Contents
Problem
Preface
To
the Newcomer 1
A Personal Story 9
PART I The Problem 26
Sexaholism
— The Addiction 29
Lust —
The Force Behind the Addiction 39
The
Spiritual Basis of Addiction 45
PART II The Solution 60
Getting Started 63
How It
Works —The Practical Reality 77
Surrender
— Steps One, Two and Three 79
Step
One 83
Step
Two 89
Step
Three 93
Making
the Wrongs Right Steps Four Through Ten
97
Step
Four 105
Step
Five 111
Steps
Six and Seven 115
Steps
Eight and Nine 123
Step
Ten 129
Step
Eleven 135
Step
Twelve 143
Overcoming
Lust and Temptation 157
PART III The Fellowship of
Sobriety
170
Starting
a New SA Group 173
Meetings—How
They Work 185
The
Sobriety Definition 191
APPENDIXES 195
Appendix
1 SA Meeting Formats 197
Appendix
2 Readings Commonly Used in Meetings 201
Appendix
3 - Where to Go for More Information 211
Appendix 4 – The 12 Promises 213
The Problem
Many of us felt
inadequate, unworthy, alone, and afraid.
Our insides never matched what we saw on the outsides of others. Early on, we came to feel disconnected — from
parents, from peers, from ourselves. We
tuned out with fantasy and masturbation.
We plugged in by drinking in the pictures, the images, and pursuing the
objects of our fantasies. We lusted and
wanted to be lusted after.
We became true addicts:
sex with self, promiscuity, adultery, dependency relationships, and more
fantasy. We got it through the eyes; we
bought it, we sold it, we traded it, we gave it away. We were addicted to the intrigue, the tease,
the forbidden. The only way we knew to
be free of it was to do it. "Please
connect with me and make me whole!" we cried with outstretched arms. Lusting after the Big Fix, we gave away our
power to others.
This produced guilt,
self-hatred, remorse, emptiness, and pain, and we were driven ever inward, away
from reality, away from love, lost inside ourselves.
Our habit made true
intimacy impossible. We could never know
real union with another because we were addicted to the unreal. We went for the chemistry," the
connection that had the magic, because it by-passed intimacy and true
union. Fantasy corrupted the real; lust
killed love.
First addicts, then love
cripples, we took from others to fill up what was lacking in ourselves. Conning ourselves time and again that the
next one would save us, we were really losing our lives.
Preface
This book is for
those who want to stop their sexually self-destructive thinking and
behavior. It was written piece by piece
as the need arose during the emergence and growth of Sexaholics Anonymous. The various pieces were loosely bound
together by some early Sexaholics Anonymous groups and were later edited and
printed in preliminary form in 1984.
Demand for what came to be known as "the white book" has
grown, and it is now being made available in this new and revised edition.
Sexaholics Anonymous is
based on the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous. In this book we describe how these principles
are working for us. When based on a
foundation of sexual sobriety and put into personal action, the Twelve Steps
and Traditions become the beginning of a whole new way of life. The longer we remain sober and grow in a
fellowship of recovery, the more we learn about both the problem and the
solution. We are still learning.
Sexaholics Anonymous came
into being in the years 1979-981. It is
now a growing, international fellowship.
The Twelve Step program, brought into the world through those finding
victory over the tyranny of alcoholism, has become ours by the grace of God.
We offer this book in the
hope and prayer that it will continue to be blessed in the recovery of many
from sexaholism.
1
To the Newcomer
What Works for Us
Those of us who are
recovering in Sexaholics Anonymous were driven here by many different forms of
the same problem. Some of us fit
society's stereotypes of what a sexaholic might be and some of us did not. Some of us were driven to buy or sell sex on
the streets, others to have it anonymously in bars or public places. Some of us found ourselves in painful and
destructive affairs or consumed by an unhealthy obsession with a particular
person or succession of persons. Many of
us kept our obsessions to ourselves, resorting to compulsive masturbation,
pictures, fetishes, voyeurism, or exhibitionism. Some of us victimized others. And with many of us, our compulsions took a
toll on family, coworkers, and friends.
Very often, we felt that we were the only ones who could not stop, that
we were doing this — whatever it was - against our will.
When we came to SA, we
found that in spite of our differences, we shared a common problem — the
obsession of lust, usually combined with a compulsive demand for sex in some
form. We identified with one another on
the inside. Whatever the details of our
problem, we were dying spir-
2
itually — dying of guilt, fear, and loneliness.
As we came to see that we shared a common problem, we also came to see
that for us, there is a common solution — the Twelve Steps of recovery
practiced in a fellowship and on a foundation of what we call sexual sobriety.
Our definition of sobriety
represents, for us, the basic and necessary condition for lasting freedom from
the pain that brought us to SA. We have
found that nothing else works. When we
have tried to deny what our common experience has taught us, we have found that
recovery still eludes us. And this seems
to be true whether we are male or female; married or single; whether our acting
out was with the same or opposite sex; whether our relationships were
"committed," "meaningful," or one-night stands; or whether
we just resorted to a little sex with self as a "physical outlet." As
the men and women of Alcoholics Anonymous learned over fifty years ago,
"half-measures availed us nothing"!
We don't claim to
understand all the ramifications of sexual sobriety. Some of us have come to believe that there is
a deeper spiritual significance in sexual sobriety, while others simply report
that without a firm and clear bottom line, our "cunning, baffling, and
powerful" sexaholism takes over sooner or later. Nor do we claim that sobriety alone will lead
to a lasting and joyous recovery. Like
alcoholics, we can be "dry" without being sober in a deeper
sense. We don't even claim that sexual
sobriety will make one feel better immediately.
We, like other addicts, can go through withdrawal symptoms when we give
up our "drug." Nonetheless, in spite of the questions, struggles, and
confusion that we have gone through, we find that sexual sobriety is truly
"the key to a happy and joyous freedom we could otherwise never
know." That's why we keep coming back to SA.
We have a solution. We don't claim that it's for everybody, but
for us, it works. If you identify with
us and think you may share our problem, we'd like to share our solution with
you.
3
A Caution
We suggest that newcomers
to Sexaholics Anonymous not reveal their sexual past to a spouse or family
member who does not already know of it, without careful consideration and a
period of sexual sobriety, and even then, only after prior discussion with an
SA sponsor or group. Typically, when we
come into the program, we want to share our excitement with those closest to us
and tell all right away. Such disclosures
might injure our family or others and should be confined to the group of which
we are a part until a wise course is indicated.
Of course, if there is any chance we have put others in danger, we take
immediate steps to try to correct that.
Few things can so damage
the possibility of healing in the family as a premature confession to spouse or
family where sacred bonds and trust have been violated. Unwittingly, such confessions can be attempts
on our part to dump our guilt, get back into good graces, or make just another
show of willpower. Great caution is
advised here.
Amends to family must
begin with a sexually sober, changed attitude and behavior on a daily
basis. Then, as we grow in recovery, we
will find how to make direct amends.
Help from sponsor and group is indispensable here. There's always a way, if we really want to
make things right.
What Is a Sexaholic and What Is Sexual Sobriety?
We can only speak for
ourselves. The specialized nature of
Sexaholics Anonymous can best be understood in terms of what we call the
sexaholic. The sexaholic has taken
himself or herself out of the whole context of what is right or wrong. He or she has lost control, no longer has the
power of choice, and is not free to stop.
Lust has become an addiction. Our
situation is like that of the alcoholic who can no longer tolerate alcohol and
must stop drinking altogether but is hooked
4
and cannot stop. So it is with the
sexaholic, or sex drunk, who can no longer tolerate lust but cannot stop.
Thus, for the sexaholic,
any form of sex with one's self or with partners other than the spouse is
progressively addictive and destructive.
We also see that lust is the driving force behind our sexual acting out,
and true sobriety includes progressive victory over lust. These conclusions were forced upon us in the
crucible of our experiences and recovery; we have no other options. But we have found that acceptance of these
facts is the key to a happy and joyous freedom we could otherwise never know.
This will and should
discourage many inquirers who admit to sexual obsession or compulsion but who
simply want to control and enjoy it, much as the alcoholic would like to
control and enjoy drinking. Until we had
been driven to the point of despair, until we really wanted to stop but could
not, we did not give ourselves to this program of recovery. Sexaholics Anonymous is for those who know
they have no other option but to stop, and their own enlightened self-interest
must tell them this.
What Is Sexaholics Anonymous?
Sexaholics Anonymous is a
fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength, and hope with
each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to
recover. The only requirement for
membership is a desire to stop lusting and become sexually sober. There are no dues or fees for SA membership;
we are self-supporting through our own contributions. Sexaholics Anonymous is not allied with any
sect, denomination, politics, organization, or institution; does not wish to
engage in any controversy; neither endorses nor opposes any causes. Our primary purpose is to stay sexually sober
and help other sexaholics to achieve sobriety.
(Reprinted for adaptation with permission
of the Alcoholics Anonymous Grapevine.
Copyright The AA Grapevine, Inc.)
5
The Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous
1. We admitted we were powerless over
alcohol — that our lives had become unmanageable. 2.
Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to
sanity. 3. Made a decision to turn our will and our
lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. 4. Made
a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. 5.
Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact
nature of our wrongs. 6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all
these defects of character. 7. Humbly asked Him to remove our
shortcomings. 8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and
became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such
people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or
others. 10. Continued to take personal inventory and when
we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and
meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him,
praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that
out. 12.
Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried
to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all
our affairs.
The Twelve Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous
1. Our common welfare should come
first; personal recovery depends upon AA unity.
2. For our group purpose there is
but one ultimate authority — a loving God as He may express Himself in our
group conscience. Our leaders are but
trusted servants; they do not govern.
3. The only requirement for AA
membership is a desire to stop drinking.
4. Each group should be
autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or AA as a whole. 5.
Each group has but one primary purpose — to carry its message to the
alcoholic who still suffers. 6. An AA group ought never endorse, finance, or
lend the AA name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems
of money, property, and prestige divert us from our primary purpose. 7. Every
AA group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions. 8.
Alcoholics Anonymous should remain forever nonprofessional, but our
service centers may employ special workers.
9. AA, as such, ought never be
organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible
to those they serve. 10. Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on
outside issues; hence the AA name ought never be drawn into public
controversy. 11. Our public relations policy is based on
attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at
the level of press, radio, and films.
12. Anonymity is the spiritual
foundation of all our Traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before
personalities.
Reprinted with permission of Alcoholics
Anonymous World Services, Inc. Copyright
© 1976 by Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.
6
The Twelve Steps of Sexaholics Anonymous
1. We admitted that we were powerless over lust
— that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than
ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our
lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory
of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another
human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all
these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and
became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever
possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when
we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to
improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for
knowledge of
His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the
result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to sexaholics and to
practice these principles in all our affairs.
Reprinted for adaptation with permission
of Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.
7
The Twelve Traditions of Sexaholics Anonymous
1. Our common welfare should come first;
personal recovery depends on SA unity.
2. For our group purpose there is but one
ultimate authority — a loving God as He may express Himself in our group
conscience. Our leaders are but trusted
servants; they do not govern.
3. The only requirement for membership is a
desire to stop lusting and become sexually sober.
4. Each group should be autonomous except in
matters affecting other groups or Sexaholics Anonymous as a whole.
5. Each group has but one primary purpose — to
carry its message to the sexaholic who still suffers.
6. An SA group ought never endorse, finance, or
lend the SA name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems
of money, property, and prestige divert us from our primary purpose.
7. Every SA group ought to be fully
self-supporting, declining outside contributions.
8. Sexaholics Anonymous should remain forever
nonprofessional, but our service centers may employ special workers.
9. SA, as such, ought never be organized; but we
may create service boards
or committees directly responsible to those they serve.
10. Sexaholics Anonymous has no opinion on
outside issues; hence the SA name ought never be drawn into public controversy.
11. Our public relations policy is based on
attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at
the level of press, radio, films,
and television.
12. Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all
our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before
personalities.
Reprinted for adaptation with permission
of Alcoholics Anonymous World Services.
Inc.
8
Twenty Questions
1. Have you ever thought you needed help for
your sexual thinking or behavior?
2. That you'd be better off if you didn't keep
"giving in"?
3. That sex or stimuli are controlling you?
4. Have you ever tried to stop or limit doing
what you felt was wrong in your sexual behavior?
5. Do you resort to sex to escape, relieve
anxiety, or because you can't cope?
6. Do you feel guilt, remorse, or depression
afterward?
7. Has your pursuit of sex become more
compulsive?
8. Does it interfere with relations with your
spouse?
9. Do you have to resort to images or memories
during sex?
10. Does an irresistible impulse arise when the
other party makes the overtures or sex is offered?
11. Do you keep going from one relationship or
lover to another?
12. Do you feel the right relationship would help
you stop lusting, masturbating, or being so promiscuous?
13. Do you have a destructive need — a desperate
sexual or emotional need for someone?
14. Does pursuit of sex make you careless for
yourself or the welfare of your family or others?
15. Has your effectiveness or concentration
decreased as sex has become more compulsive?
16. Do you lose time from work for it?
17. Do you turn to a lower environment when
pursuing sex?
18. Do you want to get away from the sex partner
as soon as possible after the act?
19. Although your spouse is sexually compatible,
do you still masturbate or have sex with others?
20. Have you ever been arrested for a sex-related
offense?
A
Personal Story
What was it like? I hope I
never forget, for if I do, I'm liable to go right back out there and think I
can lust like a gentle man again. You
see, I'm a sexaholic, a recovering sex drunk.
That's like an alcoholic, only the drug is sexual lust instead of booze.
As a small child, I was a
thumb sucker, and the only way my parents could rid me of the habit was to call
in the local motorcycle cop. It was the
1930s, in the country not far from
10
The only other obsessions
I can remember before age eight were the Sunday comics and evening radio adventure
stories and mysteries. My brother and I
would practically crawl inside the loudspeaker to lose ourselves in total
fantasy and escape the harsh realities of
Depression poverty, which took our father and left mother with three
hungry excuses for anxious desperation.
My favorite comic strip
was Flash Gordon, with its brave men, marvelous machines, and gorgeous women in
stunning and revealing costumes. One
Sunday I was devouring the strip with gaping soul when Azura the Queen of Magic
appeared out of nowhere to embrace Flash and touch my childhood — a strange new
experience. The sexual arousal gave me
the means of flight from reality, and I found myself compelled to escape daily
into the ecstatic oblivion that masturbation provided. I had found my "connection, it was
imprinted from the very beginning, and sex would thereafter become dependent on
picture-women.
Though developing normally
physically, I stopped maturing emotionally.
In grammar school I wanted so to break through and relate to other children,
but never quite made it I just wasn't there.
I was off somewhere hiding inside myself, peering out at the world like
it was all just another show being imagined in my head. Loss of emotional control was also evident
during this period, and in ensuing years, in fits of temper, I would vent my
suppressed resentment and strike out in violence against my brother.
Junior high school was
more of the same, only with more anxiety.
Boys and girls were pairing off, but I felt like the misfit, still peering
out at the world. And masturbation —
always masturbation. I used it as a
pacifier, soporific for escape, and for feeling I was really alive. High school was the worst. I remember girls wanting me, but I still
couldn't break through. I had a crush on
a girl, but the best I could manage was looking at her when she couldn’t see me
looking. It was in high school where I
began seeing what was really going on between the sexes, secretly yearning for
some of the action, not yet knowing what "it" really
11
was. So I stole the locked supplement to
the biology textbook and discovered to my great surprise and pleasure how
humans had sex with each other. That's
learning the hard way for someone who'd been a sex drunk for nine years!
In high school some of us
would work half a day in the aircraft industry, then go to school the rest of
the day. I remember bucking rivets on
bombers, where the back-alley talk did more to feed my lust than pictures ever
did. Part of me wanted what was on the
wild side and wouldn't be satisfied without it, religious upbringing
notwithstanding. That, plus a few brief
encounters with high school temptresses — I see now they may have been captive
to lust too — lit the fuse of desire that would smolder for years to come. I was extremely allergic to lust all along
but never knew it. I just had that
devastating feeling of being different.
Whatever else was going on
in those years, two things were as certain as my own existence, maybe more so —
the daily need for my sexual "drug" to ease the emotional turmoil
inside and the continuing search for pictures to feed the idolatrous craving.
A New Phase
The
After the Navy I entered
college and worked summers in the aircraft industry. What a tremendous surprise to
12
discover the stand around the corner where I could buy a whole magazine full of
women! I could have my Queen of Magic — and better— whenever I wanted. Like the alcoholic, I had to know a
"drink" was available at all times.
This was my lifeline. At this
stage, I don't think I was lusting after women in the flesh yet; lust was still
tied to images on paper or in my fantasy.
But having a ready supply handy only intensified the problem. The more I knew was available, the more I
wanted and had to have, resulting in the need to "change partners"
more frequently. As this new practice
progressed, I found myself using a magazine, then destroying it. Tearing it up and throwing it away meant I
was swearing off, never to do it again.
Again and again and again! What better way of supporting denial? How all
this damaged my ability to relate to a woman — or to anyone — would only become
apparent to me half a lifetime later.
As I fed my malady and it
progressed, so did the pictures in the magazines. There was always that enticing revelation of
more and better and wilder pulling me on.
It was as though lust had to keep advancing, and, never satisfied, had
to resort to the ever-more-explicit images on which to feed. I'm a walking history of the rise of the
men's magazines. In a way, my lust
helped bring them into being. And, of
course, they aided and abetted my lust.
Lust always wanted more.
Once a new threshold was
crossed — my first was women in one-piece bathing suits! — there was a new drug
I had to have. But it only worked long
enough for the next one to come along and carry me a step further. And as soon as that line was crossed, the
next appeared as if by magic and had to be crossed. That addictive wave kept on advancing. It never stopped. There was always a new enticing aspect of
Desire out there — or is it in here?— ready and waiting to pull me into
it. And I had to keep riding the leading
edge of that wave. The more there was,
the more I wanted. The more I wanted,
the more I had to have. Wanting more
always led to wanting more!
13
The first semester in
college was good. My brother and I were
reunited, college was exciting, masturbation was working, and I was doing
well. Then a local minister intervened
and manipulated what he thought would be a good boy-girl match. After all, we both played the violin, didn't
we? I had never even gone out with a girl before, but shortly found myself
engaged to be married! Twenty years old on the outside, I was an emotionally
stunted child-adolescent on the inside.
The poor girl must have thought she was trying to relate to a
whirlwind. But the hurricane of events
and my own confused emotions swept me off my feet; I don't even remember how it
happened. I do remember swearing off sex
with myself for a month during the engagement.
It was the longest I'd ever gone without, and I did it by sheer fighting
— white-knuckling it. But it fought
back, naturally, and being deprived of the only "drug" I had at the
time, I came close to a nervous breakdown.
This engagement was interfering with my "drinking" something
awful, so I found a perfect excuse to start up again. Big M — the good old unmentionable. How could I have thought I could ever live
without it?
Marriage
Then marriage. What a shock!
Somewhere in St. Paul, Minnesota,
in a tiny upstairs bedroom large enough for only one bed, dents from pounding
my head against the wall next to that bed from sexual frustration are probably
still in the plaster. Finally, after a
misunderstanding about not having babies, we had sex together. For the first time in my life I had sex with
a woman. It was wonderful. So much better than masturbation! I wouldn't
have to do that anymore! Free at last!
And what a glorious feeling, being united with a woman. This was finally the answer I'd been looking
for. I was in for another shock.
It turned out that I could
not make the transition from auto-sex to union with another. Lust allowed me that hon-
14
eymoon for a short time, only to demand its due again later. My old programming of twelve years was still
there; I hadn't changed. Lust proved
stronger than love (whatever that was).
My jealous "true love," Lust, would not let me go so easily
Masturbation again. Then, very soon, I
began looking at, then wanting other girls.
One partner, just like one picture, would never satisfy. I began wanting in the flesh what I had been
programming my lust for in all those picture-affairs. That's when the fuse caught fire and began
burning toward the powder keg.
Expecting a child, we
returned to
That's when the fireworks
began. Desire, which had hitherto been
inside my head only, began breaking out.
Being powerless over masturbation was nothing compared with this. It was a thousand-fold more intense. Lust exploded within me like the star-burst
from a Fourth of July rocket.
By age twenty-six I had
scored my first adulterous affair. And
lightning didn't strike me dead! What a wonderful freedom! I could enjoy
adultery; I reveled in it. Free at last!
What great release from that prison-house of the mind, where it had all been
repressed fantasy and dammedup desire.
Liberated! I had finally broken free.
Affairs followed, one after another.
Ah, the romance. "Dancing in
the Dark. . . ."
But adultery, even without guilt, didn't solve my problem either. I didn't know that lust itself was my
15
problem, and that everything I was thinking and doing in the sexual area was
only making it worse.
Another Stage
Then one night, out of
nowhere, a prostitute jumped into my car.
Was I ready! This was what I'd really been waiting for. The Queen of Magic in the flesh! This new
ecstasy would surely lead me out of bondage into reality. No more masturbation. No more complicated affairs or
pseudo-romantic preludes. No
strings. What a glorious freedom! Little
did I know that again, I was hooked from the very first, never again free not
to resort to prostitutes, just as from the first I was never free not to resort
to masturbation or adultery. The malady
had advanced yet another stage. Another
invisible line had been crossed.
At this time I was in
seminary studying theology and working as an assistant in a local church. Everything seemed to pile up on me all at
once. For one thing, I couldn't stand
living the lie anymore, preaching and teaching the "Answer," yet
secretly living in total bondage. And the
addiction had destroyed my marriage.
Lust always came first. Living
with others, much less being responsible, was impossible. My life had become unmanageable. So after twelve years of tumultuous marriage
and three beautiful children, I ran. It
was just as well. The chaos I'd let
loose inside my own heart and soul was wreaking havoc in my wife and
children. Lust, like alcoholism, I later
came to see, is a family disease.
Everyone tied to the sex drunk is affected. Thus, one day I simply walked out on
everything — bolted is more like it — from seminary, ministry, marriage, and
family. That I wound up almost bolting
from life is another matter.
Now the pursuit shifted to
the seamier side of town, and by thirty-five I was a dyed-in-the-wool
compulsive "trick," the term hookers use for their customers. I was descending into the demimonde of
prostitutes, pimps, panderers, and associated vice and criminality. At times, for
16
security, I carried a concealed folding machete with an eleven-inch blade. God only knows how close I came to being
pulled into that dark whirlpool and getting sucked under completely.
