! I had the good fortune to visit this beautiful city in early December, as part of a trade delegation of about 35 folks—mainly elected officials, business people, and government types from our region. Our mission was purely business in nature, but the working itinerary would not begin until Monday. We arrived on Saturday evening, clearly jet-lagged but ready to take in German food, culture, and fun. I’d traveled armed with a shopping list from home that focused on known German Christmas items, and Sunday was the day we would all descend on the open-air Christmas markets for which Hamburg is famous.

I arrived in good spirits and was fortunate to get a good night’s rest that effectively erased the jet lag. I bounded downstairs Sunday morning for breakfast in the hotel restaurant and joined my traveling companions. As we talked about our plans for the day, I quickly realized that all of my fellow travelers were pretty much headed out on their own. While we anticipated seeing each other in the markets, the fact was that I would have the day to myself, accountable to no one. Heady but dangerous stuff for a recovering sex addict.

This trip coincided with a vulnerable time in my recovery. After nearly eight years of sobriety from acting-out behaviors that had nearly cost me my family and everything important to me, I had gone back to viewing Internet porn this past summer, and my wife had caught me. I felt awful, but the pattern had been set. I returned to the sites several times in the succeeding days, with accompanying masturbation. Shortly thereafter, my wife was able to trace my Internet history (despite my best efforts to conceal it), and then it seemed that all those years of rebuilding trust with her had been nullified. Plus, I had to tell my new SA sponsor of my relapse.

Even though I had been sober since that incident, by the time the Hamburg trip rolled around, I was still dealing with a lot of shame, plus considerable fear for the future of my marriage (and my recovery). Here I was in Germany, sans spouse, and I was being pulled into the same ugly whirlpool that had sucked me in so many times in the past.

After breakfast at the hotel, I bundled up and went to one of the open-air markets and noticed that none of the vendors seemed to have the holiday carousels that were on my list. I strolled to another market and the result was the same. Feeling frustrated, I decided to ditch the shopping for a while and headed over to the Hamburg railway station. I’m a train nut, and I always enjoy spending a couple of hours watching the fast European bullet trains arrive and depart.

As I strolled the huge terminal, I realized that it wasn’t just the trains that had set my head turning. I was beginning to obsess about the sexual attractiveness of the people passing by. That, combined with the knowledge that I had the next several hours left to my own devices, ignited the familiar triggering mechanism that had sent me down a devastating path so many times before.

Because I had visited Hamburg during those days, I knew all too well where the sexually oriented businesses were located, and I knew that I could walk there in a half-hour’s time. Nobody would ever know! I could go to an adult video parlor and watch X-rated movies and get back to the hotel in time for dinner with my group, who would be none the wiser! My resistance began to turn to jelly, and giving in to temptation seemed easier than using the tools of our program.

I stood on the train platform agonizing, preparing to put my brain on autopilot in favor of acting out. As I pondered my options—and my wobbly resolution began to melt—a quote from Program literature leaped into my cerebrum with terrific force: “Either God Is, or He Isn’t.” Where this came from, I had no idea. Upon returning home, I was able to find the entire phrase in the Big Book: “…we had to fearlessly face the proposition that either God is everything or else He is nothing. Either God is, or He isn’t. What was our choice to be?” (AA 53)

At that moment, it suddenly seemed abundantly clear that yielding to temptation and acting out would constitute a clear statement and belief that God isn’t! Did I really want to do that? After all, God had clearly done a lot of good things in leading me to SA, getting me a sponsor, and furnishing me with an occasional measure of peace, acceptance, and serenity. Did I want to deny that God?

And just like that, the compulsion was lifted! I left the train station, took a leisurely route back to the hotel via a few more holiday markets and rejoined our group. I was able to look them all in the eye at dinner and enjoy their company—something which would have been impossible had I decided to act out.

Best of all, my enjoyable social time that evening turned up inside information on where I could find the holiday carousels that were burning a hole in my shopping list, and by bedtime I had my purchases in my room, ready to take home.

Although I’m still working on regaining my wife’s trust, I thank God today for the spiritual life He’s given me through the SA Program!