My name is Sylvia and I am a grateful recovering sexaholic. I was a lonely child. I was a daydreamer. I was never present. Growing up people would tell me things I wouldn’t hear because I was always off in my head somewhere.

Imagine a little girl lost inside a book, playing the piano and always alone but feeling safe. Her world brought her happiness. What was happening around her? Sometimes being in the moment it felt too full of other’s expectations, never fitting in, always different from what she saw on the outsides of others.

My name is Bill, and I am a recovered sexaholic. My sobriety date is September 4, 1993, and for that I am never sufficiently grateful. When I arrived in SA, I was hopeless and suicidally depressed from over 35 years of untreated addiction.

Hi Mike, thanks for your time today in sharing your experience, strength and hope. Could we begin by asking your sobriety date and home group?
Yes, June 3, 1984 and the Holy Innocents group in Chicago. For a long time previously it was at St. Teresa. We have been on Zoom for about a year now; when we were face to face, attendance was around 55-60 and we meet for 90 minutes.

When I think of meetings, I think of something that my sponsor said early in our relationship: “Recovery in SA is like a three-legged stool, you have to have a sponsor, the Steps and the fellowship in order for the stool to remain standing.” Meetings are where the fellowship happens.

There I was sitting at an AA meeting in early Feb ‘84, when a man announced he was starting an SA group in Nashville, TN. I surrendered six weeks later when I met at his apartment for my first SA meeting. Soon we outgrew his apartment and moved to my office building.

I came into SA in 1987 in Los Angeles. I attended meetings, went to international conferences, had three sponsors in succession, made as many as four phone calls every day and followed directions from those three sponsors. I was never sober for the first six years.

Thank you for your time, Art. Could we start by asking how old you were when you joined SA and the length of your sobriety?
I was 44. I’m 80 now, with 35 years of sobriety. When asked how does one stay sober for 35 years, I say: “One day at a time, keep surrendering lust, and one day at a time, don’t die!” I’ve been blessed with the gift of sobriety and with longevity.

My name is Mike and I’m a sexaholic, sober since June 3, 1984. I imagine coming into the program at the age of 28 or 29 today would be much different than it was when I joined in the mid-1980s. Today, depending on where a person begins their SA journey, a new member might join a group in which most of the members were substantially older than they and also be blessed with much long-term sobriety.

We are in a new reality. Electronic meetings are going on around the world. They allow loners or travelers to join a meeting. I hear people say, “Yes, but they are not face-to-face meetings.” I beg to differ as they are face-to-face meetings. They are just not in-person meetings.

Thank you Lee T. for agreeing to be interviewed for Essay. Your sobriety date is 1986. During your 34 years of sexual sobriety, what have been some of the key habits and behaviors you have built and maintained to stay sober and grow in recovery?

Five old-timers shared their tools of using their body to overcome their lust temptations:

Why would a man, 80 years old with 36 years of sexual sobriety, still be utilizing the same tools he used when he first came to the program?

Over three sober decades in SA there have been quite a few pieces of “bad news” for me as a recovering sexaholic. They all arise, like my entire program, from my experience, strength, and hope:

Over the years I’ve called my sponsor many times to surrender a woman’s body part or some annoying euphoric recall. He would respond, “That’s what we do. We are sexaholics and we are vulnerable to lust. It’s what we do next that matters. The key is surrendering our right to lust to God.”

Whenever I get into negative or obsessive thinking, I try to remember the great promise of recovery from sex and lust addiction as I first experienced it. We all remember where we were and what we were doing when first we learned of something that would forever change our lives, especially something that promised us freedom from a hopeless state of mind and body.

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.

For the sexaholic there is nothing good about obsession. One way to surrender obsessing is singing the Obsession Song. The lyrics are below and the tune is Frère Jacques.

Dear Essay,
Sylvia J. in Oklahoma, USA said “join SA and see the world.” I have just spent a month sharing at conventions, workshops and with individuals the joys of recovery.

I am humbled by the out-pouring of love given to me on my 30th year anniversary. Sometimes I believe I am a fraud. Maybe one of those fantasies were not a fantasy and I did act out? Maybe one of those wet dreams were not really a wet dream?