But I thought it was
great, that this was "where it was really at." I never suspected that
the whole process from the very beginning was creating a deadly false reality
and short-circuiting my ability to have normal relationships with anyone, let
alone wife and children. Without sensing
what was happening anywhere along the line, the great love "maker"
had become the great love cripple.
Out of Control
Even my pursuit of sex on
the streets progressed downhill. At
first, it would only be under certain conditions or with a certain type of
prostitute, and always with protection against disease. But one by one, over time, every single
constraint and taboo was crossed. The
more I indulged, the broader the spectrum of possibilities for feeding the
obsession, including crossing the gender line.
I must have felt the slavery.
Once I was arrested by vice officers and hauled out onto the sidewalk
for the whole world to gape at. I wished
I could have disappeared! While they were frisking me, spread-eagled against
the graffiti-blackened brick wall, I was saying to myself, Thank God! This is
what I needed to make me stop. Never
again! But it wasn't five minutes after my release that I was back out there looking
for the same woman. Any woman!
Another time I was driving
on the freeway. The compulsion had
struck, I had quickly cashed a check and was racing out to the red-light
district, when I saw a man lose control of his car and spin off into the center
divider, slamming into it just as I whizzed by inches away. His car struck the divider from the rear, and
I saw his head jerk over the back of his seat and snap completely back in a
grotesque U-shape, obviously breaking his neck.
I pulled off the next ramp, shaken, acknowledging the incident as a
warning from
17
heaven. Thank God! I thought, That's
what I needed to make me stop. Never
again! Less than a minute later, however, I found my car getting back onto the
freeway, heading for its original scarlet assignation.
I had lost control of me. The compulsion had complete control, as it
always had, from the very first. Only
this was no longer "innocent" Lust was taking on a malevolent aspect. I was getting perilously close to connecting
with the Darkness and crossing the point of no return. Those who've been out there know what I
mean. After awhile, it ceases to be fun
and games; it's for keeps.
But I thought I was
free. Free from the yoke of marriage and
responsibility. How easy to forget the
family even existed. Free to pursue lust
as I wished without having to creep home guiltily, fearing discovery. But the more freedom I had, the less free I
became. The escape that the ritual and
sex provided wasn't as complete and didn't last as long as before. The pleasure was not as unsullied, the
rapture not as naive. I must have begun
to see. I would swear off prostitutes
periodically. Sex with myself had never
stopped, and the magazines kept apace to feed the progression, abetting it
further still. Then I'd try to stay
completely sober without either. Nothing
worked longer than a few weeks at best.
Somewhere, again, I had
crossed another invisible line. Lust, by
which I had been able to function and for which I lived, was exacting a wage —
from me. Each new stage brought increased
craving, which brought ever greater dependence and more insatiable desire and
an ever greater need to quit.
About this time, I was
beginning to look for a way out again; my ability to function and cope was
deteriorating. Few realize what a
terrible toll this thing takes on a person.
But none of the professionals I went to for help caught on to the real
problem. And I still had no idea what
the real problem was. The problem was
always "out there" — wife, children, other people, the boss, the job,
institutions, reli-
18
gious hypocrisy. After the divorce I had
gone to a psychoanalyst, only to be reassured that my new career with
prostitutes was merely relieving a natural urge. Boy, did I want to hear that! Later I would
try other psychiatrists and group therapies.
I never heard there might be such a thing as compulsive sex, much less
that it could be addictive, progressive, and destructive. Later, when I remarried, one psychiatrist
insisted I simply wasn't getting enough at home. But my wife and I were compatible sexually,
and I got as much as I went after, and more.
Free at Last?
What insights I did get
into my motivations only seemed to add to the curse, much as did my religious
knowledge and belief. Knowledge was not
power — even right knowledge! What I needed was not more knowledge about my
psychology or God, but power to stop what I was powerless over and obey the
little light I already had. I had
stopped thousands of times; almost every time was the "last time."
Staying stopped was my problem, and I made countless vain attempts at that:
churches, prayer, fasting, therapy, tranquilizing drugs, and then remarriage, a
new home, and a new job. What I really
needed, I thought, was the right woman, the right job, and the right
environment in which to live and work.
In the new marriage I got all three.
And on my wedding day I burned all my girlie magazines and movies in one
grand show of willpower and high resolve.
But it was like cutting off part of me, so dear were those favorite
goddesses of mine. Within days after the
wedding I was back to masturbation, and within months I was back on the
streets, helplessly sinning against the new light of love, kindness, plenty,
and peaceful surroundings. I must have
sensed something was drastically wrong with me, but if I did, it didn't do any
good. And the wives never guessed the
dark-
19
est secret locked in their husband's heart.
Lust was his one and only wife, mistress, goddess, and slave master, and
he was chained for life. My wives had
never stood a chance!
I had decided to quit my
job of ten years, thinking that if only I could do what I really
wanted—write—all would be well with me.
So we sold our home, and I got away from it all. I realized later that one reason I had quit
my job was to avoid having an affair with a woman at work. It was another gallant and courageous attempt
to do it on my own. Quitting the job was
scary, but I felt great; it would be a new beginning. Free at last from all those temptations at
work and free from the rat race, I could hide away in my niche full of books
and become something new and better and different.
Despair
But that didn't work
either. Stealing away, I'd race into the
big city, score a connection, and return undetected. I just couldn't believe it; I had given it my
best shot. 1 was doing what I wanted to
do in an ideal situation, surrounded by love and nurturing, and yet I kept on
going downhill! (If these good wives only knew how they were nurturing and
supporting the sickness!) I began to see that all those great feelings of
release and freedom that had accompanied the progression of the malady had been
delusions. I had no idea that I was
deluding myself, creating my own insanity.
One stage at a time, I had been seducing and victimizing myself into a great
lie: The Wages of Lust Is Life. I had
never come to terms with the true nature of my problem: The wages of lust is
death.
I progressed in the lie
until finally, even the thought of masturbation or merely looking at a girlie
magazine cover in the liquor store or supermarket ignited the compulsion, and I
would have to go out and score my "drug"—find a prostitute. As this pattern of periodic despair worsened
20
relentlessly, I finally concluded I had to be possessed with demons and
submitted to the rite of exorcism. I
thought I was willing to go to any lengths to stop the insanity.
Well, exorcism didn't work
either. I even contemplated a drastic
variation on the motorcycle cop routine.
(Yes, I was getting that desperate!) There was nothing left for me to
try; there was nowhere else to go and still be in charge, managing my will and
life. I see now that in all my religious
striving and psychotherapy I was waiting for the miracle to happen first, that
I should somehow be zapped or "fixed," unable ever to fall or be
tempted again. I thought that if a
person just had the right religious belief, he was automatically "a new
creature; old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new."
That all thought of lust would be removed, much as a tumor would be excised by
a surgeon. The "religious
solution" was one of the subtlest strategies in my arsenal of denial.
I didn't realize that the
essence of being human is to have free choice.
God doesn't want to remove from me the possibility of falling; he wants
me to have the freedom to choose not to fall.
I'd been praying self-righteously all along, "Please God, take it
away!" not realizing my inner heart was piteously whining, ". .
. so I won't have to give it
up." There was belief in God without surrender. That belief availed nothing! I had never died
to lust.
The Dawn of Freedom
It wasn't long after this,
in 1974, that I went to the mailbox and found the April 22ndissue of Time
magazine. Its cover story was on The New
Alcoholism. I sat down, devoured the
article, got up, and called Alcoholics Anonymous. Many things in the article had struck with
the force of revelation: There were many "alcoholisms"; it was being
called a disease; it was hitting men and women, old and young alike; the descriptions
of powerlessness matched my own; treatment, described by some professionals,
was like trying to
21
"exorcise a host of demons." Medicine, psychotherapy, and
psychoanalysis didn't work. Alcoholics
Anonymous did.
I went to my first meeting
that night. That's how I discovered that
the AA program of recovery for alcoholics would work for a sex drunk. And I was just as hopeless a drunk as any
wino on skid row. I'd been there. In my very first meeting I saw people as
desperate over alcohol as I was over lust, living free of their obsession. Here was a program of recovery that was
working for them. And it has been
working for me ever since, whenever I work it or let it work me.
I admitted gladly what I
must have known all along, that I was powerless over lust, just like alcoholics
were powerless over alcohol. The paradox
made immediate sense: To win, I had to surrender and admit defeat.
I put down lust as one
would put down heroin or alcohol. For me
that meant not feeding it through the eye or in the mind. I also abstained from all sex, including with
my wife. The second marriage was on the
verge of collapse anyway. I wasn't even
afraid sexual withdrawal would kill me, as I had felt before. I simply knew I had to stop, no matter what
the cost. A strange thing happened; I
didn't die! Why hadn't anyone ever told me that sex was optional?
I began going to AA
meetings, stopped drinking and taking tranquilizers, and read the book
Alcoholics Anonymous. I identified with
the alcoholics right down the line.
After a few months I began
having sex with my wife again, and not long thereafter discovered an amazing
thing - sex without lust. They were two
entirely different things! Intercourse without stimulation or an arousal
scenario playing in my mind was something I had never known before. It was very simple, natural, real, and
satisfying. What a gift!
But I soon discovered
something else: it was too rare a thing.
The pattern was that even though I was having sex only with my wife and
had withdrawn from feeding lust at other times, I was still resorting to
memories of pictures
22
or past encounters to achieve arousal and orgasm. I wasn't free of my past, even though I was
apparently free of the sexual compulsion in its old "scarlet"
forms. What was wrong? Wouldn't
everything be all right as long as I didn't take that first "drink"?
But what was drinking for the alcoholic wasn't drinking for me, the
sexaholic. To be fully free, I'd have to
be free even of resorting to other partners in my mind. And for me, this was a long time in
coming. I would discover slowly that my
mental habit patterns were the key to my illness; without healing here, there
would be no real recovery.
But here again, I found I
was just as powerless over the images in my memory as I had been in my
compulsive pursuit of sex. The more I
tried to force the memories away, the harder they fought to stay alive. I would have to begin working the Twelve Steps
of recovery for the inner man. But I
delayed, and delay was almost fatal.
After a year and a half without acting out the old sexual compulsion, I
fell. I was casually glancing through a
newsmagazine and lingered too long on a revealing photograph. By the third look, I had taken the first
"drink"—the lust look—and what the alcoholics said would happen,
happened. The first drink got me
drunk. Within a matter of hours I was
out on the streets again, having lost control, trying desperately to score.
This precipitated a
lust-sex binge that lasted on and off for some three months. It was sheer hell. During that time I more than made up for the
year and a half of abstinence, and wound up in "pitiful and
incomprehensible demoralization," a phrase the alcoholics coined. I had become willing to throw marriage and
career to the winds and be a pimp in order to supply myself with the
prostitutes I wanted, and even then, I knew that would not satisfy. The marriage was over; I was living in the
garage; and I was getting suicidal. I
had "hit my bottom." It was the end of the line. The party was over.
Somehow, by what had to be
another miracle, I was able to crawl, raving, back to AA and start all over
again. But this time, I would have to
work those Twelve Steps to
23
survive. I got a sponsor (a friend on
the program to help me work the Steps) and began working on me.
I started from the
beginning. Step One was taken when I
realized at depth that I was absolutely powerless over lust and my sex life and
emotions were unmanageable. Step Two became
a reality when I came slowly to believe that a power greater than myself could
restore me to sanity. This came about as
I re-established my connection with the Twelve Step fellowship.
With no more resorting to
"drugs" to avoid the reality of my own emotions, I began to see and
feel them. Raw nerve endings of
resentment, negativism, anxiety, and fear became exposed. Above all, I think I was afraid of finding
out what I was really like on the inside.
It wasn't pretty. I discovered
that un-insulated by lust, sex, pills, alcohol, or entertainment, I was a very
marginal person and would have to begin growing where I had left off at the age
of eight. And so the pain began. That's when I saw the truth of another paradox:
We have to suffer to get well.
Working the Steps
The pain of awareness of
who I really was drove me to work the Twelve Steps of recovery. The real freedom began when I could be free
of my past. I became as a child,
teachable, having to reject my way of doing and thinking for a new way of life
based on surrender of my will to God.
Then I began working on my defects, as they were uncovered not only in
the inventory of my past, but in the continuing pain of seeing myself trying to
relate to others. This process, of
course, is still going on. I also began
clearing away the wreckage of my past and making amends whenever I was
wrong. Believe me, none of this came
easy! I just discovered that I had to do it to survive! I had to die to myself
in order to live. Another paradox.
Early in 1979, after a few
hopeful beginnings that failed, Sexaholics Anonymous came into being, and since
then I've
24
been part of this fellowship of recovering sexaholics. I like what I'm doing to myself today. I don't have escape fantasies of being in a
prison or leper colony anymore. The obsession
and compulsion of sexual lust are gone; I've been set free. Not cured.
I'm still a sexaholic; my programming still makes me want to turn my
head at anything that looks interesting and take a "drink." Part of
me still thinks it will die if I don't.
But one day at a time, one encounter at a time, one glance at a time,
one thought or memory at a time, I don't have to act on those impulses. I don't have to drink it in.
My continuing freedom is
based on my attitude; if it isn't open to the grace of God and others I'm in
big trouble. I can take that first drink
again any time I want, inside my head, without so much as batting an eyelash!
That's why my continued sobriety is predicated on maintaining a spiritual program—right
attitudes about others and myself.
Healing in my marriage and
in the family is one of the most blessed areas of this new life, even though
things aren't always a bed of roses.
I've found something better than lust—reality But I have to be willing
to give up any thought of changing partners, either actually or in fantasy,
even if it means not having sex at all.
Each time, I have to surrender my right to sex and depend on the grace
of God. What else can you call it? And
there are times my wife and I have gone without sex for extended periods. But it's all right; sex is optional now. I have a choice. And mutually voluntary periods of abstinence
for a year or so have proven to be the most constructive—and happy—times of our
entire marriage. For me the key was
finally giving up all expectation of either sex or affection, and working on
myself and my defective relations with others.
It has been a totally new
beginning for us. I'm just starting to
get acquainted with my wife of seventeen years.
I discover to my delight she's a person: unique, independent, an
individual, a whole universe of personality I was blind to before. And the more I die to any thought of
resorting to someone else and commit myself to this one union, the more
pleasure and love and freedom I find.
25
I can't believe that the
person I'm writing about today is the same one who used to think and do the
things I've been describing. Actually,
that other person was a slave; he was living in a world of fantasy and
illusion, only for himself, and always alone.
He had never matured through emotional adolescence and was spiritually
dead. He could not cope either with his
own emotions or with life in the big world out there, and was constantly
running. Running to satisfy demands and
lusts that could never be satisfied.
Running from who he really was; running from others; running from life;
running from God, the source of his life.
The running is over. I've found what I was really looking for.
26
PART I
Sexaholism
— The Addiction
Lust — The Force Behind the Addiction
The Spiritual Basis of Addiction
27
The Problem
For the sexaholic, the
progression is relentless and inevitable.
Within any given moment of our lives, however, we were unaware of the
extent it had driven us and refused to see where it was leading. Like revelers riding a raft down the river of
pleasure, we were unaware of the awesome power of the rapids or the whirlpool
ahead.
First addicts, then love
cripples, we took from others to fill up what was lacking in ourselves. Conning ourselves time and again that the
next one would save us, we were really losing our lives.
29
Sexaholism — The Addiction
We
sexaholics do not presume to be authorities on addiction of any kind, much less
sex addiction. The trend of research on
the subject reveals that the concept of what constitutes addiction is
undergoing a process of evolution. Some
researchers even confess to being baffled by what addiction really is. It seems the more we know, the more there is
to know. We need to have some humility
here. Looking at our sexaholism in terms
of addiction seems to be a useful way to begin looking at ourselves.
We speak from our own
experience as seen through recovery. We
feel that only such an in-depth revelation will expose our condition for what
it is and facilitate recovery.
Living inside our illness,
we were blind to it. In recovery, the
addiction begins to lose its hold over us, but it is necessary that we never
forget what we really are. Had we seen
but a little of this, it might have saved us years of agony and inflicting our
madness on others. If we can help other
sexaholics understand the true nature of what they are doing to themselves and
others and encourage them to join in a fellowship of recovery before their
malady reaches the malignant stage it did with many of us, we will indeed be
grateful.
30
General Aspects of the Addiction
Our experiences have
revealed three aspects of our condition that commonly identify addictions:
tolerance, abstinence, and withdrawal.
If someone has experienced these three phenomena in some area of his or
her life, that person is generally regarded as being addicted. When we apply this test to ourselves, we
identify as being addicted to lust, sex relationships, or various combinations
of these—for starters.
Tolerance
The term tolerance refers
to the tendency to tolerate more of the drug or activity and get less from its
use, hence the need for increasing dosage to maintain or recapture the desired
effect. With addictions other than
drugs, tolerance refers to a need for increasing amounts of obsessive thinking,
interaction, or activity, with less and less effect. In short, we resort to the drug more, with
diminishing satisfaction. We see how this
applies in our case when we remember how our lust or sexual activity escalated
over the years, crossing one line after another, first in our thought life,
then in our behavior. For example, those
early masturbatory fantasies were seldom enough; we graduated to seeking
increasingly potent varieties. And if we
got hooked on pictures, we found ourselves seeking ever-more-explicit images to
use. If we began by dating for romance,
it often escalated into seeking more promiscuous liaisons. Exposing ourselves in fantasy progressed to
doing it in public. We needed more and
more of our "drug."
Abstinence
The term abstinence refers
to the phenomenon where the typical addict tries to quit using the addictive
agent or activity. Perhaps we should
call it attempted abstinence. We swear
off — again and again. Something inside
tells us we
31
should stop. How many times did we say
we had to stop? How many times did we actually try stopping? Some of us
"stopped" every time we acted out!
Withdrawal
The term withdrawal is
applied to the symptoms the addict may experience when deprived of the drug or
activity. Such symptoms can be physical,
emotional, or both. This gives rise to
the deception and demand that we've got to have sex. But this is no different from the drug addict
feeling he’ll die without his fix. It is
simply not true; not feeding the hunger doesn't kill us.
Some of us look back on
our transition to sobriety as a time when we were in a state of shock, in which
our whole system had to slowly recover from the trauma of a lifetime of
self-inflicted injury.
Sobriety involves a new
and unfamiliar way of life, like driving in a foreign country without knowing
the language or customs. Only this is a
whole new inner terrain. Without the
drug, we begin to feel what's really going on inside. It takes time to adjust to all this, and the
support of others in the fellowship is vital.
Journeying this new road together helps take the fear out of
withdrawal. We see that others who have
gone before us have discovered that sex is truly optional, once they
surrendered Inst and the expectation of sex.
And their comfort and joy are genuine; they are neither abnormal nor
deprived. Married members discover they
can go into periods of voluntary abstinence to recover from lust and find them
surprisingly effective and rewarding experiences. Yes, there is life after lust! And life after
sex!
We see that the practice
of our addiction includes the whole range from sporadic or periodic to
continuous acting out, sometimes all within the same individual. But regardless of our particular pattern, it
involves the addictive elements of tolerance, abstinence, and withdrawal,
though we probably are not aware of them at the time. And if we switch addictions — not uncommon
for those trying to quit one - the addictive process is the same.
32
Three additional aspects
of our addiction we should look at are toxicity, adverse physical and emotional
effects, and trigger mechanisms.
Toxicity
Toxic reactions to alcohol
and drug abuse are common knowledge.
What we might call the toxicity of lust becomes especially apparent to
us in recovery. We become increasingly
aware of the poisonous effects of lust on our thinking and behavior. We have heard members say, "I'm allergic
to lust," and we know the person is trying to describe the toxic reaction
that occurs whenever he or she takes a visual or fantasy "drink"
without even acting out. In sobriety,
once we have withdrawn from lust and then let it back in, the toxic effect is
felt immediately and strongly. We can
tolerate less of it than ever, and it produces a greater disturbance. Our sexaholism doesn't stand still; it
progressively worsens.
"I
could see a girl in a bikini on a billboard five years ago and it wouldn't
bother me; now, I go to pieces and lose my mind over it."
"Lust throws my whole
system out of whack. I lose my
equilibrium, my control, and have to recover as if from a poison."
[Note: These and other
italicized quotes are from Sexaholics Anonymous members, past and present.]
Adverse Physical and Emotional Effects
Who can say what is the full
range of side effects that lust, sex, or relationship addiction can
precipitate? We're still learning.
Obvious effects are any of the proliferating horde of venereal
diseases. Many of us found that
impotence or frigidity also resulted from our sexaholism. But a vast range of other effects that we are
just beginning to recognize accompanied many of us on our disastrous path
toward sexual and emotional ruin: self-obsession; self-hatred; self-punishment;
anger; loss of emotional control; isolation; and
33
diminished ability to relate to others, concentrate, and function. Our sexaholism opened the door to a host of
mental, emotional, and spiritual disorders that followed the advancing
addiction.
It's as though at certain
stages, our entire system cries out: Stop! You're killing me! Sexual sobriety
opens the door to recovery, where the healing begins. We feel better physically, emotionally, and
spiritually when sober and when the principles of the Steps are effective in
our everyday lives. Trigger Mechanisms
In our addiction we develop a growing number of trigger mechanisms that help
set us off. These include stimuli,
conflicts, or pressures that provoke a fantasy, feeling, or thought that leads
to our acting out. We seem to have no
trouble identifying some of our more tangible lust and sex triggers. By the time we've become addicted, we've
created a whole universe of them, which expands as the addiction
progresses. Here are some categories
suggested from our experience; the list will never be complete.
Sex Objects. Persons of the same or opposite sex,
including our own bodies. Almost
anything about them can serve as triggers: various body parts, items or styles
of clothing, body language, and endless varieties of speech, behavior, or
attitude. Some of us include in this
category animals and inanimate objects.
Media. Pictures, printed matter, ads, television and
movies, music, and dance. Various
places, from bars and dance halls to the streets, marketplaces, and showplaces
of the city may also be considered media in the sense of what they communicate
to us.
The Inner Landscape. Most of us can see how memories and fantasies
can act as triggers. Intangibles we are
likely to identify on our own are such things as failure, rejection, or
criticism. More remotely identifiable
triggers are such things as feelings of loneliness, alienation,
world-weariness, boredom, isolation, "the lonely crowd," and other
manifestations of unfulfilled God-hunger.
Also, nudging us
34
to reach for our drug are such things as a heightened state due to anything
from compulsive work, anger, resentment, anxiety, fear, excitement, or haste,
to such things as stimulating foods or beverages or even intellectual or
aesthetic excitement. What we seem to be
discovering is that just about anything can become a trigger, indicating that
there’s an underlying pathology driving our thinking and behavior This can help
us see how the whole person must be involved in recovery. Recognizing and accepting our limitations
thus become crucial to recovery.
