Feet shuffling, I made my way through the darkened tunnel. I was part of a handcuffed, chained sea of men in orange that was slowly making its way through an underground tunnel toward the courthouse. We shuffled, a few inches at a time, because our ankles were connected by chains. I was in shock, floating on a dark cloud of uncertainty, shame, loneliness, and self-pity.

My name is Jimmy, and I am a sexaholic. Before my arrest, my life was perfect: great wife, kids, job, church, music, athletics, and health. But I was also addicted to pornography, lust, sex, resentment, anger, self-centeredness, and denial.

I grew up in a loving, upper-middle-class home. The youngest of three children, I followed in the footsteps of intelligent siblings and parents who graduated from Ivy League schools—but I always felt different. I felt that I was not as smart as the rest of my family.

I discovered girls one day in kindergarten when a girl smiled at me. I stole my first kiss at a third-grade dance. I remember a girl saying “you’re sexy” in fifth grade, and I remember how much I liked the way that made me feel. Beginning in about the first grade, my best (male) friend and I liked to dance naked together. As we grew into our early teens, we began to experiment with sexuality, look at porn, and smoke cigarettes together. I recruited other friends into this behavior, but I did not feel right about it. My friend and I discussed our behavior, decided that we were “not gay,” and stopped. However, I carried some doubt and shame regarding this same-sex activity, as well as the way I manipulated other friends to join me in these behaviors.

When I was 13, I had my first girlfriend. I was thrilled to walk hand-in-hand with her. She broke up with me quickly, however, and I blamed myself for not kissing her. My next girlfriend broke up with me for kissing too much. Masturbation and obsession with pornography soon took priority, as I felt safe and was “not hurting anyone.”

When I was 15, my brother put a pornographic magazine under the Christmas tree. My dad paid the “bill-me-later” payment, and the result was a new magazine in the mail every month and the beginning of my porn obsession. After that, I stole pornography from adult bookstores and hid it under my mattress and in compartments in my closet.

When I was 16, a male family friend came to stay with us. He was about four years older than I was. When I confided in him my prior sexual behavior, he groomed me with liquor and pornography, and manipulated me into sexual behavior with him. I spent most of my life telling myself this behavior was just “boys being boys” and “my choice.” In reality, I carried the guilt, shame, and denial from this sexual abuse with me into adult life and into my adult relationships.

Before I was 18, I had acted out in adult arcades, adult movie theaters, and massage parlors. I remember the first time I acted out at an adult movie theater. I slumped down and masturbated in public. Afterwards, overcome with feelings of shame and guilt, I forced myself not to feel. I actually convinced myself to not feel shame and guilt! I learned to be proud of my ability to stuff feelings.

I graduated from college with a music degree and plans to attend graduate school for conducting. My fiancée had different ideas and told me it was time to go to work. So I cancelled my plans and hit the streets to work as a busboy, clerk, and eventually a salesman. Codependent, I did what I thought my wife wanted, stuffed my feelings, and used my anger and resentment as fuel for my acting out.

Married at 22, I lived a double life of husband, salesman, and musician on the one hand, and porn-lusting, prostitute-chasing, delusional self-centered liar on the other. I played my part well. In my desperate need to keep my sexual behavior going, and secret, I was self-righteous and passive-aggressive toward my wife. I projected an attitude of “I’m fine, what’s wrong with you?” Hence, she blamed our failing marriage on herself and we divorced. My addict self was elated. I started a new, successful career, dated women I could use and discard, and acted out as I pleased.

I knew I had a problem because I could not stop. But I rationalized that this is how I had “always been” and continued my acting-out behaviors. Stuffing my feelings of shame, anger, and resentment, I continued to act out, hurting and abusing myself and everyone else in my life.

I married again. I believed my new wife would fix me because she knew about the porn and she was “okay” with it. Eventually, the secrets started again and we drifted apart. Escalating in quantity and deviancy, I kept the porn, adult stores, and clubbing behavior to myself. My wife drifted into depression and self-doubt as my self-centered, abusive, passive-aggressive behaviors and attitudes raged. I manufactured conflicts with her in order to form resentments, which I then used to rationalize my sexual acting out. All along, I minimized my activities, telling myself, “At least I’m not having an affair.” I thought I was so entitled!

Ten years later, I found myself sitting across from a good friend who had 15 years of AA sobriety and program experience. I described to him my frustration, shame, and bewilderment over my behavior and my inability to stop. He pointed me toward the concept of powerlessness, Twelve Step recovery, and hope. I soon chose to tell my therapist, and she encouraged me to disclose to my wife.

I told my wife everything. She was shocked, hurt, and angry. However, through her family’s experience, she understood AA and the miracle of the Twelve Steps. She supported my entrance into recovery and SA meetings. I, however, wasn’t ready to stop. I attended one SA meeting a week, saw a new therapist who specialized in sex addiction—and learned to “talk the talk” and lie with sincerity while I continued to act out.

