How did my addiction to lust begin? There are many ways I could explain it: my childhood; my parents’ relationships with themselves, with me, and with others; genetic predisposition—it can be looked at from different angles. Today I believe that my addiction stems from my relationship with myself, from my unhealthy self-talk. Unfortunately, I have had a constant “hate session” with myself going on in my head most of my life.

What do I mean? Picture a jukebox, the type with vinyl records. Imagine that each record is a hate session song from me to myself, in different musical styles, such as jazz, classical, country, and rock. Each song has different lyrics meant just for me: “You’re no good at this”; “You’re awful at that”; “You’re pathetic”; “You’re a sorry excuse for a human being.” Now imagine that all the vinyl records in that jukebox were animated like cartoon beings, fighting with each other to be heard.

It’s understandable that I would rather distract myself than listen to all those voices. I found many ways to distract myself: I could put my mind into a lust fantasy, engage in romantic intrigues, date inappropriate people, collect dangling relationships, give mixed messages to partners, or obsess.

How has SA helped? I first came to SA 13 years ago, but 10 years ago I came for keeps. Regularly attending SA meetings became a great resource in helping me become aware of the problem. First, I saw the problem in other people in the rooms. “Wow,” I thought to myself, “some of these people really hate themselves.” Then I thought, “Could I be like them, hating myself that much?” It didn’t seem likely, but after a while, with the distractions reduced, I saw the reality. I could reduce the obsessions in my thoughts long enough to hear the hate voices coming up.

Then I had to do something about the problem. Sharing my vulnerabilities in meetings and making phone calls have helped me let go of my shame. Doing service and helping others has helped me replace the hate voices with more positive messages. As the self-hate messages went away, I saw that meditating (Step Eleven) was something I could do rather than totally avoiding it.

This is just a bit of my lust recovery story. I needed to stop being addicted to the distractions that kept me from listening to the unpleasant messages I gave myself. Romance partners often gave me nice messages about myself, and I was addicted to collecting these suppliers of nice messages. My recovery has involved recognizing my addiction as neutralizing bad messages, and then working on the real problem: my self-image.

Today’s way of living is better. It’s more a life of choice than a band-aid measure to mollify the loudest negative self-talk. Through SA I have learned to set healthy goals, have clean fun, and be less perfectionistic and less hard on myself. It’s a place to improve my character and make healthy friends. I’ve been in SA a long time and I plan to stay.

Thank you SA,