When I started in SA, I was still talking about the struggle and fight against lust. That made all the sense in the world to me at that time. I figured if I didn’t struggle against lusting and the desires, obsessions, and compulsions, there’s no way I could ever stop my acting out. I was wrong.

Step One tells me that I have to admit powerlessness over lust. But my ongoing struggle against lust meant that I still believed that I had some power over lust. So I had never even gotten through Step One! My actions, my effort to fight lust, proved I had not yet admitted my powerlessness over lust.

SA actually offers a completely different solution. It never suggests fighting against lust. It would be a contradiction if it did so. The problem isn’t what the SA program is telling me to do. The problem is me and what I am trying to do. I’ve not understood. I’ve got it wrong. I’ve done it wrong. I don’t have the power to do it right. But God does.

The SA solution is to surrender to God, the One who has all power. Surrender is not fighting or struggling. When I surrender, I “simply give up, let go, and let God” (SA 81). The 12 Steps are the path to get rightly connected with God, and those Steps do work if I work them. God can and will do for me what I cannot do for myself. But I had to stop fighting both lust and God in order to be set free from the tyranny of lust by living surrendered to God.