IN THE CURRENT MAGAZINE

I am a technophobe, and clumsy at best when it comes to all the gadgets today. I miss the simple life of rotary phones and typewriters! I realize that technology neither caused my disease nor is responsible for my recovery.

I have to remember that my lust has not gone anywhere since I got into recovery. I’ve just been holding it at arm’s length. If I think I’ve got some sobriety so that now I can relax and I don’t need to work so hard to stay sober, my lust is right there ready to step back front and center in my life.

I discovered lust around puberty through a porn magazine and quickly became addicted to masturbation and fantasy women in stories, pictures and eventually clips and movies from electronic sources.

I left home at 21 and moved in with my boyfriend. I had been attending college full-time and had two part-time jobs, but I dropped out of school and work so I could spend more time acting out sexually. I felt a lot of shame, so I convinced my boyfriend to marry me. Sometimes we acted out by watching porn. When my husband wasn’t home, I would look at the porn and masturbate. We were both sex addicts, and we raged at each other daily. Lust killed our relationship.

Jesse became an expert — on the Steps! Here’s the Jesse Step Program: STEP 1: Powerless? “Yes, of course! I can’t stop myself.”

Today is November 7th. Three full days after I celebrated my November 4th birthday I still have not gotten any text or phone call from my parents, brother, or my two children. I realize that I am an adult. I told myself over and over again that it was just another day. All my life I was told “a birthday is just another day.” I believed hoping for birthday wishes was selfish and to just move on.

I lost 8 years of sexual sobriety and was only able to regain it after discovering a mental health condition which had been undiagnosed since childhood. I had spent a lifetime in counselors’ offices trying to work out what was wrong with me. I came into SA, being one of the founding members of the program in my city. I got sober, worked the Steps, did service, sponsored others, immersed myself in the literature and conference recordings. But I wasn’t “happy, joyous, and free!”

I am grateful for six years of sobriety, starting October 10, 2011. It has been by the grace of God, the support of the fellowship, and a whole lot of work on my part.

Since Russia’s Chief Narcologist Yevgeny Brune issued a letter of support to SA on June 27, 2016, the number of weekly meetings in Moscow has more than doubled to eleven.

Do you speak Italian? Are you available and willing to sponsor and help the growth of the young Italian fellowship? SA in Italy started on 9 Feb 2017 with a Skype meeting which helped reach sexaholics in various regions of the country—and Italian-speakers residing abroad, too. A Twelve-Step workshop with some fifteen participants in November helped to strengthen the fellowship and reach out.