The New Jersey Marathon on November 6th in Cranford was a special occasion in SA history. The subject of victory over lust took the spotlight as the speaker challenged the eager gathering of SAs by describing the stages of his own progressive victory over lust. He offered joyous hope to any still wondering if it is actually possible to honestly “stop drinking” or who are unhappy with their own stage of lust recovery. The talk was in two parts: first sharing the stages of his own lust recovery, and then offering a new approach as breakthrough experiment. The talk was privately taped and transcribed for the Essay. Part One, Stages of Lust Recovery, appears below. Part Two, The 1935 Akron Experience as a Program for Lust Recovery, will appear in the next issue of Essay. The speaker was Roy K., who was asked to condense and edit his talk for publication.

Part One: Stages of Lust Recovery

For me to talk about the stages of my lust recovery is to lead with my weakness. Because stages of my lust recovery aren’t over yet. I have not arrived to where I want to be in lust recovery. But I’m not where I used to be.

I want a fellowship where people want what I want. I’m very selfish; I’m part of this Fellowship here. I’m in your group right now, and as in the groups I attend regularly, I’m here for me, just another sex drunk.

My most recent lust experience happened on the airplane coming in. One of the flight attendants would have been someone I was attracted to in the early years. When I saw her I felt a pull. I didn’t want to drink, but I felt a pull which got my attention, unusually so as it goes today. And as I go through the stages of my recovery, I’ll be trying to figure out where this experience fits, because I’ve got to be honest with you and I want to take you with me on this journey. And you know as well as I that I can’t do it alone. For me to get farther in my recovery, I need others. It’s never been any other way.

In my inventory I noted 12 stages in my lust recovery, but I know that as soon as I get through with stage 12 you guys will figure out stage 13, or zero, or whatever. What I’m saying is that there are stages of lust recovery for me. If you identify fine, but look at your own stages of lust recovery as I share mine, for this is really a dialogue, an experiment. Because what we’re after in this great endeavor in SA is absolute honesty. In this program, for true lust recovery, if we can’t get honest in the “thoughts and intents of the heart,” it won’t be enough. So let’s try our best, together.

One. The first stage was, I discovered the presence and power of lust.

For me, that happened once I got sexually sober in AA. Some of us may discover the power of lust while still not sober. I stopped acting out and was doing substitute teaching when I entered recovery. Every skirt on campus—I discovered a force in me I couldn’t control. I had never recognized lust before. Why? Because when I took a hit off of a trigger, I’d eventually act out. So lust never got my attention. But it sure did once I wanted sobriety.
 
Two. I started trying to limit and control lust. I’m sure most everyone here identifies with that. [Audience reaction indicates they agree].
 
Three. I discovered I could not eliminate lust. It wouldn’t go away. I began to be bothered by that; it got my attention. But I still didn’t do much about it until after I slipped after a year and a half.
 
Four. After discovering I couldn’t eliminate lust, I started surrendering it. How we surrender I’m not sure is that important. But we start trying to stop lusting.
 
Five. The lust problem appears to get better. Bouts with lust are less often and less intense. Anyone identify here? [audience identifies]. If not, isn’t that what you’re in this program for—“to stop lusting” [Tradition Three]?
 
Six. We begin to discover lust in different forms. With me, one of the first other forms I discovered was the presence of lust in my marriage bed. After that terrible separation, when my wife took me back and we had sex for the first time, and when she was so accepting of my disclosure, I discovered something absolutely new: I had sex for the very first time in my entire life. A spiritual connection, a oneness coming out of love. There’s no way I can describe the difference. It’s like the difference between mere ecstatic sensation and real love; they’re poles apart, in different universes. For the first time, I did not have a memory, a picture, or fantasy juicing up the sexual system to maintain arousal. Experiencing the reality of sex was so dramatic an experience that putting all the other lifetime sex together, including the most ecstatic, wouldn’t hold a candle to this one solitary experience. It was different, real. And it needed no repetition. But it didn’t last; I discovered I couldn’t maintain arousal without conjuring up lust. And I’m sure you’ve read in the White Book of that long slow process I had to go through to overcome that (a year of abstinence and more work on the Steps), one of the most marvelous breakthroughs in my lust recovery.