Susceptibility to such
triggers is one factor behind our use of the program slogan HALT — Don't get
too Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired.
Hungry. With many of us, an agitated state of mind -
haste, hurry, or "hyper," for example - seems at least as perilous as
hunger. And hunger itself can lead to
binge eating, as many of us so well know.
Binging on food can trigger the sexual addiction.
Angry. Anger, resentment, and negative thoughts
toward ourselves or others create the inner disturbance that isolates us and
sets us up for our drugs.
Lonely. The "unconnected" sexaholic is a
misconnection waiting to happen.
Tired. Fatigue often seems to make us more liable to
temptation, lowering our defenses somehow, as though becoming weak physically
affects our emotional stamina.
As we learn to
recognize and surrender our triggers in sobriety and accept our limitations,
fear of falling lessens We learn the difference between indulging ourselves and
taking care of ourselves. The new way of
life works
35
if, that is, we begin finding what our lust was really looking for. Finding this is the result of a patient
working of the Twelve Steps, which we shall get into in Part II. Before we do so, however, it may help to
review the addictive process and consider both the concept of lust and the
spiritual basis of addiction.
The Addictive Process
Here again, our
experiences in recovery reveal aspects of the process common to other
addictions. In the early formative
stages we have an overpowering desire—Is it really a demand?—for an action,
interaction, or fantasy that produces a high—something to get us out of
ourselves. It brings relief and
pleasure, so we seek it repeatedly and compulsively. At first, it's a pleasurable way to cope with
our inner conflict or stress or pain that seems intolerable. It works.
Typically, sex with ourselves or others starts us off, and just as in
other addictions, it dissolves tension, relieves depression, resolves conflicts
or provides the means to cope with a difficult life situation or take an action
that seemed impossible before. Whatever
form our sexaholism takes, it has the apparent effect of reducing isolation;
easing lack of emotion, loneliness, and tension; and of gaining power or
providing escape.
This new-found
"friend" not only seems to reduce our inner conflict, boredom, and
negative emotions, but also offers us fusion, validation, and a false sense of
aliveness. As a matter of fact, all of
these effects are false or at best only temporary. What seems to promise life is really taking
away our lives.
It is almost impossible to
pinpoint exactly when, how, or why our practice becomes addictive. Eventually, the process takes on a life of
its own, often unrelated to the initial causes.
And unlike normal coping practices, our addictive thinking and behavior
become excessive and repetitive and arc forced to serve a whole lot of other
functions they weren't meant to serve.
36
Over time, the sense of
pleasure begins to diminish; we feel less relief. The habit starts producing pain, and hangover
symptoms begin appearing when the pleasure is outweighed by the pain: tension,
depression, rage, guilt, and even physical distress. To relieve this pain, we resort to our habit again. As we constantly call on our addictive act
for instant relief, our emotional control declines. We can go into impulsive behavior and mood
swings, of which we are often unaware.
Intimate and social relationships deteriorate.
Some persons coming into
Sexaholics Anonymous seem to be in this transition zone between pleasure and
pain. Thus, they go in and out of
sobriety or the Program, feeling confused about their false start.
Eventually, what we're
doing disrupts our ability for daily living.
The addictive patterns lower our level of consciousness and remove us
from life's mainstream. We are driven to
spend more time thinking about and carrying out our addiction. At the same time, we deny the addiction to avoid
the pain of recognizing how much of our life it has invaded and controls. The adverse side effects produced within us
become more and more damaging.
Denial becomes woven into
the fabric of our being. By refusing to
listen to that still small voice within, we begin by denying we are hurting
ourselves. For this lie to persist,
denial must pervert the reality of ourselves and others and turns into
blindness. We become unwilling and
finally unable to see the truth about ourselves.
Finally, our addiction
takes priority over everything else, and our ability to work, live in the real
world, and relate comfortably with others suffers accordingly. In advanced stages, sexaholic practice
becomes our main coping mechanism and only source of pleasure. Then it no longer helps us cope and begins
causing new problems that must be coped with.
In this vicious cycle, what was used as the cure becomes the sickness;
what was used as the medicine becomes the poison; the Answer becomes the
Problem.
37
Summary of the Addictive Process:
It begins with an
overpowering desire for a high, relief, pleasure, or escape.
It provides satisfaction.
It is sought repeatedly
and compulsively.
It then takes on a life of
its own.
It becomes excessive.
Satisfaction diminishes.
Distress is produced.
Emotional control
decreases.
Ability to relate deteriorates.
Ability for daily living
is disrupted.
Denial becomes necessary.
It takes priority over
everything else.
It becomes the main coping
mechanism.
The coping mechanism stops
working.
The party is over.
For the sexaholic, the
progression is relentless and inevitable.
Within any given moment of our lives, however, we were unaware of the
extent it had driven us and refused to see where it was leading. Like revelers riding a raft down the river of
pleasure, we were unaware of the awesome power of the rapids or the whirlpool
ahead.
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Lust—The Force Behind the Addiction
What's So Wrong with Sex'?
We hear this question
often, and it was one of our favorite expressions of denial that we had a
problem. We could ask similar questions
for other addictions, the workaholic, for example. What's so wrong with honest labor? Or with
compulsive overeating: What's wrong with it? We have to eat to live! Or with
use of alcohol and drugs: What's wrong with a little help to relax and escape?
And finally, with the sexaholic: What's so wrong with sex? It's God-given!
People ask similar questions about the use of television, movies, music,
etc. Usually those of us trying to
rationalize our addictions are the ones coming up with these responses. When the questions are asked in such a
manner, it is easy to see how we can be so misled. And sex, perhaps, carries the most confusion.
We find it confusing and
difficult, if not impossible, to see the physical manifestations of our
addiction as cause enough for surrender.
Knowing we must stop, we go to great lengths to find reasons for
quitting:
"I might get VD, or the wife will leave me."
"I'll have a heart
attack if I keep on eating like this."
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"I just know this weed'll give me cancer sooner or later."
"I'll wind up with
hypertension if I keep on working like this."
"I'll get cirrhosis
of the liver and brain damage if I don't stop drinking."
"If I don't unglue
myself from this Tube I'm going to turn into a vegetable."
Such reasons are seldom
enough to make the true addict stop because they deal only with externals. The clue here is that we must differentiate
between the physical action and the spiritual action (attitude) taking place at
the same time in the same individual.
Because he lives inside his attitudes, the individual doesn't see them;
he sees only the physical activity and thinks he's feeling guilty for
that. It is truly puzzling to him. Hence, the confusion on the proper motivation
for wanting to stop any given addiction. When we look only at the activity itself, most
of us find no sufficient motive to stop, but if we can see its spiritual
consequences, this can help us despair of it sooner and surrender. Thus, we must look behind the physical to see
what's really at work in our sexaholism.
But first, let's take a look at lust, for it is this concept that serves
as a bridge between the physical and the spiritual aspects of our
sexaholism.
Lust
Why in Step One do we say
we are powerless over lust instead of sea;? Is not some form of sex what we are
addicted to? Yes, we answer, but our problem is not simply sex, just as in
compulsive overeating the problem is not simply food. Eating and sex are natural functions; the
real problem in both of these addictions seems to be what we call lust—an
attitude demanding that a natural instinct serve unnatural desires.
When we try to use food or
sex to reduce isolation, loneliness, insecurity, fear, tension, or to cover our
emotions, make us feel alive, help us escape, or satisfy our God-
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hunger, we create an unnatural appetite that misuses and abuses the natural
instinct. It is not only more intense
than the natural but becomes something totally different. Eating and sex enter a different dimension;
they possess an unnatural spiritual component.
The addiction is thus to
lust and not merely to the substance or physical act. Dust—the attitude itself—becomes the
controlling factor in the addiction.
This may be why people
exhibit lust in more than one area.
Often, those of us addicted to substances or forms of behavior discover
we are also addicted to negative attitudes and emotions.
"I
remember that when I came off lust, alcohol, and tranquilizers, resentment
burst forth like a dammed-up volcano. I
remember thinking that controlling lust must be like trying to control a piece
of jello; you press in here and it bulges out there. Or like trying to rout a gopher; you plug up
one tunnel only to have the beast go to work in another."
People may not be
allergic to food and sex in the sense some people are allergic to pollen,
strawberries, or cats, but we do become "allergic" to lust for food
and sex. Misusing the natural instinct
of sex for an unnatural end over and over again increasingly sensitizes us to
the triggers of that association, until a simple thought or look elicits the
compulsion.
For the sexaholic, lust is
toxic. This is why in recovery, the real
problem is spiritual and not merely physical.
This is why change of attitude is so crucial.
What Is Lust?
A Personal Point of View
It's pretty tough to get a
handle on it, but here's what lust looks like in my life. It's a slave master that wants to control my
sex for its own ends in its own way whenever it wants. And it's like mental-spiritual noise that
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distorts and perverts sex, much as a raucous radio interference distorts a
lovely melody.
Lust is not sex, and it is
not physical. It seems to be a screen of
self-indulgent fantasy separating me from reality—either the reality of my own
person in sex with myself or the reality of my spouse. It works the same way whether with a
girlfriend, a prostitute, or my wife. It
thus negates identity, either mine or the other person's, and is anti-real,
working against my own reality, working against me.
I can't have true union
with my wife while lust is active because she as a person really doesn't
matter; she's even in the way; she's merely the sexual instrument. And I can't have true union within myself
while I'm splitting myself having sex with myself. That fantasy partner I've conjured up in my
mind is really part of me! With lust, the sex act is not the result of personal
union; sex doesn't flow from that union.
Sex energized by lust makes true union impossible.
The nature of the
lust-noise interference I superimpose over sex can be many things: memories,
fantasies ranging from the erotic to revenge or even violence. Or, it can be the mental image of a single
fetish or of some other person. Seen in
this light, lust can exist apart from sex.
Indeed, there are those who say they are obsessed with lust who can no
longer have sex. I see my lust as a
force that apparently infuses and distorts my other instincts as well: eating,
drinking, working, anger... I know I
have a lust to resent; it seems as strong as sexual lust ever was.
In my experience, lust is
not physical; it is not even strong sexual desire. It seems to be a spiritual force that
distorts my instincts; and whenever let loose in one area, seems to want to
infect other areas as well.
And being nonsexual, lust
crosses all lines, including gender.
When energized by lust, my sexual fantasies or acting out can go in any
direction, shaped by whatever I experience.
Thus, the more I indulge in sexual lust, the less truly sexual I become.
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Therefore, my basic problem
as a recovering sexaholic is to live free from my lust. When I entertain it in any form, sooner or
later it tries to express itself in every form.
And lust becomes the indicator of not only what I do, but what I am.
But there is great hope
here. By surrendering lust and its
acting out each time I'm tempted by it, and then experiencing God's life-giving
deliverance from its power, recovery and healing are taking place, and
wholeness is being restored—true union within myself first, then with others
and the Source of my life.
Lust Is .
. .
Not being able to say no
Constantly being in dangerous sexual situations
Turning my head as if sex-starved all the time
Attraction only to beautiful people
Erotic fantasies
Use of erotic media
Being addicted to the partner as I would be to a drug
Losing my identity in the partner
Obsession with the romantic—going for the "chemistry"
The desire to make the other person lust
Another Personal Perspective
Lust Kills
Lust is the most important thing in my life; it takes priority over me.
Captive to lust, I cannot be myself.
Lust makes me its slave; it kills my freedom; it kills me.
Lust always wants more; lust creates more lust.
Lust is jealous; it wants to possess me.
Lust makes me self-obsessed; it drives me into myself.
Lust makes sex impossible without lust.
Lust destroys the ability to love; it kills love.
Lust destroys the ability to receive love; it kills me.
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Lust creates guilt—unavoidably; and guilt
has to be expiated.
Lust makes part of me want to die because I can't bear what
I'm doing to myself and my powerlessness over it.
Increasingly, I direct this guilt and self-hatred inward and outward.
Lust is destructive to me and those around me.
Lust kills the spirit; my spirit is me.
Lust kills me!
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The Spiritual Basis of
Addiction
The physical and
psychological aspects of the addictive process are becoming increasingly
identifiable, and sexaholism shares elements in common with other
addictions. Our sexual experience or
fantasy usually began as "the answer" to all our needs. It worked.
It provided relief and pleasure like nothing else. At some point, most of us came to qualify on
all counts as true addicts, and some of us were probably addicted from the very
beginning.
In looking back, many of
us see that regardless of how, why, or when it began, there came a time when we
were not only aware of the power this thing held over us, but that we were
acting against our wills. Only when we
tried stopping did we see that we were captive to a force stronger than we, at
the mercy of a power greater than ourselves.
We could understand the dilemma of some professionals who had tried
treating alcoholics (and some of us!) only to despair.
In recovery, we came to
see aspects of our sexaholism lying behind the physical and psychological that
paralleled similar aspects discovered by recovering alcoholics. These
46
have to do with the personality, dealing with the will and the attitudinal
forces shaping the person and character. We refer to this as the spiritual
dimension. It is here where we discover
the most powerful forces propelling us into our addiction.
Thus, we will use the word
spiritual in referring to that aspect of ourselves underlying and determining
all our attitudes, choices, thoughts, and behavior—the very core of
personality, the very heart of the person.
If we can see how the addictive process involves this most fundamental
aspect of our being, we will be able to understand why recovery—whatever else
we make it—must be a spiritual process.
We use the term spiritual
in this broader, nonreligious sense for another reason. Some of us testify to having led a spiritual
life while still practicing our wrongs.
Now we see that the spiritual realm encompasses both good and evil, and
that regardless of our spiritual experiences—real though they may have
been—what we were doing was neither good nor right.
Origins
Perhaps the best way to
illustrate the spiritual perspective is to use a personal story. The following is an excerpt from a Fourth
Step inventory written by a recovering sexaholic. (This was part of his second Fourth Step,
written after a few years in recovery.)
When I told mother about
my first masturbation, she told me not to touch myself and to never bring it up
again. Of course, she didn't handle the
situation right, but that's where I seem to connect with the wrong in me.
I closed off inside, like
dropping a curtain between me and her—and the world too, somehow. I threw
47
some kind of tremendous silent switch. I
would never again be on the outside what I was on the inside. What I was on the inside suddenly changed,
and part of me retreated into that dark tunnel, way inside myself. I think that's when my resentment must have
crystallized inside me. Let me see if I
can play it back.
I remember turning away
from my mother, silently submissive on the outside, but something on the inside
turned deep and dark. I just know I had
a drastic change of attitude then, like a whole new mode of being. I was going to do what I wanted to do!
This attitude was against
my mother. In order for me to keep doing
what I wanted, I had to set myself against her.
But it had to be on the inside, because I was afraid to assert myself.
There wasn't even a
dilemma; I just went ahead and masturbated again without a thought. But every time thereafter, masturbation had a
totally new feeling to it. It got me out
of myself. A vast satisfaction. Great relief.
Total escape from that inner pressure.
What fantastic release!
As a matter of fact, the
first and subsequent masturbations seemed like totally different
experiences. The first was simply a new
and pleasurable physical sensation that I didn't understand and something I
could bring out and discuss. The others
weren't really physical at all; masturbation was merely the means for entering
a whole new and free world inside me. It
was spiritual, there's no other way to describe it. I really can't overstate this feeling. The physical was nice but no big deal; but
what a glorious discovery the other was!
Let's see if we can
dissect this sample of experience, isolating it from the sexual activity, to
see if we can discern a spiritual process at work in the development of
addiction.
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• Based on a real or
imagined injury, we create and hold on to a wrong toward another; we choose to
distort the truth. Rebellion and hence
resentment are born. (Perhaps a more
inclusive term, sin, would be more appropriate.)
• This distortion of
reality produces a false spiritual high—satisfaction, pleasure, and release
from the conflict produced by our wrong.
Rebellion and
resentment fill a need (really a demand).
• We take nourishment from
the resentment; it sustains us. It
sustains the new reality, which is a lie.
It hides our wrong; we don't have to face it and deal with it. Thus, resentment is used as a drug.
• To continue justifying
this wrong to ourselves, we periodically play the incident back, winning the
case in court against the other person every time. By thus re-experiencing the resentment, we
seek to recapture the effect of the original high.
• Our use of resentment
thus becomes habitual, producing more wrong, which requires more of the drug to
cover it. The vicious cycle is set; it
has a life of its own, unrelated to the initial event.
• Persistence in this
habit produces distress. Part of us
always knows when we're wrong: the lie doesn't square with something inside us,
with what we see in the real world outside, and with inputs we get from others. Plus, we feel guilty for enjoying this
unnatural ecstasy, and our isolation increases.
• We try abstaining from
this inner spiritual habit, so we act outwardly toward the objects of our
resentment as though we hold no wrong against them. But this pretense deprives us of our drug
(resentment), creates a new lie that needs more drug, and forces us to treat
the distress of withdrawal with the medicine that provides relief—more
resentment.
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• This mental behavior
fulfills the three criteria of addiction noted earlier: tolerance, abstinence,
and withdrawal. We are now fully
addicted to resentment as a spiritual attitude, quite apart from any physical
acting-out.
Now, if we add the
ingredient of some physical habit to this spiritual-mental process, as we do in
our case with sex, we can see how the imprinting, conditioning, and programming
become all the more total, rigid, and controlling. Once this pattern is established in the
disposition of the inner person, it must manifest itself in some form of overt
behavior—we are addicts waiting to happen.
Thus, the addictive process may be established in the inner person long
before it ever appears in our behavior.
When the man described
above withdrew from his lust and sex addiction, resentment, which he had never
before been aware of, suddenly erupted with volcanic fury and possessed him as
lust had done previously. His physical
addiction had been used to cover or drug the spiritual ill-ness. For there to be any true and lasting recovery
for him, he must right the wrongs in his life from the inside out. To stay sober sexually and grow in recovery,
he will have to surrender his resentments.
The Spiritual Process From the preceding example and what we know from
the experiences of other recovering sexaholics, let us summarize the elements
of the spiritual process underlying and fueling the addictive process. As we take up each of these in turn, we will
see by the end of each point that we are responsible in each stage of the
process. Regardless of other factors
contributing to our addiction, we are the active agent in its development.
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An Attitude Change
A change of attitude sets
the course for our addiction. It is
nothing less than a change of heart. It
may take place suddenly or slowly, over time.
And it can happen at any time, though usually very early, in childhood
or adolescence. In many of us, our
sexual misbehavior seems to have been the focal point for rebellion against
authority. Under the surface many a
sexaholic is seething with resentment, hostility anger, envy, rebellion, and
rage. We may not be consciously aware of
it or of the powerful life-altering significance of such a disposition, but the
more we discover about this aspect of our condition, the more we realize that
our behavior was the manifestation of inner attitudes and thoughts. To put it another way, our attitudes enabled
the addiction. External conditions did
not really make us what we are. Our
attitude toward those conditions shaped our response. Attitude transcends the externals; attitude
makes the person. We are what we
think. Thus, we create our own
predisposition to addiction.
A Decision to Persist in Wrong
The attitude change
produces a decision to persist in doing something wrong. There is probably no such thing as an
attitude change in the abstract; it is usually tied in with another
person. It sets us against another. Focusing on some real or imagined wrong, we
choose to resent that person do what we want, and push the person away. We may still be dependent on them, as with a parent,
brother, sister, or spouse, but we separate from them in our heart. A wrong attitude toward others is the key to
the negative spiritual process empowering the addiction.
The missing link between
the original attitude change and the subsequent addiction is that the wrong
attitude itself becomes an addiction. We
nourish, defend, and deny it.
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"I
know I get a hit' off that resentment every time I play back the scene with
that person in my mind. It's like taking
a drink from something deep inside me.
Why? What's it doing for me? At times I swear I'm hooked on resentment
more than I ever was on lust or alcohol!"
Resentment is said to
be the number one killer of addicts. We
will have to start undoing our addiction from the inside out.
Thus, our wrongs hold us in bondage; we sin against ourselves.
Guilt and Punishment
Unknown to ourselves, we
thus reap the penalty for everything we think and do wrong. For every wrong, there is a reaction within
us that negates life, adding to the pool of our emotional and spiritual
distress.
"'Dear
God!' I cried out that day, 'that's me in there! I am what I think and do—every
moral choice and attitude! Once I've let anything into the Stream of my life,
it's part of me. Coursing through my
whole life. Like a contagion, every
negative deed and thought seeps into that Stream, till I find myself reeking
with this polluted waterway. Polluted
me, polluting me!'"
"I never realized
that I've been dragging my entire past with me.
Every one of these people are still alive in my mind, and I'm reliving
every one of these incidents, whether big or small. This cancer has been eating away at me my
entire life!"
Thus, we defile and punish ourselves.
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Self-Obsession
As we make the conscious
spiritual choices setting into motion the addictive process, we become
increasingly selfish and self-centered.
A rebellious attitude sets in, with or without pseudo-compliance on the
surface. In order to keep from looking
at ourselves, we find fault with those closest to us as well as with the
institutions ministering to our needs.
All we can see are the inadequacies, wrongs, and injustices of others.
We become increasingly
closed off and defensive, unteachable and willful, and a kind of hardening sets
in. Obsession with self is a negative
spiritual attitude and force. Though the
world outside may not see it as such, our spouses, children, fellow-workers,
cats, and dogs know different.
Self-obsession smells bad to everyone but the obsessed.
Our self-obsession takes
different forms, from one in plain view to the covered, where it is disguised
under passivity and the appearance of gentleness or pseudo-concern. The greater the self-obsession, the greater
the con to disguise it. It prevents us
from detecting the emerging flaws that later will turn into cracks and
disastrous fissures in the reservoir of the self. And self-obsession inevitably produces
spiritual blindness. To keep from seeing
ourselves, we seize on the wrongs of others.
Most difficult for us to
see was that being obsessed with self meant we had become the Source of our own
lives — our own god. We were the most
important person in our world.
Thus, we had to connect with ourselves; we became addicted to ourselves. No wonder so many of us found masturbation to
be infinitely more than childhood experimentation. It got us high on ourselves, short-circuiting
any meaningful connection with others and God.
In our great and lofty
pursuits of "finding" our lives we shut out the possibility of ever
receiving life.
"The
program people showed it to me. I'm high
on myself. I'm sitting there, talking
about myself
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and my wife and my job and those people
out there! And I'm the center of the universe and can't see that that's the
problem! It got to be awful lonely, sitting on that throne of God."
