When I first came into SA, wrote my Step 0, and came to meetings, I knew what I had to do. I deleted the phone numbers of three guys I had acted out with. I closed down my Instant Messenger program and removed the program from my computer.

The other day, my wife and I were traveling from North Carolina to Florida. She had been on her cell phone for about an hour nonstop. I became annoyed that she was not paying attention to me.

As I was reading Step Into Action, I was reminded of the phrase “My best thinking has gotten me to where I am today!” I started thinking about “my best thinking” prior to recovery and realized that my thinking had been all about me.

What is sober dating? I can only speak for myself. For me, sober dating has been the hardest, most demanding, and most rewarding experience of my life. When I was “out there” in my addiction, I never dreamed I would be able to be in a close relationship with a woman and remain sober from lust and sex. Today, I’m here to tell you that it is possible.

It’s the third Friday meeting of the month in San Francisco. As usual, the room is quieted by a Step Five letter I’ve just read aloud. The letter was written by a prisoner we’ve never met. We’ve heard other prisoners’ stories, but none of the other crazy shares quite compares with this one.

It’s Sunday afternoon and I’m having a great conversation with a fellow SA member about the Eighth and Ninth Steps and the amends letter he is trying to write to his wife. It’s not unusual for me to spend my Sunday afternoons this way, except that this one is happening in the visitation room at the state prison, and today is Father’s Day.

What a life. Great job. Tons of friends and a loving family. Oh, did I mention that I’m insane? Clueless and selfishly delusional, I spent years wreaking havoc on others while projecting the image of Superman. In early 2007, my addiction to Internet pornography landed me in jail.

My name is Scott; I’m a recovering sexaholic serving a 6 1/2 to 13-year prison sentence for sexual abuse. It has been my great privilege to be a sober member of SA since March 24, 2006.

I didn’t want to go to the SA convention, “Serenity in the Rockies.” The title seemed cheesy to me, and I hadn’t experienced anything close to serenity in a long time. But my sponsor had instructed me to go, and I reluctantly agreed.

It’s hard to say exactly when and how I became a sexaholic. At age 10 or 11, I was given a pocket calendar with a picture of a naked woman on it (I was so deeply impressed that today I can still remember the calendar). After that I would often go to the market in my neighborhood looking around for more “sexy calendars” hanging on the walls of the stalls.

Today I know that I’m not in charge of my life. I know that there is a God, and that I owe my continued sobriety to my relationship with Him. But it has taken me a long time to learn those lessons, and I’m still learning them today.

One day I realized that although I had spent generously on my addiction, I’d been pretty stingy with my giving in recovery meetings. The selfishness and denial that had blinded me to lust also blinded me to greed.

Dear Fellow SA Members:
Question: What is the purpose of the Delegates?
Answer: To serve the fellowship. That’s why we are called “servants.”

Acceptance is a big part of my program today. Acceptance keeps me out of expectations (premeditated resentments), resentments, and revisited resentments. I can take “hits” off of any of these, and these hits can lead me directly to lust. One thing that helps me a great deal is using three simple slogans.

Fifteen months ago I volunteered to serve as Chair of Denver’s Intergroup. I didn’t particularly want to do it. I’m not very good at schedules, and it meant showing up at a specific time and place once a month for two years. Nobody else was stepping up, however, so I decided to give it my best shot. So far I’ve missed two meetings.

The Detroit Area Intergroup has been grappling with how to handle youth (i.e., children and teens under legal age) who wish to attend SA meetings. We’ve been discussing this ever since one of our local meetings sent away two girls last year.

I’m Jerry L., Chair of SA’s Translations Committee (a subcommittee of SA’s Literature Committee). Our committee handles requests for permission to translate Sexaholics Anonymous and other SA literature from English into other languages.

I had never thought of myself as unstable, nor ever noticed anything particularly erratic about myself until about three weeks after I got sober. My first several meetings were somewhat numb experiences.

As is often the case, I was desperate when I crept in to my first SA meeting at the end of December in 2007. I was desperate for so much then: sobriety, recovery, a hug from my daughter, a night without tears, a glimmer of hope from my wife. Desperation became my buzzword.

On occasion, I like to tell this story to newcomers who want to treat me as if my 40 years of sobriety and gray hair give me some great wisdom: I bought an old house and moved in without doing any repairs.