A word of caution: Never tell your spouse what I just told you. Tell it to sponsor, group, and God. They may never be able to overcome that thought you’ve planted in their minds when you’re having sex with them. It’s your problem; don’t make it theirs. It’s too much to expect of a woman to erase that from her mind, even if you’ve overcome that problem.

Another form in which lust showed up was erotic images in dreams. Sex is optional, even in dreams. We can learn the same surrender in our dreams that we can in the waking state. But it takes work. In this stage I came to very serious surrender when it came to both waking and dream lust. “I ask that you keep me sober from every lust in any form, active or passive, conscious or subconscious.” That was my daily prayer.

In Southern California, when sex in dreams comes up for a member, we suggest tying in with a team of a few people who are willing to be called at any hour of the night. The member calls as soon as they have the dream and are aware of it, telling explicitly what it was, bringing it to the light. By doing this, they can intervene earlier and earlier on subsequent dreams. And this tells us where we really are with lust. Pretty soon, they’re making a surrender as soon as the image hits in their dream, and lust is nipped in the bud. Try it. This works, believe me. If it doesn’t work, something’s wrong, and more work is indicated for your waking program. Continued erotic or sexual dreams is telling us, “Stop, Look, and Listen!” Something’s going on in your waking life that needs fixing.

Sex and lust in dreams is probably the best-kept secret in SA—dishonesty. It doesn’t have to be. We need to share more about this one-on-one and in groups and in our Essay newsletter and other writings. Let it tell us our real condition and how absolutely powerless we really are with lust, and let it drive us to finding what our lust was really looking for. I could never have victory over lust in dreams without His presence.

Another form of lust I discovered was the mis-connection. This is spiritual misconnection, and may have nothing to do with sex or lust as commonly perceived. Some of our members relate more to romance/relationship addiction than to lust, whether in or out of marriage. Well, I think the mis-connection is at the very heart of our spiritual illness. “‘Connect with me and make me whole,’ we cried with outstretched arms.” For me, it’s another form of lust. And if we had a show of hands here on stage Six, we’d find many other forms lust can take, which lead us to a deeper stage of surrender and reliance on the presence, love, and power of God.
 
Seven. Deeper surrender. Once we discover these other forms and strategies of lust progressively, once we are able to see, then we come to deeper surrender. This legitimate use of the word “progressive” is the very process of discovery we’ve been talking about in these various stages. I’ve got to keep progressing; there’s no fulfillment of the promise otherwise. The misuse of our expression “progressive victory over lust” is when we confuse it with our encounter in the moment of temptation, seeing the image in the corner of our eye, for example. In that instant, there is no such thing as progressive victory. We either drink or don’t drink. Think about it. Man, can we ever let our “progressive victory” wording cover a multitude of sins!
 
Eight. So, after deeper surrender what do we find? It’s all gone; we’re never tempted? [audience reaction] Nooo! We find Something is still there.

Some of us experience some of these progressive stages of lust recovery we’ve been describing above and think that’s all there is, without ever getting better, or even wanting to. That’s what I did. Tempted to lust and then surrender; lust and surrender; lust and surrender . . . And then we wonder why we’re still having erotic and sexual dreams! We get stuck on our own almighty length of sobriety and current degree of “surrender.”

There are those with many years of sobriety who work a good program—confessing lust, calling during sexual dreams at all hours, writing inventories, working with others, service, you name it. Yet they’re stuck at one stage of lust recovery and begin to see they’re unhappy and unfulfilled, and they know it. Something’s still there, and it dawns on them that they’re really not free. Not free not to lust.

