Two oldtimers who knew Jess L. personally share some of their personal experiences about this very inspiring member in this ESSAY interview.

Jim Egan played a big role in my early SA years. I loved his shares, which were always a loving, humble meander. I’m grateful to have learned from his shares to be loving and humble myself. Always with a smile on his face, he also helped me feel comfortable at the SA International Conventions I attended.

I am an SA member and have been for some time a reserve soldier in one of the many warring countries on this planet. Often I get woken up by alarms. Sometimes I see rockets in the air. Friends of mine have been killed. Everything is scary and weird, surrealistic.

My name is David, I am a sexaholic. And by the grace of my Higher Power, my sobriety date is August 2, 1988, for which I can never be sufficiently grateful. That credit goes to my Higher Power, that’s for sure. I was sitting at dinner and was figuring it’s been thirty-one years, five months, and eight days. And every one of those in their own way has been a miracle. And that’s a little bit of what I’d like to share tonight. I was told after my first year of sobriety that it keeps getting better. And that has been the simple description of my experience in Sexaholics Anonymous, that it keeps getting better.

At some point in 2011 I remember hearing about this fellow named David who was sober 25 years and could quote the Big Book, chapter and verse, and worked with a bunch of people as a counselor and as a sponsor. I got online and found a website where I could purchase old recordings from past SA conventions.

There is a saying that goes something like this, “Not by argument will you change a person’s mind but by telling them a good story.” How true this is when speaking of Dave T. when he shared his experience, strength, and hope.

The author of this article knew Roy personally. He describes how he learned a lot from directly associating with him and helping him with service.

One of the early members of the Correctional Facilities Committee (CFC) was Ray S. from Tucson, Arizona, who is better known in our program as “Tucson Ray.” He started the Sponsors-by-Mail (SbM) program in Arizona by “offering it single-handedly for some seven years.” He developed a format for this outreach to people in prison that is still used today by those who write to men and women in prison.

اولین احساس خوبی که در زندگی به یاد می‌آورم، زمانی بود که من پنج ساله بودم و پدرم
یک بطری آبجو رولینگ راک به من داد. وقتی در گوشه ای نشسته بودم و در حال نوشیدن بودم، تأثیر الکل را احساس کردم. وقتی از آن طرف اتاق به پدرم نگاه می کردم، فقط به او عشق می ورزیدم. حس فوق العاده ای بود.
حس خوب بعدی که به یاد دارم تقریباً در همان زمان بود و مربوط به دختری به نام نانسی بود که او نیز حدوداً پنج ساله بود. یک روز گرم تابستانی بود، و من نانسی کوچک را در آغوشم گرفتم، او را نزد مادرم بردم و گفتم: “من و نانسی قرار است ازدواج کنیم.” شادی و لذتی را که در درونم احساس می کردم به یاد می آورم. تا شانزده سال دیگر آن احساس را نداشتم.

درحالی که هفته پیش دریک کارگاه دوازده قدمی شرکت میکردم،فرصت این را داشتم که تجربه نیرو وامیدم را درباره موضوع بخشش به اشتراک بگذارم.پس از کارگاه،ازمن خواسته شدکه مشارکتم رابرای مجلهessay بنویسم،که درادامه این متن برایتان آورده ام:

A train wreck, that is how those who have seen me enter the program sometimes tend to describe me.The worst part is that I can’t even deny it. My life had become unmanageable in all areas. Because of my addiction, I was no longer able to take care of myself in the most basic ways.

“We saw that our problem was threefold: physical, emotional and spiritual. Healing had to come about in all three” (SA 204). As a recovering sexaholic, I have taken this statement from “The Solution” to heart. With a little reflection, I can remember what it was like before coming into the rooms of SA over twenty years ago. This healing can only continue with the program tools of working the Steps and reading literature, going to meetings, working with a sponsor, and the help of group members.

Upon reading the White Book and the literature of another S-fellowship in a psychosomatic hospital in 2020, I realized I am a sex addict and gained abstinence from any form of sex up until today.

The author of this gut-honest article describes his long and hard journey from initial sobriety to the painful awareness of the deeper layers of the disease, and the work on his psychological and spiritual healing.

An incident today was another lesson in emotional sobriety.
I live in a “golf cart community.” Lots of golf courses, but we also use golf carts to go to the store, to dinner, to recreation, to meetings. Many streets have a dedicated golf cart lane beside the normal traffic lane.

In an AA article, I once read about a fellow who is in the military. He wrote that he is taught to always wear a helmet, that it’s a habit ingrained in him. Going outside means putting on a helmet, period. In the beginning, it was something he had to learn, something people had to keep reminding him to do, and something that had to become a real habit. But eventually, he did it without thinking.

My name is Mervat, and I am a recovering sexaholic, or to be more precise, a lustaholic, from Egypt. I walked through the valley of the shadow of Death—or Lust—since I was a four-year-old. My full-throttle sexual acting-out started when I was 18 years old. I lived in that Lust Valley for more than 3 decades, not knowing the wages I had to pay: my life. It was a miracle that I found SA because all I wanted was to live.

It all started with a pinching pain I felt when doing my Fourth Step work over the past three months. I thought that I would be fine in time. For me, Step One had been the most difficult: seeing my disease from a very close distance and accepting my powerlessness over it and the unmanageability caused due to lust in my whole life.

In my high school there were a lot of international exchange students. I remember people from all around the world coming to Italy with summer clothes even if it was autumn or winter! The same happens when we Northern Italians go to the central or the southern part of the country. Why am I telling you this? In Italy we had a recovery weekend in Rome at the beginning of November. It rained during our incredible walk through the Roman Hills! We thought we could find hot weather, but the only thing that was hot was the radiator.

David M., my grandpa sponsor, just passed away after struggling with cancer for some years. You would never guess he had cancer because he never complained. For me, he was the embodiment of Tradition Two, “Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.”