“Sounds like you are feeling better.”
Those were the words uttered by my sponsor when I called in despair over a financial predicament I was working through during a career transition.

Sometimes, in meetings, I would share about the “amazing insights” I had, but these are all things I now see in my rear-view mirror. My motives and drivers were revealed to me after I did the work of the Steps. My insights did not lead to recovery. They are knowledge I had been given as the result of working the Steps.

While working for the radio industry as a disc jockey, I was trained to avoid dead air in my work. Pushing buttons, speaking, starting programs on time was very important. Timing, down to the second, in every hour was accounted for. Two seconds of “nothing” on the radio seemed an eternity, and was often cause for unemployment if done repeatedly.

A story out of the old West tells about a stagecoach owner interviewing applicants for driver. He stood at a dangerous curve on a winding mountain road where one side dropped hundreds of feet sharply into the canyon below. The owner asked, “Driving six horses at full speed, how close can you come to the edge of the cliff and not go over?”

As a biologist, I have studied several different types of fungi (e.g. yeast, ringworm, mushrooms, mold, athlete’s foot, etc.). Recently, I discovered an unfamiliar form of fungus: fantasy. Fantasy grows quietly in the mind. Like the other fungi, fantasy flourishes in dark, damp, undisturbed places.

As a child, I was lonely. I may have felt love-deprived or full of harbored resentment, but I needed some sort of outlet. Then I discovered a strange pet: Lust. This little creature seemed harmless as I studied it with my wide, innocent eyes. The most convenient thing about my pet was that I could keep it a secret from the rest of the world.

Before joining the Program, I didn’t realize how mean I was to my wife. It’s not that she’s perfect; after all, she married me. But something would happen, I’d get angry because something wasn’t going right, and I’d yell at her. I’d often blame her for things she had nothing to do with. Or I’d just yell at her because I was upset.

I have amends to make to some people. A few years ago, I abused four women, and I hurt two others for terribly selfish reasons. The four women were prostitutes. They were working in that abusive industry here in my own locality. Two were on the street, one was listed in the classified ads, and one worked in a “studio,” a sanitized name for a brothel.

How many sexaholics does it take to change a light bulb?

This past Christmas, as always, I dug out the extension cords I had so neatly wrapped up and put away a year ago. Within minutes, I found myself dealing with a tangled mess of wires. In frustration I asked the age-old question, “How could this happen when I was being so careful?”

My life really is changing as a result of my participation in recovery.

As addicts, we look at our glass of life as being half empty. Our self-centered expectations are to have a full glass or even better, have the glass overflowing. Life is not fair: others have full glasses, why shouldn’t we? We are jealous of those with glasses fuller than ours.

The Internet is one of the greatest dangers to sobriety for many sexaholics. Pornography is just a click away. There are some boundaries that work, and others that don’t. It seems that we can get around most any boundary.

In a recent issue of ESSAY, a series of thought-provoking questions were posed in an article entitled “What If?” Each question challenged us to ask what difference it might make if we believed the SA program of recovery could have a significant effect in our lives. As I read each statement, I tried to remember how I felt when I first came into SA more than ten years ago and wondered if this program could work for me.

I have found in my recovery that when I begin to think about my past in terms of what I do not like about myself, i.e., “I shouldn’t have looked at that woman like that,” or “Why can’t I be trustworthy?” or “I can’t believe the things I have done in the past,” or “I can’t believe how sick I am,” and on and on… I am setting myself up for contracting a bad case of shame and guilt.

I find my greatest effort is to get the focus off of me and onto others. If I am doing my utmost to be of service to others, I am in a relationship with my God. I don’t have to look anymore!

Indeed, the attainment of greater humility is the foundation principle of each of A.A.’s Twelve Steps. For without some degree of humility, no alcoholic can stay sober at all. (Twelve and Twelve p. 70)
I have been asking myself just what the difference is between the Third Step prayer and the Seventh Step prayer. Both emphasize turning everything over to a Higher Power.

One of our local groups meets in a church building that is usually empty on Thursday nights. It was surprising, then, to find the parking lot half full of cars, and people of all descriptions milling around out front.

The small church we attend cannot afford professional cleaning, so the members take turns doing it. My wife and I are on the rotation schedule, and this week was our turn. It only takes a couple of hours or so.

Before working the Steps, I thought humble meant humiliated. I thought it meant being embarrassed, feeling less than, angry, and losing my self-respect. If a task was too big for me, I was too small to be worthwhile. I learned that I was less than I should be, that there was something wrong with me.