Although I am not married, I have lived as if I were—not to any living breathing human being but to FEAR. Just as my addictions seemed to help me to cope with the dysfunctional world in which I grew up, Fear seemed to help me to manage and control my addictions.

Fear points out the negative consequences of acting out, so I can go without lust and sex for periods of time. Fear is at home with my other forms of compulsiveness: computer games, activity and work, overeating. Fear keeps me from following certain disciplines of prayer and exercise and getting to bed at a reasonable hour. Fear nestles in the conviction that I am different from all of the other perverts who surrendered and are now living happy, joyous and free.

Fear has kept me both from the full consequences of my addiction and from the full benefits of recovery. By nature I am as much of a lust-hound as anyone who has been arrested, contracted diseases, spent thousands on prostitutes or pornography, or lives on-line in chat-rooms. Even so, I am much more attached to Fear than I am to sexual acting out.

Several times I have stepped out on Lady Fear. Love was inviting me to relationship. God has actually gotten me sober and kept me sober. Once love was so strong that I was completely overcome. I really lost all desire, all compulsion to act out. And I knew it was not my doing. I cried tears of joy when I realized that God was doing for me what I could not do for myself.

But of course, Fear was waiting in the wings and She got me back. A wise sponsor noting my euphoria asked if I was not more in love with the gift than with the Giver. I had stopped working a program because I thought God had fixed me for good. I now know that if I want to be truly free from Fear, I have to work hard on a new relationship with my Higher Power, who is Love. And I have to work on that relationship one day at a time.

Based on Fear my attempts to “control and enjoy” have clearly been abysmal failures. Fear of disease or legal or personal consequences have kept me miserable, sick and tired. A life lived in Fear can never go very far. A life consumed with irrational Fear can only be chaotic and crazy. Today, my deepest desire is to respect my disease rather than to fear it. And that leads me to the conclusion that I am powerless over lust and my life has become unmanageable.

I am and always have been powerless over the family into which I was born, over the sexual abuse, and over the death of my sister. I am powerless over the past, present and future. I am powerless over the way my brain works. I am powerless over the self-blindness, over the unintentional dishonesty of my life. I am powerless over me.

Today I am willing to risk, to believe, to accept that God loves me exactly as I am and wants to give me the awesome blessings of sobriety and recovery.