Thus, we make ourselves god.
Separation
From our very first
attitude change, we isolate ourselves.
We start building a wall around us, especially between us and those we
are close to. It may appear that just
the opposite is true. We can be
outgoing, warm, personable, charming, lovable, and kind—as long as it serves
the self. The reality of the matter is
simply that we cannot hang on to resentments or practice our addiction without
negating true union.
At the same time, we are
separating ourselves from God. Our way
of life sets us on a course away from instead of toward. And this is inevitably true, even though we
may still be fervently engaging in religious exercises or having spiritual
experiences or are sober in other programs.
This process has an even
more insidious aspect—separation from ourselves. We start moving farther and farther away from
that part of ourselves that has the light, until we may finally lose it. The duplicity of holding resentments on the
inside while being something else on the outside creates a split that not only
isolates us from others but from our true selves—separation at the very core of
our being.
No wonder we start having
so much trouble with our mental health.
We push the light (truth about ourselves and others) farther and farther
away until finally, when none gets through the shield of self-will, the
darkness descends. The result is
isolation, alienation, depression, and disunion within ourselves. Is not this an insanity all its own?
Thus, we lose ourselves.
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Blindness and Delusion
As soon as we set into
motion the process of covering our wrongs there is an increasing inability to
see ourselves as we really are and others as they really are. The alcoholics call this pride-blindness. How sharply attuned we became to the defects
of others. Our ability to detect
hypocrisy in others seemed to increase in direct proportion to our own
self-blindness, as though we had to sharpen our critical spirit the more to
keep from looking inward. Often our
judgmental attitude took on great heat as we raged against people, places, and
things. We could not see that we were
half a dimension off, that the reality within us had shifted we would never
know the real truth about ourselves or others until we had a change of heart.
We were particularly blind
to the perception of our addiction. Even
though part of us knew the habit controlled us it was often the one thing in
our lives we thought we were controlling.
This made letting go of the habit more difficult.
The blindness starts as we
deny the truth about our wrongs and hold on to the lie of our own
rationalizations. Reality gets turned
upside down. What is wrong becomes right
because we're doing it. Self-obsession
at work! This creates willful blindness—delusion—for which there is no cure
except a change of heart.
"Well,
I stepped out on the wife again last night.
But you know, it really didn't bother me as much this time; I didn't
feel guilty. I simply won't let it
affect our relationship. I couldn't do
that. And as long as she doesn't
know. .
. "
The deterioration goes
ever inward. Thus, many of us appeared
to be normal, healthy specimens, with simply an emotional problem or two. We even fooled the professionals. No wonder so many of us thought of
suicide. The gnawing realization of
dying on the inside left us with nothing to resort to but more of the same sick
thinking and behavior.
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Not even the threat of
untreatable venereal disease could induce us to forsake our habit. (Some of us called it "LOVE.") It
wasn't unusual for us to feel miraculously exempt from all judgment, even
divinely protected.
Thus, we delude ourselves.
The Negative Connection
We find that spiritual
isolation is intolerable for long.
Nature abhors a vacuum.
Self-obsession tries to fill this void, since it is a closed-loop
connection with the self. Another
substitute connection within ourselves was masturbation, which often continued
through marriage and other relationships as the "normal" experience.
But our misconnection went
deeper. It seems that with all our human
drives—hunger, thirst, sex, power, and the like—the most basic is what we might
call the Person-drive, the drive to have union with another. This drive must have its Connection. Without this essential core of our being
plugged in somewhere, life is unbearable.
We can't just leave the plug of our soul dangling. We can't survive alone, cut off,
disconnected. But most of us confused
the personal with the sexual, as though only the sexual aspect of this union
would satisfy what essentially is a spiritual drive. So, we used sex or lust or relationships to
satisfy this drive, letting them take the place of God as source of our lives. Idolatry.
This negative connection
never satisfies. The hunger merely
deepens, and the compulsive pursuit of more and different and better
accelerates. Just as the Person-drive is
the force driving us to connect with the best in us, others, and God, lust
becomes the negative force connecting us with the worst in us and others and
with what someone has called our negative god.
It is in this area where some recovering members see in their sexaholism
an aspect they call the diabolical.
Thus, we pervert ourselves.
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Spiritual Death
When we look at these
spiritual aspects of the addictive process, we are forced to face some things
we simply could not accept before we surrendered. Prior to our recovery, it was impossible for
any of us to comprehend or accept the true nature of our condition. "Sure," we said, "there must
be some poor sex drunks who are that bad off, but not me!" Looking deeper,
we said, "Yes, me!"
We choose the course that
sets us against ourselves and others so we can persist in wrong. Self-obsession is a spiritual delirium all
its own, an idolatry of the most insidious sort. Our diseased attitude is an irresistible
force driving us away from others, ourselves, and God and into our
addictions. The darker side of our
negative connection is truly fearsome.
And the insanity of our delusion damns us to a condition where truth
about ourselves cannot penetrate. We
must finally ask, then, Doesn't all this add up to spiritual death?
The stakes are higher than
we figured. Had we ever glimpsed the
truth for a moment, the torment would have been greater than we could
bear. Thus, the illness must perpetuate
itself, both within and without. To stop
means we must face the truth about ourselves, and that is like the very threat
of death. But unless we do stop and face
the truth about ourselves, we remain in death.
Thus, we destroy ourselves.
Conclusions
When we look at the
addictive process, we see that what we call the spiritual factors lie beneath
the psychological and behavioral. This
underlying soul sickness, now apparent to us only in recovery, is the root of
our problem. We are forced to certain
conclusions: (1) Sexaholism is an addiction, and we sexaholics have the same
basic characteristics
57
as any other addicts, and perhaps some unique ones of our own. (2) The nature of what we have been doing to
ourselves is truly shattering. (3) Our
addiction is an inside job; we are responsible for the attitudes that set its
course and propel our thinking and behavior.
(4) Since we had something to do with becoming what we are, we can assume
responsibility for the change of attitude—surrender—that will allow healing to
begin. We can become willing to see and
surrender what we know we're doing wrong.
The Fellowship and the Program of the Steps take it from there.
Every time we "go
back out there"—our way of saying we have resorted to our addiction once
again—we set in motion these same self-destructive processes. We start another countdown that leads to an
end that progressively worsens. There's
no way we can avoid restarting the self-destruct mechanism, and no knowing when
we will reach that point of no return.
If all of this leaves you
with a feeling of despair, that very despair may indicate you are willing to
face the truth about yourself for the first time. It was to such despair that we had to come
before we could be released. Left to our
own devices, the prognosis is dismal.
Only for those who want recovery is there any hope at all, and to such,
we offer great hope: release from the power of addiction, loss of guilt and
shame, power over wrong and freedom to do right, and the ability to live
comfortably with ourselves, others, and God.
This is precisely what the Fellowship of the Steps will do when we make
it a way of life.
But the hope we offer lies
in a certain direction. Since sexaholism
is essentially a spiritual process in its origin and development, it follows
that the program of recovery giving us the best results is also essentially
spiritual. Since our condition is
characterized by the relentless progression of diseased attitudes, recovery for
us lies in a profound change of attitude toward ourselves, others, and God, and
in the righting of our wrongs. Thus, SA
is a program of action, from the inside out.
58
You don't have to
understand any of this to recover. If it
has parted the veil of obscurity and misinformation cloaking our condition for
only a brief glimpse inside, it will have served its purpose. It should also help those of us in recovery
to understand the radical nature of the change of heart and character that must
continue if we are to live sober, joyous, and free.
59
A
Note on Use of the Term "Spiritual." We quote from Appendix II of
Alcoholics Anonymous:
The terms spiritual
experience and spiritual awakening are used many times in this book which, upon
careful reading, shows that the personality change sufficient to bring about
recovery from alcoholism has manifested itself among us in many different
forms. ...
Most of our experiences
are [of). . .the "educational variety" because
they develop slowly over a period of time.
Quite often friends of the newcomer are aware of the difference long
before he is himself. He finally
realizes that he has undergone a profound alteration in his reaction to life;
that such a change could hardly have been brought about by himself alone. What often takes place in a few months could
seldom have been accomplished by years of self-discipline. With few exceptions our members find that they
have tapped an unsuspected inner resource which they presently identify with
their own conception of a Power greater than themselves.
Most of us think this
awareness of a Power greater than ourselves is the essence of spiritual
experience. Our more religious members
call it "God-consciousness."
Most emphatically we wish
to say that any alcoholic capable of honestly facing his problems in the light
of our experience can recover, provided he does not close his mind to all
spiritual concepts. He can only be
defeated by an attitude of intolerance or belligerent denial.
We find that no one need
have difficulty with the spirituality of the program. Willingness, honesty and openmindedness are
the essentials of recovery. But these
are indispensable.
"There is a principle
which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments
and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance—that principle is
contempt prior to investigation." (Herbert Spencer) (From Alcoholics
Anonymous, pp. 569-570.]
60
PART II Getting Started
How It Works—The Practical Reality
Surrender—Steps
One, Two, and Three
Step One
Step Two
Step Three
Making the Wrongs Right — Steps Four
Through Ten
Step Four
Step Five
Steps Six and Seven
Steps Eight and
Nine
Step Ten
Step Eleven
Step Twelve
Overcoming Lust and Temptation
61
The Solution
We saw that our
problem was threefold: physical, emotional, and spiritual. Healing had to come about in all three.
The crucial change
in attitude began when we admitted we were powerless, that our habit had us
whipped. We came to meetings and
withdrew from our habit. For some, this
meant no sex with themselves or others, including not getting into
relationships. For others it also meant
"drying out" and not having sex with the spouse for a time to recover
from lust.
We discovered that
we could stop, that not feeding the hunger didn't kill us, that sex was indeed
optional. There was hope for freedom,
and we began to feel alive. Encouraged
to continue, we turned more and more away from our isolating obsession with sex
and self and turned to God and others.
All this was
scary. We couldn't see the path ahead,
except that others had gone that way before.
Each new step of surrender felt it would be off the edge into oblivion,
but we took it. And instead of killing
us, surrender was killing the obsession! We had stepped into the light, into a
whole new way of life.
The fellowship gave
us monitoring and support to keep us from being overwhelmed, a safe haven where
we could finally face ourselves. Instead
of covering our feelings with compulsive sex, we began exposing the roots of
62
our spiritual emptiness and hunger.
And the healing began.
As we faced our
defects, we became willing to change; surrendering them broke the power they
had over us. We began to be more comfortable
with ourselves and others for the first time without our "drug."
Forgiving all who
had injured us, and without injuring others, we tried to right our own
wrongs. At each amends more of the
dreadful load of guilt dropped from our shoulders, until we could lift our
heads, look the world in the eye, and stand free.
We began practicing
a positive sobriety, taking the actions of love to improve our relations with
others. We were learning how to give;
and the measure we gave was the measure we got back. We were finding what none of the substitutes
had ever supplied. We were making the
real Connection. We were home.
63
Getting Started
Step "Zero"
There is an
unwritten step underlying all twelve.
Call it Step Zero: "We participated in the fellowship of the
program." No one seems able to stay sober and progress in recovery without
it, though some try. For most of us,
without associating in some way with other recovering individuals, there is no lasting
sobriety and none of the fringe benefits of recovery, growth, freedom, and
joy.
This holds true even for "loners" (those without groups). We don't try to explain this; it is simply a
fact.
We begin by meeting
regularly with other members. If there
is no group where we live, we start one ourselves, even if it is meeting with
only one other member. Fellowship is
that crucial to our recovery. We can't
do it alone. We pray to be led to
another sexaholic who will want to hear our story, then we follow all leads
that come to our attention. We contact
the SA Central Office for any contacts there may be in our area and ask for
materials and know-how. (See part III
and Appendix 3.) Many groups have started in just such a manner. Long distances may separate members at first;
some travel more than a hundred miles to meet with others.
64
Commit yourself to
your group, whether it is being formed or is operating but still small. Attend every meeting on time. This ensures maximum benefit to you and the group,
which cannot have continuity without regular participants. The measure of such commitment will be the
measure of your recovery.
We also use
telephone meetings with two or more members, using the three-way calling
feature available in many cities. Some
members subscribe to discount long-distance phone service for considerable
savings. Speaker phones enable a loner
to sit in remotely. We augment this by
letter writing and attending other types of Twelve Step meetings, many of which
are open to the public. Much benefit can
be gained there in learning how to apply the Steps in one's life and in seeing
how meetings are run.
We cannot put this
strongly enough: Experience has shown us that we must be part of others or we
cannot maintain effective surrender, see ourselves rightly, or work the
Steps. Without regular participation in the fellowship, there seems to be no
recovery.
We Stop
We stop practicing
our compulsion in all its forms. We
can’t be "sober" in one area while acting out in another. There can be no relief from the obsession of
lust while still practicing the acts of lust in any form.
"I can be masturbating to the image of a
blank wall, and I'm still resorting to my drug."
We stop feeding
lust. We get rid of all the materials
and other triggers under our control. We
stop feeding lust through the eyes, the fantasy, and the memory. We stop relishing the language of lust,
resentment, and rage. We stop living
only and always inside our own heads.
One of the fringe benefits of going to a lot of meetings is that it gets
us out of ourselves.
As we become aware
of other addictions that are part of our lives, we pray for willingness to
surrender each one.
65
There can be no true recovery from addiction if we allow it to persist
in any area, whether in our thinking or in our acting out.
What we are really
saying when we start meeting with others is, "I have to stop; please help me."
But we need some
demonstration of trust, and hearing the stories of other members, we begin to
let our guard down. Before we know it,
we've crossed that line of doubt, mistrust, and fear, and have put down our
drug.
The program doesn't
tell us how to stop—we had done that a thousand and one times—it shows us how
to keep from starting again. We had it
backwards; before, we always wanted the therapist, spouse, or God to do the
stopping for us—to fix us. Now, we stop;
and then, in our surrender, the power of God becomes effective in us.
We Get Involved
At first, all that
many of us could do was simply attend meetings.
"Forget the Steps, forget everything, just bring the body," we
were told. And bring the body we did,
even if we had to drag it along and even if the mind and will lagged far
behind. But soon, we started sharing at
meetings, telling our story, bringing the inside out. And we discovered that the way to feel better
is not only going to meetings but taking the risk of self-disclosure.
"Inside
my head, those problems seemed so hopeless.
Just bringing them out into the light cut them down to size."
We followed the
suggestion of getting involved in the mechanics of meetings: helping set up,
cleaning up, maintaining the literature, and being there for newcomers. Involvement made us feel we were a part of,
quite a difference from that empty, lifeless feeling of being apart from.
"Doing things—anything—got me out of
myself and into the real world."
66
It was from such
simple beginnings that we could later feel more comfortable in meeting other
members one-to-one and in going out after meetings. We began the painful but welcome process of
growing up by coming out of ourselves; The fellowship of sobriety is where the
action is, where the magic is, where the feeling of identification is, where
the real Connection is.
We received or
asked for the phone number of one or more members we could call or contact
regularly. This seemed strange and
unnatural to many of us, until we discovered that was how many others got help
to stay sober at first.
"Suddenly,
I was worthwhile, as sick as I was. What
dignity there is in that total acceptance!"
The First Test—Surrender
Joining a group
doesn't automatically make the problem vanish.
Most of us had tried stopping countless times. The problem was we couldn't stay stopped; we
had never surrendered. So, the first
time the craving hits again, when we get that urge for a fix, we give it up,
even though it feels like we'll die without it.
And at times, in our new frame of mind, the craving may seem stronger
than ever. But we don’t fight it like we
used to; that was always a losing battle, giving it more strength to fight
back. Neither do we feed or give in to
it. We surrender. We win by giving up. Each time.
Coming off our
habit can be confusing.
"My head turns automatically! I can't
help feeding it. I don't have any
choice!"
But we always fed
our habit. We simply weren't aware of
it. So whenever this happens, we simply
acknowledge our powerlessness. Instead
of either fighting or indulging, we surrender.
We pick up the phone, we ask for help, we go to a meeting. We even admit we may not fully want victory
over lust; most of us don't have pure motives in wanting to get sober. Recovery is a slow process.
67
The first time we
walk through the stress of withdrawal without resorting to the drug, we
discover that we don't die without that fix.
Instead, we feel better, stronger, that maybe there's hope. We talk about the temptation in a phone call
or at the next meeting and tell all.
Telling the deep truth in an attitude of surrender helps break the power
the memory of the incident holds over us.
And if we're hit with lust again, we keep coming back and talking it
out, regardless of how shameful and defeated we feel. We've all been there; we know how it
feels. We also know the release and joy
that surrender brings as we come back into the light.
Usually we find
that our initial surrender was incomplete and we begin to see some loose
ends. We discover some rain checks
secretly stashed against future need.
Like alcoholics hiding their bottles.
"It's her key; I can't throw that
away."
"I'll
keep his phone number; I may be able to help him sometime."
"I'll
get rid of the magazines later. . ."
In recovery, we simply throw the stuff away. No one has to tell us, we just know. We always knew; we just never had the power
to let them go. The Next Test, and the
Next. .
. Sooner or later, the urge
strikes again, sometimes out of nowhere, like a tidal wave crashing over
us. Wham! Maybe it’s the first time we feel
rejected. Any of countless triggers can
do it; it really doesn't matter what they are.
We all have them.
"It’s too overpowering! . .
. No one will know the
difference."
"A
look never killed anyone. . ."
"Everyone's
doing it!"
"I
never thought I'd hear from him again.
Now what do I do?"
68
Often it begins in
the privacy of our innermost thoughts, when we're alone, when we're living
inside our head and the emotions we could never face overwhelm us. So what do we do? Naturally, we want to reach
for the drug again; that's what we programmed ourselves to do. Instead, we surrender. Again.
Just like the first time. And the
cry for help goes up again: I'm powerless; please help me!
And we take the
action of getting out of ourselves and making contact with another member. As soon as possible. The closer to the heat of the action the
better. We use the phone. We make the call. Not because we want to, because we don't want
to. We call because we know we have
to. Our survival instinct comes to
life. And we go to a meeting as soon as
possible.
When we first come
into the program, this cry for help is, in effect, a shotgun working of Steps
One, Two, and Three. Surrender, of
whatever sort. That's all it takes, and
not one of us does it with all the right motives. When the craving hits again, we repeat this
surrender at the very point of our terror, in the pit of our hell. For that's where the admission of
powerlessness really works, when we're in the raw heat of temptation and craving. Again, it's the change of attitude that
brings relief. Instead of, "I've
got to have it or I'll die!" our attitude becomes, "I give up; I'm
willing not to have it, even if I do die."
And we don't die!
We get a reprieve. Again. For seconds, minutes, hours, perhaps even
days and weeks. The tidal wave is
spent. The craving passes. And we're okay. We are learning the truth of the program
maxim, "One Day at a Time."
But there will be
another wave behind it, and sooner or later we get hit again. This may knock us off balance.
"Why
do I always feel recovered after each bout and then get caught off guard by the
next wave?"
Often, seeing we've
stopped acting out our habit for a time, we feel we're free of it forever. This may just be the time it strikes
again. So the realization slowly dawns
that
69
we may always be subject to temptation and powerless over lust. We come to see that it's all right to be
tempted and feel absolutely powerless over it as long as we can get the power to
overcome. The fear of our vulnerability
gradually diminishes as we stay sober and work the Steps. We can look forward to the time when the
obsession—not temptations—will be gone.
We begin to see
that there's no power over the craving in advance; we have to work this as it
happens each time. Therefore, each
temptation, every time we want to give in to lust or any other negative
emotion, is a gift toward recovery, healing, and freedom—another opportunity to
change our attitude and find union with God.
We didn't get here in a day; it took practice to burn the addictive
process into our being. It takes
practice to make our true Connection.
Reprieve
At the first sign
of relief from the obsession, we may get complacent. Once we've learned to live without the most
obvious stuff, we may sit back and relax—take it easy.
"It's like the switch just turned
off. Sobriety's a snap; there's nothing
to it."
We may feel as
though the obsession was really something foreign to us, pulled out like a
thorn from a finger; that we can remain unchanged, with the same attitudes and
thinking as before.
"I'll just get outta here and go see
that movie. I can always close my eyes
on the bad scenes."
Like it or not,
that's the way many of us seem to do it.
By degrees. Instead of running
joyously to heaven, we seem to back away from our hell, one step at a
time. Thus, often shying away from full
slips, some of us think we can allow ourselves partial slips, enjoying the
temporary relief they bring. Testing our
limits. We have all sorts of strategies
for denial.
70
We may start
looking around, just free enough of the compulsion to start noticing what's out
there again. And we see that everyone
seems to be doing what we can no longer get away with. We feel the pull of it inside.
"How can anything that looks and feels
that good be so bad for me?"
A sadness may come
over us. We may find it hard to go to
sleep. We may get fidgety, feel at a
loss, feel empty, not knowing what's wrong.
The old inner panic hits again, and we reach for our drug.
That's when we get
into action again. The pain—not to
mention the fear of falling—jolts us into reality. We go to a meeting, get on the phone, contact
someone we trust. We get out of
ourselves and get moving.
"If I stay inside my head now, I'm
dead!"
Again, we
acknowledge that we are powerless over the obsession, only now we may add a
little more to our cry of desperation: "Please help me. Thy will, not mine, be done."
And another breath
of relief and comfort comes. Reprieve
again. Respite. Even though we may be lulled into complacency
again, this is a moment of inner peace, the likes of which we never knew
before.
We can be deceived
because we may have surrendered "on a full stomach." We'd just finished
a destructive bout and sworn off, "Never again!" And we meant
it. (Didn't we always?) But the very
next time we have the urge and the wave breaks over us again knocking us off
our feet, we don't act out our habit, we don't resort to our drug—one day at a
time, one hour at a time, sometimes one minute at a time. And the craving passes!
Surrender is a
constant thing. Practice. Day by day, hour by hour. Put into practice so often, it becomes
habitual. That's how we get the attitude
change that lets the grace of God enter to expel the obsession!
71
We Get a Glimpse of Ourselves
Perhaps we weather
the first several waves of lust or temptation in withdrawal and then think we
have it under control. Maybe we take a
look in the mirror; meetings and contact with other members have a way of
helping us see ourselves. We start
getting insights into what the habit has been doing to us—to our bodies,
emotions, ability to function, will to live, families, jobs, money, time. ... We
begin seeing things inside us that we'd been using the drug to cover over.
"Why can't I let go of this terrible
resentment?"
"How
could I have put my wife through that agony again?"
