“The wild elephant . . . is the self we’re running from, fear of which drives us on our mad flight into that dark hole where we prefer to stay and hide. When we come out of hiding and face this terrible beast . . . he disappears” (SA 106).

Today a fellow in our group received his eight-month chip. I recalled how desperately upset he’d been when he first came to SA—but today he demonstrated a great peace and calmness. I realized that this is also my story. I’ll never forget the day I clearly saw the truth about myself and realized I needed to make a change. I’m grateful for the freedom I’ve experienced since turning my will and my life over to the care of God in this program. Meetings, the Steps, a sponsor, and a willingness to do just about everything differently—these are the tools that have changed my life.

During my childhood I struggled with self-pity and resentment. My parents couldn’t give me the love I wanted. My dad was a heavy drinker. My mom was physically, verbally, and emotionally abusive. I felt sorry for myself. I resented playmates who had better bicycles, better grades, or more recognition. I resented boys who received more attention from my father for their athletic abilities. My ability to play the clarinet didn’t seem to measure up. I was uncomfortable with my appearance. I didn’t feel masculine enough. I was uncomfortable and withdrawn around people.

When I was 14, I discovered masturbation. I kept this behavior a secret because I remembered how my mother reacted to finding my brother’s pornography. Yet she kept stashes of romance novels in our basement.

I spent a lot of time in the basement “practicing” my clarinet, so I could ritualize the experience of getting a magazine and acting out. My ritual soon included dressing in specific types of clothing and watching myself in mirrors while acting out.

Around that time I also had a sexual experience with a neighbor boy. It was adolescent horsing around, pretending to “make it” with a girl, but it became far more powerful for me. I wanted to re-create the experience with the boy but he refused. I learned that my desires were wrong and shameful.

My first sexual experience with a woman was with a female band member in college. I also became involved with a male roommate. I began stealing his pornography. The ritual of getting the material and putting it back became part of my high.

The summer after my sophomore year, I went to Europe with a fellow I was acting out with. Back home, I wanted to “come out” but was afraid of the reaction. I walked the streets many nights in an effort to cruise, and sometimes desperately hoped to attend a “gay” support group—but I never had the courage to go inside.

Over the years my insanity increased. At one point I was acting out with all three female members of my band. I had a brief encounter with a high school teacher in the area. I took a trip to Colorado with a male college professor for a week one summer. Another summer I had an affair with a male acquaintance who was visiting from Germany. We went crazy in lust and sex for a weekend. My roommate caught us in the act. This was quite shaming but did little to dissuade me from my lust.

Some time later, while playing in an extended performance in a theater group, I became obsessed with one of the male performers. This became a very “out” affair. That same summer I met the woman who would become my wife. I loved being with her. But I was still acting out with others and myself. I would show interest in her and then back off. I was afraid of commitment. When she left for winter break, I was aloof during phone conversations. When she returned, I was negative and unsupportive. Somehow, we continued as a couple.

The next year I moved to New York City. My girlfriend was to join me in the summer. Before she arrived I was acting out with a woman who lived in my building. That relationship was discovered when my girlfriend arrived. The tension lasted for days, but we worked through it and grew close and decided to get married that summer. The marriage seemed special, but I would turn on her at a moment’s notice.

I was soon back acting out with myself. I went to magazine stands to buy male pornography, took it home and used it, threw it away, and vowed to not do it again. This was repeated often. I was powerless and willing to lose all for my acting out.

Four years later, we moved to the Midwest. I was angry about the move even though I had participated in the decision. I let my wife find an apartment and a car and then resented her choices. My wife got a good job. I didn’t have a job and resented having to start over. Eventually I started teaching clarinet and saxophone and got some music gigs, but I was miserable. I used my practice room for masturbation.

I tried to make everything look okay, but I felt I didn’t have what I deserved. My job was merely adequate. I wasn’t getting enough music gigs. I was overwhelmed with resentment and self-pity. I acted out with stashes of pornography.

My son and daughter were born in the late 1980s. I offered to be primary care giver so my wife could pursue her career. I quit my job and got a half-baked part-time sales job. I lived in isolation, loneliness, and self-pity—fertile ground for my addiction. Usually, if the kids were taking a nap, I was acting out. I started teaching part-time as an adjunct clarinet professor. But I was not equipped to handle the schedule along with the responsibilities of raising children and caring for a house. I constantly escaped by acting out.

In 1996, when my kids were six and nine, my wife landed a prestigious job as a professor for a college three hours from home. She was gone four or five days a week. On her weekends at home, she worked all the time. The fact that she was responsible for so much of the financial burden of our family was a direct result of my acting out.

The Internet had come into our home and became my main activity. I got into videos. I developed more rituals to enhance my acting out. I stayed up all hours of the night getting my fix on the Internet. I visited gay sites, personal sites, chat rooms, and video sex. It was never enough.

In 1997, I had an adulterous affair with a guy living in our home. I admitted this to my wife. This is how I punished her. My behavior was destroying our marriage. She was in the major career position of her life and I was creating hell for her.

One night I was online setting up a date with a man, thinking my wife was asleep. I was lost in the haze of acting out and didn’t realize she was looking over my shoulder. We argued, and that argument led me to see that I had a problem. I made the call, admitted what I had been doing, and got to my first meeting. About 12 people attended that group.

I got a sponsor, went to meetings, and began working the Steps. My life started changing. I found a good job and got involved in service. But I had only embraced physical sobriety, not lust sobriety. My character defects were still at work. Things were better, but something was missing. I was not happy, joyous, or free.

