The saying goes, “We’re as sick as our secrets.” I now also think that “We’re as sick as our stories.” My sponsor surprised me when we did our first Fifth Step by limiting my second column sharing to “ten words or less.” I was ready to explain the psychological nuances of everyone listed in my Fourth Step.

Fantasies in my life want to corrupt the real. They are not from God. They want to kill me. It’s the highest form of selfishness relating to my life during a 24-hour period. They are an enormous danger to my freedom. So I pray to God and beg him to give me the program actions during the day to live in the real world—not in fantasy.

No one as a child growing up ever thinks they might one day end up in jail or as a sexaholic. Yet, that’s what happened to me. I am a female sexaholic, sober since January 19, 2020.

Kathy describes in great detail what has been making her grow relationally for the last 12 years. She talks about her lifelong passion to have healthy relationships and the many answers she has found in SA.

I read with great interest the May issue on What Makes Meeting Strong? It made me reflect on the importance of SA meetings for my recovery, especially when the global lockdown could potentially have shut down SA meetings. Fortunately, our fellowship has responded strongly by using virtual meetings.

Dear Essay readers,
I was asked to introduce this special edition, as I had the wonderful privilege to chair last May’s worldwide online event “Supporting Women in SA.” You may have wondered why it is necessary to support women in SA or thought it is an outside issue or a controversial topic. Well, then this issue of Essay is for you.

I am grateful for the miracle of SA International Conventions where I have been blessed to meet so many who have recovered or are recovering from the addiction to lust.

SA is my home today, but it hasn’t always been like that. I came into the fellowship in 2008, after a few ineffective years in two other S-fellowships and with a lot of “over my dead body” ideas. I wasn’t even sure SA was for me, because I couldn’t identify with the strict boundaries of Sobriety Definition.

I brought a friend into the program, and encouraged her to feel free to share anything with her sponsor. She said, “Anything?” And I answered, “Yes, anything and everything.” Then I shared more of my experience, strength, and hope with her. She asked if I could be her sponsor.

Lust corrupted my childhood. I was violated when I was very young—an inappropriate act that distorted my perception of sexuality, reality, and love. For years afterward I went around with an aching, infinite emptiness inside me. I bandaged the pain with a blindfold and contented myself to live in darkness, like someone living down a deep water well.

As a pre-school age child, I learned how to use a vibrator as a sex toy. That’s how it all began. I had never heard the word “sex” and knew nothing of sexual intimacy. But I knew what felt good, and was immediately hooked.

I was exposed to men’s magazines at the age of seven and didn’t realize it was abuse. At the age of nine, I was sexually abused by another girl, who was 10, and experienced a lot of confusion. The confusion increased when I was sort of forcibly converted to Catholicism at the age of 11, which led to a whole load of guilt.

My name is Sylvia and I am a grateful recovering sexaholic. I was a lonely child. I was a daydreamer. I was never present. Growing up people would tell me things I wouldn’t hear because I was always off in my head somewhere.

Imagine a little girl lost inside a book, playing the piano and always alone but feeling safe. Her world brought her happiness. What was happening around her? Sometimes being in the moment it felt too full of other’s expectations, never fitting in, always different from what she saw on the outsides of others.

I am a recovering sex addict from Ukraine, sober since the fall of 2015. I am completely unable to cope with lust, which manifests itself in objectification, fantasies, and an unhealthy obsession with one person or a group of people. I have lost control of my thoughts, feelings, and actions.

I first joined SA 28 years ago, when SA UK was a very small fellowship with very few meetings. My main form of contact with other members was through the phone. I did, however, meet other SA members face to face, including quite a few female members at the only regular UK Convention held in those days.

For somebody who related to the reading “The Invisible Monster” in our book Recovery Continues, it is a miracle that I can share something on “Practicing Healthy Interactions in SA” today. I think the key word for me is “practice” as I will never be perfect and it is progress not perfection.

My first meeting was on October 11, 2011 and by the grace of God I’ve stayed sober since. In the beginning I found joy in my home group in Barcelona. I was the only woman with about five or six men. They were very nice to me and helped me to stay sober.

When I was three, I had to stay at the hospital due to pneumonia while my parents couldn’t be there with me, which was quite a traumatic experience. I knew the “touching game” from the nursery and knew it was a nice feeling.

The brochure Beginnings: Notes on the Origin and Early Growth of SA has become one of my favorite pieces of SA literature. Roy’s account of SA’s early history stresses that men and women together have been centrally involved in our fellowship’s development from the very start.