As dim outlines of
our sick patterns emerge, we continue changing our attitudes. We start looking at ourselves. For the first time, the truth dawns on us:
". . .
every time we are disturbed, no matter what the cause, there is
something wrong with us. If somebody
hurts us and we are sore, we are in the wrong also." (Twelve Steps and
Twelve Traditions, p. 90)
We also begin to
detect some of our more subtle rationalizations:
"I'm in the neighborhood; I'll just go
by and say Hi"
"I'll
call the old relationship and tell him I'm in the program."
"I'll
just take a glance to see if it's something I shouldn't be looking at."
We may even find
ourselves cruising the old haunts or flirting—for no special reason, of
course. Maybe I'll just be swept off my
feet and overwhelmed, so I won't be responsible, we think. Such attitudes can persist in sobriety.
Though we keep
hearing "Half measures availed us nothing," we go through the phase
where they seem to avail
72
us something. Apparently we have
to see this for ourselves and at our own pace, even if we fall flat on our
faces. Thus, in the flush of new-found
sobriety and success, we can be setting ourselves up for a fall. Lust is cunning, baffling, and powerful—and
very patient. But if we want recovery,
we keep coming back!
This may be the
time many of us start thinking seriously about what the program is all
about. We may have been surviving
hit-and-miss on the first part of Step One and maybe bits and pieces of a few
others. But we're not going anywhere. Maybe we've even slipped and are hurting and
don't know what hit us or what to do about it.
Confusion and puzzlement reign.
"I believe in the Steps; what's wrong? Why
isn't it working for me?"
We're sitting
there, staring into space, and it dawns on our dullness: The Steps won't work
for me unless I work them!
Up to this point,
recovery may have been just as compulsive as the addiction. But there comes a time when this isn’t
enough. It's just too
uncomfortable. We begin to see that the
obsession and compulsive acting out are only symptoms of our underlying
spiritual illness. Even the fellowship
isn’t enough. We have to get to the
source of the problem — ourselves.
Instead of that subconscious and insidious attitude, "Please fix
me!" as though some other person or group could do the recovery for us, we
take responsibility for our own recovery.
We start working the Steps.
Getting an SA Sponsor As we get into the Steps, we find it indispensable
to rely for help on those who have gone this way before. In Twelve Step programs, the term commonly
used is sponsor. What we call the person
doesn't matter; and we don't have to call them anything. Asking for help and accepting suggestions are
what bring results.
Experienced members
advise getting a temporary
73
sponsor as soon as one is serious about recovery. Later, when we are better established in the
fellowship, we can choose another.
Withdrawal from our
addiction may leave us in a state of emotional and spiritual shock that can
persist for some time. Our sexaholism
has so separated us from reality and others that we may appear to others as
being "not there." We cannot see the truth about ourselves because we
are lost inside ourselves. And for some
time, we suffer from tunnel vision, nearsightedness, farsightedness,
astigmatism, or all of them put together—anything but normal vision. Some gentle or not-so-gentle holding up of
the mirror and prodding are usually necessary, and above all, we need the
example of a life that's making it.
We take
responsibility for our own recovery, but we don't remain isolated and "in
charge" of it. We surrender to God
and take direction from the sponsor.
Thus, we go to meetings and start making our Connection with people. Alone, we cannot make the transition to
reality.
Perfection in the
sponsor is neither necessary nor possible.
Taking the action of getting out of ourselves is what counts, even
though this may not be what we feel like doing.
The sponsor can help us conquer the delusion that we should only do what
we feel like doing. "Take the
action," the sponsor says, "and the feelings will follow. If you wait for the feeling first, it'll
never happen."
We discover that
in-depth ego-deflation is one of the keys to sobriety and growth, and asking
for help often helps us achieve this.
Asking for help is one way we start dismantling the wall of ego we've
built so carefully around ourselves. In
reaching out to another, we reach out to the undiscovered best in
ourselves. This confirms our commitment
to sobriety and is the beginning of that radical change of attitude from being
the center of the universe.
"I wanted to stay in charge. That's why God and healing could never get to
me."
There are few
absolute requirements a prospective sponsor should have, but a period of
comfortable sexual
74
sobriety, including progressive victory over lust, is surely a
must. Another requirement is that he or
she be ahead of us in working the Steps.
The norm is that men sponsor men and women sponsor women. We follow direction and make regular contact,
meeting face-to-face when possible once a week or more, especially in the
beginning. Some newcomers also find
daily phone contact very helpful. The
one who needs help does the calling; we give up the old idea of being catered
to. Having sponsors with our particular
form of acting out doesn't seem to matter as much as having those who are
incorporating the principles of the Steps and Traditions in their lives and who
"walk like they talk."
Wise sponsors know
they can't carry the sexaholic; they can only carry the message of their own
recovery. Thus, they do not get involved
in giving advice and bearing responsibility for the other person. Likewise, we do not become dependent on the
sponsor in the way we were with parents, spouses, lovers, or even professionals. The goal of a good sponsor is the eventual
independence and spiritual and emotional maturity of the individual—to help the
person start walking the right path in the right direction. The wise sponsor will also let the person
know that their relationship alone is not enough. The person is going to have to make his or
her connection with the group and become part of.
Typically, when we
come into the program, all kinds of personal problems are uppermost in our
mind: pending separation or divorce; problems of romance; and occupational,
health, legal, or money crises. Most of
us felt that if only the problems would go away, we would be okay. What we did not realize was that it is
because of and within these very problems that the program works! The program
doesn't work in a vacuum; it only works in the day-to-day ebb and flow of our
lives. Trial, tribulation, and pain are
the soil in which the Steps can germinate, take root, and find fruition in our
lives.
Thus, every
problem, no matter how small or great; every crisis, resentment, pain, illness,
stress, conflict,
75
depression — any and all of them, without exception—can be turned into
good. Every time we feel overwhelmed,
our sponsor can point the way out of self-pity, resentment, or fear and onto
right thinking, helping us say, "I thank God for the good and the
seemingly bad as necessary for my growth.
Thy will, not mine, be done."
The value the
sponsors receive, if they are where they should be, is the experience of
working their own program in a way otherwise impossible. There is something that only working with
others can give us. It is truly a gift,
even if the one seeking help is ungrateful or doesn't stay sober. We help, expecting nothing in return, and the
measure we receive is the measure we've given of ourselves to another. First Aid Here's how two people helped each
other stay sober when they had no group:
I
found one other member in a Twelve Step program who also wanted sexual
sobriety. I was forty-nine and he was
twenty-one. He was single and I was
married. I was a college graduate and he
was a high school dropout. We had little
in common, but we started calling each other almost daily. We would get current with our lust
temptations, telling each other what we were going through to break the power
that experience or fantasy had over us.
Then, we also started getting current with our resentments. Lust and resentment thus began to evaporate
as we brought them to the light, much as sunlight dispels a fog. I call it the "daily double" —
getting rid of both daily. When
temptation was especially intense, we'd pick up the phone and call right
away. Sometimes we'd pray together.
Giving
up our lust and resentments to one another as they came up turned out to be a
very effective form
76
of surrender. What a marvelous freedom and joy it
brought. And in the process, we were
breaking out of that deadly isolation we had locked ourselves into. I look back on that time as one of the
highlights of my entrance into the program. I was beginning to come to life.
77
How It Works—The Practical Reality
This title is
adapted from Chapter 5 of Alcoholics Anonymous, entitled "How It
Works." The books Alcoholics Anonymous and Twelve Steps and Twelve
Traditions (the Twelve and Twelve) constitute the basic texts of the original
Twelve Step program. This section is not
intended to be a comprehensive exposition of the Steps. Our aim here is to try to get at the
essential purpose of each Step or group of Steps so they can be readily put
into action. The SA program is a program
of action.
Everything begins
with sobriety. Without sobriety, there
is no program of recovery. But without
reversing the deadly traits that underlie our addiction, there is no positive
and lasting sobriety. To recover from a
life based on wrong attitudes, self-obsession, separation, false connections,
blindness, and spiritual death requires a program of action that includes a
fundamental change in attitude, character change, union, the true Connection,
self-awareness, and spiritual life.
Working the principles of the Steps as a new way of living has made this
happen for us.
No matter how well
they are explained, understood, or believed, however, the Steps mean nothing
unless they
78
are actually worked out in our thinking and living. The Steps don't work unless we work
them.
We will try to
present a realistic picture of our own experiences in recovery. We trust this will shed light on the path
ahead for others and communicate in a direct and personal way how the program
works for us. If it seems our feet are
too much on the earth, that is because not one of us has ever worked the Steps
perfectly. The road was up and down, smooth
and rocky. Sometimes we were surrounded
by beautiful vistas, at others, we were in a fog and saw nothing but the
placing of one foot in front of the other as we trudged ahead. At times we experienced great joy; at other
times, doubt, uncertainty, depression and fear.
At times it seemed we were running with winged feet, at others, standing
still, and still others, that we were losing ground. But we found that once on this road,
something deep within told us it was the right path for us. We simply knew it. And that was enough to keep us going. Whatever our experience, we found it to be
the greatest adventure of our lives.
79
Surrender—Steps One, Two, and
Three
Our habit brought
us into SA, but it was working Steps One, Two, and Three that brought us into
the program. There's a difference.
Until we actually
experienced these first three Steps, we would never enter the liberating
reality of the Twelve. These three were
the archway through which we left the old life behind and entered the new life
of sobriety and inner peace. They deal
with deflation and surrender. The way up
is down.
Our way of life
brought us to the admission of powerlessness (Step One). Without that we could not see our great
need. But the feeling of powerlessness
without surrender left us with no real hope.
As we saw that others had made this great transition, had been sustained
and were now on the freedom road, we gained belief that restoration and new
life were possible for us too—"We came to believe" (Step Two). But even this fell short until we completed
this three-fold attitude change by giving up to God (Step Three). Our habit cut us down; seeing sobriety and
the life of God in others gave us the hope; but our own surrender to God
brought the Connection that finally worked and kept on working.
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At first, the group
or sponsor often became the "higher power," since we had left the
true God far behind. But if we stayed in
that interim condition, it was dangerous, like a car stuck on high-center
spinning its wheels and going nowhere.
Our own experience taught us that the sooner our surrender was to
God—however we understood or did not understand Him—the sooner we made the
transition from self to life.
"I couldn't just surrender my lust; I
had to surrender me."
Change of Heart
Steps One, Two, and
Three describe the change of heart from self to God, without which no real
change in our lives can come about.
There seems to be
no such thing as surrender in the abstract.
Surrender is a giving up of something specific. Of course, we all had to give up the right to
think and practice our habits. What we
didn't realize was that we come to this crossroads burdened with a load of
other negative attitudes. We found that
if we tried surrendering our lust while holding on to our resentment, anger,
pride, or dependency, for example, it didn't work. These other passions were often manifested in
our attitudes toward parents, authority figures, spouses, or other SA
members. For example, one woman
discovered that surrender included giving up her right to be nasty to her
husband. And one man had to give up
emotionally brutalizing his wife and children.
Another who wanted to give up street sex but still have a
"relationship" discovered he was counting on the relationship to save
him from his promiscuity and that surrendering lust has to be all or
nothing. And when it came to the
marriage bed, many of us discovered it was the last refuge of lust and that
here too surrender was the only way.
When we finally came to the moment of truth, whatever it was or however
slowly we came to it, surrender had to be unconditional.
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Surrender as an
attitude becomes the key to this spiritual program and the summary of its very
essence. Once this initial turnaround is
made, it gives us faith in the surrender process. At each subsequent stage there will be a
sticking point where a specific attitude or action will have to be acknowledged
and dropped before we can be comfortable again.
Surrender is not only the key to the Twelve Step program and sexual
sobriety, but to a joyous and purposeful life with others.
The surrender
required in Steps One, Two, and Three became the fountainhead out of which all
things flowed in practicing the other Steps.
Because of this attitude change, we would later be able to look at
ourselves honestly for what we were and confess it to another (Four and
Five). We would be able to acknowledge
and unclench our other defects as they became apparent (Six and Seven). Without such a surrender we would never think
of taking Steps Eight, Nine, and Ten to begin righting the wrongs to
others. And without it we would be
unable to have any conscious union with God in prayer and meditation (Eleven)
and give ourselves to others (Twelve).
Beginning at the beginning was the only way into spiritual recovery for
us. And if we came from some other
Twelve Step program, - many of us had to begin all over again as though we had
never heard of the Steps. There don't
seem to be any short cuts for us.
In summary, for us
surrender is the change in attitude of the inner person that makes life
possible. It is the great beginning, the
insignia and watchword of our program.
And no amount of knowledge about surrender can make it a fact until we
simply give up, let go, and let God.
When we surrender our "freedom," we become truly free.
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Step One "We admitted that we were powerless
over lust — that our lives had become unmanageable.”
"I GIVE UP!"
It may have come with a loud cry or in a moment of quiet resignation, but the
time came when we knew the jig was up.
We had been arrested—stopped in our tracks—but we had done it to
ourselves. If surrender came only from
without, it never "took." When we surrendered out of our own
enlightened self-interest, it became the magic key that opened the prison door
and set us free.
Arrest and surrender
in order to be set free—what a paradox! But it was our self-proclaimed freedom
that had been killing us, and we began to see that without limits we would
destroy ourselves. But we were powerless
to limit ourselves, and the more we indulged, the more unmanageable our lives
became. Each lustful act or fantasy
became another powerful ray penetrating the nucleus of our psyches and
loosening the forces that held us together.
Thus, in time we came to the growing realization that we were losing
control. It was to this truth that we
surrendered—the truth about ourselves.
"Something's WRONG with me, and I can't
fix it!"
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Awareness of the
unmanageability of our lives was not apparent to us at first. But as we recovered from shock and spiritual
blindness, we began to see how we were unable to function without lust,
negative attitudes, and dependencies holding our lives together. Reaching the point of utter despair did not
always come right away; it came to some of us only after we had been in the
fellowship for awhile. The full effect
of Step One seems to come gradually or in stages, with the unfolding
realization of our unsoundness. It is
out of this inner honesty with ourselves that the feelings of hope and
forgiveness flow.
We were free to see
and admit what we really were inside because we were finally free from having
to act out what we were.
How long and how
cleverly we had defended our right to wrong ourselves and others, and how long
we denied there was any wrong at all! But every wrong attitude and act stored
up its own punishment against us from within, until finally, the cumulative
weight of our wrongs brought us to our knees.
The Third Option
Before finally
giving up, we had tried one or the other of two options: On the one hand, we
expressed our obsession by acting it out.
On the other hand, we tried suppressing it by drinking, drugging,
eating, or by fighting it with white- knuckle willpower. And with what a show of promises and
resolutions! Many of us switched from acting out to suppression, back and
forth.
Neither option
brought us the peace we sought so desperately.
Expressing the obsession made it progress relentlessly, on and on, and
suppressing it only made the pressure build inside until something had to give. Both options made it worse; we were between a
rock and a hard place. We never knew
there was another option—surrender. What
a beautiful liberating word it has become to those of us who do it!
Surrender is
letting go. The story is related in
Twelve Step program circles of how monkeys were caught in the
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wild (it is actually a native folk tale). Fruit as bait is placed in a cage with an
opening only large enough to allow the monkey’s open hand to enter. Once the monkey's hand grasps the fruit, his fist
becomes too large, and his hand is trapped inside. Rather than letting go of the fruit so he can
withdraw his hand and go free, the monkey clenches his fist all the harder as
he tries to have the fruit and freedom too.
Our story!
There is another story
of the man who fell off a cliff in the dark and on the way down grasped a
branch and hung on for dear life.
Weakening, he finally cried out to heaven, “Please help me!" and
the answer came, "Let go!" "But if I let go I'll die," the
man replied. "Let go!" was all
he heard. When finally he could hold on
no longer, he did let go, knowing it was the horrible end. To his great surprise, the ground was only a
foot below him.
As long as we
either clung to it or tried to fight it into submission, our habit fought back,
and being more powerful than we, it always won! Only when we let go does the
release come, as though God mercifully raises the very earth itself to meet
us.
Merely knowing and
admitting we were powerless over lust, or whatever form our acting out took,
didn't help until we gave up our right to do it and let it go. There was no mistaking this change of heart
when it happened; we knew it and those about us knew it. There is no faking surrender. And thank God, when we did give up and stop
fighting, He was always there, waiting with open arms. Instead of killing us as we had feared,
surrender killed the compulsion! "
I Am a Sexaholic"
Experience has
shown us that the public aspect of surrender is crucial. It seems surrender is never complete until it
is brought out into the open, into the company of others. This is the great test that separates wishers and whiners from doers.
"It’s
as though I was not really willing to put it down until I brought it out before
others who were
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putting theirs down. Making others a part of my surrender helped
me be honest with it."
What is this public
aspect of surrender? First, it is being able to acknowledge what we are. It takes some of us weeks or months of coming
to meetings before we can realize it at depth and say from the inside, "I
am a sexaholic." Others seem to freely acknowledge this immediately.
Next, we start
talking honestly about ourselves; first, what we've done and thought in the
lust, sex, and relationship area. Then,
gradually, as more is revealed, we talk about our other defects. Typically, these are revealed progressively
over time. It's as though we can't see
the full extent of the power our sexaholism has over us without first making a
start at sharing it in the fellowship.
Then we begin to see and disclose more as we become part of the
progressive honesty and self-disclosure of others.
A trust begins to
develop as we see that nothing is being held against us and that others are
just like we are — or worse off. Trust
deepens as we become mutually vulnerable by leading with our weaknesses. Leading with our weaknesses becomes the point
of identification and union with each other.
And it seems someone's self-disclosure has to start it off. Someone takes the risk because he or she has
to, the pain is so bad. This helps us
pull away the curtain concealing the truth of our own lives and encourages our
own self-disclosure. The honesty of one
encourages the honesty of others, as though we'd all been waiting for just such
a fellowship where we could be on the outside what we really were on the inside
all along.
All this takes
time. We didn't get here in a day. But before we know it, there is shared
honesty and mutual vulnerability. This
is the breakthrough entrance into the Program that will open the way into the
healing power of the Steps. And this is
why there must be those in our meetings who are hurting or who have hurt badly
enough to break through into true honesty and surrender. This lends power to the meeting, and the
spiritual unity and effectiveness of the group are enhanced.
With an in-depth
realization of what we really are and
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a willingness to reveal the truth about ourselves to other members, we
can connect with recovery. When we begin
telling it like it really is, and was, from the inside out, we become part
of. The spiritual Connection begins
hereby first disconnecting from what we did.
And we disconnect from it by sending it away from us as we tell it. This is the point of breakthrough.
The essence of
effective sharing is that we want to be done with our sexual and other wrongs
and are sending them away. Mere
catharsis or even honest self-disclosure misses the mark if that's all it is. The aim is to bring our diseased attitudes and
misdeeds to the light of others and God to be done with them. When it comes from such an attitude, sharing
becomes a liberating and life-giving experience.
This is why
"telling all" is not taking the First Step. Such confession can be anything from boastful
replay to anguished dumping or intellectual analysis. And even then, it's not really
"all" and often is only surface material. In truth, we don't "take" the First
Step; it takes us. It overtakes us. And if it hasn't yet, hopefully it will. The sickness and punishment sexaholism
produces inside us keep pounding us until we're ready to give up, let go, and
know we are powerless over lust.
". . .
“Our Lives Had Become Unmanageable”
For those who enter
recovery through this program, the realization of powerlessness becomes coupled
with growing awareness of personal unmanageability—the fact that something is
out of kilter at the core of the self.
For it is our very self that has turned from life. If we are content with ourselves, simply minus
the compulsion, there can be no recovery.
Recovery is more than mere sobriety.
Deep inside we
always knew there were other things wrong with us, and it turns out our
addictions were really trying to keep us from facing them. This is why, once the initial surrender of
Steps One, Two, and Three is made,
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Steps Four through Ten deal with exposing, confessing, and righting our
wrongs.
In sobriety we
quickly learn that we are just as powerless over other defects that begin to
surface (resentment, for example) as we ever were over lust, sex, and
dependency. The fact that these other
problems aren't necessarily as obvious as lust can seduce us into the notion
we're really okay. We can go for
stretches of time without acting out on them, but when things go wrong, watch
out! They burst forth with a fearsome vengeance and fury. Bad feelings boil up as if out of
nowhere—feelings that are against others, that isolate us and force us back
into the prison-house of the self. We'd
rather believe such outbursts are simply results of what others are doing to
us, unwilling to see that we think and act badly because there's something
wrong inside us. As though bitter waters
can spring up from a pure well.
What great relief
to finally come to the place where we can say, not only "I'm powerless
over lust," but "I'm powerless over me!"
It's okay to be
absolutely powerless over self. This is
where we join the human race. And best
of all, just as the admission of powerlessness over lust is the key to our sexual
sobriety, so the admission of powerlessness over our defects is the key to our
emotional sobriety. Victory through
powerlessness by the grace of God. What
a glorious liberating discovery!
This is the point
at which our self-honesty begins to grow, where recovery begins. But thank God, our defects are revealed to us
progressively. In the fellowship of
identification, acceptance, and forgiveness we are able to bear the realization
without destroying ourselves or resorting to one of our drugs to escape. Our God is patient and loving and kind with
us; as we must learn to be with others.
The program calls
those who are tired and weighed down with the burden of self, those who want to
be rid of the load but can't. It calls
those who are trapped in the prison of self but know no way out. A broken and contrite spirit—the spirit of
the First Step—is the key that opens the door and sets us free.
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Step Two "Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore
us to sanity."
Not God
We can almost hear
a newcomer say, "I thought this was a self-help program! What do you mean,
I can't stay sober joyous, and free without God!" Or, as the Twelve and
Twelve says,
Look what you people have done to us!
... Having reduced us to a state of absolute
helplessness, you now declare that none but a Higher Power can remove our
obsession. Some of us won't believe in
God, others can't, and still others who do believe that God exists have no
faith whatever He will perform this miracle.
Yes, you've got us over the barrel, all right - but where do we go from
here? (p. 25)
The first three
words of Step Two give us the key to this dilemma:
We came
We
came to
We
came to believe.
We began by simply coming to meetings.
Then, somewhere along the line, we "came to"—we awoke to the
reality of
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our situation, came out of emotional and spiritual shock, and came to
the reality of a power at work in the lives of others who were sober. Then, we came to believe. For many of us this translated into the
startling—though welcome - conclusion that we were not God.
