The first time I was confronted with a naked picture of a man and woman, it was in an educational book my mother gave me when I was in second grade. Despite experiencing the familiar rush of the forbidden and climbing on my roof with my friend to look at the pictures, I felt uncomfortable with the images.
My descent into addiction closely parallels the development of the Internet. In 1992, Newsweek featured a cover story highlighting this developing phenomenon. Around the same time, my employer gave us Internet access, and I started reading erotic stories online.
Dear SA Fellowship: Although contributions have been down for the first six months of 2013, we have experienced growth in other areas. Donations from Conventions have been outstanding—particularly for the Atlanta convention. And, although literature sales have been down (because no new literature has been offered), ESSAY subscriptions have grown.
Dear Fellow SA Members: The General Delegate Assembly met on Thursday and Friday, July 18-19, prior to the July convention. Attendees included Delegates, Alternates, Trustees, Trustee nominees, representatives from SAICO, and observers.
Dear SA Fellowship: I am an SA woman living in Iran. The typical Iranian, it seems, has great difficulty understanding lust addiction and believing in SA’s program of recovery, and this can be even more difficult for women.
Last year I discovered just how generous our members can be when they see a real need. At the tender age of 50—for the first time in my life—I decided to try to raise money for a cause. As a Russian speaker, I was excited to attend the first-ever Russian-speaking SA Convention in Moscow in 2011.
I came to my first SA meeting while living in Tokyo back in 2002. Soon after, I moved back to the US, where I was in and out of SA for a few years. When I was relocated back to Tokyo in 2008, I was out of control again. I returned to the space where we used to meet, but no one was there. I was told the meeting had died off a few years earlier.
My self-centered fear is invisible to me. What may be obvious to others as my ego disease often looks to me like the “real world” or the facts of my life. Add to that my irrational conviction that “what I’m feeling right now will last forever,” and it’s no wonder I go crazy with fear! Feeling hopeless, I retreat into a convenient character defect: lusting, anger, judging, or isolation.
A friend and I were working on a Step Two exercise that my sponsor taught me. My friend was answering the question, “Why don’t you choose your own conception of God?” (AA 12). The exercise is to write down new ideas about a Higher Power.
Recently, an incident that occurred in a therapy group I attend that left me feeling resentful toward one of the group members. He had called me a “dry drunk.” I needed to work my program in order to address my resentment.
