Dear Essay readers,
The theme of this issue is about the prejudices and challenges we all encounter sooner or later on the path of recovery.

The Essay recently had a chance to interview Laura, the new Office Manager of SAICO. The article provides a brief insight into what SAICO does on behalf of the world-wide fellowship.

The SA Public Information Committee has exciting news! The three first Public Service Announcement (PSA) videos it has made can now be translated into more languages around the world!

As a sexaholic, I am a refugee from the land of “Trying-and-failing-miserably-at-running-my-own-life.”

Recovery has been a process that moves me ever closer to God. Through selfishness, self-centeredness, resentment, fear, and harms done to others, I built obstacles I could not get over, under or around. I moved farther and farther away from Him.

Before joining the Program, my life was spiritual vagueness, white knuckling, and shame, a darkness inside me where I was lost. I was afraid all the time – of myself, the future, and other people.

My name is Brian. I am a recovering sexaholic. On a Thursday afternoon seven years ago, I was arrested in a police internet sting. Step One reads – “We admitted that we were powerless over lust – that our lives had become unmanageable.” Being arrested and publicly shamed illustrates in the most obvious way that my life had become unmanageable.

Hi everyone, I’m Flo, a recovering sexaholic, sober since Oct 7, 2015. Sobriety is my priority in life. I want to live a sober life, no matter the kind of garbage I have to face on a given day. No matter what the emotional or physical pain, I keep moving ahead in my sobriety and recovery. Why? Because sobriety is the only thing I really have in life, and everything in my life depends on this.

My relationship with my wife was almost ruined when I read an article in Recovery Continues about abstinence in marriage. That was exactly for me, a real insight! After discussing this with my wife, she accepted my suggestion. We began various non-sexual activities, including walks.

In March 2018, I had been sober for about three years … I relapsed. It took me completely by surprise. Later, when making my inventory about it, I could see that the disease, very cunningly, had slowly conquered its way back in. From time to time I had purposely let short lust thoughts in, which I did not completely surrender.

I attended my first SA meeting in 2015. Back then I was a member of another 12-Step fellowship in which I was dealing with my drug addiction. After a couple months of struggling with lust, while being clean in the other fellowship, I found SA. I continued going to SA meetings and was around 4 months sober when I left SA, convinced that I could now handle my lust problem without SA.

My mind, my thinking, is sick. It creates continuously judgments and prejudices. These are distorted ideas and beliefs about what is right and what is wrong. I judge the events in my life and believe they should have been different. I judge other people, I judge myself, I judge God. I cannot trust my thinking or judgement.

I started my SA story in a rural town in Australia. There were no SA meetings near me at the time. Being a sexaholic in a rural area is very challenging because there is a bad stigma attached to sex addiction. There was a Royal commission into sex abuse in the church. There are a lot of old world views where sex addiction is seen as something bad; something that doesn’t belong in our community.

In 2014 I first heard about the program of SA. I identified myself with it, I knew I needed it, but I did not dare take the step and join the program. There were many prejudices in me that prevented me from doing so. I was afraid: I thought they were going to judge me and condemn me since I was leading a double life, a double moral standard.

When I joined the SA fellowship, I was afraid that it may have been a sect and incompatible with my faith. I wanted it to be a fellowship endorsed by the Church to which I belonged. But I saw members around me who were sober and that was what kept me coming back to meetings.

The Cambridge English Dictionary defines “Prejudice” as follows: an unfair and unreasonable opinion or feeling, especially when formed without enough thought or knowledge.

Why would a man, 80 years old with 36 years of sexual sobriety, still be utilizing the same tools he used when he first came to the program?

My form of fantasy is something that I hadn’t heard from anyone before, therefore I believed it could be something someone could be prejudiced towards me about. I remember in my early days of acting out I would fantasize about what women were enjoying. Being a male I felt my form of acting out wasn’t even “manly” enough to be shared with others.

Being a religious Jew wearing a yarmulke (skull cap) I was taught to live with fear that there is prejudice towards me and “my kind.”

I am a recovering sexaholic, since May 25, 2019, working the Steps with a sponsor. I thank my Higher Power, as I conceive it, for being a sexaholic and seeing my multitude of character defects that help me stay in Sexaholics Anonymous.