My SA bus journey has been a long ride but well worth it so far. I still don’t know our destination even after 13 years. I have gone through the Steps with my sponsors several times in the course of my journey, and I have learned that the principles of Steps Four and Five still apply to me!
Whenever I try to hold something back from my sponsor or renewal partner, I find lust creeping back into my life with renewed vigor. In the AA chapter “Into Action” this quote is found: “…we usually find a solitary self-appraisal insufficient. …they had not learned enough of humility, fearlessness and honesty…” (AA, Chapter 6). We find that most relapse comes from an insufficient Fifth Step (or Tenth Step).
There is the old story of the monk who lived on top of a high mountain. Every day he would walk down with two clay pots across his shoulders. Once at the bottom he would fill both pots and walk back up to his small hut on top of the mountain. On arriving, one of the pots would always be empty.
In my home group, we encourage newcomers to read an Essay article entitled “I Don’t Have to Know” for 40 consecutive days. The author describes a compulsive need to know everything around him. He has Batman-like hyper-vigilance that is a habit of insobriety. Realizing that he is not Batman and not God, he relies on the simple mantra of, “I don’t have to know” to practice a healthy habit to not feed the impulsive desire to look.
In my SA experience, I have encountered many times when lust and arousal seem ready to overwhelm me. In recent conversations I’ve also heard these common sexaholic scenarios:
Often my willfulness asserts itself, and I have been learning the following ingredients of surrender.
In the White Book, it says that we identified with each other at the point of our weakness. I need to hear your struggles with lust in order to get in touch with my own lust. I need to hear your pain so I know I don’t want to go back out there. I need to hear your hope so I know there is a way out. I need you to be “specific but not graphic,” as one member puts it.
There are probably as many ways of practicing humility as there are people in the SA Fellowship, but a few are common to all of us. First, we admit we need help daily. Second, we ask for help. Third, we accept the help we receive. The only condition is that I can’t ask someone to do for me what I can do myself at the time of asking.
My natural tendency is to vacillate between pride and shame. Maybe I hit moments of humility somewhere in between. It occurs to me that both pride and shame are dishonest states of being, while humility is completely honest.
For me, the Steps and Traditions have been an education in humility. My first lesson came in Step One, when I recognized and admitted my powerlessness over lust. This humility developed further in Step Two, when I came to believe in a Power greater than myself, and Step Three, when I decided to place that Power in charge of my life.
