All I can share is my experience, and my experience has been that so many times I have had opinions and given advice to others about matters about which I never had any experience. I was like a man who tried to tell someone how to fix his carburetor when he had never opened the hood to his own car.
Tonight I had the honor of presenting my SA sponsor with a 19-year chip. It is a brand new chip. He saves his chip and presents it to me each September, fifteen months later. We have been doing this for years. I think that receiving a chip from a member who has carried it for a year makes it even more special.
I have found no way of permanently eradicating my ego. For me, living in Steps Ten, Eleven, and Twelve are not enough. It takes resubmitting to all the Steps formally again and again. It is not really that hard when I can see my current level of unmanageability to do a new First Step.
Okay, I understood that part about no sex with anyone other than the spouse. Heck, that’s what got me to Sexaholics Anonymous in the first place. But no sex with myself? Who were these guys kidding? Didn’t they understand that if I refrained from sex with self, something terrible would happen? I might even die, or explode, or something equally dire.
I stood in disbelief. The computer screen had three emails from women at work that I was acting out with. My wife was crying, asking me, “Why?” I was in shock. I stood there physically present, but emotionally far, far away. I was numb to my feelings, to my life, and to myself.
Hi there, Billy here from New Zealand. Just thought I should drop you a note to tell you we are still in existence here in New Zealand.
My first year in recovery was about avoiding triggers. That was disastrous because what I was really practicing was avoidance. If only I don’t see x, or y, or z, I won’t be tempted. It didn’t work. It only made me more sensitive to triggers.
“Progressive victory over lust” is often the hurdle that humbles me in my own program. My lust can, in a heartbeat, zero in on just about anything: sexualizing people, overeating, disappearing into TV, lying, pretending to be someone other than who I am, the list goes on and on. The solution has always been the same: reaching out and giving, of my time, my experience, my caring, my love; giving some of the “real” me to someone else.
My name is Bill and I’m a grateful and recovering sexaholic, actively involved in SA for almost ten years. I’ve been blessed with the grace to maintain sobriety, and by all appearances seemed to be working a solid program. However, somewhere along the path in the last few years, complacency set in.
My addiction has forced me to examine myself. As a result, I have uncovered a part of me that has long been buried: anger. Now that it has been brought to the surface, I’m seeing the reasons for my anger. SA is giving me healthy alternatives to resentment and bitterness.
