(The following is taken from a talk by Michael J. at the SA International Conference in Cleveland, OH, on July 10, 1999.)

My name is Michael and I’m a sexaholic.

It feels weird to say that in front of several hundred people. It’s not something we can be very proud about in front of the normal public, but it’s something I can say here with confidence that it won’t go beyond the doors. Back in 1940 or so it would be awfully strange to say to a crowd this size that you were an “alcoholic.” This is a very strange disease, and it has a lot of shame to it. What’s wonderful is to be able to be in a crowd this size and know that when I talk about how awkward I used to feel and how wonderful I feel now, there’s a bunch of people out there who know what I’m talking about.

I am very, very grateful to be here at the conference. I’m extremely grateful for my sobriety, which has given me my brain back. My sobriety has given me back a relationship with God, a religion, a relationship with my son, self-respect; it has given me an awful lot. It is only through the grace of God, the Fellowship, and the Steps of Sexaholics Anonymous and the fact that I was so low and in so much pain that I was willing to do anything you folks told me to, that I am sober here today and have been since July 16, 1991, and for that I’m sure I can never be grateful enough.

I am also grateful to the Cleveland Intergroup for allowing me the opportunity to speak here this evening. I have to be honest with you, they did not seek me out, I volunteered for this. It’s not that I’m some well-known speaker where I come from, I’m just another sex-drunk, but when they put on the registration form, “Would you like to speak?” I said to myself, “Definitely.” Because this is an opportunity to say, in front of this many people, that this program works if you work it.

I am very happy to be sober and relatively joyous and free compared to what I was eight years ago. Eight years ago, I was ready to die. I don’t think I was ready to overtly commit suicide, but I was ready to die. I had my priorities. I was an addict, and I had my priorities, and my priority was my addiction. My friend told me a joke about addiction and priorities, so I thought I’d share it with you. Hope you don’t mind. I was standing on a street corner in Atlantic City in front of a casino. A hobo walked up to me and said, “Excuse me, sir, but I’m saving up money for my mother’s kidney operation. Can I have a quarter?” I said, “You can’t fool me. You’re going to take that quarter and go inside this casino and gamble it away, aren’t you?” And he said, “No, no, I’ve got gambling money!” [Laughter]

I had my priorities, too. I lusted from the age of eight, actively, until I was in my teens, when I learned about acting out, and I acted out a lot. Details aren’t important. I don’t think at an AA conference they talk about what brand of beer they drank. I don’t think that matters too much, but I acted out a lot. I definitely qualify: a lot of pornography, a lot of masturbation, a lot of rubbernecking, a lot of flirting, a lot of head-turning. I thought about sex all day long, and didn’t know why. That will really create quite a personal hell. I don’t think people around me knew what a hell I was going through, and I’m sure many of you can relate to just how private our hell is. It’s so powerful, and so private, and I was just ready to die. I just didn’t belong. We talk about feeling “inadequate, unworthy, alone and afraid.” I was all those. I just knew that you all had something in common and I didn’t. I knew that when you spoke to each other there was some magic going on, that you guys understood each other, and I didn’t. That bothered me. I felt very, very different. I used to have a fantasy that everybody was on earth for my benefit, that all of you were like scientists, social workers and sociologists and psychologists—all of you were there for the purpose of studying me. Like a perfect self-obsession fantasy. In high school, I can remember standing on the street and a bus would go by and I would say, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m here, yeah, this is me…” And I used to have that fantasy so much that I believe that one day something would have clicked and it would have become my reality. I truly feel that if I had continued acting out I would be in a mental institution or have committed suicide. I’m absolutely positive of that. This program has given me my life.

I found that in high school and especially in college, chemicals really helped my lusting. When I drank beer and smoked marijuana, I could flirt a lot more comfortably. And that’s what all this is about, isn’t it?—feeling more comfortable. I never felt comfortable with myself or with others. The Steps are a substitute for the chemicals. The Steps help me to feel comfortable.

