My story is not unique, and for that I am grateful. When I discovered I was a classic sexaholic, I became hopeful, realizing my problem had a classic solution. Hope and honesty were small words in my vocabulary and an even smaller part of my life before I came to SA.

My grandfathers were alcoholics and possibly sexaholics. My family did not foster any visible signs of affection, but today I thank my Higher Power for the strength He gave my folks, as immigrants to America, to make the best life they were able for themselves and their children. I now see how hard that must have been.

That was not always my attitude. I was a demanding and emotionally needy child. I demanded far more than my parents could give and I grew up feeling deprived. I constantly compared myself to others and was extremely sensitive to and envious of what others got. Theirs was always better. I held that against my parents and so justified not being part of their lives. I isolated and effectively grew up without a family while I suffered the great pain of self-pity.

I was interested in sexual things from a young age. Today I believe it was part of me from the start. At the age of six, I was involved in childhood sexual experimentation with an older neighbor girl. My father caught us and made a big deal of it. While the girl got in trouble, I got the message that we did something dirty. Around the age of nine, I was lured by a thirteen- or fourteen-year-old neighbor boy. There was secrecy and hiding, but his father caught us in the act, and he was beaten with a leather belt. These episodes were shot through with fear of exposure and excitement of secrecy.

I taught myself masturbation at the age of ten by using an instrument. The event was overwhelming. I became addicted immediately. I knew from past sexual experience that what I was doing was dirty and would get an explosive response from adults. The fear of being caught only heightened the excitement. Dishonesty grew as my secret became harder to protect, and it spawned the double life I led for many years.

I used masturbation to solve all of my problems. As they increased, my masturbation increased, at times to the point of physiological exhaustion. The toxic effect appeared in my early teens. My fantasies were insufficient. I wanted pictures and desired to act out with my friends. Hard-core pornography was not available then, but there were books with pictures, and masturbation took on new importance. I wanted to act out with all my friends and I was constantly scheming to see them and touch them sexually.

Voyeurism now became an important component of my disease. I would find myself in places like public restrooms for hours on end, bored out of my mind, just to catch a sexual glimpse of a man. The rare times I “scored” served to feed my fantasies so I could continue masturbation as my means of coping.

I disconnected from reality, and turned so far inward that I really did not know who I was anymore. I latched on to friends and acquaintances, attempting to be with them just to have some kind of identity. My silent demands on them to be everything to me only put me in a position to be hurt. Making these people my gods only made things worse because being hurt ruined my trust, which further isolated me, thereby completing the cycle to start the process again.

My insatiable need to be superior supported my belief that I had discovered something unique. Since sex was not discussed at home, I understood only that sex was dirty, forbidden, loaded with euphoric pleasure, and took away the world. This solution was short-lived and posed a problem because it had to be repeated, ad nauseam, to fill the terrible emptiness from my isolating attitude toward God, family, and peers.

I found a beautiful woman whom I loved, and we married. The transfer of her attention to her family and our first child gave me the excuse I needed to fulfill my fantasies by acting out with men. Pornography shops were just opening, and hard-core films were being shown. My first movie was like a bomb exploding in my head. I was changed forever. My innocence was completely gone. My fantasies became more intense, and my addiction deepened. Dishonesty took on new importance as I took advantage of my employer’s trust in me and took time from my job to act out. I lied to my family, using a side business activity as an excuse for my late returns home.

I attended the new porno shops, spending the family money on books and movies, and bomb after bomb exploded in my head. I learned about bath houses, which I perceived as an endless supply of lust objects. At last my fantasies could be realized and I didn’t need my wife and family anymore. But, as before, the toxic effect appeared. I needed more and more to satisfy less and less, and I began to realize that something was dreadfully wrong.

My solution was simple: go to a therapist, place my money on the table, and sit back and relax while I got fixed. Over a ten-year period, I went through seven therapists and three priests, all of whom practically begged me to stop acting out so I could get to the issues at hand. Each week brought the same story until they got bored and let me go. I even suggested to them that I was addicted and needed something like AA, but my quest for the easier, softer way blinded me to the true solution, even as it was at my doorstep.

The disease escalated. I took more risks with my personal safety and that of my family by paying for sex and bringing strangers home. I also played roulette with the deadly disease, AIDS.

By now, the dishonesty was rampant as my double life expanded. I presented myself as a moral, righteous person to everyone on the one side, while engaging in shameful, immoral behavior on the other. The guilt was crushing, the pain was intense, and the energy spent was enormous. I always believed in God, but my faulty thinking kept Him separate from me until I cleaned up my life. I knew in my sick mind He would never come to the filthy places I visited.

My sexaholism progressed to the point where my whole life caved in on me in a church one afternoon. I had the horrifying realization that nothing I was doing made a difference and that I was doomed to a life of acting out and was going to lose all and possibly die. I broke down and cried bitter tears of powerlessness like I’d never felt before. I realized I could not purge this from my life. Then came the sinking feeling that no one else could purge it either, not even God. I took Step One at that moment, but was condemned to terrible hopelessness for four more years because I had not come to believe. My acting out continued, the disease progressed, and the pain and guilt became ever more intense. The solution, as I then saw it, was to take a drug to kill my sexual appetite for a time, to try life without lust and sex.

As God ordered things, someone with whom I had acted out in a porno shop and who shared my problem, became a connection to SA two days before my first injection. I read that wonderful SA brochure and cried again, this time with tears of hope. I was excited about going to my first meeting, but feared I would find a den of lust. Instead, as I told my story, they heard my desperation and they said the golden words to me that I shall always treasure, “Welcome home.” It was then I realized how lost I was and it was then I took Step Two. God came to me and I knew it.

Step Three was not yet for me because I had to test my solutions once more. After two and one-half months, I acted out one more time. It was then I realized that I would lose my last hope if I didn’t become honest, and turn my whole life and will over to God. I thank Him for the willingness to make that decision, for without it, there would be no program, and what I wanted most, sexual sobriety, would be nothing more than wishful thinking.

I see today how far God has brought me. Steps Four through Twelve have shown me how much humility I must have to stay sober and what a long way I must journey in recovery, one day at a time. This gives me peace because my life today has purpose and direction. The awesome power of God through this program has restored in me an innocence my sexual addiction had taken from me. The Twelve Promises are coming true for me today, and I cling to my Higher Power as tightly as I am able, for I have been shown that without this life-saving program I have no God, and without God I have nothing.