Dear ESSAY,
Last year at this time I picked up a newspaper and turned to Dear Abby for some unknown reason (I know now I was being led). I hadn’t read her column in 20 years. The column was about sex addiction and gave the SA website reference. After visiting the website and Passing or Failing (depending upon one’s point of view) on 18 of the 20 questions, I thought I should find out more about it. Like a true compulsive I ordered every piece of literature from the SA website.
When the material arrived, there was a notification of the SA annual convention in Virginia that same week. I called for plane and hotel reservations that afternoon and walked into the ballroom Friday night to my first SA meeting. Knowing a deer in the headlights when he saw it, a man (from the Rochester group) asked me if it was my first convention. I said that not only was it my first convention, but it was my first SA meeting! After the initial shock wore off, he said, “Well, then you are the most special person in this room tonight… why don’t you come sit at our table.” By Saturday night I had taken my First Step. I had come home.
For the first six months my sponsor was in Rochester and we worked totally over the telephone. Another member and I would get together in the basement of a church rectory for our weekly meeting until we were able to join a fledgling group in the southern part of the state. It is not easy for us in Maine. Some of us travel two hours for a meeting, which is difficult in Maine winters. There are only about 15 of us, but we “keep coming back.”
It is now one year later. I have taken all 12 Steps and now even have two sponsees. With the Grace of God, I am still sexually sober, one day at a time. I decided today to get another plane ticket and fly to Oregon to pick up my one-year chip at the Portland International Convention.
Sincerely,
Larry P., Maine
[Ed. Note: He received a one-year chip in Portland.]
