My rock bottom was struck in 1999 when my daughter stumbled across some online chat I left on my computer. For some, suicide is the ultimate rock bottom. For me, losing the respect of my children in this manner was far worse.

Much of my life was like the moon. I was the largest and brightest object in the night sky. There is only one moon and nothing shined as bright as me. From my vantage, I was all-seeing and all-knowing.

Mixed face-to-face meetings are a great place for me to learn to respect myself in the presence of men. I have the option to go to a women-only meeting, but I have found (after hiding out in that women’s meeting for a year or two) that the mixed face-to-face meetings are 10 times better for my recovery and healing.

February 11th, 2008 Journal Entry: I let myself float off into the beginnings of lust this morning. But this time, strangely, I had an awareness of choice: an awareness of two worlds. The first was dark, although in my addiction it could seem bright and be full of expectation and excitement.

At our Monday evening group, we had an instance of a male SA being inappropriate with a female SA to the point where we had to ask for guidance. What an eye-opener to find out that there were no suggestions, no guidelines, no experience, strength, or hope that anyone I contacted had to share.

I know I am powerless over lust because of my inability to stop acting out despite knowing the outcomes and consequences. The ways I am powerless are many: I’ve continued to act out alone despite knowing that practicing the compulsion is directly opposed to becoming sober and maintaining sobriety.

I don’t know why you’re not able to stay sober, but I don’t think it’s the incapacity to be honest. Agonizing over that is like agonizing over grieving the Spirit—it happens to very few people.

Thanks to everyone who attended the “Welcome Home” convention in Akron the weekend of July 11-13, 2008. A total of 636 people attended the convention; 434 SA members and 202 S-Anons. Twenty-one people received scholarships.

Although I’ve been a member of SA since January 2000, my sobriety date is January 1, 2007. At times, I’ve felt extremely frustrated with my lack of continuous SA sobriety—especially when compared with my 23 years of sobriety in AA.

What it was like. I enjoyed my first convention in the place where it all started. My cell phone’s background screen now has a picture of the gatehouse where Dr. Bob and Bill W. first met. When I open my phone, I say a prayer of thanks to God for the Twelve Steps.

God led me to a place I hadn’t been before, to be with men I didn’t know. Why? To allow me to build on my experience, strength, and hope in recovery from sexual addiction. He took me to the Big Bear men’s retreat this past spring.

Yesterday marked two years of sobriety for me. Prior to my sobriety date of May 24, 2006, I can’t remember having gone two days without acting out in the previous 30 years. For my sobriety and so much more, I am forever grateful to the program and to the fellowship of SA.

My name is Will. I’m a sexaholic and part of a recovering couple. I’ve been sexually sober since January 5, 2000.

Dear Fellow SA Members:
I look forward to seeing many of you at the Convention July 11-13 in Akron, and I hope that you will attend the SA business meeting (“SA Today”), which will be held during the convention.

My Lord, I thank you for again providing us the opportunity to come together, to share, to help and be helped.

I’m just an ordinary person, but special in the eyes of God. I’ve been involved with SA since 1993. It took me six years to be able to maintain any sort of sobriety. Until then I had not surrendered my “right to lust.”

How did my addiction to lust begin? There are many ways I could explain it: my childhood; my parents’ relationships with themselves, with me, and with others; genetic predisposition—it can be looked at from different angles. Today I believe that my addiction stems from my relationship with myself, from my unhealthy self-talk.

In one of the Harry Potter books, the defense against the Dark Arts teacher would shout, “Constant vigilance!” He meant, of course, that constant vigilance is necessary in order to stay safe from practitioners of the dark arts. When I read this, my first thought was “That’s how I have to be with my sexaholism.”

Often when I’m in an SA meeting, I’m not really listening to the words of the readings. I’ve probably heard the words “Many of us felt inadequate, unworthy, alone, and afraid . . .” (SA 203, “The Problem”) a thousand times. But one day, the meaning of these words really hit me:

At the beginning of Sexaholics Anonymous (15), the narrator says in part: “Then one night out of nowhere a prostitute jumped into my car . . .” (emphasis added). I used to think that my own behaviors occurred “out of nowhere.”