My name is Alex. I’m a gratefully recovering sexaholic. By God’s grace and not by any human power at all, I have been free of the tyranny of lust since July 23, 1990.

In the film Spartacus, Kirk Douglas assembles his fellow slaves — men, women, and children — and tells them that maybe there’s no peace in this world — for them or for anyone else. I do know that we’re brothers, he says, and as long as we live we must stay true to ourselves.

That’s why I’m writing out my opinion on a controversial matter that has been brought before the Los Angeles area intergroup — to be true to myself and to my fellow slaves, for indeed those of us who are true sexaholics are slaves — slaves to lust. It is only by a power greater than ourselves that we have any chance at all of stopping lust in our lives — whether lust for flesh or the lust to express pride, resentment, envy, greed or countless other defects of character that give us hits.

At issue in this controversy is whether or not we should be required at Sexaholics Anonymous meetings to state our length of sobriety. Here’s my take on it: First of all, I want to congratulate the member or members responsible for bringing this issue before the intergroup. From what I’ve been told, members 10 or 12 years ago did not typically go through proper channels and instead would start implementing policy changes secretly, within individual meetings. So we’ve made some progress in SA — and that’s exciting, because it shows a willingness to keep Tradition 4: “Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or Sexaholics Anonymous as a whole.”

Each of us is unique. Our approach is unique. The way we work the program is unique. Nevertheless we know that, within the program, there are certain inviolable parameters established by experience and tested over time. One of these centers on the ritual to start meetings by going around the room and stating our name, followed by the length of our sobriety.

Here’s what I read in the White Book and my personal interpretation of how it applies to this issue:

Page 201: “Sexaholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength, and hope with each other so they may solve their common problem and help others to recover.” In order for a problem to get solved it first must be brought into the open. Secrecy is deadly — not just to the individual, but to the group. And if members of a group are accepted for secrecy, they will be emboldened to take their attitude to other meetings and express it, thereby infecting additional groups.

The White Book goes on to say: “The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop lusting and become sexually sober.” One of the ways we show our desire to stop lusting and stay sexually sober is by confessing the length of our sobriety to the group. To me, keeping silent before the group is the same as keeping secrets from the group. Lust in all forms, including ego-lust, thrives on secrecy. Lust is like a cockroach. It loves darkness. Watch a cockroach race out of sight when you switch on a light. The more honest we are with confessing our lust and our sexual slips, the more we are shedding light on them — and the more light we shed the further lust will run away from us, toward darkness. If we truly want lust out of our lives, we will shed as much light on our acting out as we possibly can. We will let light chase lust away.

Some will argue: “If I tell the group, I will feel shame. And if I feel shame I will want to medicate with acting out.” This rationale is based on the false premise that stating our length of sobriety will hinder us from achieving our ultimate goal: recovery. Actually this rationale is a ploy by our cunning disease to prevent recovery by stopping us from trusting and risking. Trusting and risking are essential keys to recovery. Our disease fears losing us to recovery, and it knows that secrets stop recovery. We must not listen to our disease. We must trust the 12-Step process and trust others if we want recovery. If we can’t trust a group of our brothers and sisters whom we can see, how can we possibly trust our Higher Power whom we can’t? Has anyone ever gotten long-term sobriety in SA by not trusting his or her Higher Power (Step 3)? Not to my knowledge. Is it possible to get sober and stay sober without trust? Not to my knowledge. And for most of us sobriety starts by trusting the group.

Page 202: “Lust has become an addiction. Our situation is like that of the alcoholic who can no longer tolerate alcohol in his system but cannot stop.” That’s where the similarity ends, in one sense — the sense of smell. The acting-out alcoholic, generally speaking, reeks of alcohol, no matter how hard he tries to mask his breath. It is only by smelling an alcoholic’s breath that you can tell whether he’s telling the truth about his sobriety. But the acting-out sexaholic smells just as fragrant as a sober sexaholic. Lust is much, much easier to cover up than alcohol. We in SA need to use all the tools we have with which to expose lust. Stating the length of our sobriety is one of those tools.

