I’m Paul H., a grateful sexaholic, sober since December 1996. The nature of my disease is lusting, wanting to be lusted after, compulsive masturbation, use of pornography, dependency relationships, and anonymous encounters.

It felt good not long ago to reach an anniversary. It’s been a long journey. I started sexual recovery 15 years ago. It’s been quite a journey and still is. I want to be quite profound in sharing but all I’m doing is quoting what has been so freely passed on to me.

The year 1983 was when I first identified as a sex addict. At the time I had just had a traumatic split with a man. I recalled him talking a former partner of his who had left his sexually addicted lifestyle in his late 30s to train for the priesthood. I made contact with this man in Canada and found he was on a similar path to me. From 1983-86 he was the only other person I knew in the world in sexual recovery — he in Canada, me in Australia.

In 1986, I became involved with a Church group dealing with people leaving the same-sex lifestyle. I was the only member not of their faith, but they gave me a lot of role models and many of the principles I was to hear later in SA. The problem there was that I would not subscribe to their theology. From 1989 to ’92, I was involved in other S-groups, but found I could not find the support I needed for sobriety. Virtually no one there could comprehend my goal of sobriety. Because I was sexually attracted to men and had no real attraction to women they could not comprehend my sobriety definition that excluded homosexual behavior.

My original SA group was founded in ’92 by three people, including myself, whose background was almost entirely same-sex. We left the other S-program specifically because the SA sobriety definition ruled out any same sex behavior as sober. We needed that firm clear bottom line. I needed it. In SA I finally found a place that was solidly behind sobriety and that didn’t try to convert me religiously. I’d been wanting this sobriety for a long time.

The layers of denial and lies have been many. What worked for me has been meetings, tapes, phone calls and the Steps. When we first started meetings in Melbourne in December ’92, none of us were sober. We started off with two meetings per week, even though there was only three of us. We looked at each other and said we have to get sobriety from somewhere, so we read from the literature. I wanted sobriety but didn’t want to do the work. I knew I needed sobriety but feared I couldn’t achieve it. I think I spent the first two years of meetings in solid fear of other members and fear that the meeting would disappear. Then I heard about fear inventories and the God connection really started to work for me. I had (and still have) so much rubbish running around in my head and I had to start getting it out or I could never connect with the love of God. Then I remembered I had heard somewhere that the opposite of love is not hate, but fear. I had to surrender the fear, and still do. In committing myself to my meetings I found I started to belong.

I stopped (one day at a time) acting out with others in March ’94. Almost lost that a few times when I didn’t surrender fear. I called myself sober from that date for almost two years before I got honest about “wandering hands” in the middle of the night while “asleep.” I knew for sure there was something wrong when I could hear myself thinking, “You’d better keep your eyes shut so you don’t have to call this a bust.” I finally got a sponsor (and a long-distance phone bill!) and started being more honest. Another year of busts “in the middle of the night” and the sick patterns of my thinking started to emerge.

I was going to bed unsurrendered and when I stirred in the middle of the night it was not God I was reaching out for. As I started to do the daily inventories at the end of the day I began to find God in my sleep and in my semi-sleep life. I heard an S-Anon speaker say, “My head is not a safe neighborhood and I don’t like to go there alone.” I needed you people and the God of my limited understanding to get me out of my head. So for the last four years I’ve averaged an SA conference tape per day and spoken to at least two members per day. My thinking was so distorted that I just had to get my sanity from somewhere and someone else.

In October–November ’96, I did a six-week SA tour of the USA, Canada, UK and Ireland. I met many members who I had heard on conference tapes. Although I had only two weeks of sobriety when I started that trip, I was made welcome wherever I went. At times I was so fearful I couldn’t speak, at other times so fearful I couldn’t shut up. And what I got back was acceptance. During that trip I phoned back to Australia on average every day. I needed to stay connected.

Then a few weeks after I returned I busted again with starting the big M “in the middle of the night.” Complacency and grandiosity had set in again. So here I am over a year later, over a year sober. The SA Internet meeting has helped a lot. It’s kept me focused on recovery during each day. There have been a couple of close calls. On those occasions I did what I had been shown to do — inventory it, pray about it and talk about it. Service has been a blessing, getting me out of my head. Gratitude has been a great tool — it brings me up when I’m down and down when I’m up. It gets me out of my head and into the God connection.

Recently I had been thinking I was “all done.” Through sad experience I’ve learned to surrender that particular thought when it arises. I know when I surrender the slightest hint of lust I have freedom. When I take the second look/thought or the prolonged first look/thought the freedom and serenity start to go. I’m still very susceptible to lust. There have been a number of rewards of sobriety and recovery. I’m learning to listen more. I’ve discovered real intimacy with men in the program; better than the counterfeit intimacy I had before. Also there is a growing ability to see reality more clearly than I ever have. The unreality of my thinking astounds me at times.

So thank you all for helping me stay sober today, getting progressively sober over the last five years and for this last year of full sobriety. Please keep coming back. Every time you share you give me your trust and honesty. That’s a precious gift that helps me to be more trusting and honest. Keep surrendering — what else is there?