Recently, I have begun to recognize a change over time in the nature and quality of my own desire for sexual sobriety and recovery.

As I understand AA’s history with the Third Tradition, there was some idea that this requirement should be qualified as an honest or sincere desire. Fortunately for me, that idea was abandoned and no one (including me) was called upon to judge the quality of my desire to be in SA at first. Thanks be to the God of my understanding!

My desire for SA sobriety was born of pain, suffering, and the fear of profound loss. “It is by circumstance rather than by any virtue” (12&12 38) that I came into SA. So true of me! I wanted the anguish to stop; my flirtations with suicide to end; my family to remain intact; and the insanity of wanting to do an ordinary thing—like getting home on time but instead ending up “back out there”—to end once and for all.

My first SA meeting was at the International Convention in Milwaukee in July 1989. I immediately wanted what I saw in the faces of the members there, what I heard in their stories, and what I discovered in Sexaholics Anonymous (which was introduced at that convention). Many of these folks shared victories over lust that gave them freedom from pain, restored integrity, and the capacity to live open and honest lives.

I wanted all of that and more. In the past I had gotten some of it in bits and pieces, with various lengths of sobriety, but real recovery eluded me. I was going through the motions, believing that I was sincere. But now I see that I wasn’t really willing to bear the type of pain that is part and parcel of this program. I wasn’t willing to “face the Wild Elephant” (Sexaholics Anonymous 105, “Step Four”).

Many factors have shaped my desire for sobriety and recovery today. These include time, meetings, pain, consequences, the grace of God, the experience of others, the love of others (when I couldn’t or wouldn’t accept love), working the Steps, and working with others.

Today I still want freedom from the pain that comes with living in the “problem.” But even more I desire that “positive sobriety”—the sobriety that draws me to an intimate relationship with my Higher Power, allows me to “take the actions of love to improve my relations with others,” gives me the opportunity to be useful to God and my fellows, and allows me to live with integrity and to be happy, joyous and free. My desire today is for a sustained spiritual awakening—for the “Real Connection.” This is my hope. I have read that “Hope is the belief that there is good worth working for.” Today I am willing to do that work.