In 1992 I founded SA in Melbourne. I immersed myself in service, Step work, sponsorship, conference recordings, local and international conferences. At age 35 I began a period of prolonged sobriety. At some deep level I knew it was unsustainable. Even with all my inventory work, I sensed there was something I had trouble identifying deep inside. After 8 years I lost my sobriety and struggled for the next 10 years.
I lost 8 years of sexual sobriety and was only able to regain it after discovering a mental health condition which had been undiagnosed since childhood. I had spent a lifetime in counselors’ offices trying to work out what was wrong with me. I came into SA, being one of the founding members of the program in my city. I got sober, worked the Steps, did service, sponsored others, immersed myself in the literature and conference recordings. But I wasn’t “happy, joyous, and free!”
It is important for me to understand the spiritual nature of my disease for several reasons. First, if it is truly spiritual, then it doesn’t matter what the drug is, and everything in the AA literature is also true for me.
The Solution states that “We saw that our problem was threefold: physical, emotional and spiritual. Healing had to come about in all three.” A number of us have found that the emotional and spiritual are well dealt with in meetings and in the literature, but that there is not much discussion on the physical aspect of recovery.
