(The following is a transcript of a talk given by Steve O. at the SA International Conference in Newark, NJ, on July 11, 1998.)

Let me begin with a clear and obvious announcement to you. I am sick. I am very sick. And I was terribly sick. Because of this illness I am with you in the great and wonderful, life-giving fellowship of SA. I’m delighted to be able to do this.

There is a microphone, and there is a podium. And that gives power, and it gives control. [Laughter] For me, as an addict, it’s like sending a kid into a candy store. I am from a normal, dysfunctional family. [Laughter] No use lying. You know how you read in the newspapers about the “homeless.” And they say such things as, “they’re close to the streets, the curbs and gutters, the concrete, the litter, the sewer lids and fire hydrants and litter baskets and storefronts…” and I often say to myself, “That’s awful! How could anybody do that?” But I was homeless. Lust sucked my spirit, my very soul from my body. I was like a shell, living but not alive. I was truly homeless.

Lust, as I experienced it, drugged me. It kept me in a trance. It kept me out of touch. Lust terrorized me. Yet I was fascinated by the intrigue, the tease, the forbidden. Lust abused me, violated me. Lust humiliated me with shame and guilt. It seemed unbearable, but I went back for more. Lust stalked me; it was always waiting for me, always there, most dependable. And it kidnapped me, like being held hostage. I had a reprieve upon occasion, because lust knew it could come back and get me again, and again, and again, and I went for it. Lust tortured me, and this torture killed me. It took my soul and left only my body. Lust left me blind, but most of all it left me powerless. And I am powerless today over lust.

Then the pain struck from another direction. And then another, and lust would once again take over. I was operating not on reason, but on the demented impulse of my heart. My acting out replayed itself daily. My cruising, my anonymous sex at rest stops, porn places, gay sex clubs, whatever. One day I made out a list of how I acted out, and it looked like a telephone directory. My disease was an intoxicating habit. It kept me drugged, numb, and drunk 24 hours a day. I would sleep, but never rested. Or I rested, and never slept. I was always going, in my mind, in my fantasy life, I was constantly acting out. For me, once the river of addiction started flowing, it took on a life of its own, and I could not control the boat. The waves were too strong, and I would go with the flow. I would act out, as lust just grabbed me, held on to me, and then there were times when I went after it! Because I knew what it felt like. I knew there would be some relief there, from whatever I was feeling or from whatever I did not want to feel.

Being a good addict, I felt the need to punish myself with more addictive behavior. Who in their right mind would keep going back, and back, especially when lust would stalk, terrorize, and kidnap? And kill, which it did for me. My active addiction leads me to live a lie; and I was very good at it. I could manipulate, cheat, steal, connive, and always with the innocent look. “Who, me?” “What?” Yes, you. One time I was telling a friend about visiting a counselor, and he was talking about anger, and I was saying to myself, “You know, the poor guy sees so many people a day, he probably has me mixed up with someone else.” [Laughter] And I really felt badly for him, because it just couldn’t be me he was talking about.

My sexual acting out, which was 24 hours a day for so many years… When did my acting out begin? Who knows, but I really believe I was a sex addict pre-conception. My acting out brought with it a litany of loss and longing, guilt, and rage, and regret, because of so much deceit, and so much giving in to the power of lust, and to the addictive behavior. I always felt regret that I spent so much time in the charade. In the double life. And the double life took energy, and it took time. What did I say to this person, what did I say to that person, how can I lie about this or that, about not showing up here, or not showing up there, being late for this, or late for that.

All the years I spent in the performing arts, my synapses were not getting the jump start they needed. The chemical switch in my head refused to click. The more I feared life, the more I retreated from it, and I became good at isolation, and very good at withdrawing. It was becoming clear to me that I had to change my medication. A miracle took place in my life. I was looking, and I knew that AA did this for alcoholics. I knew that this program did this for people… to whom could I go to speak about my sexaholism, my constant acting out? There was a great fear of that… there was nobody in the late 1970s or early 1980s I believed I could speak to, but I knew I had to change.

One Sunday I was reading the newspaper, it might have been the Jersey Journal or the Star Ledger or the Bergen Record or the Daily News or the New York Times, but of all places, I found in the Daily News a front page spread in one of the weekend sections about Sexaholics Anonymous. And I wrote. It was in New York, and I went to my first SA meeting in March of 1985 at St. Francis, and I have been coming back ever since. After making that decision, or actually just before making that decision, I realized I really was no longer plagued by the sensation of falling, because I had reached bottom. I had a sense that just when the bottom of my life dropped out, just when I hit rock bottom, rock bottom was dropping out too. But something was telling me that I probably had to hit that bottom to figure out how to really enjoy life. So I had come to a fork in the road; a time of choosing. I must decide whether to remain where I am, dwelling in darkness, or to journey to the place of understanding, in our 12-Step fellowship of SA.

In coming to make the choice, it was like holding a jewel and a scorpion in the same hand. The challenge was, to get rid of the scorpion without losing the jewel, and without being stung. And I was able to do that with God’s grace, and the grace of the fellowship. My brothers and sisters in the fellowship, although we are not brothers and sisters in blood, we are brothers and sisters in the heart. There was so much time I spent telling myself that I would really sell my soul to never have done the things I have done. Lying awake at night, sweating, promising the dark that if only something would make it all “unhappen,” that I would never do anything like that again. And that’s my prayer for today.

Today is a new day. Today is a new beginning, and I don’t have to do that. There are times when I hear people say in our meetings that they have had a “lust-free day.” I’m not so sure I ever recall a lust-free day. I know it’s progressive victory over lust, but today I have the ability, with God’s grace, to make a decision to choose, and that, for me, is the miracle I see in my recovery. That I can choose to go in a more positive route in recovery, and in sobriety. In all this process of the last 13 years, the growth in the program and the growth in recovery… it hurts, and it also precipitates change. And change for any one of us is frightening. And there were times in the early days when I would share in a meeting that maybe I was better off acting out, because I never knew I had these feelings. I never allowed them to come to the surface. The fear, the fear of failure, or any type of rejection.

In SA recovery, I am open to the fullness of existence. I have received my soul back, an aliveness that was missing. God calls me each moment to the fullness of existence, to this gift of life. When I came here 13 years ago, damaged in body and in soul, I had no hope that I would really change. I believe that I am a miracle. This is by God’s grace, the fellowship, and all of you in SA. I am filled with gratitude and with hope…and I know that for me, it’s one day at a time. Thank you for listening.