One month shy of my fifth sober anniversary, I lost my sobriety. Lust had gotten the better of me. I got back into the program and meetings and once again achieved one year and five months of sobriety. Then, in August 2004, my wife said I had finally become the man she always hoped I would become. I could almost hear the rubber stamp come crashing down that screamed, “FIXED.” I decided that the rules and definitions of SA no longer applied to me.

I lost interest in meetings, let myself go back on the Internet, and began masturbating again. Yet I was still serving the fellowship as Intergroup representative and as a Regional Delegate. What hypocrisy!

Once I let lust back in, my life moved rapidly into unmanageability. I became drunk on a possible lust encounter at an SA conference. I went further into lusting on Internet dating sites, male clothing sites, and more. I crossed the boundary of not viewing this material at work. I went right back to where I had left off in 1998, but much worse.

My wife’s grandmother became ill and was hospitalized. While my wife spent more and more at the hospital, I used her computer—another boundary crossed. One of the last things my wife’s grandmother said to me before she died was, “You could get away with anything.”

As I drove to pick up our children from school to attend the wake, my wife called. She’d been searching for the obituary and found my trail of pornography on her computer. The weekend was awful. There was revealing and getting to the bottom of things. My wife accompanied me to work and saw everything. She helped place filters on my work computers.

I was hopeless but still going to meetings. I began doing what my sponsor said. I did a Step One and shared it with the group, then a Step Two and Step Three. But lust still had hold of me. The filters on my work computer had to be removed because they interfered with my job. Once they were gone, I was looking again. I acted out again in January and had to admit it once again to my wife. She has said many times: “It’s not the acting out, but the lying that is the most hurtful.”

I began to get some relief from lust. Newcomers who came into our meetings were helping me see myself. I increased my meeting attendance. I started praying and making conscious contact with God. A fellow offered to do Tenth Step dailies with me for several weeks. He helped save my life. Then in May, when we were getting ready to move again, I acted out by masturbating and chose not to tell my wife. I lied to my groups about my sobriety date.

Later that summer I acted out once more—and for the first time I clearly saw the extent of my sickness. I’d been engineering resentment toward my wife prior to her business trip. Resentment toward her gave me a reason to act out. On the last day of her trip I masturbated in front of the mirror—but this time I felt no enjoyment. For once, facing my sickness head-on brought me to despair. This was in August 2005. It was the beginning of freedom for me: “I could never figure out why knowing the truth about God never set me free. Or the truth about psychology or the Twelve Step program. But when I finally came to the place where I saw the truth about me—and despaired. . . Well, that was the beginning” (SA 106).

I did not disclose this acting out to my wife. I thought she’d leave me. I could not be honest. Even so, I was getting relief from lust. I saw that I had been doing recovery for my wife, and I realized that was not enough. A fellow asked me to sponsor him, and we worked the Steps. I started taking better care of my health. My wife and I started doing more things together. I attended more meetings and did more service. A change of heart had occurred “. . . without which no real change in our lives can come about” (SA 80).

I made a commitment to do Tenth Step dailies with a sponsee. A few of us started an accountability meeting. I started beginning each day with prayer, followed by a written Tenth Step daily, which I later shared with an accountability partner. Before bed I would read a page or two from recovery devotionals. I finished each day thanking God. I made and received more phone calls. I began attending International conventions.

Since August 2005, I’ve experienced a change in my attitude toward service, family, work, and the SA program. One huge growing experience for me was my participation in helping to plan an SA convention. My sponsor says I’ve grown in amazing ways since then. He said the attitude change he saw in me was letting go and letting God. I began to recognize that I don’t have to control everything. I can trust God to work through me. On many occasions, a need or problem would arise, and God would place the solution in a person or event right in front of me.

In August 2006, I began sponsoring a fellow whose acting out was with men. He’d been having trouble getting sober. I decided I had a “mission” in sponsoring him—but I became enmeshed in his recovery. He was my project. My wife knew at least the names of all the other guys I sponsored, but I didn’t tell her about this one. Lust was at play. When she found out about him, I knew I needed to end the connection. I cannot handle lust in any way, even in the guise of offering help.

The past three years of my recovery have been significantly better because I’ve learned to forgive myself and allow myself to be an integrated person, a whole and loving child of God. This has had a lot to do with accepting all parts of me, especially the gay part, which I had tried so hard to suppress. The support and friendship of a wonderful gay man in our fellowship has helped me to see my life as choices. I know now that love is commitment. Commitment has become a beautiful word in my life.

During the summer of 2008, my wife and I took a trip to the Hudson River area to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary. It was a wonderful weekend, and was made even better when I disclosed to her that I had had two slips since January, and my real sobriety date was August 22, 2005. I’m always surprised by her gift of grace and forgiveness. She loves every part of me. She has waited a long time for me to arrive. I’m sorry it took so long, but I’m grateful to finally be here with her now. It’s so much easier to receive forgiveness and grace from another person when I am living a life of honesty.

I love my life now. I love the man I have become. I love the fact that I know I could have chosen to become any manner of sexual orientation but that my problem is, always has been, and always will be lust. I love the choices I’m making in my life. I love the fact that I don’t have all the answers. I love the fact that I have a program that works as long as I work it. I love being able to give of myself to others to insure that what I have stays and increases. I love being used by God to do His will. I love the fact that “I know only a little, but that God will constantly disclose more to me.”