Page 203: “Many of us felt inadequate, unworthy, alone, and afraid.” I submit to you that the reason for not stating length of sexual sobriety is because the sexaholic feels inadequate, unworthy, alone, and afraid — and wants to use silence and secrecy to soothe over these feelings — to live in the cool illusory comfort of darkness. In my opinion the sexaholic who keeps silent is a sexaholic who does not trust the group with his or her behavior — does not trust that the group will give back love and a desire to help — but instead is fully consumed by shame and embarrassment and fear of criticism. To me, the sexaholic who is unwilling to state length of sobriety is trying to look good. Such a sexaholic puts a higher value on looking good than on being real.

What light do Steps 1 through 3 shed on this issue?

Step 1: “We admitted that we were powerless over lust — that our lives had become unmanageable.” To me, admitting acting out our lust is admitting that our lives are unmanageable. If we don’t admit the date of our most recent slip, we’re not working Step 1 and have no real hope of any lasting sobriety and solid recovery.

Step 2: “Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.” To me, the silent sexaholic disbelieves in a power greater than himself or herself that can restore him or her to sanity. In my opinion the silent sexaholic is oozing with ego-lust, and no longer believes that acting out is insane — that his or her recovery is so advanced that he or she has gotten to a place of healing whereby his or her emotional, physical and spiritual systems can tolerate a little bit of lust now and then — even if it leads to recurring acting out. The silent sexaholic may even go so far as to say that stating length of sobriety interferes with recovery — that a slip here and a slip there is OK, so long as you minimize its effect on your life by hiding it from the group; hiding is necessary to avoid the pain of shame. To me, this rationale is just an excuse by the disease to maintain a secret life of acting out, under the guise of promoting and enhancing a life of recovery. Sexaholics who think this way have somehow convinced themselves that rock-solid recovery is possible without rock-solid sobriety. This is scary enough, but even scarier is the spreading of this outrageous idea to others.

Step 3: “Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.” Again, if a sexaholic cannot confess his acting-out life before a gathering of his visible peers in the program to whom he is accountable for the group’s sake, how can he place his will and his life in the care of an invisible Higher Power for his own sake?

Thus, I believe that a sexaholic who is unwilling to share about his or her acting out is not really working Steps 1 through 3 and is building “recovery” on a foundation of shifting sand, not solid rock.

I believe that sobriety is the gateway to recovery. I believe that the cleaner and deeper we are in our sobriety, the cleaner and deeper will be our recovery — not just our individual recovery, but also our group recovery.

And speaking of the group, I believe that choosing to keep our acting-out life a secret from the group is a violation of Traditions 1 and 3.

Tradition 1: “Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends on SA unity.” We need to hear in meetings that sobriety is possible in what many consider the most difficult of all addictions. How will a despairing newcomer, entering into the program feeling devastated by the disease, know that sobriety and an improved life is possible if length of sobriety is hidden through silence? If newcomers don’t know who has sobriety and who has insobriety, how will they know who is really working the program and therefore who to ask to sponsor them? How can the group know whom to nominate for positions of service if no one is held accountable for length of sobriety? Should anyone be allowed to lead a meeting, for example, even if they are drunk with lust? Can a program that champions sobriety and recovery do well when an officer’s life is an example of insobriety and tolerance of character defects? And how can we reach out and offer to help those who are not sober unless they report their slips?

Tradition 3: “The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop lusting and become sexually sober.” In my opinion a sexaholic’s willingness to admit the date of his last slip expresses his desire to stop lusting and become sexually sober, even if he’s a chronic slipper.

To state our length of sobriety is to say: “Sobriety matters.” Plain and simple. It matters. It’s important. Requiring stating our length of sobriety says that Sexaholics Anonymous wants to differentiate between members who are really serious about sobriety from members who are not. If we are true sexaholics we are powerless over lust, over our egos, over our lives. If we act out and keep it from the group, we are in effect saying: “I don’t need sobriety. I don’t need help.” If that’s true, why are we here?

