IN THE CURRENT MAGAZINE

In the White Book, it says that we identified with each other at the point of our weakness. I need to hear your struggles with lust in order to get in touch with my own lust. I need to hear your pain so I know I don’t want to go back out there. I need to hear your hope so I know there is a way out. I need you to be “specific but not graphic,” as one member puts it.

Often my willfulness asserts itself, and I have been learning the following ingredients of surrender.

In my SA experience, I have encountered many times when lust and arousal seem ready to overwhelm me. In recent conversations I’ve also heard these common sexaholic scenarios:

In my home group, we encourage newcomers to read an Essay article entitled “I Don’t Have to Know” for 40 consecutive days. The author describes a compulsive need to know everything around him. He has Batman-like hyper-vigilance that is a habit of insobriety. Realizing that he is not Batman and not God, he relies on the simple mantra of, “I don’t have to know” to practice a healthy habit to not feed the impulsive desire to look.

Whenever I try to hold something back from my sponsor or renewal partner, I find lust creeping back into my life with renewed vigor. In the AA chapter “Into Action” this quote is found: “…we usually find a solitary self-appraisal insufficient. …they had not learned enough of humility, fearlessness and honesty…” (AA, Chapter 6). We find that most relapse comes from an insufficient Fifth Step (or Tenth Step).

My SA bus journey has been a long ride but well worth it so far. I still don’t know our destination even after 13 years. I have gone through the Steps with my sponsors several times in the course of my journey, and I have learned that the principles of Steps Four and Five still apply to me!

My battle against the addiction was devouring my insides, and the only way to cope with it was to project everything on those nearest to me. As the monks did in the Middle Ages when they flagellated their backs for having sinned, I flogged myself psychologically very hard and did that with others.

My natural tendency is to vacillate between pride and shame. Maybe I hit moments of humility somewhere in between. It occurs to me is that both pride and shame are dishonest states of being, while humility is completely honest. That’s why I can slip into a false humility quite easily, because it is dishonest and still being prideful. It’s still about me, and not about God and others.

There is the old story of the monk who lived on top of a high mountain. Every day he would walk down with two clay pots across his shoulders. Once at the bottom he would fill both pots and walk back up to his small hut on top of the mountain. On arriving, one of the pots would always be empty.

I will survive if I am strong, I will perish if I am weak, I will beat my addiction, I will not admit defeat.