Our recovery calendar page today says, “Gratitude turns problems into blessings, and the unexpected into gifts.” I am grateful for the reminder how important gratitude lists have been to my recovery from sexaholism. During the first several months of sobriety I wrote gratitude lists daily. My sponsor told me to put twenty items on it per day.
The first recollections of my addiction are from the summer of 1961. I would be nine in August and I had just moved to a new subdivision. The only other boy in the neighborhood was four years older than I, and he was pretty lonely, since his parents both worked. We began to spend time with one another, and since he had a house all to himself, most of our time together was spent there.
When I was a little girl about five years old, I remember sitting on my grandfather’s lap and combing his hair. It gave me such happy, good feelings. My grandfather died when I was seven. I had trouble in school from that time on. I couldn’t concentrate, I would daydream, and I had headaches. I was a very lonely child after I lost that special relationship. I didn’t know how to get that love from anyone else, so I comforted myself in my fantasies where I was a fairy princess and my Prince Charming would come and carry me off.
My name is William R. My sobriety date is June 12, 1993. I live in the state of Washington, USA. Since January 1998, I have served Sexaholics Anonymous as the Correctional Facilities Coordinator.
Following are portions of an e-mail sent to SA-Net by Dorene S., chair of the delegate assembly, regarding SA sobriety and the Tenth Tradition issues:
The Northwest Region held its biannual retreat May 23 – 25. There were 70 members of SA and S-Anon in attendance.
This may strike you as an unusual title for an article in the Essay. The reason is that I’m writing to invite you to consider becoming part of SA’s outreach into prisons. As you may know, the prison system often identifies inmates by a number. This didn’t mean all that much to me until I became friends with one of those numbers.
It feels so wonderful to have at last an SA meeting here in Greensboro, NC. This meeting came about as a result of our Higher Power expressing himself through the group conscience process. Four weeks ago, after much prayer, discussion and deliberation, our Wednesday night SAA group held a group conscience and voted unanimously to become an SA meeting.
[The Oklahoma City Jan. ’97 SA Convention] was my second convention in the States — the first was of another S-fellowship. What impressed me about this one was the substantial number of members with five to ten years of solid sobriety. There was a very strong emphasis on the solution rather than the problem. It was also great to see so many people from different ethnic and religious groups. It was a great reminder that this disease is no respecter of persons.
My name is Dave and I’m a sexaholic. In discussing Working Paper #1 (“Practical Guidelines for Group Recovery”) with my group and with other sober members, I kept coming back to the most positive experience in my early sobriety, which represents for me a model of what a group should be. I would like to share it with the fellowship. I believe this was a gift directly from God to me.
