My dysfunctional family and religious tradition taught me to feel fear and shame, particularly surrounding “impure thoughts” and “touching yourself.” These feelings were very intense and too painful to bear, and I escaped them in a way that became a very deeply-ingrained pattern of thought and behavior.

I struggled to suppress lust in adolescence, failing again and again. I’ve heard this struggle likened to trying to hold a big beach ball underwater — the harder I pushed down, the harder it pushed back. That’s how I experienced my attempts to be lust free. I did not know it but the big beach ball was inflated not only with lust, but also with fear, resentment and all my other character defects. Lacking the tools to manage this, I became overwhelmed to the point of despair and emotional decompensation.

My “solution” was to give in to lust and ditch the moral code, reasoning that shame was the byproduct of attempting to play by rules that were not right for me. After all, I was different, wasn’t I? Naturally, this mindset led to more and more isolation. My shameless actions did not dispel my inner shame. They only blotted out any sense of connection with my Higher Power, whom I call God. By traveling through the mud and muck over and over and over, I created a wretched and seemingly inescapable rut in my life.

Finally, my wonderful wife gave me a life-changing gift. She held me accountable and offered 2 clear options: change or lose her forever!  

So I entered the SA program, saturated with shame and indescribable pain. At first I felt isolated at meetings, unable to interact with others or to share during the meeting. But I kept coming back because I saw that some of the people there seemed happy and free, and I wanted that for myself. The journey has at times been very slow and difficult. Sometimes it feels like I am going backward. My obsession with lust and self is so deep-rooted that I’ve only gradually been able to surrender them, tiny bit by tiny bit.

Along the way, I’ve found that, for me:

• Sobriety is using the tools of the program, with God’s help, to stop digging the rut deeper and start pulling myself out. 
• Recovery is using the tools of the program, with God’s help, to understand and surrender my character defects, learning how to connect with others by giving rather than by taking. 

• Sobriety is giving up the thoughts and behaviors that so effectively numbed me, making me a stranger to myself.
• Recovery is a journey of self-discovery.

• Sobriety is ceasing acts that create shame and feelings of enslavement.
• Recovery is learning to experience freedom, and even some of the time, joy!

• Sobriety is struggling to surrender lust.
• Recovery is discovering that life without lust starts to feel good and natural. 

• Sobriety is learning not to act out in response to feelings that seem overwhelming.
• Recovery is learning to identify and surrender feelings long before they become overwhelming. 

• Sobriety is starting out in a state of fear that I might not be able to suppress lust. 
• Recovery is approaching a state of faith in God’s presence and provenance 

• Sobriety is learning to simply hand the big beach ball to God.
• Recovery is gradually deflating the big beach ball and developing an awareness of a loving God, living in harmony with His will.