In the 2005 movie Crash about race relations in Los Angeles, a cop sexually assaults a woman, while her husband stands by, completely powerless to save her. Husband and wife both fear for their lives. The experience devastates her, and threatens to destroy their marriage. Weeks later the same woman is in a car crash, trapped in a flaming wreck in the middle of a highway. The officer who shows up to rescue her? The same cop who attacked her. In a full-blown panic, she screams in terror and tries to get away from him, backing further into the fire. It seems like her choices are to die in the car, or to trust, and rush into the arms of a man who has already proven himself willing and able to harm her. It’s an impossible choice.

This is exactly how I felt when I realized I had to start going to SA.

When I came to my first meeting, I was fully aware that I “had no other option but to stop.” I’d already spent two years trying to quit on my own. I was acting out almost every day, at home, at work, in public, in my car. I could not focus on my job, relationships, or recovery from other addictions because I was obsessed with lusting and wanting to be lusted after. I had nowhere permanent to live. I’d spent every cent in my savings account. My entire life felt like a car wreck. I desperately wanted to get out.

But like a lot of us, I’d been treated like a sex object, sexually abused, and brutalized in the past. The idea that in order to save my life, I had to go spend time with men who freely admitted they objectified, used, and sometimes sexually assaulted women and kids seemed like madness. Not just spend time with them—but ask them for help, follow their guidance, turn my will and my life over to a roomful of them??? I was absolutely certain during my first six months of sobriety that, this time, God was asking too much of me.

Some relevant experiences from my first year in SA, my first year of sobriety:

Someone at a meeting shared that he was actively planning to meet a teenager and have sex with her. When I called Child Protective Services to ask for help, the government agent told me that he’d chosen a child who was exactly the age of consent in our state. He was not breaking the law. Adult men have tried to “have sex” with me since I was ten or eleven. Every time he spoke about her at a meeting, I wanted to die. Or to kill him.

A man giving his written Step One to our meeting talked about sexually abusing his daughters. He felt free to talk about this crime because he’d already told his sponsor and a social worker. None of the men in the room pointed out that he’d broken a meeting guideline (“refrain from sharing illegal acts for which you have not been prosecuted”). I sat with a newcomer woman who sobbed uncontrollably throughout his share. I wish I had left the room and invited her to come with me, but I was frozen with fear, despair, and self-hatred.

An SA at a regional gathering shared with an entire open meeting (SAs, S-Anons, and families) his belief that being sexually abused as a kid was actually a pretty good experience for him. Not surprisingly, as he humbly spoke about his disease and his recovery, it turned out that his struggles with this addiction included years of actively assaulting kids himself.

Actions that have helped me to stay sober and limit being re-traumatized by SA:

I got a woman sponsor right away; she had years of both sobriety and therapy and she understood my experiences. If it weren’t for her, I would have stopped coming and I might have been dead by now. It was absolutely invaluable to me to have a woman to talk to privately and honestly after attending mixed meetings. I needed to complain, rant, and cry about what I heard there. I needed to share how triggering it was, and how desperately unsafe I felt at meetings. She listened to me, understood me, and helped me to care for myself. And she never lost focus on the fact that, despite my feelings of isolation, SA was for me. She taught me that I was allowed to attend, and that I could claim my space in the fellowship because I am a sexaholic.

When the SA shared his plans to act out with a teen, I met outside the meeting with my sponsor and some experienced, sober men in the program. We talked about different interventions his sponsor could try with him. No one excused this man’s behavior, and some agreed that being arrested might be the best thing that ever happened for his recovery. We talked to other SAs around the country and asked them how they dealt with disclosures of child abuse. I brought it up at a conference and asked for help and guidance. I will continue to ask. I feel with all my heart that SA is not meant to be a “safe place” for child abusers to hang out and that SA must be a safe place for even the most damaged and damaging of us to be loved so that we can get well.

I stopped going to mixed meetings for quite a while. I started out attending one to three meetings a week, but I needed a break. There were days when simply hearing in a short share “I objectify women” sent me into a panic. I helped start a women’s meeting. I started calling every female newcomer I could find. I offered to sponsor. I located an international women’s weekly phone meeting and attended regularly. I asked to do service locally and nationally. I was terrified that if I skipped the mixed meetings in my town I’d relapse, and terrified that if I didn’t skip them I’d kill myself. I went to 90 meetings in 90 days, filling in with other Twelve Step programs. I talked to my sponsor almost every day, sometimes twice a day, and I worked regularly on my written Step One. I didn’t relapse, I didn’t die, and I eventually became willing to go back to mixed meetings about twice a month.