I’ve met an awful lot of you this past day or so and I’m just so grateful. I shake your hand and say to myself, “I know that you know what’s going on in my head.” I feel uncomfortable, you feel uncomfortable, but we’re working the Steps, and we’re getting along. The Steps are a great substitute, unbelievable tools, perfect, divinely inspired. I’m a big Step fan. Some of my sponsees call me a “Step-nazi,” and I proudly wear that patch. [Laughter]

I drank alcoholically from the beginning and five years later found myself at my chemical bottom. I just felt ready to chuck it all in. I think what saved my life is lust. Let me explain. I believe that I used lust and masturbation as a crutch, and I think that’s what held me together, loosely of course, but held me together. I think I would have imploded or exploded back then. That was 16 years ago next week. I didn’t work the Steps very well in AA. I wasn’t a very good AA member. I went to meetings and kind of worked the Steps, had a sponsor and such, but the next eight years in AA progressively just made me feel terrible about myself. I would share this with some of my sponsors and tell them, “I’m masturbating a lot. What’s wrong with me?” And they would say, “Sounds good to me. Go ahead. You’re coming to meetings, aren’t you?” “Yes,” I would say. “OK, what’s your complaint?” I hear that a lot from guys who get sober. Their psychologists say, “Well, what’s wrong? Go ahead.” But I still felt “wrong.” I always felt “wrong,” that something was “wrong” with me. I asked myself that question daily: “What’s wrong with me?” I think about lust from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to sleep. What’s wrong with me? I didn’t know. I was going to meetings, but something was still wrong. I didn’t get it, and I almost died from it. I’m an alcoholic and a sexaholic and I would do anything for my drugs, and I’m a grateful, lucky person to be here.

I went along in AA for a while, but things got progressively worse. I was married, and things got worse and worse at home, louder and louder. I isolated more and more. I like to tell people, “My natural state is not to be standing and talking about recovery in front of people.” This is Michael in his natural state [makes gestures of using remote control while watching TV]. See that thumb muscle? Hundreds and thousands of channels. One through 99 and back, one through 99 and back, one through 99 and back. I see people relating. It’s a miracle of this program that we can relate to each other. [Laughter]

This went on and on and I had no relationship with my wife. I pressured her for sex and she declined and I would pout, and I would flip through channels all evening. My son wouldn’t think about asking his father to play; his father was an extension of the couch. You don’t ask the lamp to play, why should I ask that man to play? Things got bad enough and I was an SOB enough and I lusted enough that I was going through a real hell. We talk about in “How it Works” that “we thought we could find an easier, softer way, but we could not.” This is the easiest, softest way. There is no easier, softer way. We’re here. This is it. It may be difficult; it may be challenging; but I will take this any day of the week and twice on Sunday over what I was going through. That was a hell, and I never want to go through that again.

Things got bad enough and I was willing to do what it took, anything it took, and so I called up my company’s health maintenance organization and asked for an appointment with a psychologist, and for the first time in my life, I told someone what was going on. I said “I’ve been doing a, b, c, d, and e, for years.” I said, “This feels just like beer. What’s wrong with me?” He said, “Well, we’re about out of time; you’re a sexaholic, go find SA and I’ll see you next week.” That’s a true story. I said, “Are you serious?” He said, “Absolutely. This is just like beer. Absolutely, just like beer. You have hit the nail on the head. Go find SA, they’re in the phone book. See ya.”

That was July 15, 1991, and the next day I was at my first meeting. And I cried, and cried, and cried, that whole first week. Why did I cry? I cried because I was home. I felt at home. I felt that I had found a bunch of people who knew how bad I felt. People would say, “OK, Michael, you’re the new person at the meeting, would you please read ‘How it Works,’” and I couldn’t even read it without crying. It was a cry of relief, and I am so grateful to be here.

I got a sponsor that night. Great guy. I had a year and a half of sobriety, and that sounded like forever, a year and a half. I asked him to be my sponsor and he said, “You bet, give me your phone number, here’s mine, call me tomorrow.” I called him the next day and said, “What do we do now.” And he said, “Let’s work the Steps.” He said there are two terms that are used frequently in the Fellowship. One is “Fellowship,” and the other is “Program.” “‘Fellowship,’” he said, “refers to the conversations one-on-one, the meetings, the telephone calls. But ‘Program’ refers to the 12 Steps. That’s why we’re here, to work the 12 Steps. Are you ready to work the Steps?” I said, “I’ll do anything you say. You tell me to jump, I’ll say how high.”

