In early recovery, sexual dreams were a new and scary experience. Prior to sobriety, I had only experienced one “wet dream.” It occurred early in what turned out to be eleven and half years of celibacy. The only SA program literature available at the time seemed to indicate that these dreams were a loss of sobriety, so I re-set my sobriety date each time one occurred.
Although I have discovered a number of people I had harmed who did not appear in my Fourth Step, the list of people against whom I held resentments was an excellent place to begin. I had to remember that in the Eighth Step I was merely making the list.
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:
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.
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.
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:
