Hasta que solo quedemos Dios y yo
Comencé este programa de 12 Pasos desde lo más bajo después de cometer adulterio. Lo único que quedaba de mí era decir: “Conozco una solución. Me voy a suicidar, y luego culparé a todos los demás. Todo es culpa de ellos.”

Coquetear era una droga para mí
Sylvia J. (con seis años de sobriedad en SA) con el título original de 1989.
Reimpreso en Historias de miembros 2007, pp. 120-123
(edición en inglés) con el título «La única forma que conocía»

En mi memoria, la expresión Cielos (“good grief” en Inglés) era un improperio común de los personajes de dibujos animados de Carlitos (o Charlie Brown). Durante gran parte de mi vida, utilicé ¡Cielos! para expresar asombro, consternación y frustración, sin considerar nunca la verdad más profunda escondida dentro del eufemismo. Antes de entrar al programa de SA (21/10/1998), vivía con una acumulación de dolor congelado. Solo después de un par de viajes a través de los pasos comencé a comprender y aceptar los beneficios del duelo. Me di cuenta de que atravesar el dolor era sanador y bueno para mí.

Sylvia formó parte de la primera etapa de Sexólicos Anónimos (SA) y fue una figura fundamental en el desarrollo de la estructura de servicio actual de SA.

Our next edition’s theme is “Happy, Joyous, and… Single.” We look forward to exploring the joys of recovery while single. Is that even possible? Absolutely. Numerous members who are single for some time or for the rest of their lives live “happy, joyous, and free.” However, ESSAY is your magazine and it is your experience, strength, and hope that carries the message of recovery to the still suffering sexaholic. Please consider sharing your experience with the fellowship by submitting an article to essay@sa.org.

Sponsorship in Prison
My name is Blue, and I am an incarcerated person serving a life sentence in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation for the crimes of sexual assault. This is the bad news. The good news is that coming to prison was the best thing that could have happened for me, because it forced me to take an honest look at myself and what I needed to do to transform and be healed.

Have you sought support to help you find the good in grief?

Jack’s in-depth article describes how unprocessed grief can greatly contribute to the addictive process. He explains how support in SA, especially from an understanding sponsor, helped him discuss the losses in his life and cultivate gratitude.

Dear ESSAY,
Thank you for this topic on Grieving In Recovery. It has helped me reflect on how I cope with grief since being in recovery, compared to before.

SA has a set of Trustee Committees (see Concept 11) that provide advice and perform tasks on behalf of the Trustees. The Information Technology (IT) Committee is commissioned to develop and maintain the sa.org website. This website is often the first contact newcomers have with our fellowship and serves as a hub for providing information, literature, and services to all SA members. We would like to keep it in tip-top shape.

While every ESSAY edition is special, carefully thought out, and filled with SA recovery, we would like to describe this edition as unique. The Fellowship has had many losses in the past year. Some experienced loss in recovery for the first time. Can the Twelve Steps and the Fellowship of SA aid those grieving?

Sharing the wisdom of David M. to help us let go, grow, and remember.
Maynardism: The opposite of love is indifference. When one is angry or critical of another, that is not indifference. That is an expression of caring. Learning to accept caring in the form of judgment is important, though rarely pleasant.

The January 29 reflection from The Real Connection has had a profound impact on my recovery.

Cesar’s videos can be viewed on the ESSAY website on the Videos Page on https://essay.sa.org/videos/.

I didn’t know what grief was or what it felt like before recovery. Lust numbed all my emotions, positive and negative. I rarely had feelings when pets passed away. It felt like it was just part of life.

As this headline suggests, I have lived through the deaths of my large childhood extended family, where I lived and thrived. Then, in midlife, my beloved husband died tragically. My circle shrank to my parents and grandmother, but in 2020, my cherished father and grandmother both died in lockdown, with all the severe trauma that involved at the time. Even my former acting-out partner will be dead by now.

“Have you worked the Steps on this issue?” Sylvia asked me that question regularly when she was my sponsor. The question stays in my head, and it comes to the surface when my Higher Power knows I need help. Seven women received many wise suggestions from Sylvia as our sponsor or as our friend. We united in our grief to have an online memorial, a memorial on Zoom, and a memorial published in the June ESSAY magazine. Sylvia passed away in October 2024. One of the women interviewed me and Sylvia’s former sponsees and friends to paint a picture of her gifts of experience, strength, and hope.

I have a lifetime of tears that are trapped like an ocean, deep within the inside of me,
The pain and the fears, and a lingering notion that one day they’ll all be set free.
But for now, as new tears are gathered and added deep behind an impenetrable wall,
The pressure increases as the stability decreases, awaiting the eventual fall.

I remember what my life was like when I was living wholly in my addiction. It was as though I were in a cave, deep inside, where the light was far off, and surrounding me were damp, cold walls of stone. Gratefully and finally, I moved toward the light and found fellowship in SA. That damp, dark place was my lust addiction. I was isolated even though I was surrounded by people. In my lust, I saw people as objects, and I was alone.

I wept nearly every day in my first year in recovery. What a contrast with the previous 25 years, when I acted out sexually whenever I felt sad. In doing so, I had stuffed so much grief inside me that when the dam broke, I thought the flood would never end. There was a lot of pain down there. All those losses that I had never grieved: the death of my father when I was a teenager; many lost loves; two broken marriages; separation from my children; two failed careers; hard-won fame and fortune gone. There was a world of sadness here that I had never expressed naturally. I had just “moved on” to the next career or relationship, until one day I was 12th-stepped.

My name is Kathie S., of the Exeter, Devon, England, SA group. The next county to Devon is Cornwall, including one of the smallest SA groups in the country: the Truro group. This dedicated group has hosted again this year one of the most awesome events on my calendar: the Truro Recovery Day (which was in early April 2025). Truro is a Cathedral city, accessible by railway and by main roads.