Last Sunday nine of us came together to celebrate at the 5-hour Newcastle Australia Conference, while an average of another 20 members zoomed and called in. Among us were two first nation Australians and one woman. We had guest speakers from all over our island—Gold Coast, Perth, Melbourne, Sydney and Newcastle.

The morning smells like smoke
A building is burning
The siren is running
But I am humming

Recently, I awoke early to start my day before it became hot and humid. I prayed my usual prayers, but thought to myself that I would save morning meditation to a more convenient time. Perhaps this was the beginning of obsession trying to creep into my mind as I ignored the line, “On awakening let us think about the twenty-four hours ahead. We consider our plans for the day …” (AA 86).

It took me nine years in SA to realize that continually praying to God to “keep me sober,” and to “take away my lust” wasn’t working for me. I discovered that this kind of prayer was just another subtle way of trying to manage my life by asking God to do what I thought He should do for me.

Recently, I was waiting for some medical results, which, if negative, may have meant some serious consequences. Fear gripped me, but I did not share my feelings with anyone. Without even making a conscious decision to do so, I found myself back in self-reliance, relying on finite self instead of infinite God.

In December of 1999, I was 10 years sober in SA and working for a defense contractor. It was the era of Millennium bug, and no one knew what sort of effect the change of millennia would have on computer systems (the answer: not much). To help out in this effort, I was sent from my home in Maryland to Tampa, Florida to assist U.S. Special Operations Command with documenting their Y2K compliance.

What is positive sobriety? I think that it’s focusing on why I want to stay sober as opposed to why I don’t want to act out. On page 69 in our White Book it says, “Instead of running joyously to heaven, we seem to back away from our hell, one step at a time.”

Thank you Lee T. for agreeing to be interviewed for Essay. Your sobriety date is 1986. During your 34 years of sexual sobriety, what have been some of the key habits and behaviors you have built and maintained to stay sober and grow in recovery?

Lust and acting out had poisoned my soul from early teenhood. A double track had developed in me: On the one hand, a deep desire for a true love, a loving union, for family life, house and kids; on the other hand, an ill and poisoned desire to right away have sex with women, without any sense for personal relation, love or respect.

I joined SA in 2017, but I’d heard about it six years earlier… Yes, it took me six painful years to come to the point where I could say: “I am a sexaholic. I am powerless over lust because I am sick.”

In this time of disorder, struggle and transition God is at work. Sexaholics Anonymous is emerging as part of the solution. Technology has brought fellowship members into contact with large numbers of fellow sexaholics we would normally not have the opportunity to meet, nationally and internationally.

Like most people in SA, I have had to make adjustments in the way I practice my program routine. I had been a regular at the noon meeting near where I worked. With four meetings a week, it offered me a safe haven where I could finally face myself and what better way to break up the work day. I have to admit, I really depended on going there.

Happy and joyous freedom for me began nearly 13 years ago when the lust obsession was removed from my life. I had become a slave to uncontrollable urges, beginning about 25 years earlier and slowly worsening. Somewhere along the way, I crossed an invisible line into insane thinking and behavior.

Initially when I read the theme to submit an article for the Essay, I wondered about the paradox and challenge of finding such growth. I was intrigued by the focus. However, the more I reflected on my experience, the more I could honestly say that I had grown in joy and freedom during these Covid times.

To seek spiritual progress, I must continue to work the Steps with my sponsor. I must continue reading questions, reflecting and writing answers no matter how many times I’ve done this before. This time around, I found a few Twelfth-step questions online— about reaching out to other sexaholics and how the 12-step program has worked for me.

It works if you work it! It’s a simple quote. We repeat it at every meeting. Just as simple is the requirement for membership: a desire to stop lusting and become sexually sober. But while these are simple truisms, living them is not easy. To stay sober in the face of day to day challenges and to deepen my recovery means I have to work the Steps, practice the tools of recovery, do service for others and take regular guidance from my sponsor.

Let’s start with some statistics. The word happy appears in the book Sexaholics Anonymous seven times, and in the book Alcoholics Anonymous 16 times. The word joyous is in the SA book eight times, and in the AA book 12 times. Freedom is used only four times in the AA book and 37 times in the SA book.

Football (or Soccer as they call it in the US) – what would we do without it? It is so exciting, so passionate, such a good topic of conversation, and so much more. As a teenager I was obsessed travelling around the UK following (worshipping?) my beloved Tottenham Hotspur F.C. As life moved on and I got busy with studies, marriage, kids I realized that (maybe?) there are more important things in life and I gradually lost interest.

One of the most effective Practical Tools is HUMOR.
The difference between your sponsor and a therapist
1. Your sponsor isn’t all that interested in the reasons you acted out.

Below is what I shared with a lady in the fellowship who felt attracted to a man in a mixed meeting: