IN THE CURRENT MAGAZINE

I’m Alan, a grateful recovering sexaholic. I’ve been sexually sober by God’s grace since May 10, 2004. I believe that I was born with this disease. In the past I was only able to give in to it, but today, because of SA, I can choose sobriety.

I have been sexually sober now for 28 years. When I first came into SA, the fear of relapsing (and of the subsequent pain that relapse caused) helped me to maintain my sobriety. Fear of getting another venereal disease, fear of being arrested, fear of losing my wife and family, and fear of getting further into financial difficulties all seemed paramount to me. But today I know that fear and pain are not enough to keep me sober.

Six months ago, after having been sober for a little over two years, I acted out. I am writing this in the hope that it may help another sex drunk—so that you don’t have to go through what I did.

About ten years ago (three years before I came to SA), I was looking for a card to give my wife on Mother’s Day—more out of obligation than anything else. I hated Mother’s Day. As I began to read the different cards, I was filled with a mixture of pain, sadness, and rage.

I am a convicted felon and a registered sex offender, and I’m very grateful to have passed through my second anniversary of SA sobriety this past December. I am thankful that there is such a fellowship and that I am able to attend two meetings a week, with a group of wonderful people who I can call my friends.

As a sexaholic, I have a hard time dealing with life. I look at other people who seem to have it all together and wish somehow that my insides could look the way they look on the outside. Of course, I’m just kidding myself because I know that most people do not always look on the outside as they feel on the inside.

Recently, while sitting in an SA business meeting, I began feeling uncomfortable. It seemed that others were not sufficiently valuing my opinion! I began feeling hostile, but I was unwilling to admit it to myself. In that moment, a lust image I thought I had given up came to the forefront of my mind.

In my addiction, I harmed many people whose names I don’t even remember. As I was considering how to make amends to these people, my sponsor pointed me to a passage in the White Book: “There is always some way to make an amends, even when the injured person is dead, lost, or nameless. …

I know all about doing a quick “1-2-3” when I am confronted with an obvious threat to my sobriety. For example: Should I go to the party when I know “she” will be there? In those moments, I mentally go through Steps One, Two, and Three, which I summarize as: “I can’t, He can, so let Him!”

We needed to ask ourselves but one short question. “Do I now believe, or am I even willing to believe, that there is a Power greater than myself?” (AA 47). Only one question? Too simple. Or so I think when I’m trying too hard to solve all my problems at once.