The so-called 18-Wheeler (“Overcoming Lust and Temptation,” SA 157) has been a series of trust building exercises for me. My sponsor suggested I read one wheel a day, reflect on it, and share my thoughts and experience as I go along.

The 10th Wheel is “Learn to Give Instead of Take.” I especially identified with, “The measure I drink in of that image is the measure I am enslaved by it; the measure I give out to another is the measure I am released from its power” (162). This really goes to show how much my problem is between my ears: with my thinking and my attitudes.

Most of my life I have felt like I looked at everything as if through a rifle scope: targeting, taking in images, objectifying people for whatever fantasy fit my profile. In the margin of my White Book I drew a circle with the cross-hairs representing my world-view.

Moving from “preying on” to “praying for” lust targets was like gradually letting my Higher Power recreate my cross-hairs into an old-style radar screen, so in the margin I drew a circle with several dots in it. I’m still hyper-vigilant, something that I don’t dare confuse with “comfortable and relaxed” sobriety; it’s just that I’m asking my Higher Power to take each of my blips before I can bring my lustful targeting system online.

I’m finding there are times when my Higher Power is re-engineering my radar system into a modern Global Positioning System. In fact, it’s more of a God Positioning System. In the margin again I drew a circle with the letters GPS squeezed inside.

According to my sponsor, my Higher Power loves attention and will do or wear anything. When I remember this diagram, it reminds me to be prayerful and grateful; these inevitable blips become beacons. Instead of that sucking sound as I get drawn back into my own head, I am drawn toward reaching out for my Higher Power and using our recovery tools to refocus on the work at hand. Doing that keeps me in the real world where I’m practicing “praying for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.”