I’m Mike, a sexaholic, and I’ve been sexually sober since June 3, 1984. I’m grateful to the members of my home group, who have helped me stay sober for the past 30 years. I’m also grateful for my wife, who probably should have dumped me many times over the years, but for some reason she has chosen to stay. We have a pretty decent marriage today—but it wasn’t always that way.

I was one of seven kids in a middle-class, Catholic household. As a teenager, I discovered pornography and masturbation. I believe that I was addicted from the start. I experienced a tremendous high from the pornography, the secrecy, and the buildup. Thirty years later I can still re-create those images in my mind. Thank God this almost never happens to me anymore, but sometimes I do still remember the images. When that happens, I must surrender them immediately.

When I was growing up, there was a young woman in our neighborhood who was considered a “loose woman.” I remember feeling sorry for her and wondering how all these guys could want to have sex with her. Then I thought, “When is it my turn?” And I took my turn. She ended up marrying a friend of mine. Every once in a while I see her. It’s an amends I just cannot make, because I can’t imagine how to broach the subject.

In college I discovered adult bookstores. I’d been to X-rated movies before, but this was different. I felt like a kid in a candy store. The options in a private booth in the bookstores seemed unlimited. But the candy-store illusion was soon unmasked when I noticed someone staring at me from above my “private” booth.

At the time, I was in seminary, studying to be a priest. My religious background should have kept me away from these places. But my lust for the experience kept me going back despite my religious beliefs, and despite moments of fear and danger. Most of my acting out was in such places.

I spent many years in seminary, leaving only one year before I would have been ordained. One year after I left the seminary, I was teaching at an all girls Catholic High School when I got into an affair with a married woman. She was one of the other teachers there. One day she asked me, “Do you want to have sex with me?” We were in a bar, it was late, and I’d had quite a few drinks. Thirty seconds later we were in her car having sex. At the time I was also dating the young woman to whom I’m married today.

In 1980 I got sober from alcohol, and I thought that would put an end to my sexual acting out. For two months I stayed out of bookstores and porn theaters, although I did not stop masturbation. Then on a trip to New York, I discovered bookstores with “live” women in them. Lust was off and running in me for another two and a half years. I became increasingly unable to stay away from places of pornography despite prayer and other efforts to do so.

I remember one night when I was with my future wife at a party. Our friends were there, many of whom I had known since college. I was surrounded by people who loved me, but I felt the need to get away. I just had to go somewhere to feed my addiction, and it had to be something live. I drove my girlfriend home, went down to a particular street in Chicago, and sat alone in that degrading place, waiting for the action.

My girlfriend was the first person who told me that my sexual problems seemed similar to my drinking. We were sitting on the rocks by the university and I was bemoaning the fact that I could not stay out of the acting-out places when she said that the behavior reminded her a lot of my drinking. I will never forget my response: I put my arm around her and said, “The two have absolutely nothing to do with each other.” But the seed had been planted.

In spite of my desire to stay faithful to my girlfriend while we were dating, I simply could not do it. I attempted to end the affair with the teacher and I tried to stay away from her. But then one weekend the high school basketball team went on a road trip, and all the teachers went along as chaperones. I begged my girlfriend to come with me so that I would not act out. Imagine telling your girlfriend, “If you don’t come with me I am going to cheat on you.” Needless to say, she chose to not come.

I made it through the first night of the trip without cheating, but the next morning I came into the hotel room where the teachers were staying, and the next thing I knew I was having sex with the teacher. I was filled with self-hate.

Two months later, after the closing picnic at the end of the school year, this same teacher offered me a ride home. She asked, “Do you still love me?” The real answer was no, but I knew that if I said no I would be going straight home, and if I said yes, I would get to have sex with her one more time. So I said yes. I did this with full consent of my will. At that moment I felt that I had committed a mortal sin. I felt my spirit die. I was dead. This was in the spring of 1980.