If you want to be a safe ally to women sexaholics and sexual assault survivors in SA:

Think deeply before you share at meetings that being sexually abused was good for you. I cannot, of course, speak for the intricacies of your personal experience. But perpetrators of rape throughout time have lied by saying “she loved it,” “it’s no big deal,” and “the kid didn’t even wake up.” SA is not the appropriate place to give voice to these ideas. Denial is one of the defining characteristics of addiction. Consider the possibility that you may be in denial about your own experience. I am certain that being sexually abused was one major factor in turning me into a sexaholic. We need to look deeply into this experience if we want to be free of it.

Don’t touch me. Male SAs at meetings have warmly expressed their kindness and acceptance to me in many ways. Some have tried to do so by putting an arm around my shoulder, shaking my hand, or rubbing my back. Don’t do that. No matter what the intention is behind such an action, it feels invasive and inappropriate at an SA meeting. Know that many times during a meeting, women and assault survivors of both genders are in a dissociated state. We often freeze up for a while, hold our breath, and “space out.” We have flashbacks so that while we look like we’re just standing there, we’re actually being flooded with rape memories. I may not be able to say anything, but I don’t want to be touched.

Take the mess to your sponsor and the message to the meeting. This Twelve Step saying is very difficult for me to follow. Many, many times I show up at a meeting and share the “mess”—what I’m resenting, what I’m afraid of, why I think the program won’t work for me, etc. But the longer I’m sober, the more I try to share the message: that sexual sobriety is possible, how I’m working the tools and Steps, and why I’m glad I’m sober. For those SAs who are compulsively drawn to sexually act out on children and teenagers—you must share about this if you desire to recover from it. Get a sponsor and share safely one-to-one with people who have recovered from harming others. But if you speak at a meeting about your actions or plans, some of us are required by law to call the police. Mandated reporters include social workers, teachers, child care workers, doctors, dental hygienists, and other professionals. We don’t want the cops to show up at the meeting any more than you do. And we don’t want to be torn between the law that says we must report, and the Tradition that says we must protect your anonymity.

Use the right words. Words have a deep and transformative effect on us. The statement: “I’m a little unhappy with some of the sexual stuff I’m doing these days” is a world away from the statement “I’m a sexaholic and completely powerless over lust.” I really liked the first sentence better! But when I clung to the first sentence, there was no hope for me. I had to take the First Step: admit who I was and what I was really doing. It felt devastating, but it was then and only then that I began to recover. Now listen to these two sentences: “I guess I sort of went in my daughter’s room and rubbed her a little but she was sleeping” vs. “I sexually abused my daughter.” It is only when we begin to call things by their true names that we have a chance to be changed and healed. The words for sexual acting out with a minor are Child Sexual Abuse. Children do not have the power, understanding, social or legal status to consent to sex with adults, ever. Sex without consent is sexual assault.

Stick up for the meeting guidelines. The SA meetings I attend have several guidelines in the format that we read every week. These include refraining from crosstalk, “we only list forms of acting out that do not include the infringement of any laws for which we have not been prosecuted,” “refrain from using graphic or coarse language so as not to cause difficulties for others,” and “other than the closing prayer, refrain from touching members of the opposite sex.” Any member can raise his or her hand as an indication that a line has been crossed. Each of us is responsible for maintaining and supporting these guidelines. If I am too shocked or frozen or afraid to raise my hand, please raise yours. This can be done at the moment the boundary has been crossed, or sponsors can intervene with sponsees after the fact by discussing the problem one on one. It may be uncomfortable to speak up, but it’s also uncomfortable for newcomers and survivors to watch a roomful of silent people ignore the breaking of a guideline that is meant to protect everyone’s safety.

Why I’m glad I stuck around SA:

I couldn’t see clearly in my early sobriety that before SA I was already spending time with men who had proven themselves willing to objectify and harm women—they were the men I was acting out with. And my disease forced me, against my will, to objectify and harm myself. While terrifying, coming into the SA rooms finally got me into contact with some of the very people who knew exactly what was happening to me and how to stop it.

I am sexually sober today, and have been one day at a time for a little over a year. For this I can never be sufficiently grateful. I am alive today because I was Twelve-stepped into SA, because there were sober people at my first meeting; because an SA was willing to take daily phone calls from me; and because others organized conferences, typed up meeting lists, wrote, bought, and sold literature, and returned my calls.

I am beginning to experience a happy, joyous, and free life. I sleep well, I have a great place to live, a job I love, and the willingness and ability every day to help others. I’m beginning to be blessed with physical and emotional stability and safety. I am free from lusting and wanting to be lusted after most days, and I don’t miss it!

I am indebted to and connected with everyone in SA, including those in recovery who sexually harmed themselves, women, and children. This seems to me a gift larger and more unlikely than I ever believed God would give us. If those of us who survived our childhoods and this disease can listen to each other, speak and hear the truth without excuses, denial, or recrimination, and even with some compassion, then we have a power greater than ourselves with whom we can do anything.

Thank you.