I can hear my sponsor’s voice, passing on the words from his sponsor and his sponsor’s sponsor: “Things get worse; IT gets better.” I do not have to wonder anymore what IT is. For me, today, IT means life, serenity, acceptance, gratitude, living without expectations, finding the power to be useful and to carry out God’s will for me. When I came to Sexaholics Anonymous over twelve years ago, I had none of IT. Things were getting pretty bad in my life and family and work; however, I was getting ready for a change.

I learned about Sexaholics Anonymous when a counselor, during an emergency session with my wife and me, reacted to my explanation of my repeated adulterous affairs. “I guess I just need to be involved with more than one woman at a time,” I said to her. She replied: “You’re a sex addict!” My first SA miracle occurred at that moment. I looked at her and said, “You’re right.” I can feel the goose bumps as I write this just like I felt them that day in August. I had been called by my true name for the first time. I am a sex addict. I knew when she said it that I had been a sex addict for over thirty-five years at that point. Finally, someone saw me for who I truly was. I was very relieved.

She said to call a certain phone number. I did, and within two hours I spoke with Steve, my first official SA contact. Two hours after that I met him at my first SA meeting on a Tuesday night. Twenty-four hours earlier I was sitting paralyzed with fear in a chair in our living room as my wife confronted me on having lunch with a lust partner and told me I’d have to move out. She was emotionally dissolving in front of me. All I could do was sit frozen and wonder how I’d get out of it this time. And why did I torture this woman I really loved so much?

At my first meeting, I learned some pretty important things. I learned that there would be people in this anonymous program who knew me. One man there that first night, was a fellow professional whose arrest had been reported on the front pages of the local newspaper. I learned that night that my compulsive masturbation, sexual fantasies, voyeurism, use of pornography, multiple affairs and exhibitionism were shared with others. I learned that feeling so awful and guilty and helpless about these behaviors was normal for a sexaholic. I also learned that night that there was an answer to the question I had asked myself twenty-two years and two marriages earlier. Could I ever look at a woman and not imagine being sexual with her, no matter who she was or how old she was or what she was doing? They told me that night that, if I kept coming back and would work these Twelve Steps, eventually sex could really be optional for me.

In the next few weeks and months, I began to see that I was a sex drunk. While I had no history of alcohol or drug addiction, I got as intoxicated on lust and lust images as any alcoholic gets on booze. Pornography, sadomasochism, bondage games, cross-dressing, romantic and sexual pursuits of women, attempting to seduce a teenager, touching a girl inappropriately, multiple adulterous affairs, and sexualizing every person and situation I encountered every day were each and all part of my drinking pattern. I was the kind of sex drunk who never lets the glass — or fantasy images — run dry. I was always sipping on lust in some shape or form. I realized that for over thirty years I had not been sober for even one day. My acting out was getting worse and increasingly dangerous to myself and to others.

I did not know that it takes years for these things to change nor did I know how many costs and consequences there might be along the way. “Things get worse — IT gets better.” For quite a while Things just got better, actually. Though I came into SA an atheist, I acted as if I could pray, surrender to a Higher Power, and ask for temptations and lust to be removed. If I could not use the words “God” or “Lord,” I would say, “Master” (which I thought of in the sense of a teacher) and think of my Higher Power as the collective wisdom of humanity. Eventually, pretty much as it says in the AA literature, I came to believe that “God” was a good description for a Higher Power. I found that the question of whether or not there was a God only distracted me from my need to surrender lust. I was willing to surrender to God as I understood Him. That kept on working.

My marriage slowly came back toward health. My wife was active in our sister program and sought the help she needed to deal with her anger toward me, the other women, and those who had enabled my disease. After about eighteen months, I realized that I had stopped mentally ending our marriage. I had done this every day for the first twelve years of our marriage. I made the commitment that, no matter what, I am married to my wife and that’s what God wants for me. My job is to carry my weight and responsibility in the marriage. Any thoughts of another marriage or relationship are fantasies — and toxic ones at that.

My children seemed to appreciate my being home more often. Though it took several years, the rage attacks on them (and the dogs) gradually lessened. My work life seemed to steadily improve as I became less obsessed with being everywhere and doing everything. Much of what I had done at work before was either trying to lessen my guilt or set up lusting situations with women.

As I listened in meetings I learned that the social nudity at home as I was growing up was abusive for me. Eventually after several years, I had to forgive my parents and to repent having desired that they be different than the way they actually were. I learned that they and I were always doing the best we could do at the time. Sometimes my “best” was destructive and other times it was helpful.

After four and one-half years of sobriety and basically very comfortable with my progress in recovery, God decided I needed more humility and practice in “meeting calamity with serenity” as the Big Book says. I chose to share the basics of my addiction and recovery with my employers in a somewhat public meeting. I believed most people would accept me for the changed person I was. While most did accept my recovery, some could not. This led to the loss of my employment and profession after thirteen years in that city and years of sobriety.

With the help of my sponsor, I moved into a new profession. I worked for about a year in two different states. In the second job I shared with my unit director the nature of my addiction and recovery (after he asked). He fired me immediately. I was really shaken and depressed for the next two years.

My wife told me I had to work, so I applied to a temporary employment agency. The temp work included stuffing envelopes, being a receptionist and working as the office manager and secretary of a law firm for a year. I found this humiliating and freeing at the same time. At the end of that year, God found a new use for me in a helping profession, which I did for the next three years. During this time I learned some of the most important life lessons I have learned in sobriety.

I learned to reduce my expectations for income. I learned to actually respect my anonymity as a recovering sexaholic; having not done this before cost me two jobs. I learned that I had grown up crippled in my ways of handling emotions. With the help of a therapist, I did some major growing up as well as accepting my character defects at a deeper level. I also learned (over and over again) that whatever it is I think I cannot give up in my life is exactly what I must surrender if I want to keep growing in sobriety. Through God’s grace, I have been willing to do that so far.

In the past two years, much has happened. I have been diagnosed with cancer and gone through surgery and radiation therapy. My sponsor was essential in keeping my focus on God and my willingness to value each moment of life He gives me. I can feel my values shifting as I view mortality. I realize what wonderful gifts God gives me to share with others on a daily basis.

I have twice experienced the need to change sponsors for different reasons. Having a person who knows me through and through, who can recognize how I am doing just from the tone of my voice, is one of this program’s greatest gifts.

I have been restored to my former profession. Thanks to my wife’s urging, I do so on a part-time basis. Since I learned that God truly will provide as much money as we need, I am permitted to work reasonable hours and to have time to take care of my health as well as to do service work and pursue my avocations.

As my sponsors said, while Things may get worse, or better, or just stay the same for a while, IT keeps getting better! And for the grace, serenity and joy of sobriety and for the opportunity to grow up as God wants me to grow, rather than as my ego and fantasies were leading me for all those years, I can never be sufficiently grateful.