On December 18, 1982, my father dropped dead of a heart attack at the same age I am today, 57 years old. I had worshipped the ground he walked on. He was a very flawed human being but also a very loving one. I lived for him. And now he was dead.

That night, I walked into my brother’s bedroom with my girlfriend, and for the first time in my life I was with a woman and did not want to have sex. I just wanted to be absolutely alone. I even prayed, “God, I want to be left totally alone, but please don’t let her leave me.” My girlfriend intuitively understood this. She stayed with me the entire night and never once opened her mouth. She left me totally alone.

The next morning, as I was walking downstairs to make arrangements with my six siblings and my mother, I thought: “I want to hang around with this woman for a long time.” There was one problem though: I knew that I would be a failure as a husband. But a few months later, I asked her to marry me.

One night in 1983 I ended up in a place where pornography led to prostitution. I remember the shame I felt as a stranger kissed me on the cheek and shared prices. I also remember the intense lust that I felt. This was a moment of truth for me. The lust and shame cycle were so intense that I thought I might never stop.

By the grace of God I had gotten sober from alcoholism through my younger sister. And then I got sober from sexaholism through my older brother. All along he’d been telling me stories about his sexual behaviors and the meetings he went to, but I never divulged my own issues. I would just listen and play the role of counselor-brother. However, for some reason—maybe because I was about to ask my girlfriend to marry me—I finally said to him, “Me too,” and I burst into tears. He took me to a meeting and I started staying sober.

This was another S-program; there was no SA in Chicago at the time. But at last I had found a place where I could tell the truth about my secret. What I heard in the meetings shocked me. Many members were worse off than I was! I resented having to be with such perverts. Yet I stayed, and by the second meeting I was staying sober.

For the next three years I attended this fellowship regularly. I met many wonderful people who helped me stay sober. I got a sponsor, called him regularly, and worked the Steps—especially the house-cleaning Steps: Four through Nine. Facing my lustful past and surrendering it was painful at first, but my Step work led me to a happy, sober life. The hardest amends I made were the ones to my wife—the woman who had stood with me through the worst of my addictions. I did that only after I was two or three years sober.

At first I claimed a sobriety date of December 1983, but at the time my wife and I were not married; and we had been sexually active from the beginning of our engagement. Eventually however, my brother started an SA group in Chicago, and SA became my primary group. I felt that SA offered a stronger brand of sobriety, because we were all trying to stay sober according to one common definition. So three months before the wedding, we began an abstinence period on June 3, 1984. That is my sobriety date today.

My early recovery was filled with a lot of behaviors designed to reduce temptation. “Don’t take the second look; don’t drive down that street; keep your eyes on the sidewalk.” I said frequent prayers of surrender. I used the phone frequently. I turned over lustful thoughts and images. I stopped going to R-rated movies. I cut back on TV. I kept to a minimum relationships with women other than my wife, family, and friends.

I also began doing service work, such as sponsoring others, speaking at meetings, and working on SA committees. In 1986 I began attending International Conventions, and I’ve missed few since. International Conventions are a key ingredient in my continued sobriety. People I’ve met at conventions have become lifelong friends. Over the years I’ve also learned about group sobriety, and I’ve been lucky enough to give talks at conferences and retreats on the importance of groups developing a culture that supports its members in staying sober and carrying the message of sobriety to all its members, especially newcomers.

Nine years after my first amends to my wife, around 1992, my wife and I attended a play in which an actress friend of mine was performing. After the play, the actress threw her arms around me. My wife sensed that there had been lustful energy between us, and she was right. After this woman unclasped herself from me, I felt awkward introducing her to my wife. When we got home that night, my wife wept for hours. She told me what it was really like living with me before I got sober. I replied, “I made my amends nine years ago. Where were you then?” She said, “I’m where I am now. Be quiet and listen!” And I did.

