SEXAHOLIC AT TEN YEARS OLD — This issue of the ESSAY includes a story about how changing oneself affects every other relationship, some thoughtful short essays by members, and a list of topics for the Meditations book for SA that is in process.
I believe I was a sexaholic at ten years old. I remember at that age undressing the girls in my classroom with my eyes. In my mind the girls were nothing more than robots.
In a recent counseling session, I heard the well-worn phrase, “There are two types of people in this world….” Immediately I started guessing what my counselor was going to say. Men and women? Bright and stupid? Addicts and co-dependents?
Why do I do things the hard way? For example, the other day I was lying awake in bed and kept slipping into a sexually explicit fantasy. I would catch myself, stop, pray, find myself slipping back into it again, catch myself, stop, pray, and so on.
There is a good story in the AA Big Book, called “Acceptance Was the Answer.” The author writes, “At last, acceptance proved to be the key to my drinking problem,” and goes on to say, “And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today.”
Every morning while the water is heating for my coffee, I write in the notebook I always carry in my pocket. This is in the form of a personal letter to God on the following topics: my feelings, how I am doing, and what I am harboring.
I am addicted to an attitude. This is very different than being hooked on something that is outside my body, like drugs or alcohol. I am powerless over an attitude that involves instincts other than my sexual instinct.
I don’t just have a problem with sex—I have a problem with life. And whenever I forget this fact and begin thinking I’ve gained control of my life, that is when I am without defense against the first drink of lust.
