Becoming the Man I Wanted to Be
Hi all, A personal highlight from this year’s GDA was sharing how our Higher Power has once again ensured the financial health of our fellowship. In quiet that morning, I’d read “We have ceased fighting anything or anyone. . . . We feel as though we had been placed in a position of neutrality—safe and protected” (AA 84-85).
Dear Fellow SA Members: The General Delegate Assembly met on Thursday and Friday, July 14-15 prior to the July convention in Portland. Attendees included 13 Delegates, seven Alternates, five Trustees, two Trustee nominees, one representative from SAICO, and several observers.
We in New York are honored to host the upcoming SA/S-Anon International Convention, to be held just over the river in Newark. We chose the conference theme, “Liberty From Self,” because we believe that “self” is our greatest obstacle to recovery.
Lately I’ve been meditating on the reading, “Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path” (AA 58, “How it Works”). I’ve found myself wondering, Why “rarely”? Why not “never”?
The behaviors that brought me into SA were very selfish and self-centered. Even though I’d stacked up a pile of nice-guy actions to justify my abhorrent behaviors, my life was basically all about me and my pleasure. The one person I thought of and whose opinion, satisfaction, and happiness mattered most was me.
Progress toward a healthier, more intimate sexual relationship with my wife of more than 31 years is one of the gifts I’ve experienced through SA. Even the fact that I’m still married is a miracle.
I practiced obsessive fantasy for years. In my obsession, I often chased men who were not available to me. I had the problem described in the White Book, “We were addicted to the intrigue, the tease, the forbidden” (203). I pursued my lust objects obsessively.
I never fell into a rabbit hole, but I fell hard into the Internet. There, I found a strange world where forbidden things were freely available—even celebrated. At first, I enjoyed this secret place where there was no right or wrong.
The SA message first reached Ireland in 1993 when, for a brief period, there was a lone group in Dublin, our capital. Those meetings were short-lived but the seed had been sown. Meetings started up again in 1995.
Recently I was preparing to go away on a wonderful trip to Italy: first a week by the sea on my own, and then a week in the Roman hills with friends to attend an art workshop. This was to be a dream holiday, but I was feeling overwhelmed with fear: fear of my own intentions, fear of acting out, and mostly fear of having to feel my emotions with no other people to buffer them or fill the void.
