I have met newcomers at SA meetings who have bristled at the description of sexual addiction as a disease. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) does not list it. The CDC doesn’t recognize it. It’s missing from disease lists everywhere. One newcomer said to me defiantly, “It’s not a disease. You’re just a terrible person.”
Over three sober decades in SA there have been quite a few pieces of “bad news” for we 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”: • If you’ve ever been sober for 24 hours, you have all the tools you need to be sober the rest of your life – One Day At A Time.
Although I’ve been sexually sober since August 4, 2018, lust dreams have been part of my life since I discovered masturbation at age 12.
If I want a better relationship with someone or something (father, mother, wife, son, daughter, sponsor, golf clubs or friends) – in other words anyone or anything, what would I do? I would spend MORE time with them!! The key to being present to have more time with them is to “improve my conscience contact with God......” To improve my relationship with God I gotta spend time with him.
Attitude is a word I thought I understood when I first arrived at Sexaholics Anonymous, but really I did not understand it at all. A new heart was something that I thought I did not need when I arrived at SA, but I was wrong.
After five years of sobriety and co-ed religious formation, I thought I could be like normal people and have healthy friendships with the opposite sex. I had made many female friends in the previous years, women I hoped I could see as sisters and live in freedom.
I have three things to share on the topic of forgiveness. #1: Why Forgive? The first, and most important, concerns why I forgive people. In a nutshell: I forgive because it helps ME.
As with a lot of things in the Program, I grew into sponsorship. First, I had to learn to be a good sponsee and work my own program well. Then when I began sponsoring, I learned from my sponsees. Here is what I have learned so far.
As I sit here in meditation, it is dawning on me the biggest threat lust has on me is it takes the cord of my soul and plugs it into myself, as the White Book suggests. It is absolutely impossible for me to be truly present for my wife, my kids, and real-life significant relationships.
For me this is a Program of action. I use a handful of coins with newcomers as a tool to explain Steps 1 through 3.