When we cast
ourselves on the mercy of the group, we are, in effect, resorting to a power
greater than ourselves. After all, we
admit, many of these people are staying sexually sober, and some had it worse
than we. More than this, we feel a
strength and presence in fellowship. The
spirit of the meeting often seems to be greater than the sum of its members. This gives us hope and draws us into the
light. Soon, we find ourselves making our
own personal Connection. Here's how one
person put it:
"At first, all I believed in was my
sickness and lack of faith. Soon,
however, I was telling myself, 'I hope it's all true.' Then, I began acting as
if it were, and faith in the program itself was established. As I became more honest and open to the truth
in others, I came to believe that others had faith. Finally, genuine faith in a higher Power came
ever so slowly as a God of my very own and a faith that worked for me."
Surrendering to the Truth about Ourselves
The second half of
Step Two, ". . .could restore us to sanity," was not
hard for many of us to acknowledge; our First Step had revealed at least some
of our irrational thinking and behavior.
And we slowly began to realize that such loss of control was a form of
insanity. But just as an unsound mind
was the inevitable by-product of our attitudes and wrongs, its healing would be
the by-product of working the Steps.
There is great promise here.
Restoration to sanity becomes a very real hope, because we see it
happening around us. Sanity is
contagious!
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Sometimes the
program comes harder to those who are "believers" than to those who
never had any faith at all or who had lost it.
This often holds true for those who have been in other Twelve Step
programs before coming to SA. One might
think that previous religious devotion or success in quitting another addiction
would make it easier for one to gain sexual sobriety, but this is not necessarily
the case. Often, such members find they
must start "from square one," as though they had no faith or had
never heard of the program. A chain is
only as strong as its weakest link, the saying goes, and lack of surrender in
any of our known defective areas blocks the grace of God and makes it
impossible to forge any chain of enduring spiritual and emotional
strength. Success in quitting other
addictions seduced many of us into believing we were really working the program
and had everything together. The
unmanageability of our lives proved otherwise.
Many of us merely switched addictions.
Knowledge and pride
were our chief obstacles here. Knowing
the Truth, or knowing the Program—often being self-styled authorities and even
sponsoring others—only kept us from changing our attitudes and righting our
wrongs. Knowledge never gave us
power. We had left lust, sex, and
relationships out of the exposure, surrender, and recovery process, which
simply meant we could not fully recover.
No wonder we were still uncomfortable! "Half measures availed us
nothing." It seems harder for some who have been sober for years from
other addictions to admit they are in denial in the sexaholic area than it is
for newcomers who have never even heard of the Steps. This is simply one of the realities of our
experience.
We discovered the
hard way that we had to leave our knowledge and pride outside the door when we
entered. We could only join with our
fellow members and be a part of when we identified on the basis of our current
addiction, powerlessness, and distress.
We identify with each other at the point of our weaknesses. Our wrongfulness and our wrongs are what
bring us together and to God.
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Many of us have
already been through the alcohol, drug, pill, and overeating scenes. We've become aware of our compulsive approach
to almost everything in our lives.
There's no place left to go except to face the truth about ourselves,
stop resorting to other addictions and forms of lust we think we can get away
with, and surrender to our God.
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Step Three “Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God
as we understood Him."
The Turning Point
The first
recovering alcoholics, out of whose experiences the Twelve Step program was
forged, had a tough saying: "Find God or die!" Alcohol has a way of
destroying the body. In a different
sense, this is also our dilemma: "Find your true Connection or lose your
self!" Lust has a way of destroying the soul. In Step Three we surrender our defiance and
become reconciled to our God.
We discovered that
the root of our problem is conscious separation from the Source of our lives;
the solution is conscious union with that Source. Thus, coming to the end of ourselves in
surrender brought us to the place where we could finally let God have a
personal place in our lives.
Practicing
Step Three is like the opening of a door which to all appearances is still
closed and locked. All we need is a key,
and the decision to swing the door open.
There is only one key, and it is called willingness. Once unlocked by willingness, the door opens
almost of itself, and looking through it, we shall see a
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pathway beside which is an
inscription. It reads: "This is the
way to a faith that works." In the first two steps we were engaged in
reflection. We saw that we were
powerless ... but we also perceived that
faith of some kind ... is possible to anyone. These conclusions did not require action;
they required only acceptance.
Like
all remaining steps, Step Three calls for affirmative action, for it is only by
action that we can cut away the self-will which has always blocked the entry of
God ... into our lives.
Therefore
our problem now becomes just how and by what specific means shall we be able to
let Him in? Step Three represents our first attempt to do this. In fact, the effectiveness of the whole
. .
. program will rest upon how well
and earnestly we have tried to come to a "decision to turn our will and
our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him" (Twelve and
Twelve, pp. 34-35)
The AA text goes on
to examine the role of dependence in our lives and our ruinous self-sufficiency
and concludes:
So it is by circumstance rather than by any
virtue that we have been driven to AA, have admitted defeat, have acquired the
rudiments of faith, and now want to make a decision to turn our will and our
lives over to a Higher Power. {Twelve
and Twelve, p. 38)
It
is when we try to make our will conform with God's that we begin to use it
rightly. To all of us, this was a most
wonderful revelation. Our whole trouble
had been the misuse of willpower. We had
tried to bombard our problems with it instead of attempting to bring it into
agreement with God's intention for us.
To make this increasingly possible is the purpose of AA's Twelve Steps,
and Step Three opens the door. (p. 40)
Taking Step Three
is a matter of the heart, but as with most of the other Steps, bringing our
intentions into the light of another person or group has a power that the best
of intentions on one's own do not. The
road to our hell was paved with good intentions and fine resolve. Taking Step Three is best done with our
sponsor or an understanding person on the program. We are cautioned, however, that it
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is better to meet God alone than with one who might misunderstand. The words we use, of course, are quite
optional so long as we express the true desire of our hearts, voicing it
without reservation, making sure we can at last abandon ourselves utterly to
Him. Here is the Third Step prayer:
"God, I offer myself to Thee—to build
with me and to do with me as Thou wilt.
Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over
them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way
of life. May I do Thy will always!"
(Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 63)
One Day at a Time
Once we've taken
Step Three, it is easier to begin to practice it in our daily lives. In times of emotional disturbance or
indecision, we can pause, ask for quiet, and in the stillness simply say:
"God grant me the serenity to accept
the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to
know the difference. Thy will, not mine,
be done." (Twelve and Twelve, p.
41)
We become able to
transcend lust more and more by calling on God's power to expel the obsession,
surrender temptation, and trust Him in all things. As we do this, we learn to begin each day
with the same type of commitment, asking God to keep us sober for just that
day, "One Day at a Time." This means we are learning to live without
lust and really want to be free. One
member's prayer is
"Lord, I surrender my lust, and ask you
to keep me sober from my lust today because I cannot; but by your strength, I
can."
Many of us also,
before going to sleep, surrender our lust again and ask to be kept free of it
throughout the night. We discovered we
had to surrender the entire self—subconscious included—for lust had permeated
our entire being.
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In simple but
profound words, the whole program can be reduced to what someone discovered for
himself:
"Without God, I can't;
Without me, God won't."
May you turn to Him now.
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Making the Wrongs Right —
Steps Four Through Ten
The Toughest Act in Town
Sadly, many men and
women with years of physical sobriety on Twelve Step programs never make the
breakthrough into the heart of the program and true recovery. The biggest obstacle seems to be Steps Four
through Ten—the core substance of the program.
It is these Steps that seem to be the least realized in actual
experience. When first exposed to these
Steps, many of us balk. The process of
righting wrongs is foreign to us. It
seems light years away, in another dimension; we can't connect with it. We either dismiss it out of hand or say to
ourselves, "I'm doing fine just like I am." Blindness and
denial. It is as though we will go to
any lengths to avoid doing what is required for our own healing. When some members see that such persons are
captive to externals rather than having an awakening to life, they have been
overheard to say, "If sobriety is all there is, I want no part of
it!" There are few things so pitiful as an aborted spiritual life. The amazing thing is that we can give the
appearance of life, even though we are dead.
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There is one sure
way to get more than mere physical sobriety, and that is by coming out of
denial, seeing our wrongs, and righting them under God—making Steps Four
through Ten a way of life. The result is
a new life. And with us sexaholics, it
is doubtful that we can even maintain sexual sobriety without this, although
many of us try. The more we are willing
to listen to the experience and success of others, the more faith we get in
this process. We ask for willingness to
try this path, even though we may feel sure it is not for us. Once we do try it, we're sold.
Encounter
Perhaps this is the
place to tell a true story from a member who says he always learns things the
hard way (some details are changed to protect the other party).
The people in our little community have to
rely on a woman who runs the neighborhood hardware store to get their local
mail. Everyone complains about her sour
disposition and intimidation. Knowing
how I want to break out into resentment every time I see her, I usually give up
the right to do so before walking in, and hold my peace.
But
the other day, she baited me again, and instead of saying nothing, I challenged
her, with some heat behind my words. And
of course, she promptly read me off.
Before she had gotten the last word out, I got loud, told her that was
the last time I wanted to hear from her big mouth, and stomped out.
I
hadn't really lost control, I thought, and knew I was fully justified, feeling
pretty smug about the whole thing, until three days later, when the incident
kept playing back in my mind. Each time
it came up, I'd replay the scene as though I were in court, pleading my case
before a judge, winning every time! But it persisted, until I was willing to
ask for willingness to look at it honestly.
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I
concluded that my disturbance indicated something was wrong with me; that over
and above whatever she had said, I had done something wrong. I had retaliated, trying to hit back. I could have challenged her without doing
so. I had found a pretext to reject her
and push her away—that old pattern that has plagued me all my life. So only I knew that I was wrong and that the
cause of my disturbance was me.
I
had been binging on food and television ever since it happened for no apparent
reason. I couldn't even pray without the
scene coming back. What I discovered was
that I could not get rid of that memory, and that if I didn't make it right,
I'd have to keep on covering it, coating it over, or drowning it out with
something.
I
asked for courage, surrendered my fear and pride, went back to the store, and
told the woman I had been wrong in yelling at her. Unexpectedly, she looked at me with pained
eyes and tried to explain. Instead of
becoming angry, defensive, or abusive, as I had feared, she was broken and
vulnerable, and I was moved to compassion.
Since I can seldom express this emotion because I'm a love cripple, I
knew that for my sake, I had to "take the action," despite my natural
inhibition. Thank God I had been taught
to do what did not come naturally by those who had gone before me in the
program. I put my hand on her arm, and
that connection drew me to her; it broke the impasse of fear, anger, and pride
within me. I even wanted to embrace
her.
Tears
welled in her eyes as she glanced at me shamefully, hung her head, then looked
up again, as though she was just as surprised as I at the gift of life flowing
between us. In that timeless moment
where we looked at each other, each knowing he or she had been wrong, each
forgiving the other, there was spiritual union—a most marvelous and
transcendent experience, a fullness of glory and great joy. I left the store feeling transformed, full of
light and a great liberating energy.
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Natural Law
Now let's look at
what was happening in this encounter and try to derive the spiritual laws at
work here in our common experience:
1. We do something wrong; the reason we do it
doesn't matter; the wrong in the other person doesn't matter.
2. There is an immediate and inevitable effect
within us. It disturbs our
equilibrium. It throws us out of kilter.
3. We don't like to feel disturbed; it's uncomfortable;
so we instinctively try to quiet the disturbance.
4. Our first try is denial; we try to justify
and rationalize to ourselves.
5. When that doesn't provide relief, we're left
with only two other choices, either to treat the distress or treat the cause of
the distress.
6. The only way we can treat the cause of our
distress and right the wrong is to make amends to the person we wronged.
7. As soon as we acknowledge our wrong, we start
feeling better, and when we make the amends, we're set free. The tyranny of the memory and the guilt are
gone. We feel free, released. And if the other person is forgiving, he
himself is freed, and there is spiritual union with that person, as in the
above story.
In relating this
experience in a meeting, the member remarked afterwards,
"This formula fixes me faster
than anything! Instant success! The words, 'I was wrong,' which I was forever
trying to extort from others, become, when I make them mine, the most wonderful
words in the world. They bring peace to
me! How can something that felt so bad turn into such great good?"
Notice that the
same negative spiritual process at work in the addiction (Part I) comes back
into play every time
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we do something wrong. We can't
get around it: For every wrong action, there's a negative reaction within
us.
"I'm not only my own worst enemy; I’m
the only real enemy I've got! What I do is what I get."
Technically
speaking, the man in the above story was making a Tenth Step (if tardy)
amends. The point of telling this story
here is that looking at ourselves and making amends embodies the principle
underlying all of Steps Four through Ten.
The entire heart of the program has us working on ourselves. The key to recovery and spiritual growth is
the righting of our wrongs. It dissolves
our guilt, sets us free, and energizes us with joy and strength.
Righting our wrongs
thus becomes the single most powerful tool for success in spiritual growth and
recovery. Why? (1) It gets the wrong out
of the way so God can work in us. (2)
Taking such repeated actions begins to loosen the hold over us of one defect at
a time.
No wonder this is
the exercise we dread the most; it’s strong medicine. And most of us prefer some easier, softer
way. So we might as well put our hearts
to it and begin working these Steps in earnest; there is no way around them if
we want to recover.
We might ask,
"How is it that righting wrongs becomes freeing and healing? What's really
happening in this process?" At best, all we can offer as answer are
analogies, since our inner reality doesn't lend itself to precise
description.
Let's think back on
the scene in the hardware store. Doing
wrong to the woman produced a self-destructive effect in the man. Making the wrong right not only counteracted
that negative effect but created an impulse of positive energy that was healing
and creative. Thus, if for every wrong there's a negative reaction within us that
takes away life, for every act of doing right, there’s a positive reaction that
produces life.
This law of our
spiritual biology plays such an important part in our recovery that we might
break it out as a separate step: "Took
the actions of love to improve our rela-
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tons with others." But this fruition cannot begin until we have
made that great turnaround in Steps Four through Ten. More about this later.
Recovery
Another reason why
righting our wrongs must be part of our recovery is that this is how we reverse
the deadly separation at work in the addictive process and restore union. To the extent we surrender and stop
practicing our defects, righting the wrongs they cause, we experience union
within ourselves—wholeness—union with others, and with God.
Only true union
fills the void our sick connections were trying to satisfy. But finding God, or finding spiritual union
with another is not the result of a search at all, but of a moral
housecleaning. As an AA oldtimer has
said, when we uncover and discard our wrong attitudes and actions, we discover
our true selves, others, and God. God is
not something added in from the outside.
He is someone we discover on the inside when we clear away the
wreckage.
Uncovering
ourselves is what makes union possible.
How can we be whole if part of us is hiding from ourselves? Thus, the
grand equation for getting well and filling the great void at the heart of our
lives is:
Uncover —» Discard —» Discover
Steps One, Two, and
Three bring us to the point where we are able to start this process, and once
begun, the healing work of Steps Four through Ten becomes a way of life. Each cycle of awareness, surrender, and
discovery produces growth, union, and sight, which bring about more awareness,
surrender, and discovery. The road
narrows as we go, but since there is always more revealed within us to discard,
our sight improves, and the vista becomes incredibly more wonderful and
fulfilling. Many of us identify with the
excitement of one member's discovery:
"Righting my wrongs is where the
Connection is! So every time I surrender my desire to lust or
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resent and take God's deliverance,
I've experienced union with God! Can you believe that? I can't, but it's
true. And every time I surrender my
desire to judge or condemn another or hang onto self-centered fear—every time
I'm doing what I have to do to stay comfortable—I'm getting united. What a gift!
And
whenever I fail and do the wrong, uncovering it to another and making amends
not only make it right but produce union too.
This has to be the most unbelievable thing in the universe."
Having now come to
the end of self and surrendered in the first three Steps, we are ready to begin
taking the stairs upward toward recovery, healing, and growth from Step Four
onward. These actions bring us face to face
with the dreaded monster we've been running from—ourselves. They encourage and enable us to see the
uglies within so we can become willing to change. Every liability will turn out to be an avenue
of grace. And like a magic looking
glass, they first help us see ourselves, and then, as we gain courage, help us
jump through and enter that new kingdom we could never know before.
Now is when we
start unloading that burden of wrongs and guilt we had been heaping on our
backs. From out of great despair comes
true surrender, which releases within us the desire to be good and make things
right with our fellow man. If we cannot
bring ourselves to do this, we have surely not yet passed through the gate of
Step Three. Better to stop and go no
further lest in pretending to work the other Steps, we seal over our wrongs
like an infected cyst. No one seems able
to make the Third Step commitment while knowingly holding on to his or her
wrongs.
But just as surely
as our wrongs are what brought us to despair, so our surrender to God and
others in our wrongs will open the doorway to that great release and
transformation that await us. Healing
takes place from the inside out, and we come to see the truth in the ancient
proverb,
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"He who conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who
confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy."
We are the doctor
in this soul-surgery, and we perform the operation without any
painkillers. Thank God we're not alone;
those who have gone before us have put themselves under the knife and have come
out into the bright sunlight of a new life, emerging to know themselves,
others, and God, and the very beauty of life itself. This is our finest odyssey.
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Step Four "Made a searching and fearless moral
inventory of ourselves."
Facing the Wild Elephant
Something inside us
always knew we'd have to face ourselves, but we kept running away, refusing to
take that long deep look into the mirror.
And the longer we put it off, the more we resorted to our drug to cover
the feelings and guilt, which produced an even uglier image we had to flee the
more.
We were like the
man in the ancient parable who, fleeing a wild elephant, takes refuge in a
well. He hangs on to two branches over
the opening, while his feet rest on objects jutting out from the sides. Suspended from one branch is a hive of honey,
which he starts eating. The pleasure
this gives him, plus the darkness of the well, keep him from seeing that two
rats, one black and the other white, are gnawing away at the branches from
which he hangs; that what he's standing on are really four snakes, thrusting
their heads out of their holes; and that below him is a dragon with gaping jaws
waiting to devour him.
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The two rats, we
are told, are night and day, which successively eat away at the span of our
lives. The four snakes represent those
basic elements in our system that keep us in equilibrium. The honey is the pleasure of the senses,
whose deceptive sweetness seduces us to ruin.
And the dragon is the inevitable end that awaits us all. The wild elephant, we might add, is the self
we're running from, fear of which drives us on our mad flight into that dark
hole where we prefer to stay and hide.
When we come out of
hiding, turn, and face this terrible beast in our Fourth and Fifth Steps, he
disappears. In his place stands that
exposed and erring self we had left behind—the real we.
Without facing the
truth about ourselves, there is no hope for lasting sobriety, serenity, and
freedom.
"I
could never figure out why knowing the truth about God never set me free. Or the truth about psychology or the Twelve
Step program. But when
I
finally came to the place where I saw the truth about me—and despaired. .
. . Well, that was the beginning."
What a relief to
finally face the great FEAR—ourselves! We always knew that's what we had to do,
but we hung on to our misery too long, and after a certain point, found we were
powerless to let go. So when we
determine to go ahead with Step Four, we "pocket our pride and go to it,
illuminating every twist of character, every dark cranny of the past." (Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 75)
If the admission of
powerlessness brought us to our change of attitude and reconciled us to God
(Steps One, Two, and Three), the truth about ourselves became the raw material
from which our new lives would be built.
Only the self as it really is can be changed and live and grow; the one
hiding in the well will surely die.
By
now the newcomer has probably arrived at the following conclusions: that his
character defects, representing instincts gone astray, have been the primary
cause of his drinking and his
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failure at life; that unless he is
now willing to work hard at the elimination of the worst of these defects, both
sobriety and peace of mind will still elude him; that all the faulty foundation
of his life will have to be torn out and built anew on bedrock. (Twelve and Twelve, p. 50)
The Moral Inventory
What is a Fourth
Step inventory? Listen to what Alcoholics Anonymous and the Twelve and Twelve
call it:
A personal housecleaning
A
fact-finding and fact-facing process
An
effort to discover the truth about ourselves
A
search for flaws in our makeup which caused our failures
Since
it was self that had defeated us, we consider its common manifestations:
resentment, anger, grudges, fear.
We
look for our own mistakes—where we were to blame: selfish, dishonest,
self-seeking, frightened.
We
admit our wrongs honestly and are willing to set these matters straight.
We
describe the hurt we have done others.
We
discover the choices and attitudes that drove us into acting out the role we
have chosen to play.
(From
Alcoholics Anonymous, chapter 5.)
This
perverse soul-sickness is not pleasant to look upon. Instincts on rampage balk at
investigation. The minute we make a
serious attempt to probe them, we are liable to suffer severe reactions.
If
temperamentally we arc on the depressive side, we are apt to be swamped with
guilt and self-loathing. ... If, however, our natural disposition is
inclined to self-righteousness or grandiosity, our reaction will be just the
opposite. We will be offended at
... suggested inventory. ... We
believe that our one-time good characters will be revived the moment we
quit.
... If we were pretty nice people all along,
except for our drinking, what need is there for a moral inventory now that we
are sober?
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We
also clutch at another wonderful excuse for avoiding an inventory. Our present anxieties and troubles, we cry,
are caused by the behavior of other people—people who really need a moral
inventory. . .
. Therefore we think our
indignation is justified and reasonable—that our resentments are the
"right kind." We aren't the guilty ones. They are! .
. . people who are driven by pride of self
unconsciously blind themselves to their liabilities. (Twelve and Twelve, pp. 44-46)
Listen to the frank
admission of one person who, it turns out, after many sincere tries, could not
connect with either sobriety or the program:
"I
dread the Fourth. I have the feeling
that not only will I have to tell it to someone, but that I'll then have to do
something about it all. And I don't want
to do anything like that; I just want to be fixed."
Locked into such an
attitude, we could never break free; and only we can change that attitude. For the above person it could have been the
beginning of recovery. There is no dread
to the release and joy that our Fourth Step can bring. At this point our experience parallels that
of the alcoholics exactly:
Pride
says, "You need not pass this way," and Fear says, "You dare not
look!" But the testimony of AA's who have really tried a moral inventory
is that pride and fear of this sort turn out to be bogeymen, nothing else. Once we have a complete willingness to take
inventory, and exert ourselves to do the job thoroughly, a wonderful light
falls upon this foggy scene. As we
persist, a brand new kind of confidence is born, and the sense of relief at
finally facing ourselves is indescribable.
(Twelve and Twelve, pp.49-50)
How We Go About It
This business of
the Fourth Step inventory need cause no confusion. It is, in fact, very simple. Writing our Fourth is writing about
ourselves—who we really are. And since
our defects didn't come about in a vacuum, we can pretty well
109
reveal the truth about ourselves by telling about our relations and
encounters with other people.
