This is the story of a Lust-aholic leading two incompatible lives and at the same time almost cracking up while doing so. I grew up in a Christian family. My father died when I was three, and as a result my mother stayed depressed for many years. In a way we children grew up alone. It was during my childhood that I closed up inside and turned my heart away from family and friends. Being shy and oversensitive I felt inferior to others and disconnected, hiding real feelings behind a “sunny boy” facade. Often I felt helpless and lonely, especially when not the center of attention.

At sixteen I discovered sex with self. At first it was an innocent experience of feeling high but within weeks it became a remedy for every time I felt discomfort, like fear, anger, loneliness, or depression. Being insecure, oversensitive, and touchy, I needed such a powerful drug to “overcome” the daily disappointments.

When leaving home at eighteen, I had been a lust addict for almost two years. Within a couple of months on my own, I had discovered new forms of lust: magazines, movies and relationships. I had filled the newly gained independence almost totally with self-destructive lust. The disease had progressed.

Ten years of continuous acting out went by before I hit bottom. Hitting bottom was not one certain experience, but a time span of total orientation towards lust, while at the same time acting on the outside as a “normal” person. It was splitting me in two. I was a student and visiting my family at Christmas time. It was a pleasant loving family atmosphere, yet I couldn’t connect. Being not the center of attention, I felt this emptiness and loneliness inside. This seemed unbearable. I used an excuse to leave alone and go downtown. Going to porno movies in this kind of situation had been the usual thing. This time, however, I headed for a peep-show. I had never visited one before, and it was revolting to me. I left immediately, feeling guilty and even more lonely. I knew I would never go there again. Twenty minutes later I was back and stayed there until all my money was spent. Later that evening, having returned to my family’s house, I lied about where I had been. The double life was becoming harder to bear.

As the disease was progressing, the rationalizations for acting out became more distorted. Not having a girlfriend, or having the wrong girlfriend, feeling hurt or alone, etc., these were my excuses for acting out in the beginning. In the last years before recovery my reasons had totally lost contact with reality. I started to blame the women I was exploiting. “If she wouldn’t have treated me that way I wouldn’t have had to…” During the time I hit bottom my mind was totally occupied with lust and I thought that everybody’s mind was working like mine. I thought everyone wanted the same sick things that I wanted. Demonic thoughts with criminal impact!

Eight years ago I had a chance to work in a spiritual-therapeutic community, where it was easy to be open and to feel at home. It seemed like a part of paradise, and I thought I would never need to act out again. Three months later I went back out there. My double life had become unbearable. Being part of a spiritual community and at the same time acting out sexually was tearing me apart. I was full of fear and nearly cracking up. For the first time it started to dawn on me that my rationalizations for acting out were not true. Something was wrong with me and I needed to stop it.

Although nonalcoholic, I started to occasionally attend AA meetings. Intuitively I threw away my magazines and quit going back out there. This was the beginning. Most of my motivation to stop came out of my fear of discovery. I was still acting out in relationships, and sex with self had been uninterrupted since the beginning. I was attending AA meetings irregularly and not working the program. I still did not really know what the problem was.

Six years ago I got hold of an SA brochure. I immediately identified. I now knew that lust was my problem. I was finally able to stop sex with self and acting out in relationships. More importantly, SA showed me the way to God. I was beginning to learn to bring my lustful mind into God’s presence, asking Him to bear what I could no longer bear alone. This is where I am still today. It is a miracle to me that it is my lust which is the constant motor for union with my Higher Power.

Even though God removes my lust when I admit to him what I am, I still want to hang on to some of it. Sometimes I deliberately turn away from God and towards lust. Although abstinent from sex with self, in times of prolonged sexual abstinence with my wife, I have emissions in my sleep. They occurred during lustful or fearful dreams or no dreams at all. It has been my experience that I need to reset my sobriety clock every time one of these emissions occurs. In the beginning when I hadn’t done that, they began to occur more often. Without being consciously aware, it seems that I had transferred the unsurrendered lust of the day to my sleep. In the last five years I have had about ten of these nightly emissions and it has been a humbling and necessary experience to share these in my group. It told me and still tells me today who and where I really am. (My last emission was five months ago.)

The changes God has put me through since coming to SA are not short of a miracle. Even though the changing of character defects is a slow and sometimes painful process, it is getting better day by day. As lusting and day-dreaming have lessened, my line of thought has become clearer and more realistic. Concentration and effectiveness have increased. Work is done in a more mature and responsible way. The world doesn’t shake anymore when I feel criticized. Since my guilt feelings have diminished, so has my fear of people. Jealousy has lessened in proportion to my surrendered lust. I have begun to see the needs of others and feel compassion for my fellow man. I feel the obligation to provide for my family. Sometimes I am getting a glimpse of what love is. But, above all, God has come into my life. Prayer has again become possible. The peace of mind I get from praying is something I would have never thought possible before.

Today I have been married more than five years. We have two little children and thanks to God and SA, our marriage has been blessed. The darkness of the peep-show and the light I see when looking into my children’s eyes are things I never want to forget.