IN THE CURRENT MAGAZINE

An ad hoc committee on “How SA Supports Women” studied the global issues related to welcoming women newcomers. They presented to the General Delegate Assembly several recommendations.

There’s an addiction that the news media has supported for years. The media is the supplier. We, the masses, are the consumers. The drug is adrenaline. The fight or flight response is measurable. You don’t need a sanitized laboratory to test the physical reactions you exhibit in response to hearing and seeing real life tragedy on television. You can feel it.

The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous is quite clear that our own thinking cannot solve our addiction problem. I have learned this time and time again. My own thinking never produced the power I needed to recover from sexaholism. Often, it compounded the problem. When I stopped arguing and surrendered to the program and followed the directions outlined by my sponsor and our literature, I began recovering.

In the Alcoholics Anonymous story Freedom From Bondage on page 552 the woman describes her desperate need to be free of resentment. Her very specific formula of praying for the person or thing she resents really works! This led me to develop the One, Two, Three Waltz. For those unfamiliar with social dancing, a waltz is three steps repeated over and over.

Over three sober decades in SA there have been quite a few pieces of “bad news” for us sexaholics. They all arise, like our entire program, from our experience, strength and hope: • Worrying about the rest of my life is none of my business — if I am working Step 3.

A favorite author of mine (not in a 12-step program) says that love is “a flow of energy willingly allowed and exchanged, without requiring payment in return.” The 12-step recovery process has been an integral part of my experience with this flow of love. As I walk the road of restoration, the channels are open for me to receive the love that my higher power has for me.

Several years ago I was going to an SA Convention. I got a window seat, because I don’t want anybody to ask me where I am going. I don’t want to lie, and I don’t want to tell the truth. I want to look out the window and be left alone.

On page 81 of the Sexaholics Anonymous book is a paragraph which just happens to be my favorite quote from the book.

The only annual novelty that happened in my family, apart from my birthday, was the arrival of the holidays. We used to go to the beach every year and the freedom the sea and the waves produced in me softened the anguish of having “special parents,” who did not love each other and who might even divorce.

Eight years ago, I decided to take a month’s leave of absence from work to travel to Florida and enjoy the beautiful March weather of the sunshine state, as well as to practice my favorite sport: golf. One important concern I had when I made that decision: how would I be able to maintain my SA routine that has enabled me to keep progressing in my recovery, which includes attending, on a regular basis, SA meetings?