The January 29 reflection from The Real Connection has had a profound impact on my recovery. 

I realized that for me, each step is a three A process: awareness, acceptance, and action. I’m very aware of Step One. The awareness is, “Oh, I guess I am addicted.” Actually, in Step One, I’m admitting that I have this problem. I have to accept it and write out my sexual history, the way my life is unmanageable. That proves to me that yes, I do have this problem, and it helps me to accept it. Then it suggests that once I’ve done that, to take action. I take Step Two. 

Every step is the same thing. Each step is a process of the three A’s. I get a new awareness with each step. I get a new acceptance of my problem, acceptance of the cure, which is a daily reprieve. 

That’s what the three A’s are about. Everything I process, I become new. I have new awareness of myself, aspects of my disease, and aspects of recovery. That’s why the literature is new and different every time I read it. 

Life is a process of people coming into my life and of things coming to me: situations, resources, difficulties, and challenges. Then they leave: either I will leave or they will leave.

The process of grieving is a process of growing. It’s a process of becoming aware that, “Oh, what I had, I’m losing, and I’m accepting that. Then, I am looking to the future.”  

So life is just a process of coming and going. The going can be letting go rather than hanging on to anger, resentment, and pain.

Now I get to sponsor. What do I share as a sponsor? I share my process of pain, grief, and empathy that I can have with other people. I can have that because I have been through the process that you’re going through now.