I often feel helpless in the face of what my godchildren share with me, but despite this I often feel that they help me a lot in my recovery. Unintentionally, they give me ideas that strengthen me. One of those ideas is the importance of service.
I’m a recovering sexaholic and I’m making a program call.” These words are a bit harder to say from the inside of a jail cell. Nevertheless, even while in here I can get current, I can reach out, and I can get out of isolation—just by writing this letter. Even though I’m stuck in a cell 21 to 23 hours each day, I still have the tools to grow in recovery and have a positive sobriety—by doing all I can for the sexaholic who still suffers.
My name is Tucson Ray and I’m a multiple addict including sex addiction. I have been a sex addict since I reached puberty. I discovered masturbation and I couldn’t stop. I masturbated virtually every day, sometimes many times a day, all through my teen years. When I got to age twenty-one, I thought a wife was going to fix me.
While in prison, some of my fellows and I found that we all spoke fondly of one particular board game from our youth. After recounting past glories, we sought to obtain a copy of the game. But the game requires dice, and prisons frown heavily on gambling, so our request to have a copy of the game was denied. With time in abundance (after all, we were in prison), we decided to create our own copy of the game from memory.
Over three sober decades in SA there have been quite a few pieces of “bad news” for we sexaholics. They all arise, like our entire program, from our experience, strength and hope. Each issue of Essay under Practical Tools we’ll share some pieces of “bad news”: • If I am disturbed, the problem is in me. I’d rather be serene than right.
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.
Hi, I’m Wendi, sexaholic in Colorado with progressive victory over lust since November 7, 2011.
In Single and Serene she found freedom and meaning in accepting her status -- have you had similar experience with acceptance?
Our St. Louis SA community misses our good friend Wally F. He died suddenly of a heart attack on May 12, 2019. Those who attended the SA convention in St. Louis last summer might remember Wally as the M.C. for the convention.
Dear Essay readers: This issue of Essay includes many stories on “SA At 40 Years!” We have sixteen extra pages in this issue with a broad-brush review of the origin, growth, structure, and some significant SA personalities upon whose shoulders we stand today. For which, as one member says, we can never be sufficiently grateful.
