The Gift of Healing
In the early recovery stages, the pain of my addiction was excruciating. Today I want to pay it forward, as others did for me. I discovered 12 essential keys that have contributed to my personal recovery.
Working the Steps: A New Pair of Shoes
At a convention recently, the speaker had a powerful message about comfort and change. Change often feels unnatural. We always revert to what feels comfortable.
The Fourth Step
Thirty years ago in SA I had an awful experience working on my Fourth Step. I focused solely on my defects of character and acting out behaviors. As I wrote I reacted in shame and acted out sexually. I couldn’t connect with any hope that I could get well or notice the hand of God working in my life. I was worse off after completing my Fourth Step than I was before I started it!
Twenty More Years
I am grateful for six years of sobriety, starting October 10, 2011. It has been by the grace of God, the support of the fellowship, and a whole lot of work on my part.
Sexaholic, Mentally Ill, and Sober
I lost 8 years of sexual sobriety and was only able to regain it after discovering a mental health condition which had been undiagnosed since childhood. I had spent a lifetime in counselors’ offices trying to work out what was wrong with me. I came into SA, being one of the founding members of the program in my city. I got sober, worked the Steps, did service, sponsored others, immersed myself in the literature and conference recordings. But I wasn’t “happy, joyous, and free!”
Step 9: Just Another Day?
Today is November 7th. Three full days after I celebrated my November 4th birthday I still have not gotten any text or phone call from my parents, brother, or my two children. I realize that I am an adult. I told myself over and over again that it was just another day. All my life I was told “a birthday is just another day.” I believed hoping for birthday wishes was selfish and to just move on.
How NOT to Work the Steps
Jesse became an expert — on the Steps! Here’s the Jesse Step Program: STEP 1: Powerless? “Yes, of course! I can’t stop myself.”
Old-Timers Speak — Part II
The Old-Timers’ panel in Newark last summer was comprised of Dee (1987), Tom (1987), Pat (1996), Mitch A. (1985), Margo C. (1986), and Harvey A. (1984). Part I was in the December Essay.
The Missing Piece of Step Four
One of the most important gifts I’ve received as the result of working Step Four has been the ability to get free from resentments more quickly and easily than ever before in my life. And along with freedom from resentment, I experience a level of peace, calm, and improved relationships which I never would have dreamed possible.
Steps 1, 2, 3
Once every week an SA member calls to read to me the First, Second and Third Steps as a kind of surrender prayer. When I listen to him it brings me back to the basics of the program in these Steps. It could be changed depending on the person giving these Steps. Here is what he reads to me when he calls:
