I’d like to share something that happened to me after I’d been sexually sober for about seven months. I am just starting to experience life as a recovering sexaholic. Through God’s grace, my soul has been opened to a whole new way of living. At first, it was through not acting out. Then, as I got sober and my sobriety progressed, things began to get more positive. Today less of me is in the problem and more of me is in the solution.
I am just a couple of days back from the Rochester ’94 gathering. I came home with a full set of cassette tapes, and many feelings and impressions and memories. This overwhelming sense that I came away with—and I think this is a wonderful sign—is a sense of inner peace, such as I have never before experienced. Could it be a glimpse of the “serenity” we all seek? This feeling of peace is for me a confirmation that I am on the right road now, in the right place, among the right people. Thank God!
My name is Mike and I am a sexaholic. I have been sober now in AA for 25 years and have gone to any length to maintain my sobriety, and yet at times I felt so alone and different from most people. The tears inside that would not come out. The people, places and things that were going to make me whole—they never worked. The hole I felt inside, the despair, never being myself, thinking “This time it will be different. This time it will be OK,” only to fall again, more and more isolated, feeling more resentment, and wanting inside to hurt back.
A few years ago my 12-year marriage was collapsing, my wife was ready for a divorce, we were growing apart, and I couldn’t understand it. Today it is clear to me that I was the problem. I was obsessed with myself and my stuff, and I was obsessed with other women. I couldn’t keep my eyes and mind off them.
[The following is a transcript of a talk by Jesse L. at the Nashville International SA Conference, July 1993] Thank you very much. It is beautiful to be with you. And thanks to Martha and Joan and all you people in Nashville for creating this beautiful environment for us. And thank you Harvey for helping bring me here and giving me this chance to say over a concerted period of time something that is so important to me. I have looked for this opportunity for some time and now it is here.
On December 28, 1990, I walked through the door of my first SA meeting. I had been brought to my knees by the disease of lust and sex addiction. I had used it to run from life and myself for 30 years. My time was up. I had tried to manage my life and could not. I was truly powerless. But that night turned out to be my homecoming. God was offering me one last chance, a path to the light. I accepted His offer. The war was over. I had lost.
My story is very similar to many I have read and heard in SA. I was sexually obsessive and compulsive for over 50 years. And my disease got progressively worse until I finally found myself living in a flop house hotel, losing my job, frequenting porno shops and flicks, and having lost my family and friends. In desperation, I called SA and got help.
This is the story of a Lust-aholic leading two incompatible lives and at the same time almost cracking up while doing so. I grew up in a Christian family. My father died when I was three, and as a result my mother stayed depressed for many years. In a way we children grew up alone.
