Originally published in prison newsletter 2011, adapted for ESSAY by permission

This past November, many of us celebrated the blessings we enjoy as citizens of the United States. Tradition has it that the early British settlers held a Thanksgiving meal with the natives who had helped them bring forth a bountiful harvest that year. The British were thankful for freedom from religious oppression and that God had given them the opportunity to live a new life in the New World. Unfortunately, the goodwill and thanksgiving didn’t last forever. So it often is with us sexaholics.

Many of us, when we first came to SA, experienced a period of real elation, where the possibility of a new and brighter way of living filled us with optimism and new-found personal growth. We began to think we had the problem licked and we celebrated the victories accordingly. Sometimes that celebration led straight to a relapse. We sexaholics don’t need much reason to use: good times, bad times, mediocre times, and so on. I know that when I’m uncomfortable, I want to drink.

Bill W. experienced similar issues. Writing in the AA Grapevine in July 1946, he commented, “I saw that I had been living too much alone, too much aloof from my fellows, and too deaf to that voice within. Instead of seeing myself as a simple agent bearing the message of experience, I had thought of myself as a founder of A.A.” (As Bill Sees It 133).

They say pride goes before a fall, and that is certainly true of me. Whenever I become proud of the recovery I have achieved, I put myself at risk of failure. Bill W. continues, “How much better it would have been had I felt gratitude rather than self-satisfaction—gratitude that I had once suffered the pains of alcoholism, gratitude that a miracle of recovery had been worked upon me from above, gratitude for the privilege of serving my fellow alcoholics, and gratitude for those fraternal ties which bound me ever closer to them in a comradeship such as few societies of men have ever known.”

So it seems that humble gratitude or thanksgiving is the added insurance that I will maintain my sobriety.

As a sexaholic, I needed to recognize that I was powerless to control my addiction. I had to have something with more strength than I could muster. That something was God. The Big Book (85) says, “What we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition.” Because I am able to surrender, on a daily basis, my need to control my life, God is able to help me with one more day of sobriety. I still cannot do it alone, and if I become proud of my length of sobriety and become convinced that it is me doing it, I will most certainly be at risk of relapse.

The spiritual toolkit initially developed by the founders of AA includes the practice of gratitude. In the beginning, I had difficulty finding things to be grateful for. At first my gratitudes were simple things, like waking up sober one more day. As I’ve gone on in this program, I’ve found myself giving thanks even in trying situations: I can be grateful that God has enabled me to endure the trial before me with grace and peace. The important thing is that I have developed a regular practice of gratitude in my outlook on life and its ups and downs and changes. Gratitude enables me to experience the promises of recovery in their fullest measure. As Bill W. has said, “I try hard to hold fast to the truth that a full and thankful heart cannot entertain great conceits. When brimming with gratitude, one’s heartbeat must surely result in outgoing love, the finest emotion that we can ever know” (As Bill Sees It 37).

I’m thankful for a new heart of love for my fellow man and grateful to the Creator who made that possible. I’m thankful that today I am again sober and sane. I’m thankful that even in prison, I can be useful to God and others. I’m thankful to have many who love me and whom I love in return. I’m thankful that the founding members of AA and other similar groups persevered to find the answer to the spiritual disease of addiction and made it available to others.

I hope that as we go through life we will all be able to find many things for which to be thankful. I pray for all of us here in prison, that as we transition into the free world, we will be able to cultivate a spirit of gratitude that results in “outgoing love” instead of returning to the selfishness of addiction. The 12&12 reminds us that “we are today sober only by the grace of God and that any success we may be having is far more His success than ours” (92). We are truly not alone.