IN THE CURRENT MAGAZINE

My experience prior to SA recovery had been that struggle was necessary. The only defense against lust was to exert as much energy as I could muster to fight and struggle against it. Lust proved to always be more powerful than me, and thus I always lost the fight. I am powerless over lust (Step One), plain and simple.

Last week I was sitting at home, tired after doing some work on the house, looking forward to a nice warm shower. Suddenly my wife said to me: “Hey, why don’t you take a shower?” At the tone of her suggestion, I started getting angry for her giving me unsolicited advice. Who is she to tell me what I should do? She is trying to control me!

For the last five years, by the grace of God, I have not lusted when fully awake. When a triggering sexual image pops up, my eyes seem to automatically look away. I do not take that deadly first drink. Instead, I say a prayer. “I surrender my right to be comfortable! Please bless me so I can be helpful to other sexaholics.” Then I make a phone call.

One of the hallmarks of my sexaholism is isolation. I consider isolation more than just shyness or introversion or not liking to be around people.

Someone asked me if it gets any easier as time passes. I have to think about what that question really means to me. I have to think about what it is I’m actually measuring and comparing between my past and my present.

My wife and I were putting away the Christmas tree. It’s an artificial tree with lights wired into it, and we like the way it looks in the front window at night.

Sexaholism drove my view of holidays in the past. I hated them; they always took the focus away from my misery. When I couldn’t have my misery, I surely gave it away freely. Everyone around me was irritable, restless and discontent!

I was nervous, well no, anxious, afraid. I couldn’t pinpoint why, but it seemed to have something to do with the fact that it was Halloween night.

Although I am not married, I have lived as if I were—not to any living breathing human being but to FEAR. Just as my addictions seemed to help me to cope with the dysfunctional world in which I grew up, Fear seemed to help me to manage and control my addictions.

I got married with only one week of sobriety in Sexaholics Anonymous. I had just started working with my sponsor, and he said that it might be a good idea to postpone the wedding until I had more sobriety and recovery—but he understood that it was shortly before the wedding and canceling would have been difficult.