One way to go about
it is to take up, one at a time, any person or incident we have bad feelings
about. Describing the feelings we had at
the time and examining them, we then ask ourselves what we did wrong or how our
attitude was wrong. The simple procedure
and examples given in Chapter 5 of Alcoholics Anonymous have proven helpful to
many here.
No one has ever
taken the perfect or complete Fourth.
Many have found great value in doing it again in later stages of growth
and awareness. A well-organized or
well-written inventory may be no true inventory at all. The Fourth is the person, and in the
emotional area, people are not computers.
Human emotions don't travel in straight lines, they zigzag all
over. It is not necessary to slavishly
follow someone else's outline, format, or procedure. We write about ourselves as best we can. The key is looking at our own defects and
wrongs, especially in our relations with others. Whether we proceed one defect at a time or
one person or incident at a time usually becomes clear as we begin. And once we start, we open up the blocked
channels, and it all starts coming out.
All our wrong
attitudes and actions have to get out, so we write them out. We set them down in black and white so we can
see ourselves face to face. When it's
down in writing, we can't quickly turn away and forget what we saw, as in a
mirror's fleeting image.
If we find we are
blocked on the past, there's no sense trying to force it. We pray for willingness. If we find we cannot do it without undue
erotic arousal, something is wrong; a talk with one's sponsor is
indicated. Better to look forward to being
able to look at ourselves in a different spirit. In such a case, the aborted attempt has
already told us that something about our attitude needs more surrender.
Even though it
seems impossible and unnatural for us, we make a searching and fearless
inventory of ourselves. We do it because
we don't want to! And this becomes part of the great adventure of doing the
difficult. Knowing there
110
will be another human being we'll share it with, one who has gone through
his or her own Fourth and Fifth Steps, we face looking at our darkest secrets
and misdeeds and get them all down on paper.
Taking responsibility for our own recovery begins in earnest with the
Fourth Step inventory.
The Payoff
There's another reason
why the inventory is a must. How can we
ever experience forgiveness and freedom from our wrongs unless we bring them
out? Getting our secrets out into the open is one of the first concrete
demonstrations that we want to change and starts an ongoing process that will
continue to bear good fruit. The Fourth
and Fifth Steps can be the beginning of a lifelong ability to increasingly face
ourselves and take responsibility for our own recovery. Recovery and healing await us when we open
this door to the miracle of spiritual union with ourselves and others, and,
without even realizing it, union with the Source of our lives. Until we can write out our Fourth Step, we
apparently cannot see or face ourselves; until we give it away to another, we
aren't willing to let go of our wrongs and be free.
111
Step Five "Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to
another human being the exact nature of our wrongs."
It takes a moment
of courage. Whenever we're ready to give
up the wrongs revealed in our Fourth Step, we take the leap and give it away to
another. Clinging to that which is
killing us is clinging to the curse.
When we admit the exact nature of our wrongs to another, we are finally
admitting the truth to ourselves and to God.
Without this principle active in our lives, we have no hope for lasting
sobriety, serenity, and freedom.
"I
took Step Five with my sponsor and experienced freedom from the burden of my
past guilt. No big deal, just a quiet
realization that I was part of the human race.
I belonged."
Thus, the Fifth
Step is another surrender. We give up
the right to continue practicing the diseased attitudes and actions revealed
therein and give up our sick isolation.
Surrendering in this way brings us out into the light. It is the acid test of our ability to be
honest about ourselves. If we cannot do
this with another, how can we ever hope to have an honest confession or
relation with our God?
112
Bringing the Inside out
The principle of
Step Five is also the key to having group SA meetings that come to life. We identify and have true union with others
on the basis of our revealed weaknesses.
And Step Five gives us as individuals this initial break-through, which
we can then work out in our daily lives and fellowship with others in meetings.
Listen to what the
AA texts have to say about Step Five:
But
they had not learned enough of humility, fearlessness, and honesty, in the
sense we find it necessary, until they told someone else all their life
story. ... We must be entirely honest with somebody if
we expect to live long or happily in this world. (Alcoholics Anonymous, pp. 73-74)
Once
we have taken this step, withholding nothing, we are delighted. We can look the world in the eye. We can be alone at perfect peace and ease. Our fears fall from us. We begin to feel the nearness of our Creator,
(p. 75)
If
we have come to know how wrong thinking and action have hurt us and others,
then the need to quit living by ourselves with those tormenting ghosts of
yesterday gets more urgent than ever. We
have to talk to somebody about them.
(Twelve and Twelve, p. 55)
Relief
never came by confessing the sins of other people. Everybody had to confess his own. (p.
56)
The
grace of God will not enter to expel our destructive obsessions until we are
willing to try this. (p. 57)
We
shall get rid of that terrible sense of isolation we've always had. (p.
57)
Until
we had talked with complete candor of our conflicts, and had listened to
someone else do the same thing, we still didn't belong. Step Five was the answer. It was the beginning of true kinship with man
and God. (p. 57)
Our
moral inventory had persuaded us that all-round forgiveness was desirable, but
it was only when we resolutely tackled Step Five that we inwardly knew we'd be
able to receive forgiveness and give it, too.
(p. 58)
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Only
by discussing ourselves, holding back nothing, only by being willing to take
advice and accept direction could we set foot on the road to straight thinking,
solid honesty, and genuine humility, (p.
59)
Until
we actually sit down and talk aloud about what we have so long hidden, our
willingness to clean house is still largely theoretical. When we are honest with another person, it
confirms that we have been honest with ourselves and with God. (P.
60)
A Very Special Time
Ideally, the Fifth
Step should be taken with one's sponsor, the one who should know us better than
anyone and the one we trust the most. In
subsequent dealings with us it will work to their advantage, and to ours, if
they have the benefit of this in-depth self-disclosure.
Ample time should
be allowed; ideally, it should be left open-ended. This is too important an experience to be
subject to schedules, interruptions, or distractions. It is a unique, private, and confidential
encounter between two human beings, a time of quiet resonance between two open
lives. To work it through from beginning
to end, with sponsor identification and feedback, can take hours. It should be done in one session so that
awareness, continuity, and momentum are not compromised. If the Fourth Step has been prepared well,
only minimal interruption from the sponsor will be necessary. He may wish to identify parallels in his own
experience to give support and encouragement. He may want to raise questions, but most
often, these are left till later.
The one doing his
or her Fifth can be told in effect, "This is your time, your story. I encourage you to reveal yourself
completely, leaving no part of your wrong acts or feelings undisclosed."
Some may wish to ask for guidance and help in prayer together before
starting. The sponsor may want to pray
for a listening ear and an understanding heart.
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After the person
has revealed every uncomfortable feeling and wrong that he or she can recount,
there should be a time for assessment.
What does the story reveal about this person? Does he have the capacity
to be honest and self-revealing? Has he confessed the details of even the most
shameful incidents and feelings? Does he see himself correctly? Is he willing
to see and admit his wrong attitudes and actions, his destructive relations
with others, his self- obsession and dishonesty? Is he willing to change and
right his wrongs? Is he willing to be confronted with himself? Is he willing to
accept responsibility for his recovery and take direction?
In certain cases,
individuals might be asked to review the inventory again, perhaps for another
session, and, in every case where they have revealed negative relations with
others, to ask themselves, Where was / wrong in my attitude, and what does this
tell me about myself!
We caution the
person working through the Fifth about a possible letdown afterward. Putting off the old self with all its wrongs
can leave us exposed and vulnerable and with the feeling that there is nothing
of substance left. This is where the
sponsor comes in, helping turn such negative feelings into forgiveness, hope,
healing, and love.
The Twelve and
Twelve says it best:
This
feeling of being at one with God and man, this emerging from isolation through
the open and honest sharing of our terrible burden of guilt, brings us to a
resting place where we may prepare ourselves for the following Steps toward a
full and meaningful sobriety, (p. 62)
The giving and
receiving of the Fifth Step is a precious experience for both parties. Time stands still, and we meet another human
being in the deepest inner sanctuary of our souls, often where no one has been
before. There is true spiritual union
here — communion. And spiritual
awakenings are born here, for God is here.
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Steps Six and Seven "Were
entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character." "Humbly asked Him to remove our
shortcomings."
Pain
If we're on the
right road, there inevitably comes a time when we cry out to God, "I'm
tired of this defect; I want to be free of it! Please take it away!" The
recurring distress it causes us, not to mention others, gets progressively more
acute until it outweighs whatever pleasure or false support it was
providing. This humbling realization,
this moment of clarity, usually illumines one defect at a time. It is the essence of Steps Six and Seven.
It is often easy, having just taken Step Five with our sponsor, to
"take" Six and Seven, declaring to sponsor, God, and the whole world
that we resolve to put away our wrongs.
This puts us on record as wanting to go in the right direction. But it's another thing to become free of the
power these defects have over us. As
with lust and our sexual addiction, we must take responsibility and the
necessary actions so the grace of God can give us victory over these other
shortcomings too.
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Steps One through
Five should have the natural and inevitable effect of creating in us a new
heart that wants to do right. Note that
the wording of Step Six, "Were entirely ready . .
." depicts a state of mind issuing from a prior change of
attitude. If this state of mind is not
present, some-thing is amiss. The
crucial attitude change that should have accompanied Steps One through
Five—surrender—has never taken place.
Surrender—Again
We do an initial
Steps Six and Seven, usually following the taking of our Fifth Step, when our
awareness and resolve to be rid of our shortcomings are high. Without this willingness and initial
surrender, we're not going anywhere in this new adventure in reality. We come to the place where we are entirely
ready to start this healing process by surrendering the right to hang on to our
defects (Six); then we ask to have them removed (Seven). (We understand from AA that the two words
defects and shortcomings refer to the same thing.)
One way to start
this process is to make a list of all the defects of character that were
revealed in our Fourth and Fifth Steps.
Then, when ready to let them go, we ask God to give us the power to
overcome them. The Seventh Step prayer
in Chapter 6 of Alcoholics Anonymous can be helpful as a starter:
"My
Creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me, good and bad. I pray that you now remove from me every
single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and
my fellows. Grant me strength, as I go
out from here, to do your bidding.
Amen." (p. 76)
Action
We ask God to
remove our defects, but we start taking the actions required, for "Faith
without action is dead" On a daily, hourly, moment-by-moment basis we
begin. Usually, it's one defect at a
time, every time it shows up. One inci-
117
dent, one encounter, one trial at a time, we stop, look, and listen to
our feelings and review what happened.
Sometimes we have to write it out to see it. No matter what wrong the other party has
done, if we are disturbed, there is always something wrong with us. Especially in the area of attitude.
If we don't see
what's wrong, we ask for the willingness to do so. When we see it, we acknowledge it and ask for
courage and wisdom to make it right.
Then we go make it right, leaving the results up to God. The results inside us are immediate; we are
overcoming our defect.
"This
is without a doubt the greatest therapeutic process known to man. It works every single time! I'm not subject
to Fate anymore; I have a choice!
I can change the course of my life!
I can change me!"
In Steps Six and
Seven we surrender the defects uncovered in our inventory. In Steps Eight, Nine, and Ten we amend our
past and present wrongs. In actual
practice, these Steps all work together.
We can't surrender our defects without making right the wrongs they
cause. And conversely, making right the
wrongs they've caused helps us surrender our defects.
"That
must be why none of the help I sought ever changed me; I had to change
myself. And for some reason, I can't fix
myself without fixing what I do to others."
No matter how much
we come to know about the Twelve Step program, it is the actions we take to let
go of our defects that bring the results.
And dramatic results they are.
An Ongoing Process
In recovery we find
that Steps Six and Seven, once taken, become a continuing process. And rather than being a matter of eradication
of the impulses to think or do wrong, it
118
is freedom from their power over us, one temptation at a time. The defect itself may remain, but we no
longer have to obey it. When we
surrender the impulse and cast ourselves onto God each time it shows its ugly
head, we receive the power to be free of it.
And gradually, the impulses themselves get fewer and farther
between. Healing.
When taking Steps
Six and Seven for the first time, our thought may typically be, That's a good
idea; why not? And we go ahead and ask that all or at least such-and-such
defects be removed—resentment, for example.
But later, when the flames of resentment begin to consume us again, we
may finally despair of it enough to really work the Steps on it. By then, we're ready to say, I'm ready for
You to take them all away!
These realizations
may come about gradually or in a moment of what seems like suicidal surrender
of our destructive self.
Some of us may
experience sudden release from some defects, but for most of us there is one
practical way to overcome our wrongs that has never failed: We surrender them
up to God and practice making them right.
After all, how much practice did it take to burn these sick patterns
into our brains and souls?
If we have a habit
of lying or fudging the truth, we undo it by correcting the lie with the person
involved. If we’re resentful or hostile,
we undo it by going to the person affected and admitting where we've been
wrong. Where the other party is not
overtly affected, we overcome the resentment by surrendering it and praying for
that person. Or, we may find we even
have to tell that person about it to break its power over us, provided it
doesn't injure them or others.
"It
was in Step-study meetings where I learned how others were actually getting
victory over their resentment. I was
told to pray for the person I resented, asking for him or her what I wanted for
myself, not just once, but every time I thought of that person. Even when I didn't feel like it; and
119
I never do. It really works. I don't know if it does them any good, but it
sure keeps me from burning up with it."
We find it helpful
to pray for the objects of our lust because we're making the wrong right. The wrong within us, the negative force that
lust represents, gets turned into a positive force inside as we give out to
that person instead of taking in. Giving
out heals us. We make the decision not
to resort to lust, surrendering it up to God, and then He gives us the power to
be free of it.
A Loving God Who Knows and Cares
As we glimpse the
true nature of our spiritual and moral bankruptcy, we can only wonder what kind
of God this is who can not only stand to see and know it all, but who patiently
and mercifully works in us and with us toward turning these dreadful
liabilities into song. God is surely for
the sexaholic.
One member's
experience presents a deeply personal perspective on these Steps:
I
was twenty, in school, and just married to the first girl I'd ever dated. What a transition for a practicing sexaholic!
Sex
with a woman was new and wonderful. What
a relief. I'd never have to resort to
sex with myself again. Rude awakening!
Within weeks I was doing it.
Again!
Why? Sex in the marriage was perfect.
The confusion forced me to see a counselor for help.
The
session went well. We had a nice
conversation about everything but why I was really there. I couldn't bring myself to talk about my
masturbation problem.
It
was too shameful. What I did instead was
finally blurt out, "Do you know so-and-so at school?" mentioning
another person by name. "I think he
masturbates, and isn't that terrible!"
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The
counselor looked at me oddly but said nothing, and I walked out of there
feeling dim relief, until only hours later, when I went on another lust-sex
binge.
I
had practically forgotten that incident until some time into sexual
sobriety. I was working on a new Fourth
Step inventory and put the man I had wronged on my amends list. When I finally found him—thirty-four years
later—he was thrilled to hear from me.
Until I told him why I was calling.
As
I related what I had done, I was overcome with guilt and shame. It descended on me with such clarity and
force that I wanted to dash madly away from myself. But there was nowhere left to go. I had to "walk through" my
feelings. This led me to write a
mini-inventory on the matter, and only then did I discover what had really
happened. In the counselor's office
thirty-four years before, instead of acknowledging my own problem, I had
transferred it onto another. I hadn't
even known the fellow and had no idea what he was doing.
But
I needed someone to bear my shame and guilt.
Anyone! It was crushing me, and I couldn't stand it anymore. So I tried to get rid of it on someone
else. And it worked—for a time. It kept me from looking at myself. Of course I had no idea that I would have to
keep on finding scapegoats again and again and again to transfer my
wrongfulness onto others.
The
easiest targets were my own wife and children.
Now I see why they could "never do anything right" and why I
was always finding fault. I had to. I needed to transfer my wrongs continually to
keep from seeing what I really was on the inside. The rest of the world didn't fare any
better. The boss was an idiot, fellow
workers were inferior types, the President, Governor, neighbors, brothers and
sisters, institutions. ... I was letting my negative force out on
everyone and everything I could safely do it to, especially those within my own
circle of nearness.
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I
see now that what I was doing was yet another natural instinct gone
astray. I can't bear my own wrongs; they
destroy me. But I have to have someone
bear them or I'll die. But no one
can. Even if they want to, they can't. I had been looking in the wrong place.
After
learning, through the fellowship of the program, to turn my will and my life
over to the care of God by trial and error, I had come to see that it really
worked. All my emotional, spiritual,
physical, and material needs were being met, one day at a time. The question now was, Could I turn my wrongs
over to Him too? Instead of making others bear them or bear them myself in
self-destructive depression or resorting to a succession of other
"drugs" to cover them, could He bear them for me so I wouldn't have
to? Could He take them away?
I
tried it. Every time I surrendered a
wrong in process—temptation to lust, resentment, or fear, for example—and would
say something to the effect, "I don't want to bear this; I want You to
bear it for me; I cast it onto You," it worked. Someone has to bear my wrong, and Someone
does. I can't conceive of such a provision
for me, but I accept it. All I know is
that whenever and on whatever defect I take this action, it has never
failed.
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Steps Eight and Nine "Made
a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to
them all." "Made direct amends to such, people
wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others."
The Indelible List
We've always had
this list inside us; it was burned into our brains. That was the problem. We kept pushing it under, covering it over,
drugging it, running from it, or trying to sex it out of existence. But those names, faces, and scenes just kept
coming back to haunt us. And the more we
pretended we were not blameworthy, the more wrong we did and the longer the
list grew!
Little did we
realize that every wrong was adding to our burden of guilt and distress and
creating more illness. We could not wish
or will the guilt away. Only when we
stopped running, when we turned around and looked them full in the face and set
about making them right, was their power over us broken. That's when we were set free.
"I
never worked these Steps because I couldn't see what was in it for me. Now I see that everyone of
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those jobs I did on people made a
dark hole inside me. And I've been
draining away out of those holes!"
Now we see that the
amends process is a healing one— for us! The damage we've done to ourselves can
be healed. We surrender our ego, pride,
and fear and go to it.
If our Fourth and
Fifth Steps were thorough, names probably popped out at us at every turn, and
we made note of these at the time. Now,
we simply draw them all together into a single list, writing down what we did
wrong next to each name. In addition,
some may want to jot down names of people that keep coming to mind with
negative feelings associated with them.
Most often, such memories are signals from the subconscious that we have
unfinished business there too.
Some of us wanted
to jump into making our amends, often as compulsively as we worked our
habit. But we found it wise to discuss
the list with our sponsor before taking any action, especially where spouse,
children, and former lovers were involved.
This was a safeguard for us and the others in several ways. The sponsor could see better than we whether
we were merely trying to dump our guilt or were sincerely trying to undo the
wrong and make it right. He or she could
tell whether we were emotionally ready to confront these people and could do so
honestly, without reminding them of their wrongs. If the amends had to do with money or
property, the sponsor helped us see what was involved. Sometimes we also needed help to see which
amends took priority and which could wait for a better time. The sponsor helped us assess the impact it
might have on the wronged party. And
above all, the sponsor was able to sense whether we had forgiven the injured
party for any wrongs they had done to us.
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Step “Eight and One-Half”
This brings up a
very important matter—forgiveness.
Often, we perceive that the ones we have wronged are themselves guilty
of real or imagined wrongs against us.
Nursing these resentments, we had never forgiven them.
"I
was petrified because I resented those people and didn't have the words for
amends. God gave me the words when the
time was right and when
I was right."
Somewhere between
making the list and making the amends, there's an unwritten requirement that we
forgive. (Although there seem to be
times when we have to make the amends before we can forgive.) And we discover
we're as powerless over resentment and an unforgiving spirit as we ever were
over lust, sex, or dependency. So what
do we do? We work the Steps on it, as on everything else.
"I
just had to admit, 'Hey, I don't want to forgive him.' Regardless of how I
tried, I just could not bring myself to feel forgiving. So I just admitted this to God and the
group. When I heard that everyone else
had the same trouble, I could admit I was powerless over it, do a Step One,
Two, and Three on it, and give it up to God.
Then I just asked for the willingness to take the action anyway, first
in my heart. And it wasn't long before I
could hear myself in my mind saying, 'Dad, I forgive you.' And I was
overwhelmed; I felt. the forgiveness
flow, and I was released."
We take the action
of forgiving, even when we don't feel forgiving. Most of us never seem to feel forgiving until
we take that inner action of giving up our right to resent. Practicing forgiveness in our hearts as we
think of these people, then aloud, perhaps even with our sponsor, we forgive
every person on our list and keep on forgiving them every time the resentment
returns. We may find it neces-
126
sary to forgive and pray for them each time we think about them until we
are free of the resentment. The
willingness and the gift of love do come if we persist.
What is resentment
but a conscious decision to turn against someone, a separation? It is thus an
inner anger, a distortion of the truth, a lie used to cover our own wrong. Resentment and its companions, hostility and
anger, are not only one of the universal hallmarks of our spiritual malady but,
un-surrendered, are one of our greatest liabilities.
Why forgive? For us
it is very simple. If we don't forgive,
we're never free. Unless we forgive, we
are not forgiven; we remain chained to our wrongs, unable to free ourselves,
leave the dark dungeon of our past, and walk in the sunlight of love.
If we are to give
this aspect of our program its due, we should give it special emphasis:
"Surrendering
our resentments, we asked for willingness to forgive all persons guilty of real
or imagined wrongs against us and forgave each one."
Step Nine
Once we took the
actions of forgiving others, we were free to start making amends. We read pertinent sections in Alcoholics
Anonymous and the Twelve and Twelve for valuable guidance and stayed close to
our sponsors as we prayerfully made one amends after another until we had done
absolutely all we could to undo each wrong without injuring that person or others.
There is always
some way to make an amends, even when the injured person is dead, lost, or
nameless. One can find those in need to
whom indirect amends can be made. Of
course, this should never take the place of direct amends, wherever such are
possible. Some members, for example,
have made amends to the prostitutes they had abetted in their destructive way
of life by praying for every one they see on the streets and for those in their
past that come to mind. Some have made
monetary amends for past pilfering
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on the job by working voluntary unpaid overtime, when making direct
amends might have injured their own family.
For those of us who have abused wives, husbands, or children, the amends
must begin with a sexually sober changed attitude and behavior on a daily
basis. Then, as we grow in recovery, we
will find how to make more direct amends.
Help from sponsor and group is indispensable here. There's always a way, if we really want to
make things right.
There's no feeling
in the entire world like having mended a long-standing wrong. It is better than the relief that comes from
finally pulling a thorn from a festering finger, more like pulling a thorn from
our festering soul. Soul-surgery. By the grace of God, we make ourselves well,
and the healing process spreads to those about us. It is an adventure of the highest order. Often experiencing anxiety, with the
adrenalin running high, we come to life.
