You Don’t Have to Slip
As the Essay goes to press, groups around the country are voting for the second time in the history of Sexaholics Anonymous on matters concerning the Fellowship’s sobriety definition and the interpretation of the words “marriage” and “spouse.”
Dear God, So far today, I’ve done all right. I’ve kept my mouth shut, I haven’t gossiped, haven’t lost my temper, haven’t been greedy, grumpy, nasty, selfish or over-indulgent. I’m really glad about that.
The more I am in the program, the more I see that this is a God-centered program. I am not only powerless over lust, I am powerless over people, places and things. When I depend on them, sooner or later they will disappoint me.
When I hit the bottom and crawled into the rooms in February 1990, I was a crawling contradiction. On the one hand, I was — as I learned painfully in the following months — spiritually bankrupt. However, I believed I was spiritually put together. Didn’t I know all about God? Couldn’t I teach others about Him? Hadn’t I established an identity as a religious person? The sad truth was that I knew a lot and understood nothing.
When I came to the program I had a lot of religion but I didn’t know or have God. The only real power I believed in was my power to control. I always wanted God to just zap me and take all my sex problems away. I really had to come to believe in a Power greater than myself.
Just to let you know that SA in Montreal is still going good. We have one meeting every evening except Thursday, and one noon meeting downtown on Friday.
My acting out includes masturbation with pornography, affairs, voyeurism, and anonymous sex with prostitutes. I’ve been attending SA meetings for six years, and only two weeks ago fully worked my “first” First Step. Based on my experience I’d have to say that meetings work. Period! I mean any 12-Step meetings.
I was plagued all my life by low self-esteem.
I was born to and reared by two sexaholics. By the time I left home, I was consumed by lust energy. It was all I had known since puberty. It defined me, I thought.