Stating our length of sobriety brings sobriety to the fore. It re-affirms to the group our commitment to sobriety — our belief that sobriety is the most important thing in our lives — important because we understand that without it our lives cannot change — that all we can hope for is a dead-end future. We can kid ourselves that more is possible, and for a time experience the illusion of having more, but in the long run our serenity-hungry souls will feel the gnawing emptiness that craves to be filled. And we will fill it, if not through the tools of our program, then with drugs such as rage, resentment, pride, and of course, sex.

In the March 1996 Essay supplement titled “Suggested Guidelines for Group Recovery,” we read about the importance of keeping sobriety in the group consciousness. It says: “One common tendency is being overly tolerant to insobriety, not only in newcomers but in regular members — tolerating the illness within the group. [I’m guilty of that.] Being people-pleasers [I’m guilty of that too] can actually support the problem. Whenever we put personality before principle, the group is the eventual loser. It is essential to establish in the group and in the newcomer right away the idea that there is something to work for — sobriety. That we must work for sobriety. This is the reality of the situation. If we never get beyond ‘not making waves’ and being ‘nice’ by not speaking up, and never insist that the meeting focus on what it takes not only to overcome lust but be joyous and strong in sobriety, then the group will likely languish in this malaise forever.” The article then goes on to list some practical suggestions for raising sobriety consciousness, including: “State our length of sobriety … when we introduce ourselves at the opening part of the meeting.”

The White Book is the basis of our program. The script on page 197 states in part: “My name is [fill in the blank with your name]. I’m a sexaholic, and I’ve been sexually sober for [fill in the blank with your length of sobriety].”

In one sense we all have the same length of sobriety, for we can only be sober one day at a time. If length of sobriety is something we brag about, then it is sobriety without recovery and will eventually lead to insobriety.

We are imperfect people and always will be in this life. Our goal is progress, not perfection. And though we all are different, we all want the same thing: serenity and satisfaction in living life.

The process starts by being willing to go to any length to stay sober. And being willing to stay sober starts with being willing to share with our brothers and sisters who we are and where we are on the path of sobriety.

It’s been said that “nothing changes until it becomes what it is.” That means we must admit our faults, including our slips, if we want change in our lives. Alcoholics Anonymous, the parent of SA, understood that. But SA in its early days did not. Surprisingly, SA did not in the beginning require us to state our length of sobriety in meetings. Roy K. tells the story of how stating our length of sobriety became part of our meeting format: “One day in 1981 two sober SA members from out of town attended an SA meeting in West Los Angeles. Sitting in the meeting and listening, they suddenly discovered that the meeting fully tolerated the full participation of sexaholics who had no sobriety. These two visiting SA members (who also happened to be AA members) were incredulous. ‘Don’t let drunks talk!’ they exclaimed, before walking out of the meeting in disgust. They wanted nothing more to do with what to them appeared to be a bunch of lust drunks getting together to wallow in their insobriety. It was this very meeting that shocked SA into establishing a format having members state their length of sobriety. Stating length of sobriety originated out of the failure of SA to attract new members.”

I came to SA in 1990. I stayed because members were open. And through their openness I gained a new life. I wouldn’t trade what I have today for anything. I believe I would sooner take a bullet through the head than ever act out again.

The way I see it, if I want to protect my right to be a lust drunk by keeping silent in meetings about my length of sobriety, why don’t I just take a knife and plunge it into my vitals, rather than push it in slowly, inch by inch? Why let tolerable levels of lust incrementally destroy my heart, my feelings, my spirit, my life? Why let lust kill me off slowly, instead of getting it over with all at once?

In my experience long-term sobriety opens the door to making periodic quantum leaps of recovery through periodic spiritual awakenings. I have been graced with many spiritual awakenings, each one taking me to a higher plateau of recovery in myself and in my marriage. I earned none of it. And I would have none of it if I were not working on sobriety along with recovery. But spiritual awakenings and deep recovery start with a life-long commitment to sobriety. The “impossible joy” of which our literature speaks is available to anyone willing to go to any length to stay sober — any length, regardless of cost or pain.

The SA script I quoted earlier that says to state our name and length of sexual sobriety comes under the heading “Suggested Meeting Format.” I for one suggest we use it. Now and always.