I am Lina, SA, sober since 2010, Mexico City. I was born in 1968. I only stopped taking a bottle when I was 6 years old. As a result, I was the subject of mockery at home. I remember my house made of tin, and a dirt floor; we had scarce resources and many financial needs. I was the last of 8 siblings in addition to being a girl with a stomach disease.
A train wreck, that is how those who have seen me enter the program sometimes tend to describe me.The worst part is that I can't even deny it. My life had become unmanageable in all areas. Because of my addiction, I was no longer able to take care of myself in the most basic ways.
In an AA article, I once read about a fellow who is in the military. He wrote that he is taught to always wear a helmet, that it's a habit ingrained in him. Going outside means putting on a helmet, period. In the beginning, it was something he had to learn, something people had to keep reminding him to do, and something that had to become a real habit. But eventually, he did it without thinking.
My name is Mervat, and I am a recovering sexaholic, or to be more precise, a lustaholic, from Egypt. I walked through the valley of the shadow of Death—or Lust—since I was a four-year-old. My full-throttle sexual acting-out started when I was 18 years old. I lived in that Lust Valley for more than 3 decades, not knowing the wages I had to pay: my life. It was a miracle that I found SA because all I wanted was to live.
It all started with a pinching pain I felt when doing my Fourth Step work over the past three months. I thought that I would be fine in time. For me, Step One had been the most difficult: seeing my disease from a very close distance and accepting my powerlessness over it and the unmanageability caused due to lust in my whole life.
I am Colombian but currently living in Germany. I registered for the Ukrainian convention the very first day I saw the flyer. I remember that day as I felt sad about not being able to attend the convention in my home country, Colombia, which coincidentally was scheduled for the same weekend. So, without hesitation, I filled out the form and attended my first SA convention!
Before joining SA I tried so many times to stop acting out but nothing worked for me, so I used to tell myself that there was no recovery when I heard stories about people who were in recovery. I thought of it as nothing!
My home group is in St. Petersburg, Russia, but one year ago I moved to Hanoi, Vietnam, where there are few other recovering sexaholics. My recovery started the day I came to an SA meeting. Since that day my life has changed a lot, and it is still changing. I am grateful for everything, past, present, and future. My life is happening exactly as the God of my understanding wants, so I accept everything life brings to me. I want to live this life.
I’ve been a sexaholic my whole life, and it’s the most important fact in my life. I’ve other addictions and other Fellowships also. Sexaholism is not the one which would kill me quickest, as the saying goes, but it is the major focus of my life in recovery, being the most all-encompassing and all-pervasive of them.
I am sober by the SA sobriety definition eight years now, by the grace of a Higher Power. I like the number eight because it reminds me of the infinity sign. And even though I'm still learning to live within the day, the program offers me endless hope, day by day.
