I first entered these rooms in 2001, after confessing to my wife that I had had a number of encounters with prostitutes during our eight years of marriage. I thought that if I could stop my abhorrent sexual behaviors of cruising and employing prostitutes, I would save my marriage, write a book, and embark on a speaking ministry across the country to help men and women trapped by sexual addiction.

When five whole months of “getting sober” didn’t solve my problems, I gave up and began recklessly acting out. A year later, I found myself in a treatment center for sexual addiction. There, I was introduced to the idea of a daily sobriety renewal: a daily “check-in” with another “drunk,” in which we each confirm our desire to stay sober (by God’s grace) for the next 24 hours. During my 35 days in rehab, every morning and every evening we checked in with the other residents of the house as part of our recovery.

I didn’t realize how important that daily check in was for me until I had been home for a while and still couldn’t get sober. At home, I heard about other SA members doing their daily renewals, using a standard set of questions. Those questions did not work for me, however, because they were all “yes/no” questions, and I found myself breezing through them without really thinking or surrendering.

So I started a daily renewal with a friend and we formulated our own template for a morning renewal that has worked for us. It has three parts:

1. What am I feeling right now?
2. What do I surrender today?
3. What do I commit to today?

We start by sharing all of our feelings that day, whether fear or courage, gratitude or resentment, love or hate, peace or anxiety, hope or despair. No values are placed on the emotions; we merely acknowledge their existence. Acceptance is the key. My emotions don’t have to rule my actions. They simply are what they are, and I need to greet them each day so I can be aware of any obstacles I might face as I move forward.

After acknowledging the feelings, we move on to listing the things that we are surrendering that day. I’ve already given them up to God. Now, just as in my Step Four, I give them to a fellow traveler who is trudging alongside of me. In so doing I cement the surrender. I do not merely list things like the right to lust after people on the street, or the right to view pornography in any form, etc.; I also list my character defects such as sloth, procrastination, self-righteousness, narcissism, or anything else that is coming out of my Step Five or Step Ten inventory. All these things are included on the list that I give up that day to my renewal partner.

Finally, we share with each other the things we will commit to doing: whether going to the gym, going to a meeting, calling a certain number of people, doing Step work, or vacuuming the living room floor. In short, we list whatever positive plans we are making that day that will help us love better and move forward in recovery.

This format might not work for everyone, but it works for me and my renewal partner. Perhaps others would like to give this a try.