My story is not unique, and for that I am grateful. When I discovered I was a classic sexaholic, I became hopeful, realizing my problem had a classic solution. Hope and honesty were small words in my vocabulary and an even smaller part of my life before I came to SA.

Sponsor-by-Mail Service
Keith S., MI, the coordinator of this service, reports that there are currently 177 inmates from 30 states that are being sponsored by 49 SA members. The number of inmates participating in the service has almost doubled since the end of June 2001.

I have been a member of SA since 1993. I receive a tremendous boost in my recovery by attending open AA meetings. In fact, I attend more AA meetings than SA meetings. Part of that is because of two particular differences between AA and SA: length of meetings, and stating length of sobriety.

Brief summary and main motions passed:
That this Delegate Assembly approves the inclusion and publication in SA Fellowship-approved literature, the wording “in SA’s sobriety definition the word ‘spouse’ refers to one’s partner in a marriage between a man and a woman.”

Dear ESSAY Reader,
Thank you for reading this issue of ESSAY, our Fellowship’s quarterly magazine. Our hope is that ESSAY can increasingly reflect the breadth of sobriety and recovery in SA and also be a “meeting in print.” Here we can share our experience, strength and hope with one another as part of our Twelfth Step work.

I want to share a story with you, just to make the point of how a group like this can change or encourage others. One guy started in our prison group at the second meeting, almost six months ago. He came into the group with a huge chip on his shoulder, and he made it clear to all of us that he didn’t care how anyone felt about him. He was just doing this for himself and no one else.

I said to God, “Look how much I’ve grown.”
Then I waited for His reply.

Our recovery calendar page today says, “Gratitude turns problems into blessings, and the unexpected into gifts.” I am grateful for the reminder 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 told me to put twenty items on it per day.

I recently had a major awakening about lust in my marriage. It happened one morning after a night during which I had wanted to be sexual with my wife. In the past, my desire would quickly turn to lust. I would feel as if I was about to explode if I did not have her. Sex was not optional. That night had been different. As I wrote in my journal about it the next morning, I understood why.

If I think about it, life is kind of like walking a tightrope. It’s not easy. It can be dangerous. Still, if I practice, if I use a balance pole, if I have a safety net — it can be done without causing undue harm either to myself or to others.

The first recollections of my addiction are from the summer of 1961. I would be nine in August and I had just moved to a new subdivision. The only other boy in the neighborhood was four years older than I, and he was pretty lonely, since his parents both worked. We began to spend time with one another, and since he had a house all to himself, most of our time together was spent there.

Dear ESSAY,
I am one of the twenty-five inmates, here at Adrian, MI, that Keith S. wrote about in your last issue. Thank you, Keith, for so many things.

Have you reached the point where you can admit that stopping lusting might be possible, but you cannot slow down? When I first started going to SA, I just wanted to slow down. I was so deep into the lust world that I did not see lust as a problem. I just wanted to stop masturbating compulsively and have a real relationship with a woman.

Dear ESSAY Reader,
Thank you for reading this issue of the ESSAY, our Fellowship’s quarterly magazine. Our hope is that the ESSAY can increasingly reflect the breadth of sobriety and recovery in SA and also be a “meeting in print.” Here we can share our experience, strength and hope with one another as part of our Twelfth Step work.

Surrender I must.
That simply means to give up
My right to myself.

Alcoholics Anonymous, Chapter 5 (“How It Works”) says, “Here are the steps we took which are suggested as a program of recovery.” The recovery programs of AA and SA are the 12 Steps. Going to meetings is not working the program. Calling your sponsor is not working the program. Participating in the fellowship is not working the program. All these actions can strengthen our recovery, but unless you are actively taking the Steps, you are not working the SA program.

Although I had owned a computer since 1994, I never once ventured into the murky seas of lust-driven Internet surfing — not even through four years of graduate school during which I spent hours doing online research. Not until June this year. This proved to be the final straw that led to acting out after thirteen years of sobriety.

I was a pornography addict working for an internet service provider who developed video over the internet. This was a blessing (if you ask my sponsor) and a curse (if you ask me). Like a drunk who went from hard liquor to beer, I shifted from hard core to chats, from chats to personals, and then from personals to on-line games with chat capabilities.

For over 30 years I had pretty much controlled and enjoyed my acting out, or at least (in my pre-recovery, delusional thinking) thought I had. Nine quick and horrific months after gaining access to the Internet, I was in a sex-addiction therapy group and had become an active member of Sexaholics Anonymous.

As I sit here on the New York City subway, I have seven years in the program and one day of sexual sobriety. Triggers of every kind surround me and it seems impossible for me not to lust. Add this all up, and it equals just one thought in my mind — FAILURE!!! And that is exactly what my disease (my addict, the devil, whatever I call it) wants me to believe.