My recovery experience as a single woman in Sexaholics Anonymous has been deepened and enriched since my first year of sobriety. Many events compel me to share what I have learned in the course of over six years of sexual sobriety.
Dear Editor, I thought this report from Paul H. might be included in the next ESSAY.
Dear Editor, Thank you for sending the ESSAY. I continue to read them and what has happened in other people's lives. I want to thank you for keeping me informed and I want to wish you the best.
SAICO is pleased and proud to announce the addition of a new piece of literature for the fellowship.
Dear ESSAY Reader, As we move toward summer and possible vacation plans, we hope you will take this issue of the ESSAY along on your travels. Like our sister publication The Grapevine, our goal is that you will be taking a “meeting in print” with you. With ESSAY contributions from you, sharing the experience and hope of your recovery in Sexaholics Anonymous, each issue can move closer to reaching that goal.
The first time I heard about visiting or writing to prisoners was at a SA Conference. It sounded good, but I put off doing anything for the next couple of years because of my fears. Stories about prisoners and what they do to sex offenders fed my fears and led me to procrastinate. Finally, another SA member got an SA meeting started in the Albion State Prison near Erie, PA, where I live.
When weak, I am strong. When I surrender I’m free. Live with paradox.
Many of us who have difficulty believing that there is a God or that (S)He will help us, can begin by letting the group be a “power greater than ourselves.” After all, here is a group of people who suffer from the same disease, who have found a way to overcome the problem. Surely that’s more than we have been able to accomplish for ourselves.
Does my marriage permit me to lust, still? Is it my life’s equation that marriage = sex = lust? I suppose that could be. Certainly it would be true for me that there is indeed a very strong association between sex and lust. And if you ask me, “Do you want to be free from lust?” and I was to honestly answer — I would have to tell you, “No, I do not want to be free from lust.”
When we come into the program, all we want is physical sobriety. But we quickly learn that not acting out is not enough. Because real sobriety is living “happy, joyous and free.” The White Book tells us that to maintain physical sobriety and enjoy progressive victory over lust, we have to face the waves of emotion and constant trials of life we were running from when we came into the program.
