Originally published in ESSAY, December 2012

An article published in this year’s October issue titled, “The ESSAY Enhances Our Meetings,” was quite encouraging for single SA members. In that article, an SA sister recounted a frantic search which ensued after a fellow member referred her to an older ESSAY article that had a great impact on his recovery. Regrettably, he lost his only copy and couldn’t remember the title. The author of October’s piece, along with other sleuths in that meeting, did find the older article, which proved very valuable for those in their meeting.

Some of us on the ESSAY editing team were also profoundly affected by the recovered article from December 2012, so we decided to reprint it here. It couldn’t be a better match for our “Sober Dating” theme this month, its message is clear, practical, and timeless.

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“I’m in a serious, monogamous relationship. I love him, and I’m certain that we’re going to get married. Why doesn’t SA support sex in this type of committed relationship? I’m able to stay present during sex, and it’s about connection, not escape. I don’t have religious convictions about waiting until marriage. Plus, it’s not as if I’m a virgin! Yet sex outside of marriage is not allowed within our sobriety definition. While everyone is free to do exactly as he or she wishes, we are not considered sober if we have sex with anyone other than a spouse. This seems unfair to the single sexaholic!”

As a single sexaholic woman with other single friends in recovery, I’ve heard arguments like the ones above more than once. Early in recovery, before I began to experience lasting sobriety and progressive victory over lust, I would say things like that myself, but my sponsor would always tell me to take a year off from dating to concentrate on sobriety and Step work. A year ago, I finally took her advice.

Today, I’m experiencing a new freedom as a single woman in sobriety. Now, I can embrace in its entirety SA’s sobriety definition: “Any form of sex with one’s self or with partners other than the spouse is progressively addictive and destructive” (SA, 202). This means that married sexaholics can have sex with a husband or wife, but for the single sexaholic, it means “freedom from sex of any kind” (SA, 192). That is, no sex until marriage. Having fully accepted this definition now, I think it applies just as much to married SAs as to single sexaholics, and here are my nine reasons why:

1. Sex while dating threatens my objectivity. As I get to know a potential spouse, it’s very hard (impossible for me!) to be honest and objective when I’m sexual with someone I’m still getting to know. Sex while dating clouds my thinking. While I date, I want to be able to see my partner for who he truly is and make clear-headed decisions about our future.

2. Sex does a great job of communicating an intimate bond, it’s terrible at creating one. Sex introduced too early in a relationship can create a false sense of intimacy, rather than reflect the real intimacy cultivated through emotional (not sexual) connection. My sponsor told me to ensure that my emotional intimacy is more developed than my physical intimacy — always! — even after I’m married.

3. By saving sex until I’m married, I demonstrate to myself (and remind my partner) that sex is truly optional. The best way I can remind myself that I don’t have to have sex is by not having sex!

4. Accepting SA’s sobriety definition removes my need to decide when I’m ready to be sexual with my partner. I’ve often heard in the Program: “My own best thinking got me here!” Looking at the track record of my best thinking (actually, my self-will), it makes sense for me to accept the wisdom of those who have gone before me rather than think it’ll be different for me. Even if I think I’m entering into a sexual relationship in a healthy way, I know that my disease is cunning and baffling; I can deceive myself just as easily as I could deceive others.

5. Accepting SA’s sobriety definition allows me to surrender my self-will and let go of old ideas. The Big Book says, “Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas, and the result was nil until we let go absolutely” (AA, 58). My old ideas about sex included the following: (a) I could control it (but actually, sexaholism was having its way with me!), (b) it indicated that I was loved and important, (c) my sexual behaviors did not affect anyone but me, (d) intensity meant intimacy, (e) I was different from other people and just had a higher sex drive, and (f) waiting to have sex until I married my partner was unrealistic and downright impossible. Choosing to embrace SA’s sobriety definition challenges all of these old ideas and frees me to discover more practical ideas about sex and sexuality.

6. When I ignore SA’s sobriety definition, I affect other people. In the past I thought that my sexual behaviors only affected me. But now that I have a sponsor, a home group, sponsees, friends in recovery, and improved relationships with family, friends, and especially Higher Power, I know that if I jeopardize my sobriety, I risk harming all of these other relationships. Freedom from lust keeps me emotionally, mentally, and spiritually available for a healthy connection, and it gives me experience, strength, and hope to offer to others.

7. Accepting SA’s sobriety definition reminds me that I have no guarantees about my future so I can live in the present. I’m not married now, so accepting where I am in life means living as a single person, not married. If I justify having sex with any partner by thinking, “We’re getting married anyway,” then I’m living in the future, not the present. In fact, I justified sex in my last relationship because I was so sure we were getting married … yet we’re no longer together. And the same before that! Two separate men told me they would love me forever, and both relationships fell apart.

8. Many negative outcomes arise from sex before marriage, but I can’t think of any from abstinence. Negative consequences of sex outside of marriage might include unnecessarily awakening lust, unplanned pregnancy, or feeding dependency, secrecy, shame, or fear. On the other hand, abstinence can preserve self-respect, freedom from guilt and fear, and more opportunities to work my program as I surrender lust.

9. Saving sex for marriage helps me focus better on working the Steps with my sponsor. It also gives me time to learn what healthy sex looks like as I soak in the experience, strength, and hope of married SAs. I can also develop clearer plans, with HP, my sponsor, and others, for reintroducing sex into my life when and if I get married.

I once heard sex described as the natural culmination of sharing, commitment, trust, and cooperation. That sounded to me like emotional intimacy. I don’t think sex ever culminates in emotional intimacy. The best way I can ensure that my sexual relationship is unselfish is to first develop a foundation of sharing, trust, and cooperation and to guard sex in safekeeping for that most-intimate of commitments. Marriage is no guarantee of lust-free sex (my married SA friends bear witness of that), but I believe I will have a greater chance of sexual health—before and after marriage—if I trust the wisdom of SA literature and the experience of those who have gone before me.