Hi, my name is Mike, and I’m a sexaholic. I can still remember the first time I said that at an SA meeting. My palms were sweaty, my heart was pounding, my throat had a lump in it, and I could hardly speak—pretty much the same reaction I used to get each time I approached a prostitute, or did any of my addictive sexual behaviors.

Before SA, my life was full of those powerless episodes when “something” would come over me. My ritual would begin, and I would end up doing the same things I had said over and over again that I would never again do. How many times had I said, “Never again”? Whether it was going to prostitutes several times a week, spending hours in a porno arcade, or masturbating ten times a day; my life was constantly filled with sexual fantasy and lust. It seems my every thought was about sex. Every woman who walked past was a lust object. When I was driving, I was always looking into the car next to me or scanning the sidewalk for something or someone to feed my lust, someone or something to help me escape from the real world.

I had somehow allowed this sexual addiction (I didn’t know at that time that it was an addiction) to control and destroy my life. I could never get enough. I was always searching for the perfect fix, the right connection. I continually crossed boundaries I had set up. I would say to myself that I would never do this or that. But sooner or later I would. So I’d draw a new line; then I’d cross that. Who knows where the lines would have ended?

I had spent countless dollars and hours on this terrible addiction. I had lied to my family, my friends, and my employers. I had lost jobs, I had lost one marriage, and I was in the midst of destroying another family (and they didn’t even know what was happening). I had been beaten up by pimps, I had gotten all kinds of diseases, and I had lost all self-esteem. I felt that I was the lowest scum on earth. I knew that if anyone knew the real me, they would be disgusted and I would be forever humiliated. But none of this made me stop. Nothing I tried ever seemed able to make me stop or to make the need go away.

I tried willpower, willpower, and more willpower. I tried psychotherapy. I tried group therapy. I tried hypnosis. I tried religion. I tried New Age spirituality. I tried getting divorced. I tried getting remarried. I tried doing it over and over again until I got sick of it. I tried more and more willpower.

All I got was more guilt, more shame, more self-doubt, more fuel for that ever-increasing downward spiral. Absolutely nothing worked—nothing. I didn’t know where to go, whom to turn to. I was so alone, so ashamed, so afraid. Until I found SA. Then my life was turned around.

I can still remember the chills that went down my spine as I listened at my first SA meeting. These men and women were telling my story, and they had never met me before. They had been through it. They had the same problem as me. They knew the shame and guilt. They understood the powerlessness. But they were in recovery. I never dreamed there were others I could share this nightmare with, and I never dreamed that I would find a whole room full of people who were recovering from it. I thought I was going to be trapped in that desolate isolation and addiction forever. I thought I would die in it.

The fellowship and understanding were just the beginning. There were tools I could learn for my recovery, tools which would help end the domination my addiction had over me. I learned how to avoid the triggers which seemed to start my acting out rituals. I learned to surrender the lust and the urges. I learned to use the telephone to call my friends in SA when things started to get bad, or when things were good, or when things just were. Most of all, I learned to work SA’s Twelve Steps of recovery.

And I do mean work. I worked harder at my recovery from the domination of this crippling disease than I ever worked at anything in my entire life. I continue to diligently work at my recovery every day of my life. But the payoff has been a thousand times more than I ever dreamed possible.

It was not easy at the beginning. I went through terrible withdrawal symptoms, both physical and emotional. I was mad at the world, I felt sorry for myself, I was continually exhausted, I was bombarded by even more lustful thoughts. But, after about two months, it did get easier. The impossible did happen.

I didn’t think it was humanly possible to never masturbate again. But I found that, contrary to my addictive thinking, the longer I went without, the easier it got. I found that, far from quenching my lustful desires, masturbation had actually been fueling them.

I thank God that I was at such a bottom when I found this program. Had I not already tried everything else, had I not been at my wit’s end, I don’t know if I could have accepted all that SA has to offer. Or, that I would have been willing to work so hard the Twelve Step program, which is simple, but not easy. I might have been my usual scoffing self. Fortunately, this bottom allowed me to accept my powerlessness. It allowed me to trust in those who had walked the same path to recovery before me. It allowed me to find my Higher Power and to learn how to use this Higher Power in my life. It enabled me to turn my whole life around—my whole life, not just the sexaholic part.

The darkness, the fear, the shame, the isolation, and the slavery to my addiction are gone. The addiction is still there; it will always be there. But it no longer has a mastery over me and my life. There is no “other” me that has to hide in the shadows; no dark side that has to escape the shame and guilt of its disgusting behavior by doing that same behavior over and over again.

Instead, there is simply me. I’m still recovering and far from perfect. But the one I see in the mirror and the one the world sees are now one and the same. What a wonderful gift that has been, more freeing and joyful than I ever dreamed possible. I have indeed received it. Not only that, but as long as I continue to work the Twelve Steps of Sexaholics Anonymous, I am able to pass this gift along to others. What a blessing! What a miracle!