What if today’s the day I meet several life long friends? What if the community I am joining at my school is beyond my wildest imagination? What if today is the first day I get to act on a life long dream? What if today starts something that cannot be stopped and has already been finished? Something transcendent, holy, and exquisite?
I’m a sexaholic which means I’m powerless over lust and lust will always win the battle if I try to stop my diseased mind from lusting. Powerlessness means the battle is already lost. There is no point in trying to struggle any longer. I have nothing left to do but unconditional surrender.
When I went through my first 90-day abstinence period, my sponsor suggested that one purpose for this abstinence was to discover that sex was totally optional. My wife and I have done several abstinence periods, from 45 to 90 days. Each experience brought a deeper understanding about ourselves and this disease.
My name is Tom and I am a recovering sex addict, gratefully sober for eight years. I am constantly reminded that I still need the program, including the Steps, my sponsor and the Fellowship. Recently in a local SA meeting I reflected on an Essay article about masturbation that we read and shared.
My dysfunctional family and religious tradition taught me to feel fear and shame, particularly surrounding “impure thoughts” and “touching yourself.” These feelings were very intense and too painful to bear, and I escaped them in a way that became a very deeply-ingrained pattern of thought and behavior.
Dear Essay, The theme for this issue is Sobriety in the Holidays. I’d like to share a holiday memory.
Dear Essay readers: Welcome back to Essay — or, if this is your first time to read the Essay, welcome to your SA meeting in print online. We hope you will subscribe to Essay to benefit from our meeting in print every quarter.
These are the top ten things NOT to say to one’s Sexaholics Anonymous sponsor:
The trusted servants of the Fellowship have had a busy year. In the business meetings held this past week, the following actions were taken:
On 16th and 17th September 2017 two members of SA in Flanders manned this information stand at the Flemish Congress of Mental Health in Antwerp. More than 1,000 mental health professionals, including doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists and addiction specialists attended this event.
