This is the best day of my life! Not because I am here sharing my story with you, not because of any anniversary or birthday. It is the best day of my life, because this is all I have… TODAY.

When I turned 13, I was introduced to masturbation. A school friend taught me to voyeur my sister through the bathroom keyhole and to masturbate. I only did that once; it made me feel sick. Masturbation, on the other hand (no pun intended) became my most intimate friend. Immediately, I was hooked and began to use fantasy to fuel my masturbation. But this was not the problem. The real problem began when I became obsessed with stopping and was unable to stop. Commitments, deals with God, responding to altar calls, swearing off, threatening myself, punishing myself—I tried them all.

During summer school, we were watching a movie in class, and while fantasizing about a girl in front of me, I slipped my hand in my pocket and began masturbating myself. When some of the guys found me out, I tried to ignore them and act nonchalant, although my beaming red face made it very difficult. Also while a teen, I sexually abused my younger cousin for about two years.

So I knew I had a problem. I also believed that God was the answer to all my problems. My solution: I’ll handcuff myself to His ankle and God has to help me. So I went to school to study theology and become a pastor. I thought I could blackmail God into removing my obsession and cleanse me of my sin.

After years of theological studies, I had two fantastic job offers in the ministry. Yet, I found myself in my pastor’s office, faced with letters from a few women I had abused during college and who feared I was not fit for the ministry. I was forced to turn down any ministerial job offers and go into counseling for sex addiction. I was angry at God. “I gave myself to you and this is what I get?” I demanded.

After that humiliating experience, I went home. For the next two years I became heavily involved in the local church while going to counseling and taking my acting out to newer heights. I explored every dancing club and bar I knew of, every strip club, adult book store and cruised every major street for prostitutes. Living the two lives was exhausting and demoralizing.

I was suicidal, but I wanted to make one last deal with God. I wanted Him to give me one last awesome acting out experience and then kill me. Soon I met this gorgeous grad student. This woman was God’s answer to my prayers. She was everything I was looking for. While acting out with this incredible woman, I found myself hitting on my 40-year-old art instructor. And that’s when it dawned on me. No woman will ever be enough, no matter how incredible she may be. That’s when desperation took me again to the very edge of suicide.

A few hours into my despair, I found myself in the office of my therapist who sent me to a specialist in sex addiction. He gave me a list of SA meetings in my town. The first time I walked into these rooms and met you all, I gave a huge sigh of relief. Finally, I found someone who understands. The format of that first meeting was to begin by listing the nature of our addiction. By the time it came my turn to share, I knew I was not as sick as many of you. But maybe I could just get the formula, get well, and move on.

That began over five years of bargaining. I was not that bad. After a few months in SA, my only problem was masturbation and internet porn. Gone were the endless nights in slimy adult bookstores, or chasing prostitutes, or late nights of bar cruising for sex partners with $3 glasses of soda in my hand, because I didn’t drink alcohol. I bargained with my sponsors, but none of them could help me get sober. I found someone I could marry and I had enough tools to stay out of trouble. But all I did was add to my list of victims.

It was only as I sat in a residential care facility 3000 miles from home that I had to make a decision: Am I going to seek recovery even if my wife left me, if I lost my job and my original family abandoned me? At that point I made a decision that I had to work this program for nobody else but me. This disease WILL claim my life if I don’t. From that moment things began to change.

For me, spirituality means having a relationship with my God, with myself and with others. All my life I prayed to God to remove this addiction from me. He never answered my prayers. Today, I just pray that God’s will be done in my life and to relieve me of the obsession of self. The addiction is still there, but as the Big Book says, “What we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition” (AA, p. 85).

I began working the 12 “suggested” Steps. Once I was willing to follow directions and to do the work, small miracles began to take place in me.

Sobriety also brought balance in my life. I was an all or nothing kind of guy. Sobriety helped me find that there is “something” in between the two extremes. For me, it was contentment. No excitement and no depression; just peace. It is true that it’s a bit bland, but I would never trade it for the apparent “excitement” and the price I paid for it. Today blessings come in different packages.

There may be more acting out in me and because of that, I desperately need you and God. I have no other choice. Complacency is a killer. That insidious thought, “I can handle it,” creeps in and ruins it all. For me, lusting will ALWAYS lead to acting out. My Higher Power allows me to choose between life and death.