Powerlessness Helped Me to Trust
Dear ESSAY Reader, In the past few months we have received a number of meditations, reflections on the Steps and the Traditions, and fascinating personal stories. We always desire more! Please keep the ESSAY in mind and send us your experience. We promise to keep working on improving our “meeting in print.”
I do my own thing
Is your 12th Step alive and well? Are you looking for an opportunity to carry the message and provide a service to those who still suffer?
Earl was our mentor, sponsor, and guide. Earl started SA on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. People from New Orleans to Mobile came to these meetings. He sponsored several of us as we continued to work our programs. Earl established a light that few of us expect to achieve. He attended national meetings and had years of sobriety; yet, he fought for each day just like the rest of us.
This Step is the beginning of a life-long process of self-appraisal and accountability. If you continue in this journey, you will have many more opportunities to review your conduct, motives and shortcomings, and take action to change. I rarely listen to a sponsee’s 5th Step without discovering another example of how my defects of character injured me or someone I love.
I was well on my way to being an addict by age eleven. Pre-puberty masturbation was already a regular part of my life and it wanted more and more. By age thirteen, I was experimenting with sexual activity with my younger sister. We feared being caught and punished, so we stopped.
I can hardly believe that I have been in SA for an entire year. More unbelievable is that I have been sober the entire time. My sponsor always reminds me that it is truly a miracle. My sponsor is right; it is truly a miracle.
Tonight, as I walked my dog, I learned a lesson in recovery. She’s still as hyper as a puppy at three years of age. Most of her time is spent either in a kennel or the small duplex we rent. I try to walk her around the block several times every day. I use a long retractable leash to let her roam a bit but keep her safe. Often she will end up at the end of the leash.
My name is K. and I am a sexaholic. My story began in a small suburban town, a wealthy suburb of New York City. We were a large Christian family and my father was a Marine Corps Captain in World War II. My father grew up on the “wrong side of the tracks” and he was determined that all his children would succeed in the professional world.
“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free…” (Emma Lazarus) I sought for thirty years for relief from my addiction through my church. My guilt and shame were too great. I felt that no one at church would ever understand, much less accept me.