I began to visit adult stores instead of going to meetings. Upon returning home, I would share with my life “what I learned” in the “morning group session”! During the day I smoked cigarettes and looked at pornography in my car, rationalizing that I wasn’t really “acting out.” Inevitably, I would act out. I would be at a club when it opened, drinking and smoking at 11 a.m. A few hours later, I was at the adult bookstore, acting out and smoking more. Since my wife thought I had quit smoking, I would bring a change of clothes, go to the gym to shower, dress again, and then go home and play the good husband.

Intimacy with my wife became infrequent and anxiety-producing. She was buying my act and attempting to move closer to me, but I was unable to connect. I was terrified that the house of cards I had built would collapse, so I had to keep running, acting out again and again.

I began making my own pornography, using the Internet and a home printer. Smoking and viewing pornography became all-consuming obsessions. Morning, noon, and night I would find excuses to drive somewhere to act out. I smoked and viewed pornography at home, late at night. The images became more extreme and more disturbing as I continued to cross boundary after boundary.

In November 2006, I was diagnosed with advanced malignant melanoma on my upper left cheek. My wife was a rock and supported me through the surgery and tests. In early January 2007, I was told that it had not spread, and that I did not need to have chemotherapy. Was this my wake-up call? My bottom? Not at all. As I have heard in meetings: “If you don’t know whether or not you have reached your bottom, God will arrange one for you.”

A few days later, I was chained, wearing orange, and headed to court. Why did I choose to view and print child pornography a few days after the good news about my cancer? Why did I throw the offending pictures into a dumpster only to retrieve them in the freezing snow the next day, resulting in my arrest? Why did I not remember that across the street from the dumpster was a fire station, and that my behavior was suspicious enough that neighbors might call the police? There is no reason why. I knew my behavior was wrong.

So what was this new feeling of subtle relief inside me? In the midst of trauma, I began a spiritual awakening, based on truth—no matter how ugly, difficult, or (in my case) illegal. In the darkness of reality, I discovered light within. My journey from a self-centered, angry, resentful, passive-aggressive, righteously indignant man to one who accepts life as today’s gift took many subsequent years. It took many gifts from God, disguised as “unfair” punishments and consequences. It took severe limits on my freedom. It took being booked into county jail, complete with picture ID, orange jump suit, and towel. It took spending the night in a tiny cell, on the floor next to the toilet because there were six of us in there. It took being released but placed on virtual house arrest, with friends leaving groceries at my front door and unable to come inside. It took being unable to see my children, losing my job of 22 years, and getting divorced after 19 years of marriage. It took polygraph tests to teach me that truth and honesty is not necessarily what you say, but what you do not say.

It took being banned from attending SA meetings by my probation officer, and as a result, choosing to focus on what I could do versus what I could not. I could meet regularly with SA members for coffee and fellowship. I could connect with others and work the program. I had known who I wanted as a sponsor, but it wasn’t until after the arrest that I walked up to him and asked for help. We met every Thursday for breakfast and worked through the Steps using the Big Book, the Twelve & Twelve, and the White Book as our guides. I could design and edit our local SA newsletter and an SA/S-Anon International Convention program. I could create and sell recovery greeting cards. And I could continue my recovery journey with my dog Maxey, in the form of an original cartoon. I call it (surprise) “Maxey.”

Acceptance is my lifeline to God and to serenity. Boundaries, consequences, and responsibility for my thoughts, feelings, and behaviors were not to be fought, but accepted. Feeling hurt, angry, or sad wasn’t something to fight, but part of being human. Throughout my life, I had pushed boundaries and suffered little or no consequences. This instilled in me a self-righteous, entitled attitude. I fiercely fought all criticism and avoided responsibility. Steps Four through Seven were a breakthrough for me, because I was finally able to not only look at myself, but to know myself. I asked God to remove my self-centeredness, anger, lust, self-pity, conceit, fear, phoniness, dishonesty, self-sufficiency and greed. Working the Steps, I began to feel again: to be real—not perfect and not an illusion, and not mirroring to others what I thought they expected from me.

On October 5, 2011, I received the court order notice confirming my release from supervision! On October 6 (after three and a half years), I walked through the familiar doors of my SA home meeting and my joy overflowed with smiles and tears. What a blessing; a privilege to be where God is present, working miracles in the lives of those sitting at the table with me. What a blessing to be able to meet with my sponsor face to face again. What a blessing to meet for fellowship after meetings, and get reconnected with old friends and meet new ones.

Today, because of the things I have learned through SA, my ex-wife and I communicate and parent better than I would ever have dreamed; a testament to God’s will and plan in my life. My level of acceptance and gratitude for God’s plan in my life has been forever transformed. It’s not that I’m that much different. I can still be self-centered and fearful; but today I am aware of these things. I am accepting of who I am, I empathize with myself and with others in a way that would not have been possible (or even conceivable) prior to working the program. A free man, I choose a new life of spiritual awareness and connection. I know what the other kind of life brings.

I am a grateful sexaholic, for without the journey into darkness, I would not be experiencing the light of God’s grace today.