Why is Chapter Four of Alcoholics Anonymous (44) entitled “We Agnostics” instead of “Those Agnostics” even though some of us entered the program already believing in God? Today, I believe that I act like an agnostic or atheist whenever I turn away from God. God and I are walking along enjoying ourselves when all of a sudden I say, “Hey God, why don’t You wait here awhile. I have to go do something. I’ll see You later.” At that point it’s as if I’m an agnostic or atheist because I’m living as if there were no God. Acting out in my addiction is a time of denying God, and that is why that chapter is titled “We Agnostics.”

I was born into a Catholic family, and I tried to be a good little Catholic boy, but my mother was addicted to prescription drugs and my father was a workaholic. My three sisters and I raised ourselves. We all have our problems; but my parents did the best they could with what they knew.

I became hooked on women at a very young age. One of my earliest memories is of a babysitter playing with my private parts when I was three or four years old. I remember it as if it were yesterday. I also remember enjoying our family drives downtown every Sunday because we would pass by the burlesque house where I would stare at posters of ladies who performed inside. I found solace in pornography and masturbation. After a while it became compulsive and overpowering.

I decided that I could NEVER confess this secret to the priest. So I went on the first of many mental agonies. When I was 15, I decided there was no God. Looking back, I think I was getting rid of the Judge so I wouldn’t have to face the judgment. I became a full-fledged atheist, and Knocker of All Organized Religion. About a year later I was forced to downgrade to Merely Agnostic, because I couldn’t sleep at night thinking, “What if I’m wrong and everyone else is right?” “What about trees and planets and sunsets?” So my attitude became, “Okay, maybe there is a God, and maybe there isn’t. I don’t care.”

At age 18, I had a spiritual experience and became an evangelical Christian. I remember the exact date, time, and place. I thought this was great, having a relationship with the God I had tried to ignore. I wish I could say that this new relationship with God ended my obsession with lust and masturbation, but it didn’t. I must have asked Him 3,000 times, “Take it away! Please, take this from me.” But He did not.

This caused a new disconnection between me and God. I was asking for something that God must certainly want me to have: freedom from a really bad habit. But He seemed to do nothing. I took it the wrong way. I would not learn the truth until almost 30 years later.

For the next 29 years I had my ups and downs. My first marriage ended in divorce after 2½ years. I attempted to find a new relationship but had never developed the skills needed to nurture true intimacy. That didn’t keep me from trying though. My best friend taught me how to go out drinking and picking up women. Now I had two more bad habits.

I developed a “Big Shot” mentality and an ego to match. I formed a partying club and hosted three or four big parties a year. Live music, booze, and paid admission. People actually paid to attend my parties! I was flying high, but behind that Big Shot was a little boy, hurting because his mom was always sick in bed and his dad was always at work.

At one of my parties I met the woman who would become my second wife. Against all my upbringing and morals, I let her move in with me—thus making a conscious choice to alienate myself from my church and church friends. We soon got married and were divorced 11 months later; long enough to have a baby boy. This time, my wounded ego and I moved into a big party house full of single men and women.

I tried to pick up a lady at the grocery store, and she invited me to her church, which I had attended years before. I went and quickly got involved with the Singles Group by playing in the worship band and working the sound equipment. In my private life, however, I was still searching for that one special woman who would make my life meaningful. I was still masturbating to pornography. I was trying to fill that hole in my soul with anything but God.

In 1988, when I married my third wife, I was still hooked on lust. Eventually the Internet came along and I got hooked on chatting with women online. Innocently at first (yeah, right), I kept getting worse.

I would invest huge amounts of time cultivating online relationships. I thought of myself as an honest, nice guy to these women, but in reality, I was using them for my own selfish pleasure. My wife traveled for work, so I had plenty of time to goof off online. I worked by myself in my own business, and I eventually spent all eight hours “at work” acting out with my cyber girlfriends in chat rooms across several time zones.

I was totally consumed by lust. I couldn’t stop, even though I tried. I had built up a duplex inside my head. One side was the husband, father, church treasurer, worship band musician, etc. In the other side I was hopelessly addicted to cybersex. There was a wall down the middle, and I was pretty good at keeping it from leaking, most of the time. But my disease took its toll on me.

I still had not learned the skills for building intimacy, and because my wife was often away on her job, we never really worked on intimacy. When she was home, my wife couldn’t stand me, and I was a big chicken around her. So off I went into my fantasy land. My life began each night when the lights went out and we didn’t have to communicate anymore until the next day. My lust-driven mind would digest all the toxins I had picked up on the Internet that day.

Finally, I became so scared of my wife that I decided to get help from a therapist. On my first visit he told me I had the biggest ego he had ever seen, a huge false front. I thought about it, and thanks to God I decided the therapist was right. He was surprised when I showed up for my second visit.

The therapist at first diagnosed me with ADD; he thought that diagnosis would solve our marriage problems. But my lust disease kept getting worse, and my wife was getting more irritated. I had progressed from Internet girlfriends to real girlfriends. I had an affair with one of my customers, and my insanity kicked into overdrive. “I don’t feel guilty,” I told myself. I wanted more, and I wanted freedom from marriage so I could indulge myself without the guilt of adultery hanging over my head. So, in the office of my therapist, I asked my wife for a divorce one Monday morning. This did not go over well; for one thing because she felt that she should be divorcing me. On her insistence, we did a lot of talking and praying that day, and I woke up on Tuesday feeling God’s presence. He had been right behind me all along. I was the one who had turned away. I told my wife, “I repent. There will be no divorce. I’m going to get help.” My wife asked, “Repent of what?” I had to think fast, “Umm, I repent of asking for a divorce.”

I called my therapist and asked if the vacancy was still there for his Wednesday night therapy group for sex addicts. It was, and I went, and God saved my life. That Tuesday was six years, 12 weeks, and two days ago. I worked the Twelve Steps, started going to SA meetings, got a sponsor, and started sponsoring others. The miracle happened, and God has kept me sexually sober ever since that day, Tuesday, June 12, 2001.

Soon after I started the sex-addiction therapy group, my wife joined a therapy group for spouses. Those groups were the turning points in both of our lives, and God has been working miracles in our marriage ever since. Next year we will celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary. Through this program, for the first time we have learned the intimacy and communication skills we need for building a healthy marriage.

I asked God in 1971 to take away my compulsion to masturbate. He didn’t do so until June 12, 2001. What was I missing? For one thing, I was making an incomplete request. My request was, “God, please take this away, now.” Here are a few examples of what I really meant: “God, take this away, now, so that . . .

. . . I won’t have to do any hard work.”
. . . I won’t have to sit in a room full of people and humiliate myself.”
. . . I can forget all about You once my misery is gone.”
. . . I can get on with my day.”

Instead, what I needed to do was come to the end of myself and reach out to the God of my understanding with complete humility. NOT so that I could get on with “my” life, but so I could surrender my life to Him—the One who has all power—asking only for the knowledge of His will and the power to carry it out.