I had just decided to give up and I cut off the SA phone line. The day after, I got some calls. I now have six people, including myself, who want to start a group.

Today the world is adrift on a sea of rapidly shifting mores. Change is accelerating at an unprecedented rate. The last eighty years have surpassed the rate of change of the last eight thousand, and the last thirty have probably surpassed it all. Every aspect of our lives and sexual thinking is affected. Thousands of voices clamor for attention, preaching new “freedoms” of every kind. Was it not but a few years ago that “shacking up”—what the courts called “cohabitation”—was thought to be abnormal? Today it is called a “meaningful relationship” or having a “significant other.” And witness the new movement to legalize incest.

Despite having a strong SA community in my region, the Fellowship here is facing a serious problem that I believe could one day lead to disaster.

Conference attendees were asked to write some of their thoughts and experiences on the conference theme—Honesty, Open Mindedness and Willingness—for sharing with the Fellowship at large. The conference organizers and the Essay wish to thank those who shared. Following is a selection from almost 150 submissions.

My name is Michael and I’m a sexaholic.
It feels weird to say that in front of several hundred people. It’s not something we can be very proud about in front of the normal public, but it’s something I can say here with confidence that it won’t go beyond the doors. Back in 1940 or so it would be awfully strange to say to a crowd this size that you were an “alcoholic.” This is a very strange disease, and it has a lot of shame to it. What’s wonderful is to be able to be in a crowd this size and know that when I talk about how awkward I used to feel and how wonderful I feel now, there’s a bunch of people out there who know what I’m talking about.

We are very excited about our upcoming trip to the Southeastern Correctional Facility near Lancaster, Ohio. We purposely scheduled this visit around the SA International Conference in Cleveland on July 9 – 11, as it is our hope some members attending the conference will be able to visit the facility July 9. We will leave the hotel at 10:00 a.m. and return at 10:00 p.m. The facility is about three-and-a-half hours south of Cleveland.

The last edition of Sexaholics Anonymous Member Stories was published in 1989. We currently sell about 500 copies of this every year. The SA Literature Committee intends next year to publish a new volume tentatively titled Member Stories 2000.

Recently a motion at my local Intergroup almost failed to win approval. Had it failed, two members with less than 30 days’ sobriety would have provided the margin for defeat. By comparison with AA, on whose experience the Traditions are based, the sobriety of AA representatives to Intergroup is generally measured in years. At the group level, many SA groups require members to have 30 days’ sobriety to vote at business meetings. Intergroup reps should have at least the same length of sobriety to vote.

The Northwest Region held its biannual retreat May 23 – 25. There were 70 members of SA and S-Anon in attendance.

Over the past months, 12 SA groups in the northern Virginia/Washington D.C. region have voted to clarify “spouse” and “marriage” in the SA definition of sobriety, stating that sober sex in SA can find its expression only in a vowed and legal union between a man and a woman. This clarification now is read at the beginning of these groups’ meetings.

Dear Roy,
I read with great interest your recent article “The Luster’s Fear of Dying” in the [Spring 1999] issue of the Essay. Personally I have witnessed this extreme fear of dying while undergoing the detox process of God’s powerful grace acting deeply in my being and restoring sanity. The entire body is visited as well as the soul during this spiritual experience leading to new freedom and joy. I am really indebted to SA for the experience.

It started about eight years ago when several men who were awaiting sentencing began attending local SA meetings. Although I suspected they were attending the meetings in an attempt to influence the court, I gradually learned this was not the primary motivation of all of them.

My story of sexual sobriety is like an exodus story. In May 1997, I left familiar surroundings and boarded a flight to Rome. On that day I surrendered everything to God—my addiction to lust, my life and work as a priest, my objects of sexual obsession and emotional dependency, lustful movies, pornography, inappropriate touching of minors and women on public transports, having to resign from a job of trust, loss of trust, dignity and direction, and a cancelled schedule for psychiatric treatment.

For me, the concept of SA surrender calls to mind the image of a balloon being inflated. As air surges into the balloon, a battle begins. The air, called lust, says, “Ever see a balloon burst? It doesn’t have a small, neat hole in it. It is totally blown apart. I’m going to burst you into tatters and shreds.”

I have been sober in SA for a little over four years. I would like to share some things that have worked for me as a single sexaholic:

Every time we say—and it sounds contradictory, doesn’t it?—we are trudging the Road of Happy Destiny, trudging sounds like a burdensome sort of thing, and Happy Destiny a bit odd, too. And every time we say that, which is at every meeting, there’s a sort of a snicker, or you feel a heaviness, or there’s a bit of a smile as you say “trudging the Road of Happy Destiny.”

We want to thank all members who have helped us to carry the SA message to sexaholics in correctional institutions. Progress is being made, as comparisons of the last two years demonstrate:

At the SA International Conference in Sacramento in January, the SA General Delegate Assembly reported on the results of a survey of SA groups on the question of whether the SA sobriety definition needed clarification. [See “Newark Motions Implemented” in Dec. 1998 Essay, p. 12, for background.]

The Third Step prayer reads: “God, I offer myself to Thee—to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of Life. May I do Thy will always!” (Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 63).

The high point of the Sacramento conference for me came when my friend Alex* asked me to attend a check meeting. He was dealing with the difficulty of a separation from his wife and had sought the counsel of an old-timer who had many years of experience with check meetings. The old-timer offered to lead the meeting and gave Alex the names of some women to ask as well.