Later in the talk we’ll be looking at what was happening in Akron and Cleveland in the late 1930s, to discover the kind of surrender hopeless drunks were making, where they stopped drinking. If we in SA can’t stop drinking, then this Twelve Step spiritual program doesn’t work for us, and we should stop saying that it does and close the doors. I’m here to challenge you to believe that there’s something beyond even this stage, beyond what we might settle for as “successful” recovery. It’s a promised land we could never have imagined, were it not actually becoming true in our experience. And it is!
 
Nine. When I got to this place of seeing something was still there and that maybe there was a deeper surrender and deeper victory waiting for me, one day I just got tired enough of it to do a deeper Six and Seven on it: “Lord, I don’t want any of this!” In that prayer I was thinking, “I don’t want any of these temptations.” I didn’t get what I asked for, but I got what I needed. What I really needed was that I don’t want any of the FEAR when it hits, or subterfuge, or taking a look to see if it’s something I shouldn’t be looking at—the bloody uncomfortableness of it all! That got tiresome after awhile—and too threatening. Fear-driven sobriety is doomed to failure. We can be free of the fear of lust! Don’t settle for less. I wanted more, so I did a deeper Third and Seventh on it. I asked for more. And that brought me to stage Nine: Recovery from lust is not having to take the first look. Can you believe that? Yes!

Does that mean that I never took the first look after that? What do you think? Noooo [laughter]. But the joy of that breakthrough—not having to take the first glance—pulled me on, didn’t it? “A man’s reach must exceed his grasp/ or what’s a Heaven for?” (Robert Browning). I had to have more. And you know what? We really can have it, or the promise of this Program is a lie. There’s incredible hope here—if we can just be absolutely honest about where we really are, today, right now, with our lust, and believe in the 1935 miracle.

It’s Not Wrong to be Temptable or Tempted. I want to digress to a very important subject. Temptation to lust doesn’t have to be a fearful or drudge experience; because it can bring great joy. That’s our “Joy Response,” isn’t it? Most of us are religious people in this program or come from a religious background, like I did. Somehow, many of us feel it was wrong to be tempted, or that we shouldn’t be tempted any more. I don’t know about you; I can only speak for myself, but man, I felt I should never be tempted any more, since I’d turned my life over to God. I discovered that’s not true. It’s not wrong to be tempted. What made me feel like it was wrong was that in that temptation I was really drinking, even though it was “only” teeny-weenie slightly, conning myself.

Today it’s okay for me to be tempted by the images, by whatever it is out there or in here. Why is it okay? Because I have a remedy today, and that remedy is not me. If that remedy were my strength or my religious conviction or the strength of my Program or endeavors, you know where I’d be. But guys, I don’t have it. I’m 23 years sober today in stage after stage of victory over lust, but I still do not have it. But I’ll tell you what I do have. There’s the shield of his Presence within that shields me from my lust, both from within and without. Ask for something better and do a deeper surrender. “Expect great things from God.”

This kind of surrender doesn’t mean we’re never going to be tempted, does it? We’re going to be; that’s the glory of God—the fact that I was tempted yesterday on the plane and made the saving Connection. I don’t want the pill that will protect me from being tempted; I want to be alive and sexual as a normal human being. I’m more sexual now in my abstinence and victory over lust than I ever was in my acting out. I love women! I’m even beginning to love my wife a little bit [laughter]. The fear of woman is almost gone!

Along with entering deeper stages of lust recovery, we should be experiencing stirrings of healthy natural sexuality. Don’t be afraid of it. Our sexuality is God-given, not our diseased perversion of sex, which was subverted so long by our lust and sex addiction. So if we’re recovering from lust, we should also be recovering from our perverted sexuality into the healthy progressive awakening of our real sexuality and mature maleness, manhood, husbandhood, and fatherhood, our femaleness, womanhood, wifehood, and motherhood. This is the promise of our recovery; don’t settle for anything less! But are you willing to pay the price?

