I was born into a large extended family in eastern Canada. My father held down two jobs and operated a mixed farm with his father. My mother was young and overwhelmed with responsibility. When my father was home I would try to talk to him and do things with him but I had little or no success. I realize today he was trying to recapture some much needed sleep.
My name is Michael and I’m a sexaholic. It feels weird to say that in front of several hundred people. It’s not something we can be very proud about in front of the normal public, but it’s something I can say here with confidence that it won’t go beyond the doors. Back in 1940 or so it would be awfully strange to say to a crowd this size that you were an “alcoholic.” This is a very strange disease, and it has a lot of shame to it. What’s wonderful is to be able to be in a crowd this size and know that when I talk about how awkward I used to feel and how wonderful I feel now, there’s a bunch of people out there who know what I’m talking about.
Every time we say—and it sounds contradictory, doesn’t it?—we are trudging the Road of Happy Destiny, trudging sounds like a burdensome sort of thing, and Happy Destiny a bit odd, too. And every time we say that, which is at every meeting, there’s a sort of a snicker, or you feel a heaviness, or there’s a bit of a smile as you say “trudging the Road of Happy Destiny.”
Let me begin with a clear and obvious announcement to you. I am sick. I am very sick. And I was terribly sick. Because of this illness I am with you in the great and wonderful, life-giving fellowship of SA. I’m delighted to be able to do this.
During high school I was getting more and more confused. I would hitchhike and pick up men for sex in exchange for money to buy drugs or impress my friends. My “friends” were druggies. I was surprised that good looking girls would hang around me. I was an egomaniac with an inferiority complex.
Fourteen years ago, on a Memorial Day weekend, I was finishing my third hour in a porno shop. I had spent the three-day weekend in almost total obsession. Finally someone entered my viewing booth for sexual contact.
