The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous is quite clear that our own thinking cannot solve our addiction problem. I have learned this time and time again. My own thinking never produced the power I needed to recover from sexaholism. Often, it compounded the problem. When I stopped arguing and surrendered to the program and followed the directions outlined by my sponsor and our literature, I began recovering.
There’s an addiction that the news media has supported for years. The media is the supplier. We, the masses, are the consumers. The drug is adrenaline. The fight or flight response is measurable. You don’t need a sanitized laboratory to test the physical reactions you exhibit in response to hearing and seeing real life tragedy on television. You can feel it.
For the sexaholic there is nothing good about obsession. One way to surrender obsessing is singing the Obsession Song. The lyrics are below and the tune is Frère Jacques.
Over three sober decades in SA there have been quite a few pieces of “bad news” for us sexaholics. They all arise, like our entire program, from our experience, strength and hope. Each issue of Essay under Practical Tools we’ll share some pieces of “bad news”: • Acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. There is no wiggle room in this statement.
A member wrote about how he is triggered so often by other people. When we discussed what he really meant by the word triggered, he answered, “I was attacked by lust.” He’s suffering and feeling that our program is not working for him.
I had a sponsee who would call me every day with a check in. I laid out a daily program of action like the one that was given to me. Every few days he would call to report he had lost his sobriety. I would say the same thing every time. Did you slide out of bed to your knees for morning prayers? Did you do your daily readings? Did you call 2 other SA members? And so forth. His answers were always the same, a half-measures “no” on most of the suggestions.
Over three sober decades in SA there have been quite a few pieces of “bad news” for us sexaholics. They all arise, like our entire program, from our experience, strength and hope. Each issue of Essay under Practical Tools we’ll share some pieces of “bad news”: • We make a decision to get angry. Then we find something to get angry about. Same with resentment!
Service is a critical part of recovery, but it is one of the most poorly understood Program concepts, in my opinion. I’ve been in the Program for 19 years, and for 17 of those years, my idea of service was flawed. I believed service was about helping addicts only. I did not see it extend outside of these boundaries.
I have been in and out of SA for 13 years and my newest sobriety date in April 7, 2019. Why? I never put recovery first, until now. In the past 13 years there have been periods of sobriety, living as a dry drunk, and acting out and ignoring the Fellowship and the Program.
An issue that was nagging at me for the past few years was the state of my White Book. Pages were falling out and it was frayed in places. This was due mostly because it comes with me everywhere. Even though I have another White Book, my frayed copy has been with me to meetings in eight different countries on three continents, and to many countries without SA meetings. It is always in my backpack.
