I am glad to be a sexaholic because the symptoms of the disease leave me desiring God. I get to be with God all day and to give God’s very presence to others.

I’ve just concluded writing out my Fourth Step moral inventory followed by a Fifth Step given to a priest. So many wrongs were uncovered that I had to write a supplementary inventory after doing the Fifth Step.

I was a lady and ladies just aren’t sex addicts. So I told myself when I thought of joining SA. No, I didn’t have that problem; it was my ex-boyfriend’s problem. The sexual behaviors that we argued about doing were not the problem. He just needed to stop taking care of his ex-wife.

Dear ESSAY,
I enjoy receiving the “meeting in print” each month. It is an important tool for me to have and to use.

My assignment was to keep Loners in touch with each other. I have been chairperson the last two years. Writing and receiving letters has been a special experience.

Dear ESSAY Reader,
Have you found something helpful in an issue of the ESSAY? Do you have something you can contribute to our quarterly? Would you urge another sexaholic to subscribe?

Dear SACFC,
Thank you very much for the Plain White Cover Book. It’s great and it truly has alternatives and a plan. SA will be part of my life as I trudge the trail to a healthy, rewarding life, and I’ll definitely handle my ups and downs a lot differently thanks to some caring friends.

Until now a past regretted
To my wounds I was connected
Sadness for my unconscious life
Hurting self and my wife

After the Serenity Prayer, one person reads the following questions and both people answer them:

Hi, I wanted to share what’s going on in North Idaho. Our meeting (we named it Monday Miracles), turned two in September, 2002. At times it has been very challenging to my sobriety to bring SA to my town. Whenever I thought I was doing it, boy did things get bad (in the realms of my mind).

All my life I felt “different” from the other boys. I was sensitive and didn’t like to play rough sports. I spent most of the time with the girls. At age 12, I became sexually active with males and females. Since the first day, I used sex as I had been using food since I was seven: to medicate the pain of my early childhood abuse. It became so painful that I needed more and more lust to cover up my feelings.

For the last two years or so, I have had trouble reading from the Twelve and Twelve which contains the first quote. I interpreted “…something wrong with us…” to mean I was this cruel and evil person who ought to be ostracized by the human race for all eternity. I thought it was unfair to say that it was wrong for me to be sore because someone else committed hurtful actions against me.

I can hear my sponsor’s voice, passing on the words from his sponsor and his sponsor’s sponsor: “Things get worse; IT gets better.” I do not have to wonder anymore what IT is. For me, today, IT means life, serenity, acceptance, gratitude, living without expectations, finding the power to be useful and to carry out God’s will for me.

[Excerpts from the SA Correctional Facilities Committee Report from the SA International Conference July 2002 in Portland, OR]
SACFC Committee Members are: Earl H., Southeast; Allen L., North Midwest; John C., Northeast; Keith S., North Midwest; William R., CFC Coordinator

Dear ESSAY,
Last year at this time I picked up a newspaper and turned to Dear Abby for some unknown reason (I know now I was being led). I hadn’t read her column in 20 years. The column was about sex addiction and gave the SA website reference. After visiting the website and Passing or Failing (depending upon one’s point of view) on 18 of the 20 questions, I thought I should find out more about it. Like a true compulsive I ordered every piece of literature from the SA website.

Service work is the greatest gift you can give another sexaholic. This is the practical application of the Seventh Tradition in its purest form. We give money to keep the facilities going; we give of ourselves to keep the fellowship going.

Dear ESSAY Reader,
With two new brochures (To the Newcomer and SA as a Resource for Professionals), a third one on the way (regarding Lust), and our collections of stories and practical experience in the two volumes of the Quintessential Essay, our Fellowship is entering a new phase of its growth. Our hope is that our literature will pass on the Twelve Step program handed to us.

On May 10, 2001 Sexaholics Anonymous held its inaugural meeting at the Parr Highway Correctional Facility in Adrian, Michigan. A year has come and gone, and SA continues to thrive at our facility. We now have two weekly meetings, one on Thursday evenings and the other on Saturday afternoons.

My addiction
came visiting today,
I didn’t let him in the door;
I knew what to say!

I was able to make this decision only after I had identified my false beliefs about God, let go of those old ideas, and identified the beliefs and ideas by which I was going to live my life from that moment forward. As a friend of mine suggested, “You’ve got to start living as if you believe what you believe, and stop acting as if you believe what you don’t believe.”