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?

In this time of disorder, struggle and transition God is at work. Sexaholics Anonymous is emerging as part of the solution. Technology has brought fellowship members into contact with large numbers of fellow sexaholics we would normally not have the opportunity to meet, nationally and internationally.

Let’s start with some statistics. The word happy appears in the book Sexaholics Anonymous seven times, and in the book Alcoholics Anonymous 16 times. The word joyous is in the SA book eight times, and in the AA book 12 times. Freedom is used only four times in the AA book and 37 times in the SA book.

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

Recovery has been a process that moves me ever closer to God. Through selfishness, self-centeredness, resentment, fear, and harms done to others, I built obstacles I could not get over, under or around. I moved farther and farther away from Him.

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?

I have been sober for a long time. I tried to give my recovery knowledge away like a fire hose. I realized I was overwhelming newcomers with way too much information at one time.

To the Essay:
After six years of continuous struggle in Sexaholics Anonymous, my Higher Power granted me the gift of sobriety. My sobriety date is the 5 September 1993.

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.

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?

I have been thinking about some of the old-timers that I have been blessed to know. When I came into the program in 1990 there were Roy K. and Jess L. and Harvey A. Being from Oklahoma and I was in meetings with her, I knew Sylvia J. There have been some other wonderful people.

As we are present in Germany since 1984 with the first SA group starting in Karlsruhe, we have already translated the majority of the English books, brochures and flyers into German and they are used as conference approved SA literature in German SA meetings.