We were in our meeting, led by a local fellow. During a moment of silence, we heard a crack. We didn’t know where the sound came from. Another crack followed, and then another. Slowly, one fellow sank to the floor. One of the legs of his plastic chair had completely broken, and he was now on the floor. We were all surprised, and then we burst out in laughter. I told him, “Relax, fellow—that doesn’t count as a relapse.”
Surrendering to God led me to the miracle of true sobriety. Hello, my name is Amr R. from Egypt. At age 10, I started touching myself but stopped because my mother told me I would go to hell for doing that. I discovered pornography at age 18 and soon became an addict, unable to stop masturbating for even one week. I came to SA at age 19, only a year ago. My first meeting was on Zoom. I joined SA because I was masturbating compulsively while watching pornography. When I first came to SA, I was able to stop acting out for 14 days because of the people here—they encouraged, affirmed, and loved me!
Lust was always a part of me, long before I knew its name. It had claimed me as one of its own in the darkness that would become my sexaholism—a universe-sized prison of my own making. My disease was quietly progressive. Some might argue that I haven’t hit my real rock bottom since my life has never been completely upended by my many relapses.
I’m Gene T., and I am humbled and very grateful to be sober in SA since December 30, 2008. And by God’s grace, I’m the committee chair for our International Convention in Dallas this summer (July 2025).
When I first came into the Program, I had a problem with the italicized qualifier on God, “as we understood Him” (SA, 208). Now I see it as the best idea of the Twelve Steps.
I really never considered the spiritual side of life until I was 22 years old. I was meeting consistently with a counselor who started to convince me slowly over many months that there is more to life than just logic, reasoning, science, and intellect. I started to agree that intuition and self-reflection could have value, too. I read books on spirituality and became interested in mystical matters. I found it very exciting, but unfortunately I was not sober. My obsession with lust was actually getting worse, and my dabbling in spiritual things was not helping things.
I have always been, like every other creature with a heartbeat, in need of love. I needed attention from others, connection with others, and the knowledge that I was accepted for who I was. I was often overly sweet to my mom as a little girl and then as a teenager in hopes of receiving her love. However, no matter how much my mom loved me and how hard she tried to give us everything, I didn't feel the love I so longed for.
These are my experiences as a woman of lusting and interacting with male fellows in SA, both in person and virtually. I’ve been in SA for four years and am two years sober as of this writing. I’m a single widow in my 50s.
I've had several conversations over the last 24 hours about Step One. It seems that everything right down to the core of my being resisted admitting my powerlessness. This has been, quite possibly, the biggest hurdle in my recovery journey. Admitting complete defeat felt like dying, it felt like I’d be giving up, it felt like the end. And it was the end—the end of my old life and the only passageway through which I could be born into the new life. Freedom from the bondage of self is a free gift that can only be accessed by the grace of God.
My name is Ana, and I live in Mexico. I thank God for the miracle of quitting my addictive behaviors, those patterns of lust that kept me enslaved for six years. I felt completely captive to the demands of lust, unable to resist even when I wanted to. In the last three months, however, I’ve realized that my recovery goes far beyond just quitting. God has granted me self-control, peace, temperance, discipline, and hope for the future. He has never denied me any of these gifts whenever I sincerely asked. God has given them to me generously and without reproach.