I was really, really ready. So he said, “We meet once a week, on Sunday mornings. You’ll get a workbook, and we’ll work Steps One through Twelve.” He said I needed to work Steps One through Eleven, formally, with him, in order, efficiently, thoroughly, without delay, because we need to work on Step Twelve. He said, “That’s why you’re here. That’s why I’m here. Step Twelve is the reason we’re here.” I found the essence of Step Twelve once on a church marquee. I was walking in Morristown, New Jersey, and on a church marquee, right outside of an AA meeting, it said, “God does not comfort us to make us comfortable, but to be comforters.” That is the essence of Step Twelve for me. To work Steps One through Eleven, thoroughly, efficiently, and without delay. And so I would work on Step One, and I’d write it out, and I would call him (he said to call and ask questions), and we would get together on Sunday morning (there were two oldtimers and two newcomers) and I would read my First Step and they would say, “OK, start on Step Two, see ya next Sunday.” No pats on the back, no jumping up on the shoulders, it was, “Yep, yep, you sound like a sexaholic, come on back next Sunday.” And I was so grateful for that.

I’m not only addicted to lust. I’m addicted to resentment and I’m addicted to chemicals, but I’m also addicted to your approval, “you” meaning the human race. I’ll do anything. Just as recently as 10 minutes before I came up here to speak somebody gave me a look that was not 100 percent approval and I obsessed about that person for the next 10 minutes. And I thought to myself, “This is just so silly.” I give it up to Him.

I have to tell you that these Steps work so well, and they work through anything. They work through adversity, they work through success, they work through all challenges of life. I use the Steps every day, in all my affairs, because they are tools for living. I don’t know how to live life on life’s terms. I’m not comfortable living life on life’s terms. I don’t know how to deal with people. I’m socially disabled. I’m a sexaholic! It’s my natural state for me to be sitting in front of the boob tube, but the Steps give me a way out. One defect at a time, one occasion at a time, I don’t have to act out on any of my defects. I am far from perfect. I am such an isolating person it is still very challenging for me to deal with people, but that’s okay, because I’m sure a lot better than I used to be.

God has given me so much strength in sobriety, and I want to give you an example of that. I’m going through a divorce, and if there’s ever been a time when I needed fellowship and the Steps, it has been through this divorce. I don’t want to take her inventory, but I do want to stress with you that this has not been a pleasant time. Back in September she mentioned that she wanted a divorce and so I said I would work with her on that, and things felt very odd at home; something was wrong. And then in November I confronted her and said, “I’m really sensing that there’s somebody else.” And she said, “Yes, there is.” My head was about to explode, I didn’t know how to deal with this, and I just couldn’t finish a sentence. I was just staring at the wall, and didn’t know how to react, and she said, “Are you done yet? I have to go.” This has not been a very pleasant seven months since then. Things have gotten loud, lots of threats. She is not in recovery, and that’s okay. That’s her choice. I just had to leave. That very week I had to leave. I went to my son, and I said, “Remember I said that your mom and I weren’t getting along very well and that there might be a chance that we might have to live in separate houses?” I said, “This is very, very awkward for me, but trust me, if there was any other way, I would do it, but please trust me when I tell you that I just have to leave this week. Some day you may understand, but I have to leave this week.” I could not live in a house like that, and he said, “I understand.”

Things can be, and have been, semi-pleasant between his mother and I. We have been trying to work things out through a mediator. So let me tell you how this program works. It became very adversarial one week, and we were sitting in the mediator’s office talking, and the tension was very thick. I just closed my eyes, and I said, “You’re here; You’re right here with me.” And I felt calm, and then I was able to look at her. Not only do I need approval, but I really need approval from women, and I desperately need approval from angry women. I’m working on it with a therapist, with my sponsor, and all. I’m an addict and I’ve got lots of issues. My mother was very loud, but it doesn’t matter, it’s okay, I’m sober, and I’m here. I’ve got the Steps to lean on, I’ve got my meetings, I’ve got the church, I’ve got a therapist, and I’ve got prayer.

If I can leave a message this evening, it would just be simply that the Program works if you work it. I’m only telling you these things that I’ve been through because I desperately want you to know how much this program works. I am going through such challenges. Here I am almost eight years sober and life doesn’t necessarily get easier, but if I work the Steps, if I keep coming to meetings, if I keep doing what you told me and my sponsor told me, if I keep staying on that path, things are very, very doable. I find this to be such an opportunity for growth. One of my sponsees has a challenging marriage, and I said, “How were things this past weekend with so-and-so,” and he said, “I had a lot of opportunity for growth.” [Laughter] I said, “Phew, I know what you mean.” I love that feeling. A lot of opportunity for growth.

