I started coming to Sexaholics Anonymous at the beginning of 2019. I had experience in other recovery fellowships, so I already trusted the 12-Step approach. Thanks to AA, my father got sober for the first time in his life in 1995, and even though he had relapsed before he passed away, I already knew for sure that the Program worked.
How does one become an oldtimer? It is very simple. Stay sober one day at a time, and do not die. Everything else is detail.
I am Lina, SA, sober since 2010, Mexico City. I was born in 1968. I only stopped taking a bottle when I was 6 years old. As a result, I was the subject of mockery at home. I remember my house made of tin, and a dirt floor; we had scarce resources and many financial needs. I was the last of 8 siblings in addition to being a girl with a stomach disease.
My name is David, I am a sexaholic. And by the grace of my Higher Power, my sobriety date is August 2, 1988, for which I can never be sufficiently grateful. That credit goes to my Higher Power, that's for sure. I was sitting at dinner and was figuring it's been thirty-one years, five months, and eight days. And every one of those in their own way has been a miracle. And that's a little bit of what I'd like to share tonight. I was told after my first year of sobriety that it keeps getting better. And that has been the simple description of my experience in Sexaholics Anonymous, that it keeps getting better.
My name is Mervat, and I am a recovering sexaholic, or to be more precise, a lustaholic, from Egypt. I walked through the valley of the shadow of Death—or Lust—since I was a four-year-old. My full-throttle sexual acting-out started when I was 18 years old. I lived in that Lust Valley for more than 3 decades, not knowing the wages I had to pay: my life. It was a miracle that I found SA because all I wanted was to live.
Our White Book says, “We saw that our problem was threefold: physical, emotional, and spiritual. Healing had to come about in all three” (SA 204). I have found it helpful to think of four areas: physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual.
Mój sponsor zwykł mawiać: „Po co karmić wilka? Pozwól mu umrzeć z głodu” - odnosząc się do żądzy w moim mózgu. Na początku częściowo się z nim zgodziłem. Jednak w głębi duszy wierzyłem, że ta żądza jest integralną częścią mojego charakteru, tego kim jestem, nawet jeśli wiedziałem, że mnie zabija, że zabija moją duszę. Zmagałem się z pomysłem, żeby pozwolić jej umrzeć z głodu.
My sponsor used to say to me, “Why Feed the Wolf? Let It Starve,” referring to the lust residing in my brain. At first, I partially agreed with him. Deep down, though, I believed that this lust was integral to my character, to who I am, even though I knew that it was killing me, killing my soul. I struggled with the idea of letting it starve. I associated hunger with food and believed that, if I were hungry, the only solution was to eat; calling a fellow, attending a meeting, or praying to alleviate the feeling of hunger won’t put food in my belly. Likewise, I projected that only acting out could feed my lust hunger. I eventually realized that this perspective is false, but it took me a couple of years to truly grasp it.
I’ve been a sexaholic my whole life, and it’s the most important fact in my life. I’ve other addictions and other Fellowships also. Sexaholism is not the one which would kill me quickest, as the saying goes, but it is the major focus of my life in recovery, being the most all-encompassing and all-pervasive of them.
Je m'appelle Meira et je suis sexolique. Ou peut-être, plus exactement, une accro à la luxure. D'aussi loin que je me souvienne, peut-être depuis l'âge de quatre ou cinq ans, j'utilisais la luxure pour faire face à la vie. Au début, j'ai eu recours aux fantasmes et à la masturbation compulsive, bien avant de savoir ce qu'était le sexe. Ces comportements n'étaient pas un problème à l'époque, ils étaient ma solution.
