We remain small with 6–8 regular members. It got kind of bleak over the winter when there often were only two of us at a meeting. However, we continue to draw new people. Many of them don’t return, but some do and that’s encouraging. The sharing is good and sobriety continues to grow — one day at a time.

Another quarter has passed and the Portland Thursday group is still alive and well. This past quarter enjoyed celebrations of two annual sobriety anniversaries: one year in January and four years in February. Cake never tasted so good! Attendance averages 12–16 people with newcomers every week.

At the San Diego International Conference business meeting, the Central Office Oversight Committee reported that the committee meets monthly by conference phone call. There have been nine such meetings. Each meeting has an agenda and is limited to one to one-and-a-half hours. The COOC has managed Central Office business since the departure of Roy K. as administrator.

The SA conference in San Diego gave me a strong sense of fellowship and a great hope for our future in recovery and growth. Something that struck me, however, was an experience which brought some questions to mind regarding our commitment to the Twelve Steps as an ongoing foundation for recovery.

After four months of living the SA way of accepting temptations which come and go in subtle forms, and trusting in the Lord of my understanding to “shield me from sudden misfortune,” I am glad to let you know I am progressing in victory over lust in my life. I look at every girl I encounter as God’s sacred and unique creation.

On December 28, 1990, I walked through the door of my first SA meeting. I had been brought to my knees by the disease of lust and sex addiction. I had used it to run from life and myself for 30 years. My time was up. I had tried to manage my life and could not. I was truly powerless. But that night turned out to be my homecoming. God was offering me one last chance, a path to the light. I accepted His offer. The war was over. I had lost.

Why is it so hard to give up those flirtations with lust? It’s because I can’t fully surrender my will over my own choices that causes me trouble. Even though I often know I should not do something or go someplace, I have trouble giving it up because I don’t want to admit that I can’t handle it. I want to believe that this time it will be different.

At first glance, sobriety questions seem easy to resolve. I think it’s so simple because I think, okay, so long as I don’t masturbate or sleep with another woman or a prostitute, then I’m sober. But is this really the case? Doesn’t sexual acting out begin when I go looking for a porno shop or porn flick or when I go into the sleazy part of town? My lust knows the narrowest recesses of my heart.

My recovery calendar page today says “Gratitude turns problems into blessings and the unexpected into gifts.” I am grateful for the reminder of how important gratitude lists have been to my recovery from sexaholism. During the first several months of sobriety, I wrote gratitude lists daily. My sponsor said to put 20 items on it per day.

For the past two years the SA literature and Essay newsletter have been like a rescue ring thrown at me from a passing vessel. I hung onto it and very slowly I was pulled toward this vessel by people I could not see. My first conference, in Baltimore, was like reaching the side of the boat.

Our Thursday evening group in Portland, OR, has enjoyed an attendance of 10–15 people with one or two newcomers. This year we were proud to recognize anniversaries of five 1-year members, one 2-year member, two 3-year members, and one 4-year member.

A second SA conference call is being organized. It will be the Tuesday after the 15th of every month. The first conference call is full and is going well and has become a close-knit group. It took some time for people to get comfortable with each other, but it came about.

Our group consists mostly of 2 to 4 people at a time. I myself am unemployed and some of the other people are also. Moneywise it has been very difficult. We are meeting at the AA Clubhouse every Monday night. I am determined to make a go of this.

I’ve continued to get feedback regarding the conference, even as recently as this week [Feb. 12]. Ninety-nine percent of this is great. The most encouraging has been from the “old timers” who have been to more than one or two assemblies. They commented that there seemed to be an easy flow throughout the conference and a healing of broken factions in the fellowship.

At the Chicago International SA conference Roy K. announced his departure from running the Central SA office. An ad hoc Central Office Oversight Committee (COOC) was created to provide short-term management of our SA Central Office affairs.

I’d like to say something about SA birthday celebrations. I think we’re carrying it too far, going the wrong way with it. For example, in a recent regional SA convention, applause, whoops and whistles weren’t enough, there were horns. Razzmatazz. Is it a popularity contest? Who registers highest on the applause meter? Is this putting principles before personalities or personality before principle?

A counselor let me borrow his copy of Sexaholics Anonymous. It has been a real breakthrough for me in understanding my problem and having real hope for a solution. I am a sexaholic struggling now 5 years for a “miracle.” I have stormed heaven and psychologists seeking redemption.…

Thank you for your program. It is like the lyrics of the song “Amazing Grace.” SA is what has saved me, but I wish I could have found it sooner. I molested my first child at the age of 21 and am now 41. Usually it has just been touching but the things I did to my step-daughter are horrendous. I always prayed for God to stop that behavior, but I didn’t realize how messed up my whole sexual life was until I found SA and found that I needed to stop it all, not just part.

…I am a high-bottom alcoholic and a low-bottom drunk … sexually sober for 14 months. I am eternally grateful … to SA, and to God for my new lease on life. I have received many blessings throughout my life, but my sexual sobriety is the most precious.…

“Some will be willing to term themselves ‘problem drinkers,’ but cannot endure the suggestion that they are in fact mentally ill. They are abetted in this blindness by a world which does not understand the difference between sane drinking and alcoholism.” (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 33.)
I believe these words apply more to me, the sexaholic, than to me, the alcoholic. I first heard these words in AA—I realized I was an alcoholic before I knew I was a sexaholic—but in sobriety I found it difficult to believe I was mentally ill.