Six years ago, when I was 21, I was shocked to hear my counselor say he thought I was a sex addict. I was in college and trying to be cool and impress my friends. The last thing I wanted to be was a sex addict. But today I realize that his diagnosis was the turning point in my life.
Today the world is adrift on a sea of rapidly shifting mores. Change is accelerating at an unprecedented rate. The last eighty years have surpassed the rate of change of the last eight thousand, and the last thirty have probably surpassed it all. Every aspect of our lives and sexual thinking are affected.
As a child I had no exposure to healthy intimacy or communication. My parents had seven marriages between them, and seven children, two of whom I never met. My father left when I was three; my mother remarried when I was in my 20s.
Where does self-absorption begin? It just is. This is how I remember it: If a woman asked me for help, I would think, “If I help her, I may get a great smile from her, which I would interpret as her expressing approval of me.” I need approval.
When I first came to SA in June 2002, I was miserable and I was single. I didn’t want to be miserable, and I sure didn’t want to be single! My divorce had been finalized just two months before I came to SA, and I was jealous and upset that my newly ex-husband had gotten engaged before the divorce was final.
Why is Chapter Four of Alcoholics Anonymous (44) entitled “We Agnostics” instead of “Those Agnostics” even though some of us entered the program already believing in God? Today, I believe that I act like an agnostic or atheist whenever I turn away from God.
I don’t remember when I discovered Internet pornography, but I know now that I was in trouble from the moment I first saw a hard-core image on my screen. Initially I didn’t think much about it.
One recovery tool that I’ve used for many years is what we used to call “the Dailies.” Years ago, it would involve a phone call, sharing with each other our Gratitudes, Fears, Things to Practice, and Things to Avoid. With the advent of e-mail, I started sending mine to one or two partners first thing in the morning, and I would look for their answers, generally before work.
After years in a dark place, God has given me the gift of recovery. One of the fruits has been the blossoming of my relationship with my son. It has been my privilege to be with him in his recovery.
I grew up as an only child in what I believed to be a normal family. To this day I question what “normal” is. Not many kids lived on my street; it was mostly older people—until my friend “Ron” moved in.
