My story regarding accepting the SA sobriety definition begins when I was first dabbling in accountability and monitoring from others—but not yet in SA. My main goal was to stop masturbating, but I wasn’t yet ready to give up sex outside of marriage and certainly didn’t have a desire to stop lusting.

I was first just meeting up with another person whom I had met at church once a week over breakfast to discuss our faith, talk, and hold each other accountable. I was half-heartedly wanting sobriety, even from masturbation at that point. There were even times where I’d say that I had a “good reason,” because I “felt sick.” We were both young and single, and a few times spoke of ambitious plans, such as breaking the generational curse, which would include restoring relationships with my family. I didn’t think any such things would ever be possible, and that my only hope of breaking the generational curse would be to avoid my family as much as I could.

Soon after I moved away—thinking moving would solve my problems. I joined an accountability group at a local church. This group helped, though even at that time I heard a comment someone said to another guy there which was that lusting over your wife “wouldn’t be lust.” This didn’t make sense to me, as I had previously been in a relationship where I was lusting and acting out with and thinking about a girlfriend like crazy, and simply knew what I had done was wrong, even though I “wasn’t cheating on her,” since my masturbation was to her image.

I remember spending the day with a member of the church group, and, among other things, he tried to convince me to adhere to the faith tradition’s view on moral sexuality—which happened to be in line with the SA sobriety definition. We had a great conversation together, and enjoyed each other’s company, though I was not interested in giving up lust or sex outside of marriage. I only wanted to stop masturbating.

I proceeded to go back out there, and not only did I not stop masturbating, but I began regularly crossing the gender line during my sexual fantasies. Knowing I would cross more lines to risk my health and further degrade my dignity, I still thought I could manage the problem by finding a woman to act out with. There were a couple times where this was a reality—though I found them to be the most frightening and sleepless experiences of my life—not knowing if the woman I didn’t know and sleeping right next to me would rob or hurt me in my sleep, not to mention the risk to my health.

At a certain moment, after a woman I had tried to track down, connect with, and “date” didn’t work out, I knew I needed recovery, because I wasn’t able to get the same-sex lust out of my system by acting on it. Acting on it only seemed to make it worse. The desire to act out with a woman outside of marriage, for me, was clearly setting up my sexaholic addict mind to act out in ways I had never wanted.

When I first joined SA, the sobriety definition’s addressing of lust over the spouse, as well as the phrase “between a man and a woman” added a lot of credibility to the SA program and literature, for me. My sponsor has kept me focused on true SA sobriety, and I cannot imagine I would be sober without a firm and clear bottom line. My emotional sobriety hasn’t been perfect, and I have had lingering issues with fear. However, it’s been the best, most fulfilling period of my life since beginning this addiction. I have experienced living by God’s power, and my relationships with others have improved dramatically due to a sexually sober, changed attitude on a daily basis. As a Ninth Step amends, by miracle I delivered a face-to-face apology to my brother, and even family-of-origin relationships have seen what I had thought impossible.

The SA sobriety definition is what makes me feel safe in meetings sharing about my shameful past. It’s what makes SA unique and intimate, even when compared with other recovery fellowships I’ve been in. The genuine SA message as carried by a fellowship is more valuable to me than the finest gold—it’s worth any amount of service, leg work, hardship, and getting out of God’s way to experience.