I get to sponsor people now, and I’m thrilled about that. I also have been allowed to do a lot of service, and I’m very grateful for that. You see, one of the miracles about Step Twelve is that when you do the One through Eleven formally, without delay, efficiently, thoroughly, with your sponsor, when you do get to Twelve, it’s like it just takes you. You have to tell people, so one of the forms of service I love and I almost get selfish with is answering the phones back home. There’s a bunch of guys who love to answer the phones, but I always want to answer it more.

I also get a chance to set up the literature at my home group, and that’s something I treasure as well. I tell people, “You’re certainly welcome to come early to the meeting, but I’m going to be there with you, you can’t take the job away from me.” You know how the White Book says you start to feel a part of instead of apart from. That’s really important. I like to feel like I’m the host at my home group, and say, “Hi, how’re you doing, come on in, sit down, let’s talk.” So my sponsor told me, “Lay out all the books in a really nice fashion. Make it look very professional, because when a newcomer walks in the door, you want the newcomer to think, ‘Wow, these guys have their act together.’” I would say to him, “Why can’t we just take this and Xerox it? It’s cheaper.” He said, “No, no, it looks so much more professional when it’s printed nicely. That’s why it’s printed; that’s why we buy it, and we’re not allowed to Xerox it.” That’s why eight years ago when I called and they had that nice professional sound on the answering message, I started crying. I thought, “Wow, these are not only people who understand me, these are people who have their act together. They can help me, because they have their act together.”

I’m so grateful for the gifts that God has given me through the Fellowship and the program. A lot of friends. A lot of people who have inspired me to be there for the newcomer. There is one opportunity in particular that I wanted to share, and that was starting a meeting. There’s a whole bunch of guys over here who all have started meetings. Everyone wants to start meetings in our part of the country, and it’s so nice to see, because we’re in the suburbs—pretty small towns, but everyone’s wanting to start meetings, and S-Anon has started, too. It’s a miracle.

I want to wrap up with my very favorite story about recovery, and that has to do with my son, [who’s 11]. It’s one of the best gifts of recovery. My son has been such a blessing. He’s a lot further along than I was when I was his age. My parents were active alcoholics for most of my upbringing, and their parents, and their parents—lots and lots of isolation and mental illness and overeating and sexaholism—a normal addictive family. [Laughter] It almost feels that, perhaps, the cycle is being broken, and I really hope that that is the case. [My son] is able to say things like, “My feelings are hurt, and here’s why.” “Dad, you made me angry.” Or he can hold up his hand in front of his teacher and say, “This isn’t fair.” He’s assertive, he’s got self-confidence, he’s the star of the baseball team, he’s a great, great guy.

But it wasn’t like that before. The first three years of his life, I really was a piece of furniture. About three months into sobriety, the “miracle of withdrawal” started to subside, and those of you who have been through withdrawal know that wonderful feeling with the fog is just about starting to clear and you say, “Ah, this is a life out here.” There are people out here! And if you haven’t been through withdrawal yet, please be patient. Every single one of those promises, every single one, will happen in your life. You need to do what your sponsor says, keep coming back and working the Steps.

But about three months in, I picked [my son] up at the babysitter. We were driving home, and a miraculous thought occurred to me. I think there are a lot of people in this room who will understand the miracle of this thought: “Hey, I wonder what [he] wants to do this evening?” I was just driving along and I said, “Hey son, what do you want to do this evening?” I was thinking, “I don’t know what kids like!” He said, “Do you want to go to the park?” So I said sure, and we went to the park. (He actually had to give me directions.) We stopped the car, got out, and we were walking up the hill. We got to the top of the hill and he stopped and said, “Where’s Mom?” He wasn’t used to seeing the park without his mom. And I said, “Tonight’s different. Tonight, it’s just you and me.” And he said, “OK.” And we went down and we played frisbee and we played ball and we swung on the swings and played on the teeter-totter, and that was the first of many many nights, and I am so grateful that God has given me my son, and that my son does not have to see his father off in the distance, mentally, sitting on the couch. That he has a real dad, so that in two years when he does change, and kids at school will offer him cigarettes, or a magazine, or beer, that he will know just how much I love him, and how much I want this cycle to stop.

I want to thank the Cleveland Intergroup one more time for allowing me to tell this many people that the Program works if you work it. God bless you all.