My Dear Friend Lust:
I am writing to you to finalize our relationship.

This is hard to explain unless you’ve experienced it. I don’t use willpower to fight my addiction anymore. I know the addiction is more powerful than I am, and I’ve declared it to be the winner. I still have to make the decision to not engage in lust, but I no longer fight it like I used to do.

A member wrote, “I’m looking for a miracle. I’ve been looking for a miracle for a long time. Recently I’ve thought that if I just work the Steps, I could then have the miracle I’ve been looking for.” Wow! This statement hit me pretty hard, because it reminded me so much of my own Step Two (which took something like five years for me to fully accomplish).

I recently heard a member express discouragement at reduced attendance, revolving-door membership, and a general lack of sobriety in the meetings he attends.

I’d like to thank a friend in the program who phoned me tonight, and I’d like to thank God for bringing our lives together. My friend and I have always connected by sharing who we are with each other; not who we should be, but who God created us to be.

The Rochester group would like to share our recent success following the adoption of a new Twelve Step group study format.

Serenity is something I never thought of until I got into the SA program. In retrospect, I see that I was trying to control my world. Whether it was work, relationships, school, or family I was always trying to make things go my way.

My cell phone alarm alerts me daily at 12:12 noontime so that wherever I am, whatever I am doing, I can stop and thank God (my Higher Power) for the 12 Steps and 12 Traditions and for the gift of sobriety.

In college, I took a weightlifting class. I spent a great deal of time reading the textbook and understanding the techniques, but for some reason, I never got much bigger. Duh! You can’t gain muscle mass by reading a book on weightlifting.

Little did I know

A newcomer recently asked how long withdrawal from lust could possibly last, and I want to share my personal experience, strength, and hope on that topic from my current vantage point of one year sober.

Last Tuesday, my dad passed away. Sigh.

How did I—a nice, self-respecting recovering alcoholic with more than 14 years of sobriety—find myself sitting in a meeting with a bunch of lowly sexaholics? After all, I had worked the Steps many times. I sponsored several men. I had never lied to my AA sponsors.

I am writing to suggest that financial and moral support for SA International Central Office is a vital part of our Twelfth Step work. Our groups are spiritual entities carrying a spiritual message. We may for that reason have trouble supporting Central Office unless we see how the duties of our Central Office are also spiritually based and a necessary part of carrying the message.

My sobriety date is January 1, 1991. The longer I am sober, the more I need a meeting because I am close to a relapse. Why, you may ask? Well, there are a lot of new people, but not a lot of people with long-term recovery. That tells me that I am closer than ever to relapse. What I have been doing has been working for me, so I keep doing it.

The addict part of my mind likes to get me spinning around and frantically worrying about my problems. It likes to convince me that the only behavior that’s right is to be firmly in the driver’s seat of my life. “You must be in charge of you,” it shouts, as I bulldoze my way through the day, leaving a trail of scarred situations behind me.

The Oxford Group’s “Four Absolutes” were absolute honesty, absolute purity, absolute unselfishness, and absolute love (the Oxford group was a precursor to AA).

In the summer of 2001, I spoke with women in other 12 Step fellowships who identified themselves as having SA issues. At the time, only two women were active in SA groups in San Diego. Other women were reluctant to come to SA because the fellowship was mainly men. I began to think how lovely it would be to gather all of these women in one room so that they could hear that other women have similar issues.

In meetings, I have often heard sexaholism referred to as “it.” It is cunning and baffling. But my experience has revealed that there is no it in my life, there is only me. By making my sexual compulsiveness an it, I’m trying to minimize my problem in order to make it seem more manageable (by me). It is not cunning and baffling; I am.

When I was new in the program, I was justifiably angry with someone I had resented for years. My sponsor told me to pray for the person I was angry with every day and every time he came to mind. I said, “You’re kidding, right?” Of course, he wasn’t. He said my prayers should be honest.