I’ve had a month of feeling low. I’ve got lots of excuses, such as changing jobs, loss of significant other relationship, family issues, and poor diet and exercise. It all adds up to excessive sleep and self-pity. Going back to my Fourth Step work, I can see my defects coming to life. No wonder sobriety has been a challenge.
I desperately wanted to have the SA/S-Anon marriage recovery story that one hears of from time to time in our rooms. I’ve probably read the “ending” (or better said, the “true beginning”) of the story in the White Book (SA 149-154) a dozen times or more. I would have done anything for that to be my story—but it has not been my story and it is not the experience, strength, and hope that I have to share.
My name is C. and I’m a gratefully recovering sexaholic from Ireland. Some years ago I heard an old-timer say at a convention that, before he was married, he knew a lot about lust but did not know much about sex. I identified with this because it is also true for me. Through SA I’ve learned that lust and sex are two entirely different things.
By the grace of God and the fellowship of SA, I have been sexually sober since August 1, 1985)—something for which I am frequently but never sufficiently grateful.
I’m Barbara, a sexaholic, sober since December 12, 2001 and ESSAY Editor newsletter since March 2007. I’m grateful to the fellowship for allowing me to be of service all these years; this has been one of the biggest blessings of my recovery. Thus it is with much sadness that I must inform the fellowship that—because of ongoing health issues—I will be resigning as Editor after we publish the December 2015 issue.
The third SA Colombia Congress, held in the city of Cali, was a wonderful event—a source of great joy! We enjoyed meeting many new members in person, and reconnecting with others. For several months beforehand, we met via Skype, and we held a preparation meeting in the city of Pereira in order to share ideas and plan for the Congress.
I have been a member of SA, and by the grace of God sexually sober, for the past seven years. My sobriety is not the product of my best thinking or willpower, because for 28 years I searched for sobriety but could not get one full day lust-free.
In May 2012, I found SA and became very curious about how the program worked. I got a sponsor right away, and she told me that one way to get myself out of my head—to stop thinking of myself—was to become involved and be of service.
I’m grateful to have celebrated five years of sexual sobriety this past August. I don’t believe I would be sober (or three years married!) without help from my Higher Power, Who has helped me find progressive victory over lust. Through the fellowship of SA, my Higher Power has given me the tools that others have used to surrender lust, one day at a time.
I’m a lust drunk from England, sober for 20 years—since April 12, 1995—by the grace of God and the fellowship of SA. But my road to SA was a long one.
