Does my marriage permit me to lust, still? Is it my life’s equation that marriage = sex = lust? I suppose that could be. Certainly it would be true for me that there is indeed a very strong association between sex and lust. And if you ask me, “Do you want to be free from lust?” and I was to honestly answer — I would have to tell you, “No, I do not want to be free from lust.”

Given this state of affairs, what am I to do? I do desire, at some level, to live a real life, to have a real concern for those about me, to be in the HERE and NOW. But at another level, I resist the spiritual path necessary to get there because I really am afraid success would deprive me of my lust, forever. And for me, in my present state of mind, that would be a kind of death.

Each time we say the Serenity Prayer in fellowship, I have been thinking just how profound it is for such a short prayer.

Serenity. We ask for serenity (and surrender) to accept the things we cannot change. In the beginning, I thought that meant the serenity to accept the things we could not control or change in others. But, lately, I have been asking myself, does it not apply to me and my own disease as well? Maybe I should relinquish my idea of an “absolute” victory — in the sense that I might one day be free of lust — and set my sights much, much lower. Maybe I should accept (and be serene about) the knowledge that I will always be a sex addict. Maybe I should accept (and be serene about) the fact that I will always be tortured by bouts of lust. In other words, is the Serenity Prayer trying to teach me that my concept of victory should be redefined? Perhaps a simple acceptance of both is the victory I should be seeking.

Courage. Courage to change the things I can. Courage, indeed. Fear has ruled my life and now I need courage. Courage to give up all those fantasies and acts that corrupt me even as my sexaholism cries out with promises of escape from those very fears, pressures, vagaries and responsibilities of real life that I want so desperately to duck. Even more, I need courage to seek changes in my life that will be profound and fundamental.

Wisdom. Wisdom to know the difference. Not intelligence. Not learning. But wisdom. Wisdom, it seems to me, comes only from experience, from having tried one thing … then the other. Wisdom comes from seeing what then happens. I have tried sexual addiction. I know much about it. I have seen what it does. I know first-hand its power for destruction. I have experienced the self-centered satisfaction that at first satiates, then isolates, and finally destroys the victim-addict. I have experienced the loss of control that characterizes true addiction.

Rightful thinking and actions, I have tried less often. Certainly, at first glance, they seem less satisfying. Probably because they must often be outwardly focused, away from self. Were addiction not involved, wisdom would undoubtedly be easier to apply after weighing the relative benefits of sexual addiction against those of rightful thinking and taking the actions of love.

But addiction is involved, and until free from its grasp, the application of wisdom seems a tenuous goal — little more than a concept. Until that happy day, working the Steps, going to meetings … and more meetings, seems the closest thing to wisdom I can summon. But I’ll be satisfied with that for now. And, I’ll keep coming back.