Thirty Years Sober: Still Surrendering Fantasy
The preliminary financial results of fiscal 2015 were all good news. The budget began with a possible shortfall of $26,000. With good year-end results, this became a $17,000 surplus instead, in spite of many computer repairs and necessary updates to SAICO office equipment. This surplus goes directly into the Prudent Reserve for future projects.
What solutions to despair have worked for you?
Your three new Editors are so pleased to follow the wonderful nine-year editorship of Barbara F. and her Essay team. We hope to continue the fine editorial and aesthetic standards she established for Essay.
When we heard that the January 2017 International SA/S-Anon Convention is to be held in Jerusalem, our first thought was, “Wow! That’s big news for both fellowships: the first ever SA/S-Anon International Convention outside of North America...”
The 5th convention of Sexaholics Anonymous was held in Moscow with the theme “The 4th Dimension of Existence.” Participants were from Ukraine, Belorussia, UK, Germany, USA, Iran and Russia. There were about 70 registered participants: 50 men and 20 women.
I’m Bill, a sexaholic from the USA. Last August I arrived in Warsaw for a weekend retreat. We had nearly 50 SA members from Poland, Slovakia, Finland, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Spain for a discussion of several principles of recovery from sexaholism.
The recent 2016 SA International Convention in San Diego, California was my first experience of such a gathering. My first years of SA consisted mostly of phone meetings, working with a phone sponsor and attending lots of other recovery group meetings face to face.
Recently I had the great good fortune to speak at a joint women’s shelter / District Attorney’s program for men arrested in prostitution stings. They don’t want to be there.
It was July 31, 2015, and I was in the shower. Without warning, in the space of about a minute and a half, three different lust images came through my thoughts. Soon after I let the first one go—20 or 30 seconds later—here came another! Soon after I let that one go, there was a third!
My natural tendency is to vacillate between pride and shame. Maybe I hit moments of humility somewhere in between. It occurs to me that both pride and shame are dishonest states of being, while humility is completely honest.
