I was 44 years old, married for 23 years, a father of four children and a successful professional person. Yet there I was, leaving a porno store, disgusted with myself once again. It was hopeless. Anonymous sex had become a daily occurrence. I knew I was going to lose my wife, my children and my profession. I was ready to lose it all rather than fight it one more moment.

Within one hour from that moment of utter defeat and despair, I met the man who had previously informed me about Sexaholics Anonymous. I told him I was ready. He handed me the SA brochure. I read it and told myself that there was a mistake in this brochure. It stated no sex with self, and as a person of science I knew that could not be accurate. Then deep within me I finally understood. This was my “drug of drugs.” I had previously tried not having sex outside my marriage, but the true culprit turned out to be masturbation. For me everything built on top of that realization. It was a moment of clarity. It was a miracle.

By age five, I was compulsively masturbating as well as being sexual with a neighborhood girl. By age 10, I began fantasizing about my Sunday School teacher and his wife. I would picture them together acting out sexually. At that same age I can remember being mesmerized by naked men in a locker room at a day camp I was attending. When I was 11, my parents decided to move to another state. It meant my being transferred to school in a neighborhood that was quite hostile to people of my religion. Some older boys befriended me and offered me protection but in return I was to be sexual with them. This lasted for approximately three months. It led to the erroneous belief that male friendship must include sexual contact.

During my teenage years, I became obsessed with being as sexual as I could be with the girls I dated. There was also some sexual experimentation with boys my age, especially with those who befriended me. From age 14 to age 17, there was an incestuous relationship with my male cousin, another friendship gone astray. At age 16, my uncle decided I needed to be initiated into manhood by visiting a prostitute. It was a dismal failure sexually for me. It was a death blow to my emerging sense of self. The following few years in high school I spent trying to prove I was sexually adequate with women. The result was sexual obsession and abuse of all the girls I dated.

In college I met my future wife. From the onset, I became sexually obsessive and abusive to her. Masturbation in secret continued. I was 21 when we married. I continued to have frequent sex with her to the point where she took me to see her gynecologist. He told me I was acting like a “sex maniac.” I thought both of them were crazy. I was able to not masturbate for the first few weeks of our marriage but soon the secret behavior started again. For the first 12 years of our marriage there were only rare indiscretions, but in my mind there were many. Then at a local health club I discovered promiscuous sex with men. I was like a duck in water.

For the next 10 years my sexual behavior went rapidly out of control. It manifested itself in sex with hundreds of partners, buying sex from both men and women, group sex, exhibitionism, and voyeurism. I would spend money on my sex partners instead of spending it on my family to the point where I could not pay for my children’s college tuition. I would develop obsessions toward these partners, becoming possessive, jealous and full of rage. I would put my family and myself in dangerous situations. I would bring diseases home to my wife. Time and again I would cry to my wife — Never Again — only to succumb within hours. I would make oaths to God never to do it again, but there I would be acting out once more.

My addiction took me to the gates of hell, yet I could not turn back. Seven months prior to attending my first SA meeting, I discovered the wonderment of 12-Step recovery through Alcoholics Anonymous. I would leave the AA meeting and jog down to a porno shop for anonymous sex. Even AA was not stopping my sexual activities. I knew I would relapse in AA due to my acting out sexually. I could not do my Sixth and Seventh Steps. I was not entirely ready to have God remove all my defects of character. I did not want to stop sexually acting out and I knew that without completing my Step work I could not retain my alcohol abstinence. It was on that day after leaving the porno shop in utter hopelessness that I met the person who had previously informed me about SA.

He invited me to my first SA meeting. I was ready on that day. It was just the two of us at that first meeting. What has happened since that day 12 years ago when I attended my first SA meeting is what I want to share now. I want to share about the miracle of sobriety.

First came the day-to-day drudgery of stopping the use of my drug. We had only one SA meeting a week 12 years ago in our community. How very sacred that one night a week when we had our meeting was to me. One day at a time, I learned about sobriety. Back then we did not have an SA book, but we had that cherished brochure with the Solution that said it all for us. Bit by bit more people came to the meetings. Bit by bit people stopped coming to the meetings. Even the person who founded SA in our community stopped attending. That first year I counted 120 people who came and went. There were two people left at the end of the first year and I thank God I was one of them. Over the following 12 years I have watched our fellowship in our community grow to 21 meetings a week with many members having long-term sobriety.

