One of the hallmarks of my sexaholism is isolation. I consider isolation more than just shyness or introversion or not liking to be around people.

Sexaholism drove my view of holidays in the past. I hated them; they always took the focus away from my misery. When I couldn’t have my misery, I surely gave it away freely. Everyone around me was irritable, restless and discontent!

Someone asked me if it gets any easier as time passes. I have to think about what that question really means to me. I have to think about what it is I’m actually measuring and comparing between my past and my present.

For the last five years, by the grace of God, I have not lusted when fully awake. When a triggering sexual image pops up, my eyes seem to automatically look away. I do not take that deadly first drink. Instead, I say a prayer. “I surrender my right to be comfortable! Please bless me so I can be helpful to other sexaholics.” Then I make a phone call.

Last week I was sitting at home, tired after doing some work on the house, looking forward to a nice warm shower. Suddenly my wife said to me: “Hey, why don’t you take a shower?” At the tone of her suggestion, I started getting angry for her giving me unsolicited advice. Who is she to tell me what I should do? She is trying to control me!

My experience prior to SA recovery had been that struggle was necessary. The only defense against lust was to exert as much energy as I could muster to fight and struggle against it. Lust proved to always be more powerful than me, and thus I always lost the fight. I am powerless over lust (Step One), plain and simple.

My wife and I were putting away the Christmas tree. It’s an artificial tree with lights wired into it, and we like the way it looks in the front window at night.

Dear Essay,
Thank you do much for the new edition of Essay. I really love the SA publication!

Dear Essay,
Perhaps this letter can begin a series of discussions about SA and minors. This began when I received the following note from an SA List manager:

Dear Essay readers:
Welcome back to Essay — or, if this is your first time to read the Essay, welcome to your SA meeting in print. In addition to our usual articles on Meditations, Practical Tools, Steps and Basics, we are adding to this issue a new Literature Corner and a Humor page.

Told by a Denver 2016 Conference SA speaker: What is the difference between a jet engine and a commercial airline pilot? When you get to the gate, the jet engine stops whining…

By the grace of a loving HP SA was started in Iran by two sexaholics from Shiraz on 31 March 2003. The standard meeting readings had already been translated into Persian by an expatriate Iranian and these helped the new fellowship in Iran to adopt and apply the principles established by SA internationally.

I learned about the sobriety definition (ludicrous!) and the Steps (no problem!) more than 20 years ago. In my head I completed them all in short order — until I became more desperate and got a sponsor. We agreed to work the Steps together.

After Step One in our book Sexaholic Anonymous on page 87 it says: “This is why ‘telling all’ is not taking the First Step. Such confession can be anything from boastful replay to anguished dumping or intellectual analysis. And even then, it’s not really ‘all’ and often is only surface material. In truth, we don’t ‘take’ the First Step; it takes us.

When I am pushing my way and it’s not going the way I want it to, I stop and pay attention. If there is time, I take a walk in the woods, sit with my back to a tree, feel the ground and the roots for the grounding effect, look at the treetop for the spiritual connection and the trunk for my physical connection.

A few years into my recovery I found myself periodically delving into some very negative emotions. These incidences were sometimes triggered by things like dealing with difficult people, having to make difficult decisions when there seemed to be no good options, and trying to cope with marital difficulties.

After my last act out, I have come to wonder if I am addicted to emotional pain. For an addict pain, along with most human instincts and feelings, can be skewed by a strange mental twist. Is pain that place of comfort or familiarity that I am inexplicably drawn to?

One night, at our home group meeting we discussed the SA group’s Primary Purpose—to carry its message to the sexaholic who still suffers (Tradition 5). Someone commented how helpful it would be to have a visual explanation of the Steps to share with newcomers. Below is what we created, and it has helped many newcomers ever since.

This summer I attended the SA International convention in Denver. While there I went to a baseball game. While there I talked with a man sitting beside me. After some baseball talk we got to what convention brought us to Denver.

I suffer from a sort of hypervigilance. Something in me wants to identify and define every object, every person, every angle and surface in my physical environment. My ears are open; my eyes are taking in the very texture of things around me.