Start the New Year in fellowship by joining us for a weekend of recovery, fun, and inspiration at our winter convention at the Ramada Hotel in Birmingham, UK. I have found that the farther I travel to a convention, the more my recovery seems to benefit.
I happened to notice while reading Beginnings: Notes on the Origin and Early Growth of SA that the “first issue of the SA newsletter with the ESSAY masthead” was printed November 15, 1981 (14). That means ESSAY is 30 years old this year!
In July 2011, our 6:30 group (under the Nashville Intergroup) decided to have monthly speaker meetings. One of the first talks was on Step Four. The speaker focused on the Big Book pages on how to work Step Four (AA 64-71), and as he went along, he shared his personal experience related to working each phase of the Step.
It seems like only yesterday that my old friend and sponsor Jess L., shared with me a wonderful story. He said that there once was a world-renowned football team that had successful seasons year after year. One year, however, things were not going well for the team.
Feet shuffling, I made my way through the darkened tunnel. I was part of a handcuffed, chained sea of men in orange that was slowly making its way through an underground tunnel toward the courthouse. We shuffled, a few inches at a time, because our ankles were connected by chains.
The behaviors that brought me into SA were very selfish and self-centered. Even though I’d stacked up a pile of nice-guy actions to justify my abhorrent behaviors, my life was basically all about me and my pleasure. The one person I thought of and whose opinion, satisfaction, and happiness mattered most was me.
I practiced obsessive fantasy for years. In my obsession, I often chased men who were not available to me. I had the problem described in the White Book, “We were addicted to the intrigue, the tease, the forbidden” (203). I pursued my lust objects obsessively.
I never fell into a rabbit hole, but I fell hard into the Internet. There, I found a strange world where forbidden things were freely available—even celebrated. At first, I enjoyed this secret place where there was no right or wrong.
Recently I was preparing to go away on a wonderful trip to Italy: first a week by the sea on my own, and then a week in the Roman hills with friends to attend an art workshop. This was to be a dream holiday, but I was feeling overwhelmed with fear: fear of my own intentions, fear of acting out, and mostly fear of having to feel my emotions with no other people to buffer them or fill the void.
My sexual history involves a long list of adulterous affairs, pornography, strip clubs, videos, and acting out—but those things were never really my problems; they were the results of my not facing my problems. My problems included loneliness, fear, insecurity, frustration at my inability to get my own way and my inability to deal with the hurts in my life, and all of the rejections (real or imagined) that I suffered.