The danger in discussing the stages of lust recovery is we can let it become more striving in the flesh, ratcheting up our resolve all the more in trying. Piling on more “thou shalt nots.” Don’t let yourself get into that mode; it’s like the old “salvation by works” instead of grace. It’s miserable!
 
Ten. If you think stage Nine is impossible, wait till you hear what’s coming up next. When you heard me talk in those early years, I’d be saying something like this: “Well, I’m tempted, and I wanted to drink today, but I didn’t have to drink, and that’s good enough for me if I die and go right now.” And I meant it; that’s all I had, and it was marvelous. To be tempted, to know it’s my drink out there beckoning, but not having to take that first sip-drink. Not only good enough, it’s a miracle! But that’s not good enough for me today. Because lust recovery can be not only not having to take the first look, it’s not wanting to take the first look. Real freedom. Not freedom from being tempted or being temptable, but freedom from wanting to look. This is crossing over into the Promised Land.

I’ll tell you what that takes. If I get to the place where I don’t want to take the first drink, that means I have experienced something better. I don’t know about you, but this Program can’t do it for me. It merely gives us the tools. What gives this new freedom to me is what one of my spiritual sponsors said, “the expulsive power of a new affection.” A real affection, the love of God. And all I knew and believed about the love of God didn’t help me one single bit. But when I began to ask and make the daily surrender—“I don’t want to take that first drink and I ask you to keep me sober from wanting or taking it today. And I ask that you give me what my lust was really looking for”—that’s when I discovered the love and power of God and impossible joy. And that’s my prayer today: “I want to know you more.” And knowing him more for me comes through the temptations! The fear and uncomfortableness go! How incredible.
 
Eleven. And that’s the next stage in lust recovery—finding what our lust is really looking for. Look at it logically: How could recovery from lust as you and I know it today be possible without finding what it was really looking for? Isn’t finding that what gives us the freedom and joy—fulfillment? Isn’t that what pulls us into that next stage? But unless we get honest in our groups and meetings and in ourselves, as to where we are not, we’re never going to get any further. Stuck in No Man’s Land. My lust heart, my sexaholic heart, was crying out for the connection with Woman, “I need you, I want you…” The cultural air is full of these songs and images, yet the desire and lack and emptiness are still there. The songs are testimony to our collective LACK, our unfulfillment. You know what I do today? I want Him, and I say so, “I want You. Come in. I come to you.” Right while being tempted! Yes! And He comes in and takes it, and I’m not only free—in that very temptation!—I’ve Connected with my very own Source.
 
Twelve. That prayer is a joy for me today, and I’m just beginning to taste a little bit of stage Eleven. Practically nothing on stage Twelve. And I don’t even know for sure what Twelve is, because I’m not there yet. But so far it’s going something like this: Instead of withdrawing in fear, to look her in the eyes and take her in, giving outward in love.

There she is, walking down the street, and my brain knows it’s trigger material. I want to get to the place where, instead of being in fear—I can’t look; it’s wrong to look; I’m not gonna look; I’ll get into the darkness; I’m gonna lose God; (all the while stealing a microsecond glance)—I’ll look her in the eyes and take her in. Not the snatch or steal or sip or the will-powered turnaway, but she’s a human being in the image of God. Look her in the eyes, smile, and say, “Hi, how are you?” And give out in love. I don’t have that. I’m not that person. But “Perfect love casts out fear.” I can only do that with the love of God. And I want his love shed abroad in my heart.

I believe with all of my heart that we can have the real personal love of God for our sex object, and for anybody. And if I can’t have it with her, I’m sorry, I don’t have it with my wife or children, or with you. But man, do you know the promise this holds, if this is recovery from lust? Do you know what this means? How lucky we are to have even this prospect of such recovery? We’re just at the beginning of discovering what SA recovery is. That recovery from lust is possible. That we can “stop drinking.” Yes. Together we can, stage after stage, enjoy deeper awareness and surrender and freedom. Don’t despair, and don’t settle for less. “Ask, and you shall receive.” God answers prayer.