In 1993, when my wife’s father was dying, everyone knew that he was dying but no one would say it; not even the doctors. I was not comfortable seeing blood or discussing medical things. But one day I looked at the doctor and asked, “Dave is dying, isn’t he?” The doctor put his head down and then looked up and said, “Yes, he is.” There was a lot of sadness in the room, but the relief in the room was palpable. I thought, “That isn’t me; how did I do that?” Today I know it was because of SA.

After my daughter was born in 1995, my wife and I had a period of abstinence for three months. I’m a pretty sensitive guy, and I knew that after a woman gives birth, she doesn’t want to have sex for at least a few days. I had promised my wife that during this abstinence period I would not ask to have sex, I would not bring up sex, and I would not play the nonverbal sulking game that I was so good at.

Three months went by and nothing happened. Then one day my wife said something in passing about sex and I asked, “So then I can talk about sex now?” She said, “No, I’m going to talk about it.” Then we spent three hours talking—mostly with me listening and her telling me what it had been like to be with me, with all of my sexual history. The conversation was difficult for me, but it was the most real conversation I’d ever had—and this conversation would never have happened without SA.

Through both voluntary and involuntary celibacy periods, my wife and I have cleared up and out much of the dust of our sexual history. I’ve learned that sex is truly optional. Through our deepening intimacy, both emotional and sexual, we’ve learned what works for us in terms of both the importance and the limits of sex within the marriage. We’ve done an entire historical sexual inventory of our marriage and benefited greatly from the process. We now have two beautiful children who, God willing, will never have an active sexaholic for a father. My family will reap the benefits of the true sexuality that recovery is giving us over time.

Sobriety has also brought many rewards outside of the program. I got a PhD in Irish history in 2001. In 2005 I went back to playing softball, which I hadn’t played regularly. Since the year before I got sober. But now, in sobriety, I’m playing better than I did when I was 20. I have a book coming out in this fall about the Church in Chicago. I’ve chaired church committees for my city. But most important, I’ve become a decent husband and father.

In 2008, my wife’s mother was dying. One day my mother-in-law asked the caregiver “Am I dying?” The caregiver said ”Oh no, you’re not dying.” My wife just looked at me. I knew she wanted me to tell her mother the truth. So I said, “Well, you’re probably not going to die today. But you have cancer.” She said “Okay,” and she had peace when she died. Only because of SA have I learned to communicate in the tough times.

A couple of years ago my son broke up with his girlfriend. After the breakup I noticed he didn’t date for a while, and he was talking about going into the seminary. I sat him down and I said, “If you really want to be a priest, nobody will be in your corner faster than I will. But if this is about being afraid because one relationship didn’t work out, you need to wait, because a lot of things don’t work out.” I told him about some of the relationships I had that didn’t work out. I encouraged him not to throw in the towel. I told him a bit of my story. At the end he looked at me with a big smile and said, “Thank you, Dad.” Where did I get the ability to communicate with my son? I got it from SA.

I’m quite proud of my daughter. When she was a junior in high school, her Catholic high school was in danger of closing. A lot of effort went into trying to save it. We were part of that effort and were told it had been saved. Then months later, the Sisters changed their mind and closed the school. My daughter took her class and marched down to the head nun’s office and did an old-fashioned sit-in. The result was a compromise: the Senior class would be allowed back to finish together. So my daughter and her 26 classmates got to spend their last year together in what was called the Senior Academy. My daughter was the valedictorian. My wife and I helped a bit with the finances. I have a healthy family today only because of SA.

Today—at 30 years of sobriety—I just want to say that life is fun. Sobriety is a gas. For anyone who is struggling with sobriety, stop struggling. Get sober and stay sober. You’ll have the time of your life. Don’t spend the rest of your life acting out sexually or sitting on the fence. If you’re sober, but spend your whole life wishing you weren’t sober, or debating about whether or not you should be sober—you are basically wasting your life. I encourage everyone: Don’t waste your life outside of these rooms. Don’t waste your life inside the rooms. Come join the party!