How the semicolon etched into his skin saved him from ending his life.  

Bang! Bang! Bang! “Police! We have a search warrant!” It happened when I was 52, in the third decade of my marriage and teaching career. I carried with me lies and a lust-filled lens on life. Throughout my life, I had crossed so many lines that I had fried my moral compass, which led to a continuation of my sick habits. However, the moment I heard the banging on my door at 6:00 a.m., and an officer announcing “search warrant,” I knew that my fried moral compass had just exploded in my face. I wasn’t surprised, but I was devastated and relieved.  

I was contemplating my new reality and planning ways I could end it all. I looked down at my wrists and saw two small indentations in the shape of a semicolon where handcuffs had dug into my skin. Almost immediately, I felt a lightness overcome me as I realized that a semicolon is not a period; my life was not over, and somehow, I could write the ending of my story. 

My recovery journey began at my first SA meeting three days after my arrest. I was dumbstruck by the honesty, vulnerability, and hospitality I witnessed from total strangers. That night, I shared things with these total strangers that I had never shared with another person in my life. I found my tribe. In one of the first entries of my diary, I wrote, “Went to first SA meeting, life-changing, not alone.” I attended nearly 150 meetings in the 10 months leading up to my prison sentence. During that time, I found a sponsor, diligently worked the Steps, and developed relationships with fellow sexaholics. I also began a relationship with my Higher Power and have learned about how to surrender my will to my Higher Power’s will each day. 

My redemption is based on changing my habits and life focus from doing my own will to surrendering to my Higher Power’s will. Throughout my incarceration, I continued my focus on what I learned from working the Steps and strengthened my relationship with my Higher Power. My nine-month sentence was my 40 weeks in the desert. Prison was my valley of dry bones, my eating with the pigs, my crucible. It tested me in ways that only prison can by stripping away my dignity, possessions, and freedom, and leaving me a more patient, humble, and appreciative person. By not being in control, I learned to be patient. From strip searches to communal toilets, I learned the value of humility. From being caged like an animal, I learned about the sanctity of freedom. I left prison not broken, but strengthened with a hope of personal rebirth and a compassion for those that society deems irredeemable. 

Two hours after being released from County prison, I walked back into an SA meeting and into the arms of my family of recovering sexaholics. There was no other place I wanted to be. I was home. 

In the year since I walked out of my desert, I have become a sponsor to someone who is preparing to walk into that same desert. I have also become a sponsor-by-mail through SA’s Correctional Facilities Committee (SACFC) to a person currently incarcerated who requested the opportunity to work the 12 Steps. To engage more with my 12th Step, I have facilitated meetings from time to time and spent hours talking on the phone and in person with my fellow sexaholics. I hope that by focusing my life on my Higher Power and service to others, I not only continue my recovery and rebirth, but also promote the message that sexaholism is not a period at the end of a person’s story; through SA, sexaholism is but a semicolon that allows one to write the ending of their story into a rebirth of hope, healing and recovery, a life of renewed purpose.