I was born in Nicaragua. My parents divorced when I was a baby. I was raised by my maternal grandparents in the countryside until about 8 years old. When I was around 6 or 7 years old, I was sexually abused by two adult men who were neighbors.
For me, sexual lust started as a simple game that I played with the kid next door. I never imagined that such a game could develop into a "way of life." My family paid more attention to my beautiful, smart sister, and to attract their attention, I started stealing from them to get more attention. This didn’t work. I didn’t know how to say, “I’m here! See me! Love me! I need my father to hold me!”
I reached out to an SA member in June 2017 in response to his email sent two months before, and I knew I had a problem with my compulsive behavior. On a daily basis, I was satisfying my “needs” like an automaton programmed to perform repetitive searches. I kept trying to fill the terrible emptiness that my secret life hid for ages.
The chapter in the White Book titled "Lust—The Force Behind the Addiction," is, in my view, a magnificent introduction to the underpinnings of what lust is really all about. In that chapter Roy defines lust as "an attitude demanding that a natural instinct serve unnatural desires" (SA 40). That was certainly my experience.
One of our friends-in-prison, Raphael S., who has had two articles over the last couple of years in ESSAY, started an SA meeting in Virginia State Prison. He is sponsoring another fellow. It’s meaningful for them to be part of the fellowship although they are incarcerated.
Sexual lust is just one face of the multi-dimensional cube of lust. The word "lust" cannot be confined to a sexual aspect only, as lust is merely a strong urge that governs attitudes. I cannot deny that the concept of lust itself is complex, confusing, and perplexing. How can a limited human encompass what is considered larger and broader? Humans are three-dimensional beings living in a four-dimensional world, while lust is simply a "multi-dimensional" entity.
A member wrote about how he is triggered so often by other people. When we discussed what he really meant by the word triggered, he answered, “I was attacked by lust.” He’s suffering and feeling that our program is not working for him.
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.
The sexaholic on the telephone was palpably discouraged. “My lust does not seem to be getting better,” he said. “I still want to type sexual search terms into my computer. I find myself fantasizing about contacting women I’ve seen. Why doesn’t my lusting get better?”
In SA’s Step One, I admitted that I’m powerlessness over lust (not over a particular behavior), and the Third Tradition states that the only requirement for membership is “a desire to stop lusting and become sexually sober” (SA 209). Both the Step and the Tradition remind me that lust lies beneath my acting out behaviors.
