I just left an SA meeting, where a young member’s share struck fear into my heart. He reminded me of my own past, and I was so profoundly moved that I felt compelled to share a bit of my story with him in the parking lot after the meeting.

In the meeting we had read “A Personal Story” in the White Book (SA 9). After we read the first part of Roy’s story, this young member shared the lure of picking up a prostitute. Up to this point, his addiction has mainly involved Internet pornography and masturbation, but that night he had been driving through some back streets and came upon a couple of women standing near a secluded part of town.

He could tell that they were prostitutes. He could feel the immense temptation to cross the line and indulge in what Roy describes as “a thousand-fold more intense” and “lust exploded within me like the star-burst from a Fourth of July rocket. What a wonderful freedom!” (SA 14) He shared that these were the thoughts and feelings that the intense temptation was calling out to him at the time.

After the meeting, I shared with this young man the fear I felt from listening to him. I shared some of my own story: the reality and not the seemingly desirous fruit before him. I told him that the only thing that would be a thousand times more intense is the addiction that awaits him on the other side if he crosses that line. I told him that this would be far worse than the slavery he had experienced from Internet pornography and masturbation, and that he would not have the ability to escape the compulsion that will come after he crosses that line. I was able to tell him all of this, because this is my story.

For me, I know that with just a single thought, I would become uncontrollably compelled to seek out my next prostitute. Before SA, I experienced the complete powerlessness to even consider another avenue. When the addiction struck, I became a slave, on autopilot, heading toward my next victim. Sometimes these women were ravaged from drugs, or mentally ill, or poor single women trying to feed their kids (and deeply ashamed of what they were doing). They were mothers, sisters, daughters, children of God who were drawn into the destruction of their addictions or misfortunes.

Each time the depravity of my disease took another part of these women’s souls, my own soul was dying inside as well. Yet my addiction would not allow any other solution. As much as my heart would break for these women, I needed them, and they needed me. However, because of SA, I thank God each day for the freedom I am now experiencing from that life.

Without SA I know what my life would be like: powerlessness that would drive me to progress my disease deeper into the blackness of death and destruction where satisfaction cannot be found. So today when I hear the desire of a young man in a meeting describe what looks so good—but who has no idea of the death that is just one decision away—my fear takes my breath as I can see the tragedy that lies ahead.

I write this for those who might see the imaginary desert oasis. I have been there. It is a mirage that drew me further into the dry desert, seeking what wasn’t there, only to find death in the abyss of sexual addiction. However, in SA, I am thankful that I have a condition that requires a spiritual solution, and a daily reprieve contingent upon my spiritual condition. I no longer seek God to give me the power to resist the temptation. Now, because of the temptation, I just seek God—and through that process I have Union with Him, and that Union fills my being like my addiction never could.