When I joined SLAA in October 1994, there was no SA in Ireland. In February 1995, an SA member who was a friend of one of our members, came over from the USA and attended our SLAA meeting. I had not heard of SA yet. He told us about sponsoring, working the Steps, phone calls, check-ins, and fellowship after the meetings.

As a pre-school age child, I learned how to use a vibrator as a sex toy. That’s how it all began. I had never heard the word “sex” and knew nothing of sexual intimacy. But I knew what felt good, and was immediately hooked.

I was exposed to men’s magazines at the age of seven and didn’t realize it was abuse. At the age of nine, I was sexually abused by another girl, who was 10, and experienced a lot of confusion. The confusion increased when I was sort of forcibly converted to Catholicism at the age of 11, which led to a whole load of guilt.

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?

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.