How did I stay sober back then with no SA book and just one meeting a week? One Day At a Time. That is how I did it. I would make contact each day with God. I would promise just for that day I would stay sexually sober. I told God I could not guarantee tomorrow. I would then ask God to keep me sober for the next 24 hours. I learned how to avoid triggers, even those concerning my own body. I learned to pray for those people who were triggers to me. I got better, yet something was still missing. After 11 months of sobriety I began suspecting what it was. Lust was still there camouflaged as sex in marriage. I realized I needed a period of sexual abstinence from my spouse. I fought that idea, but finally decided to ask my wife. She agreed. After six weeks of abstinence I thought I was ready to resume our sexual relationship. With hatred in her eyes and hatred in her voice she said “I am not.” It was a shock to me. Yet this was the person I had sexually abused for 24 years. My sponsor said, “You’re an addict. You can’t be the one to know when to stop your abstinence. Let God talk through your wife.” God did almost two years later. For me it had to take 21 months of total sexual abstinence for that part of my illness to subside.

I received great gifts in this program. Once I let go of the masturbation, the sexual fantasies left. I still occasionally have what I call the two-dimensional sexual photographs in my head, but with prayer they leave quickly without developing into fantasies. I have also had the gift given to me of losing the desire to act out with people outside my marriage.

There are some aspects of my recovery where the gifts have not come as quickly. Noticing body parts and experiencing erotic dreams took many years to subside. My sexaholic mentality still flares up periodically. I will notice people in the street walking together and automatically wonder if they are lovers. I will observe people looking at me and for a moment think they are trying to seduce me. Fortunately, these thoughts do not happen frequently. When they do occur I will pray the following: “God, whatever it is I am looking for in that, may I find in you.” I will thank God, when these thoughts appear, for reminding me I am still sick. How dangerous it would be to think I am cured.

There are also character defects that are taking time to leave. There is greed. There is envy. There is control, just to mention a few. The miracle is that they are lessening and at least I am aware of them when they appear. My sponsor would always tell me that I am better than I used to be but not as well as I am going to get. I also have learned new tools through the program to deal with them. The Tenth Step always works when I use it. To promptly admit my faults to myself and another human being brings immediate relief to me. A burden shared is half as heavy.

Other miracles have happened. I no longer have a preoccupation with my gender orientation. I see now it was not an issue of “gay, straight or bisexual.” It was an issue of addiction. Once I put my drug away, for one day at a time, these issues seemed to vanish.

The miracles are also happening in our family. My spouse and I are more comfortable with each other than we have ever been. We try not working each other’s program, and what a relief that is when I adhere to it. We travel all over the world together, being with each other for long periods of time. We look forward to these times together. We really enjoy them. My children and I are getting along so much better. When they were younger they would joke with us when my wife and I were going to an SA conference, saying, “Are you going to one of those ‘Lust Buster’ conferences again?” Now my children are older and three of them are married. My daughters-in-law know I am in the program. They have an open invitation to ask me about my program and I have the freedom if asked to tell them the simple truth. They trust me with my grandchildren and I feel a genuine love between us all.

Last but not least is the miracle of finding the God of my understanding. A God who watched me that day in the porno store and still loved me so much that he brought me to this wonderful fellowship of Sexaholics Anonymous. My God is my good friend today. I can talk to him any time or place. I still occasionally lapse back into the belief of a God of retribution. The God who is out to get me. When that happens I ask God to remove that thought from me. I know how much he loves me. He brought me to this Fellowship.

I would like to share with you how I stay sober today. It is so simple that it is hard to believe. I do the same thing today that I did when I first came into the program. I get on my knees each morning and evening to give my Higher Power my day. I pray for his will for me. I speak on the phone with people from the fellowship throughout the day and evening. I do a great deal of sponsorship that helps me no matter what the result is to the sponsee. I also make a two-way contract with God each day. I ask God to keep me sober that day and tell God I will stay sober that day. I also do a gratitude list each day to keep me currently connected to God. I try to attend a recovery meeting each day as well as read at least one page a day of the Big Book (AA or SA).

I have learned that my recovery is like a three-legged stool. With its three legs the stool is sturdy and safe. If any one leg breaks the stool will topple. The three legs represent:

1. The Twelve Steps of the program.
2. The God of my understanding.
3. The Fellowship of SA that includes the meetings and sponsorship.

If I use all three legs simultaneously, I am on solid ground. When I omit any one of the above three, my program is in an unsafe location.

One day at a time for the past 12 years I have stayed sober. One day at a time I want to stay sober. How else can I get to keep all I have found in this fellowship. I have found recovery in SA. I have found friendship in SA. I have found a loving God. I have truly found my home. Each morning I make a decision to accept the gift of sobriety and each day it is given to me again.

It has to be a miracle.