From the time I was a kid I never liked teams. I didn’t want to lose because some teammate screwed up. If I messed up a bunch of people would hate me for making them lose. And if I’m the prime factor in helping a team win, the credit will be spread out among a bunch of others. By my logic it was better to solo have the credit and control of winning or losing.

For a while I played baseball. The coach told me, “There’s no ‘I’ in ‘team.’” So, I found a game with an ‘I’ in it — “tennis” — and switched sports. I went to a co-ed championship and was beaten by a girl (she was really good) in straight sets. Hey, at least I lost all by myself with no one else helping.

I took the same lone cowboy approach to addressing my addiction and it seemed to work. When I was 22 and had been acting out since I was 15, I made a vow to stop with God’s help. For four months, I was completely free of lust. There was only one problem – my life stank without it. When I started acting out again, it was because I wanted to.

Six years later, my life in shambles, I became willing to join team SA. I found three others at my local group and assembled a team. We “group sponsored” each other and worked through the Steps. One by one, the other guys fell away. It was my old fear. I was going to fail because these guys weren’t willing to work with me. Eventually I accepted the truth that I was only willing to be part of a team if I was the coach. When I gave that role over to a sponsor, I started winning.

Some people try the “God is my coach, I don’t need others” approach. God may be the coach, but where is the team? To me, sobriety is not a solo sport. I can’t be one guy playing all the positions, especially against a team like the Lust City All-Stars. Today, when it comes to my addiction, I see my Higher Power as the manager, my sponsor and other advisors as the coaches, and other SAs as the team.

It is still hard for me being part of a team. There’s no ‘I’ in ‘team’ or in SA. And it feels better to win than lose against lust, even if it means playing on a team.