I am powerless over lust. Lust has made my whole life unmanageable. Without this program I could never stop acting out, no matter how hard I tried. I found the SA program in 2003, but left after I decided I could work the program on my own.
My name is Jo; I’m a recovering sexaholic in New Zealand. I have been sexually sober by the grace of God since April 7, 2007.
Leprosy is a dread disease. It horribly disfigures and numbs one to pain. If that were not enough, there is an immense social stigma involved. People do not associate with a leper and keep their distance. The leper cries out, “Unclean! Unclean!”
I remember sitting in our counselor’s office when my husband told me he wanted a divorce. I was devastated. Not because I loved him all that much. My ongoing emotional affairs with the men at work, combined with sexual fantasies and masturbation, were dearer to me than my husband was at the time.
Gold and silver are not beautiful and pure until heat is applied. The dross then comes to the surface so that it can be skimmed off. Diamonds, before the chisel, are inert, ugly rocks. Incense, without fire, has no sweet smell.
I have often heard old-timers say, “One day at a time.” At first I didn’t understand. I was struggling so hard to string together even a few days of sobriety. I thought that when I reached 30 days, I had arrived. I just didn’t understand what it meant to have sobriety, just for today.
Mixed face-to-face meetings are a great place for me to learn to respect myself in the presence of men. I have the option to go to a women-only meeting, but I have found (after hiding out in that women’s meeting for a year or two) that the mixed face-to-face meetings are 10 times better for my recovery and healing.
I’m just an ordinary person, but special in the eyes of God. I’ve been involved with SA since 1993. It took me six years to be able to maintain any sort of sobriety. Until then I had not surrendered my “right to lust.”
How did my addiction to lust begin? There are many ways I could explain it: my childhood; my parents’ relationships with themselves, with me, and with others; genetic predisposition—it can be looked at from different angles. Today I believe that my addiction stems from my relationship with myself, from my unhealthy self-talk.
When I first got into SA recovery, I had been attempting for a month to recover—on my own—using a popular Twelve Step study guide, but I was slipping constantly. I happened upon an online SA meeting and posted my complaints about the triggers that were overwhelming me.
