In my addiction, I harmed many people whose names I don’t even remember. As I was considering how to make amends to these people, my sponsor pointed me to a passage in the White Book: “There is always some way to make an amends, even when the injured person is dead, lost, or nameless. … Some members, for example, have made amends to the prostitutes they had abetted in their destructive way of life by praying for every one they see on the streets… (SA 126).
My sponsor suggested that I write a letter to the people I was unable to reach, and send it to ESSAY. Perhaps this idea will be useful to others.
Stan
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December 28, 2011
Dear Anonymous,
Forgive me for not using your name. If I once knew it, I’ve forgotten it now. There have been so many of you: couples I peeped on inside cars along “lover’s lanes,” women I met while cruising bars on business trips, women I hired for sexual services, men I met in gay bath houses and adult video bookstores, and the many of you with whom I chatted by telephone and electronically (sometimes while pretending to be a woman online). I spent thousands of dollars over the years on you, but more important, I spent many hundreds of hours using you for my selfish purposes.
Over many years you have been my “friend,” a consolation when I was afraid—afraid of being sexually or socially incompetent, of the potential loss of anyone I committed to love, or of not being acceptable to others. In the SA program I have become aware of how much I hurt and abused all of you, pandering to your lust and enabling your own pain and fears. I pretended to care for you, to be romantically interested in you, and then I always left you suddenly without explanation or excuse. Though I cannot make amends to you personally, I want you to know that I am truly sorry for having harmed you, perhaps by abetting your own self-destructive way of life.
I intend this letter to the SA community to represent my deepest apologies to each of you. And since some of you may also be sexaholics like me, I am making a donation to SA in the hope that when you are ready to stop, the hand of SA will be there for you, as it was for me.
May God bless you and keep you in His love, now and forever.
— Stan
