نشئت في بيتٍ متدين. أبي كان قِساً مُرَسّماً، وعائلتنا شَهِدت العديد من الممارسات الدينية. على القدر الذي وعظ فيه أبي عن العقيدة، لم يعش مبادئ الكنيسة في البيت، على أقل تقدير، هذا كان اختباري له. انفلاتي الجنسي بدأ في عمرٍ مبكرٍ جداً وتضمن العزلة، والخيال، والأسرار الاختباء — حياةٌ مزدوجة حقيقية
لقد كنتُ كاثوليكيًا، ثم بروتستانتيًا… كما كنتُ قسًّا، ومبشّرًا… وكنت ايضا سكير جنس. هذا كان انا باختصار. كان الرب دوما جزءًا مهمًا من حياتي. تبنّيتُ بالكامل الممارسات الدينية الورعة لوالدتي، وانخرطتُ بعمق في الكنيسة. أحببت حقيقة أن الناس كانوا يقبلونني ويُعجبون بي. أن أكون "رجلًا صالحًا" كان يسدد حاجتي بشكل تام في أن يتم الاعتراف بي. فبقدر عملك الصالح، تجني الاحترام. ولقد احتضنتُ هذه الثقافة بكل جوارحي.
عائلتي الأصل كانت ذات روحانية وإيمان راسخ بالله. تعلمت الصواب من الخطأ ولكن آمنت أن ذلك كان يعني أن الله يحبني فقط عندما أفعل الصواب. مع تقدمي في العمر أصبحت محصوراً أكثر في إدماني، بدأت أعيش حياة ذات وجهين-حياة ذات مرح من الخارج ولكن مع سر مظلم من الشهوة المليئة بالخزي الحبيسة داخلي
I’m Gene T., and I am humbled and very grateful to be sober in SA since December 30, 2008. And by God’s grace, I’m the committee chair for our International Convention in Dallas this summer (July 2025).
When I first came into the Program, I had a problem with the italicized qualifier on God, “as we understood Him” (SA, 208). Now I see it as the best idea of the Twelve Steps.
I really never considered the spiritual side of life until I was 22 years old. I was meeting consistently with a counselor who started to convince me slowly over many months that there is more to life than just logic, reasoning, science, and intellect. I started to agree that intuition and self-reflection could have value, too. I read books on spirituality and became interested in mystical matters. I found it very exciting, but unfortunately I was not sober. My obsession with lust was actually getting worse, and my dabbling in spiritual things was not helping things.
I have always been, like every other creature with a heartbeat, in need of love. I needed attention from others, connection with others, and the knowledge that I was accepted for who I was. I was often overly sweet to my mom as a little girl and then as a teenager in hopes of receiving her love. However, no matter how much my mom loved me and how hard she tried to give us everything, I didn't feel the love I so longed for.
These are my experiences as a woman of lusting and interacting with male fellows in SA, both in person and virtually. I’ve been in SA for four years and am two years sober as of this writing. I’m a single widow in my 50s.
I've had several conversations over the last 24 hours about Step One. It seems that everything right down to the core of my being resisted admitting my powerlessness. This has been, quite possibly, the biggest hurdle in my recovery journey. Admitting complete defeat felt like dying, it felt like I’d be giving up, it felt like the end. And it was the end—the end of my old life and the only passageway through which I could be born into the new life. Freedom from the bondage of self is a free gift that can only be accessed by the grace of God.
My name is Ana, and I live in Mexico. I thank God for the miracle of quitting my addictive behaviors, those patterns of lust that kept me enslaved for six years. I felt completely captive to the demands of lust, unable to resist even when I wanted to. In the last three months, however, I’ve realized that my recovery goes far beyond just quitting. God has granted me self-control, peace, temperance, discipline, and hope for the future. He has never denied me any of these gifts whenever I sincerely asked. God has given them to me generously and without reproach.
