This I need to learn.

As so often happens, some of my most profound revelations originate in the most insignificant things—that is, if I listen to that gentle voice of intuition and wisdom.

Have you been in recovery for a while and find you’re facing new, baffling difficulties that your current program isn’t adequately addressing? Or do you feel like your recovery has slowed down and you can’t shift out of first gear? If so, perhaps it’s time to revisit the Fourth Step.

My name is ____________________ (fill in the blank). I have a disease/disorder/dysfunction/addiction/mental illness (whatever you want to call it) where my brain tells me I should:

Having a sponsor and working the Steps are good; but, for me an accountability circle seems to work the best. I need people who are like me, who I can check in with hourly, daily, and weekly to keep current in my recovery. This helps me through the highs and lows of life.

We are people who have a problem with our sexual thoughts or behaviors. Our experience is that we are addicted to lust and to compulsive sexual acts. For this reason we call ourselves Sexaholics. Practically none of us accepted at first that we were addicted. However, as we listened to others who said they were sexaholics, we came to believe that we do have a common problem and that we have a solution.

This line comes from an old Simon and Garfunkel song and it describes what happens to me whenever I have a slip in the program. Each time I slip, I slide further away from my Higher Power. I do believe it is possible to have a program without slips. That was the theme of the Colorado Evergreen conference this year: “Recovery without Relapse.”

This is the best day of my life! Not because I am here sharing my story with you, not because of any anniversary or birthday. It is the best day of my life, because this is all I have… TODAY.

What has stuck in my mind and simply won’t let go since our last phone call is the term “sexual nurturing” as something being supplied by your spouse. I’d like to share my thoughts and maybe learn some things when we talk further on the subject.

My top three surrenders today are self-neglect, care-taking of others, and spiritual misconnections.

“In a difficult struggle, people have to have victories. Even if they are not major.” (Martin Luther King, Jr.)
I can meet hardship and sorrow with prayer and the willingness to feel the pain while in recovery. In this way, God can emphasize the needed growth in my life today.

When I meditated on the word “guidance,” I kept seeing “dance” at the end of the word. I remember reading that doing God’s will is a lot like dancing. When two people try to lead, nothing feels right. The movement doesn’t flow with the music, and everything is quite uncomfortable and jerky. When one person realizes this and lets the other lead, both bodies begin to flow with the music.

From my earliest recollections at age four, I obsessed over nude women. Any woman I encountered was automatically visualized in the nude. This was true for strangers, relatives, and even the nuns who taught me in elementary school.

For well over ten years, I had tried to get an SA meeting going in a Tucson unit of the Arizona Department of Corrections. I had gone through local authorities, a prison chaplain, a contractor for a treatment program, and top administrators of the Department of Corrections in Phoenix.

I am subscribing to a second issue of ESSAY to share with our small group. Any other literature I can bring to the group would be appreciated.

We personally believe that there is nowhere else as beautiful as Spring in Tennessee. If you think that your location is prettier, please send a photo. We would love to receive a photo from Australia where it is Spring when we are freezing. We can truly appreciate Spring this year gazing out the windows of the new location for Central Office.

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 or a local group to subscribe?

At the Portland International Conference I found out there was another meeting in North Idaho, about 200 miles south of here. That was really exciting. I have been feeling a need for an intergroup for quite some time.

I love that analogy! I, too, have Love-based recovery or Sobriety as opposed to the fear-based sobriety I started out with. Today, I am grateful for the fear-based beginning because without I could never have found the love-based kind. You see, I was a Love cripple. I did not know how to give or receive Love. Not from God and not from anyone.

After many years in the program, I couldn’t understand why with all my faith I still didn’t have peace. Then I realized I gave my troubles to my Higher Power by sending them up on a kite string and hanging on to the other end. In other words, I didn’t really surrender.