I am a grateful recovering sexaholic and an orthodox Jew. I have been obsessed with sex and lust almost as long as I can remember. I can recall at age twelve, sitting in the bathroom in Israel, playing with myself. By age thirteen, I was masturbating compulsively.
At an international conference sometime in the early 1990s, I was standing at the entrance of the hotel restaurant and I noticed some papers lying by the cash register. I picked them up and read: “Desire for Sobriety: daily renewal with sobriety partners.” I thought, hmmm, probably this wasn’t meant to be left by the cash register.
My name is ____________________ (fill in the blank). I have a disease/disorder/dysfunction/addiction/mental illness (whatever you want to call it) where my brain tells me I should:
What has stuck in my mind and simply won't let go since our last phone call is the term "sexual nurturing" as something being supplied by your spouse. I'd like to share my thoughts and maybe learn some things when we talk further on the subject.
I was a lady and ladies just aren’t sex addicts. So I told myself when I thought of joining SA. No, I didn’t have that problem; it was my ex-boyfriend’s problem. The sexual behaviors that we argued about doing were not the problem. He just needed to stop taking care of his ex-wife.
Over the years I have become more aware of how many people in our fellowship have limited the term “sex with self” to mean masturbation to orgasm. I believe this is a problem. I could never consider limiting the definition to merely meaning masturbation to orgasm.
My story is not unique, and for that I am grateful. When I discovered I was a classic sexaholic, I became hopeful, realizing my problem had a classic solution. Hope and honesty were small words in my vocabulary and an even smaller part of my life before I came to SA.
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.
