It’s hard to say exactly when and how I became a sexaholic. At age 10 or 11, I was given a pocket calendar with a picture of a naked woman on it (I was so deeply impressed that today I can still remember the calendar). After that I would often go to the market in my neighborhood looking around for more “sexy calendars” hanging on the walls of the stalls. I discovered very quickly that I could get pornography at school, and that even my dad had his private collection of “girlie magazines” available at home. I would spend hours masturbating and fantasizing over those pictures (and the scenes that I developed in my mind) as a means of escaping from a reality (my school and family) in which I felt uncomfortable and inadequate most of the time.

At a very early age I had found in masturbation the way to cope with my environment and myself, but I would have to wait another 30 years of progressive disease and a good deal of suffering until I realized how powerless I was. When I was an adolescent, my lust was already demanding more explicit pictures and images in the magazines that I bought and hid at home. I had also started drinking in a similarly progressive manner, but it was difficult for me to think that I had problems with either sex or alcohol at the time (or for a long time afterwards). I wasn’t 18 yet when I discovered porno cinemas and sex-shops in Madrid. I enjoyed watching those movies for hours, always looking for something newer and more explicit. God knows how much pain and suffering the dreadful power of those images exerted (and would continue to exert) on me.

When I was 30, after a long and disastrous drinking career, I joined AA. It wasn’t long before I realized that, even though my life had changed for the better since I’d given up drinking, I was still powerless over my sexual behavior. Once my drinking was over, I seemed to look for pornography even more than before. I contacted the SA group in Madrid, but I wasn’t ready for the solution. I would engage in successive relationships in which I got obsessively jealous and demanding. I would also visit porno cinemas and sex-shops. I thought the “perfect relationship” would fix my sex problem, but it didn’t.

My “sex problem” was getting completely out of control. Looking back, I can tell how progressive this disease can be: If watching other men having sex had previously looked disgusting to me, in a few years I was the one looking for sex with other men in porno cinemas. If years before I had been acting out once every week or two weeks, in the last stages of my addiction I could spend three or four days in a row on a sex bender. Every time I left one of those places, my shame, fear, and guilt were unbearable. I would promise a thousand times never to come back, but there I was again in a couple of weeks or even days. I would ask God to remove this terrible obsession from my mind, but I wasn’t willing to stop masturbating, flirting, or having relationships with one woman after another. These relationships were getting shorter and more painful each time. Of course none of these women had the slightest idea of my acting out in porno cinemas and sex-shops.

As in many other areas of my life, I could appear to be a good worker, a good son, a good member of the church, even a good AA member, but nobody knew what was going on in my mind or about my suffering. I was full of lust, fear, and guilt—even though some little part of me still pretended that everything was fine. That little part is the one that kept me acting out for years.

I was in SA for many years before I could really stop. I had stopped many times, but would relapse once more in a few weeks or months. I didn’t know what was wrong with me. It was getting worse each time. After each relapse, my sponsor would ask, “What is it that you are still holding on to and don’t want to let go of?” I still wanted to enjoy lust somehow by subtly flirting or looking at women, or simply by thinking about them. Therefore, when I stopped acting out, I would give up pornography, masturbation, anonymous sex, prostitution, and relationships, but lust was still in my mind. No wonder I relapsed periodically. When I did, I would go back to those same things all over again.

One day, on a short holiday in Vizcaya, in the north of Spain, when I had been sober for two or three weeks, I felt once more the craving for lust (I had been triggered at a beach the previous day). Once more, I felt powerless over the madness that was driving me to look for some place to find my drug: pornography. I made a cell phone call to a fellow member, but I still wanted to act out. In fact, I was on my way to look for that place when “Something” made me stop for a moment. The craving was painful; it was a hot day. I sat down on the sidewalk. For a brief moment I could see clearly what my life had become and what it would become if I didn’t stop what I was doing. Most likely I would drink again; I would become a homeless person; I would commit suicide. But I could not stop.

At that very moment, out of pure desperation, sitting on the hot sidewalk, I started praying. I said something like: “God, I’m powerless over this temptation; please help me.” I don’t know how, but Something made me stand up and look for help. As there were no SA groups in that town, I went looking for an AA group. The nearest one I found was closed, so I went to the other one at the far end of the town. Something was telling me that I needed to be in contact with another addict, no matter the addiction.

I was praying desperately all the way in the subway, reading some SA literature, while the craving was as painful as ever. This time, however, I was willing to accept the pain of resisting the craving, with God’s help, rather than suffer the pain of relapsing once more. I arrived at the AA group very late, but it didn’t matter. I felt welcomed. By the time the meeting had finished the craving had gone. I was exhausted, but sober and much more serene.

As I’m writing these lines I have been able to keep sober for one year, by the grace of God, one day at a time. I’ve had quite a few difficult temptations, especially during the first few months. But that day in Vizcaya I learned two powerful lessons. First, whenever I’m willing to accept the pain of resisting a temptation, God will be there to lead me out of it to a better place—as long as I humbly admit that I’m powerless over the sexual fantasy (which, if entertained, would only lead me back to the hell where I was). Second, I learned that prayer is much more powerful than the fantasies.

My life has changed drastically, but I guess that this is only the beginning. Working Step Four, I am starting to see how powerless I am—not only over my instincts gone astray, but also over my fears, resentments, feelings of inadequacy, and guilt. Lust and alcohol were the painkillers that enabled me to cope with life. In the last stages of my addiction, however, lust was more painful than the pain I wanted to kill. Lust had killed me spiritually; eventually it would have killed me physically. While practicing my addictions, I could never learn to face life on life’s terms. I never grew up emotionally.

Thank God, the SA fellowship in Spain has grown in the last two years. We celebrated our first convention in Toledo in March 2008, and we’ll be celebrating the second one in Alicante in October 2009. In Toledo, many of us were happy to meet, in person, fellow members who we had previously only known by speaking over the phone. Our mutual help, understanding, and love are constantly present, not only in the regular meetings, but also in our daily contact by phone, by the Internet, or just by meeting for a cup of coffee.

Today, as a single person, I’m very grateful for SA’s sobriety definition, which protects me from the self-deceit that was a constant in my life for years, and makes me feel safe within certain boundaries. Because I’m single, other members have suggested that I not have a girlfriend during my first year of sobriety. At first, this was very hard for me to accept. I was often filled with self-pity—but that was the disease speaking to me. Now that I’ve been sober for one year, I’m not in a rush. I don’t feel the necessity to have a girlfriend as I did before. I prefer to leave this matter to God. Today I can see that sex is truly optional (SA 61).

God bless you all,