When I first got sober I made a firm commitment not to date for at least a year. Every day I had lived expecting the woman of my dreams to show up and magically change my reality. Once I found her I would no longer suffer from inadequacy, pain or loneliness. The world I hated so much would turn into a paradise. Everything would be different from then on.

Needless to say, this calendar commitment was one of the causes of the severe three-and-a-half months’ withdrawal I went through when I got sober. Three and a half months of hell where I could not see the way out of my emotional, and even physical pain. I couldn’t imagine life without sex and romance. I couldn’t imagine life without lusting, sexually and romantically, after women. Women, or rather, the image my lust created of them, were my real higher power.

Knowing I would not date for a while helped me not to fantasize about possible romance partners — at least for the near future. I was looking forward to the end of the year when I could date and have a “healthy relationship” with a woman, any woman. Theoretically, I turned this matter over to God. Meanwhile I kept looking at the calendar.

Regarding sexual desire, I didn’t play games. I immediately answered any image or any other trigger with prayer. I knew that allowing that image to lodge in my mind would mean that sooner or later I would lose my sobriety.

Nevertheless, regarding two other issues, things were not so clear. One was the issue of “beauty” lust, or my “need” to take visual drinks where instead of alcohol I “drank” some woman’s beauty. I could see that the more I looked, the more I wanted to look. The more I became obsessed, the more I burrowed into myself. God’s presence vanished and with it my serenity and emotional balance. My life was unmanageable again. Until I gave up that “drug” and reconciled myself to God, my life would remain unmanageable.

I learned I needed something more than an emergency and last-hour contact with God. As my eyes turned to women more than I wished, I started to pray before the woman came by. Things were much better, but not enough. Besides praying for her, praying for other people — program members, co-workers, relatives, passersby — developing a giving attitude rather than a taking one was what helped me most to overcome this problem.

Then I could see clearly my romance layer, my lust for romantic love, my trying to get a woman to fill the void inside myself that only God can fill.

What had I seen? That deep down I had not surrendered that area of my life, that I was still holding onto a relationship.

I know, at least intellectually, that I didn’t know, and still don’t, what’s good for me, that my best ideas brought me here. I did what I was told: “Turn your relationships over to God. Stop looking for a relationship. When you are ready, if God sees it’s right for you, He will put somebody into your path. Stop fighting. Surrender.”

And that’s what I did — on the surface. Deep down I had never surrendered the old idea of having a special friend who would turn into my fiancée and then would become my wife. I kept thinking I knew what was good for me. I still wanted to tell God what He was supposed to do for me.

The moment of truth came when I became more and more interested in a woman at another 12-Step meeting. I started to get obsessed. I prayed for her. Sometimes it worked wonderfully and other times her image didn’t go away and romantic fantasies kept coming. I admitted my powerlessness and prayed, “May I find in You what I try to find in her,” and got the same result.

While my romance lust crept back cunningly and subtly, my sexual lust would erupt in a threatening and violent way. I had to be more alert, more aware, but that wasn’t all. I was missing something, but what was it?

I needed the deep and unconditional giving up which is at the core of the Sixth Step — “Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.” The Sixth Step tells me to be willing to have God remove all my character defects. Being willing means that I accept living without them, that I can picture my life without pride, self-pity, self-centeredness, etc. We give up deep down, in our heart and in our soul. More difficult than it seems at first sight, on the Sixth Step our job is giving up. The Seventh Step — “Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings” — is asking, not demanding — that’s what humbly means. God’s job is doing the rest, in His own time and way, not ours.

That was my problem. I needed to give up the woman every time I was tempted romantically — not just for today, but for good. I’m an expert in hiding my cards while waiting for the woman to change her mind. I needed to repeat again and again: “I accept living without this woman for the rest of my life.” No matter how painful or how deprived I felt inside. And immediately I had to bring God’s presence into my temptation and ask Him to fill the void inside. The Real Connection. But if I wanted to keep God’s presence and to have Him really fill my void, I needed somehow to prolong and deepen such a wonderful Connection. It was then that I learned how desperately I needed to love, and that the solution was practicing the actions of love. I had to give, to pray for somebody, to do something for someone else, to give my attention and affection away. Helping newcomers is most useful; the results will surprise you.

To overcome romantic lust, that insidious form of “egolatry” and perversion of another person’s reality, I had to give up my “golden calf,” to bring God into my soul and to give, to love. Only God’s love to others through me can get me free from the fantasies my ego uses to imprison me. The best antidote to romantic “love” is real love. When the latter is present the former vanishes because they are incompatible. If there is something opposed to romance it is real love.