It is the moment of truth. We
cast ourselves onto God. We courageously
come face to face, not only with that other person we've avoided, but with
ourselves—the real monster we've been fleeing all our lives. Then, when we've done it, there's a marvelous
sense of accomplishment: release, relief, and great joy. Why did we ever wait so long?
A note of caution:
Here again we suggest that new-comers to Sexaholics Anonymous not reveal their
sexual past to a spouse or family member who does not already know of it
without careful consideration and a period of sexual sobriety, and even then,
not without prior discussion with an SA sponsor or group. Typically, when we come into the program, we
want to share our excitement with those closest to us and tell all right away. Such disclosures might injure our family or
others and should be confined to the group of which we are a part until a wise
course is indicated. Of course, if there
is any chance we have put others in danger, we take immediate steps to try to
correct that.
Few things can so damage the possibility of healing in the family as a
premature confession to spouse or family where sacred bonds and trust have been
violated. Unwit-
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tingly, such confessions can be attempts on our part to dump our guilt,
get back into good graces, or make just another show of willpower.
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Step Ten “Continued
to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it."
"I was wrong
. .
." Between two people, these are the most beautiful words in the
world.
We were great at
saying, "I love you, I need you, I want you." It was easy. The words often gushed out on a flood of
fuzzy feelings—straight out of our sickness.
But these other three little words, admitting our wrong, are the hardest
words in the entire world to say. Why?
Why were they the
words we demanded from others but could never give? Why is it that of all the
Twelve Steps, the making of amends to another is the most difficult and least
followed? Why is it that so many of us, even those experienced in the Twelve
Step program—often very articulate and with years of sobriety—can never bring
ourselves to say these words?
Is it because these
words strike hardest at our egos? Is it because they force us to the level of
the other person and threaten to place us beneath them? Is it because they
expose us at our weakest, for what we really are, rendering us vulnerable and
without defense? Is it because the barrier these words would break down is not
only the barrier we
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have built up between ourselves and the other person, but by that very
token also the barrier between ourselves and God? (Otherwise, why do we feel
cut off from God while harboring an uncorrected wrong?) Is it because in order
for us to confess our wrong to others, we must first be willing to forgive
them? And who can forgive? Forgiving another is as divine an act as we humans
can ever aspire to. It's as hard or
harder to say "I forgive you" as it is to admit wrong. But we can and must forgive!
The highest reach
of the soul is outward toward another in this motion of reconciliation. This Step is the great maker of true
spiritual union. What better chance to
forge true union than in the heat of misunderstanding, wrong, acknowledgment of
wrong, and forgiveness? There is no greater bond than the one issuing from such
atonement. It welds people at the very
heart of their being—where they hurt the most.
If we wish to recover from our dread isolation, there is no other
way. And is not this how we make our
union with God? This spiritual encounter is at the sacred interface between one
person's heart and another, the very same sanctuary where we meet our
Maker. It is here, where we are willing
to lose ourselves and humble ourselves before one another. At-one-ment.
There is no holier ground.
What power there is
in such union, this fellowship of the forgiven who are forgiving one another!
It is the grand equation for the release of Life. If we have this power of love for one
another, it will be irresistible!
Sober Is Not Well
There is something
wrong with the person who cannot make a straight, honest, unequivocal
amends. If this is true of us, we
suspect it is because we are not fully surrendered. That attitude of self-obsession underlying
our spiritual illness still lingers. And
most of us fit into this category. We
are as powerless over this inability to make a clean amends as we ever were
over lust, sex, or dependency. That's
why we have to do it, because it doesn't come naturally! We don't feel like
making amends, but we do it, and the feelings
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follow. If we find we are not yet
willing to make the amends, we go back to Steps One, Two, and Three, admit our
powerlessness, surrender our pride, and cast ourselves onto God and others for
help.
It is possible
that, once relieved of the compulsion to act out our habit, we may feel cured
and start coasting along with our tank on EMPTY. But the same personality defects that
energized our addiction are still with us and, unattended, will take their toll
again, sooner or later. Why are they
still with us? Because they are us. Progressive victory over these defects, not
their eradication, is the power of God at work in us. What we really do battle against is not other
people but our old natures, the negative force within us we can obey anytime we
wish, the force that is always willing and able to wrong another. This is why our program must come to fruition
in our daily living or there is no recovery.
A Program for Living
"Continued
. .
." The simple wisdom of that one word. The essence of this Step—and this program—is
a continuing process. These spiritual
principles are a way of sound living, not merely some one-time technique for
kicking a habit. We replace the
addictive process with a process of recovery and growth. Step Ten is thus a continuation of the moral
inventory of Steps Four and Five, the surrendering of our wrongs in Steps Six
and Seven, and the righting of our wrongs in Steps Eight and Nine, all based on
our personal surrender in Steps One, Two, and Three and done on a daily basis
in the workaday world of everyday living.
Daily living is the
arena in which this program finds its true mettle tested. For it is as we encounter The slings and arrows of outrageous
fortune. . . The
heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to that we
see what we are made of and recognize our great need. Our relations with others are the
touchstone. Thus,
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the spouse, the children, the parents and siblings, the boss, the fellow
workers, and our fellow program members all represent the greatest potential
sources for conflict and emotional distress as well as the greatest opportunity
for applying these principles and creating union and healing.
"Making
amends seems to be what gives me the most practice in changing my defects of
character. It makes me think twice
before opening my big mouth, knowing how painful the prospect of making amends
will be."
A New Habit
We are needy
people. Our self-obsession leads the
way, taking pride and resentment hand in hand, with fear, doubt, dishonesty,
and all our other uglies following close behind. We need continually to see ourselves as we
really are and others as they really are.
We need continually to correct our wrong attitudes and actions with
respect to the other people in our lives.
We need to learn how to restore relationship and find union. Thus, we need to learn a new habit— taking
continued personal inventory.
Instead of looking
always and only at others, we start looking at ourselves. We had always lived for ourselves; now we
look at ourselves. This is a program of
self-examination, which develops slowly in the process of attending meetings,
making mistakes, doing wrong, learning to see and acknowledge our wrongs, and
correcting those wrongs. This is why in
practice, so many have incorporated daily writing as part of working the Tenth
Step, as discussed in the Twelve and Twelve and Chapter 6 of Alcoholics
Anonymous. Also, we sit down after an
emotional scene, for example, and ask ourselves, Why am I disturbed? Where was
I wrong? What did I do or fail to do that makes me feel this way? How can I
correct it? This kind of writing can work wonders.
Step Ten is the
Step we work anywhere and everywhere we interact with people, especially at
home, at work, and in meetings. That's
where the action is, where life is,
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where people are, and where our cunning, baffling, and powerful egos
are. We work it promptly, on the spot,
as close to the heat of the action as we can.
There is no faster, no better, no other way to get well.
I’m the Key"
The following story
is one member's experience that illustrates the change of attitude that is the
key to this most important amends-making principle of our program.
I
had finally had it with my wife. She had
to get help to change herself—or else! Married to her for years and now sober,
I guess I knew when she was all loused up.
I had her diagnosed as a television addict, rebellious, blind to seeing
herself, and powerless to change.
The description sounded
disturbingly familiar, but I was too sure of myself to think it could ever
apply to me. I had her nailed and felt
pretty strongly about the whole thing.
It was an ultimatum: Shape up or ship out.
I
left for the weekend on a fishing trip with another sexaholic to get away from
the whole situation. On the way home,
finally talking freely about our identical problems, the light dawned. / was the key, and my attitude was
wrong.
I
was waiting for her to change, not realizing that my very attitude made that
impossible. The woman is united to
me. Good or bad, she is united to
me—spiritually. I don't understand this,
but when my attitude is negative, rejecting, censorious, she is united to my
spiritual illness.
I
saw that if God had waited for me to shape up before He began working for my
recovery and healing, I'd still be lost or dead. When I was still defective was when He was
doing the most to call me back. I see
this now, looking back on the whole thing.
He was patiently leading me out years before I had even the slightest
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self-awareness and honesty. At my lowest, He was leading with His most
magnificent selfless love—for me, in spite of my wrong, because I was defective
and powerless.
And
this, I discovered on that road back from the lake, was how I was to treat and
love my wife; not as wife, but as another person in the program, whether she
was or not! I was to treat her as God and others had been treating me. As my SA friend and I drove back from those
honest hours together, my attitude changed.
And
in returning, I could tell from her first response to me—that first cautious
glance—that she responded to my change in attitude toward her. She sensed it; unspoken, she knew it. And just as suddenly as I had changed, so did
she.
I
could feel it. My negative had changed
to embrace her, whatever she was. And
whatever she was changed\
The woman is united to me. I don't understand this. But now, instead of being united to my
resentment, fault-finding, and condemning-rejecting spirit, she's united to my
own healing.
I
don't want to be, but I'm the key. What
I am is what I get, and the measure I give is the measure I get back. I pray God for the willingness to take up
this key and unlock the door to love.
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Step Eleven "Sought through prayer and meditation
to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only
for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out."
A Faith That Works
Improve our contact
with God? When did we ever have any real contact? Along our journey through
Steps One through Ten, unless we were fooling ourselves. Our admission of powerlessness should have
been surrender to God. Our change of
attitude resulted in commitment of our lives to God. The moral inventory was our admission of what
we really were to God. Those thousands
of "telegrams" for help—getting moment-by-moment relief from our
obsession and defects—was resorting to God instead of to self. And atonement with those we had hurt and
estranged marvelously opened the way for restored union with God.
Little did we
realize that in taking all these actions for survival, sobriety, and serenity,
we were finding our God! So long as we held on to our lusts, He was lost to
us. But
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now, with our having torn down the wall of our wrongs, with nothing
between, there He was, within.
"Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest, I am He whom thou seekest!
..." (Francis Thompson)
How fortunate we
are, then, to be so needy that we have to find what our lust was really looking
for—the loving God who is our refuge and our strength.
Striving after God
is as natural as breathing. Most of
mankind has been praying from the beginning; man has been called "the
praying animal." The problem was not God; there was something wrong with
us. Our wrongs had separated us, not
from praying to God (many of us did that ad nauseam), but from union with our
God. As a result, our concept of God was
wrong, and we were lost to the true God.
He was either an avenging tyrant we were afraid to approach, the great
Authority Figure, a Santa Claus, or some other reflection of our distorted
attitudes and dysfunctional relationships.
We acted as though "being good” (not acting out) somehow earned us
the right to "be bad" (act out).
We were trying to manipulate or make deals with God like we did with
others! Creating a god to suit our sickness.
And if we snagged the brass ring on the merry- go-round once in a while,
we were superstitious enough to believe our way and our kind of god was
working, enough to keep pulling us on for another free whirl. Some of us never got the brass ring—and some
of us didn't care whether there was a brass ring or not—but kept on endlessly
paying the price of admission anyway.
No wonder it never
worked for us. And no wonder that what
we really wanted was, to fill the great void at the center of our being and to
have a faith that worked.
What Kind of God?
With little regard
for who He is or His will for us, we insisted on trying to use God for our own
selfish ends, which only kept us from seeing what we really were and who He
really
137
is. Thus, with all the false gods
we clung to—lust, sex, the body of a man or woman, other people in our
dependency, things, pleasure, food, work, money, success—some of us still
instinctively went through our religious exercises, of whatever persuasion they
might have been, lost to what was on the other side of our idolatry.
But what if God was/or us,
not as we saw ourselves, but as we truly were? What if He saw us with all our
wrongs and made Himself one with us in providing for our release? If this were
true, we could bring God into our wrongs! And we who were absolutely without
power over our wrongs could be freed from their power every time we gave them
up to God.
Have we not seen
this in our own experience? Each time when we are faced with temptation from
within or without, and we surrender, are we not freed from its power? Whenever
we fulfill this simple condition we are saved from acting out our wrong. No matter that we may not know how God is
doing it. That it is His victory and not
ours is obvious, considering our inability to save ourselves.
The Natural Connection
If this be true,
how fortunate we are to have so clear and continuing a need for calling on such
a God for release, guidance, and peace.
How precious a privilege to be in His sphere of influence, under His
guidance, if indeed we have become reconciled to Him in those first nine
Steps. And how natural it is for such a
one to pray. Just as surely as air is
the breath of life for our bodies, prayer becomes the breath of life for our
spirits. It is the means by which we
make our Connection. Just as talking to
another in the fellowship of forgiveness is the medium of life between people,
so prayer as the expression of our inner being is the means by which we have
fellowship with God. And it is just as
natural! This is why we must learn to walk in the light and have fellowship
with one another and why the right kind of meetings is so important. Right fellowship with others is of the same
order as right fellowship with
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God. If we say we have the latter
without the former, we are not true.
Thus, prayer
becomes not so much a matter of asking for something as it is a means of life
and growth of the inner person. Prayer
and meditation meet at this point; they both offer the means of union with our
God. Fulfillment, peace, and rest.
While meditation in
the narrower sense is a quieting and opening of the inner person to God, prayer
is what we voice audibly or inwardly when we are in any condition, place, or
time. Often, prayer and meditation
become one.
"I'll
do it when I feel a need for help. Say
resentment has struck again, or when I'm in a stressful or tempting situation,
or when I feel that great emptiness inside.
I reach out for the presence of God, saying, 'I reach out for your
presence right now.' I hold my mind steady on His presence as being with me and
as being in that situation. The problem
fades away. It's as though I'm lifted
onto a plane that rises above it, and I feel that oneness again."
Learning how to
pray in sobriety is like learning how to walk or talk; no one can tell us how
or do it for us. We learn by doing, like
everything else in this program. We just
start talking to God.
Noisy Souls
Most of us coming
into Sexaholics Anonymous seem to have our inner being filled with noise much
of the time. Pollution. We may not be aware of this at first, since
it has built up gradually over the years and we don't sense it as
abnormal. Increasingly we became more
dependent on filling our eyes and ears (and mouths?) with "noise." It
permeates our modern world as a constant barrage of sensory inputs of every
imaginable sort.
139
Being what we
are—addicts—this has become part of our illness. It seems unnatural to be without it. When we go somewhere to "get away from
it all," we usually take it with us in some form or other. The world's supply is always out there
beguiling and "entertaining" us with "different,"
"better," and "more." This noise helps distract us from our
own spiritual discord—a noise all its own—and also feeds this discord. Anything to keep us from feeling our feelings
and seeing what we are inside. Anything
to keep us from resorting to the water of life that alone fully satisfies.
This is why when we
stop our acting-out and come off our primary drug, we may feel uneasy, anxious,
or wired.
"I've
never been able to stand still. My whole
life I've been running. I can't be alone
with myself. The best I could start out
with in sobriety was just a simple prayer, and even that was usually on the
run. I had to get into this prayer and
meditation thing like a little baby, one faltering step at a time."
Meditation
Who knows what are
all the effects of the incessant artificial stimulation present in today's
environment? Meditation has proven to be not only beneficial to mind and body
but one of the best natural methods of quieting our inner disturbance. These results can appear in meditation even
apart from any prayer or religious association.
For us however,
meditation without working the first ten Steps can thwart the achievement of
the intended result and defeat its purpose.
If we meditate without prior surrender of our will and lives to God. what will we be connected to? Without facing
our own wrongs, how can our inner eye see aright?
And without an attitude of wanting to right our wrongs, how can we hope
to know the Good? Some of us have had the experience that when "in the
wrong place," we can, in meditation, actually connect with the dark
140
side of ourselves. After all, we
get back a reflection of what we really are.
However else we
work the Steps, there is benefit in working them in order.
Step Eleven in the
Twelve and Twelve provides a practical introduction on how to start meditating
for those who have never done it. The
following is one SA member's experience:
I
usually begin the day by reading a passage from program or devotional
literature or Scripture. I ask God to
keep me sober for that day from my lust, resentment, and other negative
emotions, citing the defects that have been raising their heads lately and
giving me trouble.
It
doesn't work if I'm holding on to resentment or an unforgiving attitude; my
mind will drift and focus on others in a negative way, and I'll have to
stop. It also doesn't work for me if my
mind is full of media images from the previous day or evening.
Then
I meditate, using a passage or phrase that sticks in my mind. Or, I might use the Lord's name or a phrase from
the Twenty-Third Psalm or the Lord's Prayer.
Repetition aloud helps me quiet down, and often I'll find myself
repeating it inwardly. I've gone through
stages where different passages or ways of addressing God are more meaningful
to me at a particular time in my life.
As I quiet down, I often experience the gentle peace of oneness and
union. It gets better over the years,
but there are dry times when I seem to have to back off and not push it. These may indicate I need to do some work on
myself.
Often,
during meditation, other people will come to mind, and I'll pray for them, or
I'll pray that God will bring His kingdom to come into some area or enterprise,
that His will be done in it.
During
the day, if I'm in stress or trouble or anxiety, I'll get alone somewhere and
have a mini-medi-
141
tation for a few minutes, or as
long as I can spare. It has never failed
to bring me peace.
Meditation is an
indicator of what we really are on the inside.
It will reveal whether the channel is open, clear, clean, and
quiet. Often it is not; but that's how
we learn. And it's a progressive
thing. Slowly we try it, first for just
a few minutes, then longer as we discover what it does for us.
The essence of Step
Eleven is letting God in through every temptation, emotion, difficulty,
success, failure, sadness, and joy. True
union with the Source of our lives.
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Step Twelve "Having
had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this
message to sexaholics and practice these principles in all our affairs."
This is the Step
that doesn't need to be written and can't be made to happen. It is the inevitable result of what has
already happened. If a person is
experiencing the reality of Steps One through Eleven, he or she is manifesting
the truth of that new life.
Staying sober is
our initial objective; a spiritual awakening is the unintended result. If our experience tells us anything, it is
that there is no healing without such an awakening. And the difference between merely not acting
out our addiction (being "dry") and healing is the new life. If we want the old life intact, simply minus
the habit, we don't really want healing, for our sickness is the old way of
life.
The Awakening
What is "the
result of these Steps"? It is the surrender of Step One to the reality of
our powerlessness, that we are sexaholics and our own way is not working. It is commit-
144
ment to God as the one who can restore us to sanity (Two and
Three). It is the ability to see and
disclose to another the true nature of what we really are (Four and Five). It is giving up all those defects of which we
become aware and asking God to take them (Six and Seven). It is a desire to right all our wrongs
(Eight, Nine, and Ten). And it is conscious
union with the true Source of our lives (Eleven). An awakening to Life.
The result of
working the Steps is not primarily a physical or emotional awakening, though
these are involved. It is essentially a
spiritual awakening, where the spirit that was dead to God, others, and
rightness is made alive to God, alive to others, and alive to rightness. Spiritual awakening is not mere sobriety, an
awakening to knowledge about the Steps, belief in the Steps, or psychological
insights into why they work. It is a
change of state, an awakening of what was once dead.
The Message
The awakening is
accompanied by an impulse to share it with others, right from the very
start. That impulse arises spontaneously
from within the recovering heart: "I want to give away what I've got. I have to give away what I've got." We
must be very clear about what the real message is that we carry. Listen to how one member puts it:
"The only
thing I can bear witness to is the truth of my own experience. Because that's what I want to hear from
others. I want to see and feel the real
truth about someone's inner life and behavior that I can identify with. I don't want to be told or preached at. Knowing the truth about religion or the
program didn't do it for me. Coming to see
and acknowledge the truth about myself is what got me through the door into
this new way of life. It's the truth
about myself—the imperfect truth— that attracts others; not all the preaching
in the world."
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If we're still
alive to our old way of life, dead toward God, and dead in our wrongs, the
message we carry is illness and death.
Sober or not sober, even if the words coming out of our mouths are
perfectly true, we cannot communicate life.
If we have died to our wrongs and are alive to God, the message we carry
is life, even if the words coming out of our mouths are few, unlearned, or
halting.
Life gives birth to
life. We want others to recover. Another paradox in the spiritual realm is
that if we don't give it away, we can't keep it. We learn to practice becoming open to the
needs of others, being generous with ourselves.
Practicing the Principles
The end of Step
Twelve, "and practiced these principles in all our affairs," is not
the end but the beginning for us. By its
very nature, our recovery must go beyond the mere cessation of our acting
out. Lust and dependency are more than
sick externals; they strike at the very soul of our connection with God and
others and have corroded the very heart of our humanity. That heart is what must be renewed. If we are to give this aspect of our program
its due, we should give it special emphasis: call it Step "Twelve and
One-Half."
"Took: the actions of love to improve
our relations with others."
Accentuate the Positive
Negative
sobriety didn't work. It was
uncomfortable, dangerous, and short-lived.
"I was not cheating on my wife. I was not having sex with myself. I was not looking at the pictures or going to
those places. Not, not, not. .
. For months and months I was
NOT. Until one day, NOT was not enough,
and I went back out there."
146
We discovered that
unless we found what our lust was trying so unsuccessfully to fill, we were not
going to make it. Either we filled the
vacuum with the real thing or we had nothing but the negative. Either we started practicing the actions of
love or we wound up headed back into that futile fabrication we called
"making love."
Also, we found that
improving our conscious union with God was impossible without improving our
conscious union with others. Both
relations were broken together and both had to be healed together. It was the only way that brought us
peace. We could not have one without the
other. We who did not truly love wife or
husband or children or parents or brother or sister, whom we could see, could
not love God whom we could not see.
Healing for us is
incomplete without the positive sobriety of healed relations with others. Often we sec that our relational poverty and
malfunctions began in childhood in a dysfunctional environment. After we are sober and in recovery for
awhile, many of us begin to feel the need for looking at and working on this
neglected area of our lives.
Doing What Comes Un-Naturally
"Love" is
one of the most abused words in the language.
That's why we speak not of loving but of taking the actions of
love. Just as with faith, love, we
discovered, was not a feeling, but attitude in action. We took the actions we knew we should be
taking toward others because we did not feel like it. The feelings followed. Love for us is doing—doing what does not come
naturally.
"Even
though I knew I had to break out of myself, look at my wife, and smile, I just
knew I couldn't. I don't know why. But if 1 simply did it, the feeling of wanting
to followed."
We
start going to meetings and participating in the fellowship of the program
before we feel we want to. We stop
sexing, lusting, and resenting before we feel we can. And we start taking the right actions toward
others before
147
we feel like doing them naturally.
This is the paradox of this "impossible" program.
How can we do this
when we feel so powerless and aren't sure we even want to? We have a God who
works, that's why; His business is raising us out of our death! But "faith
without action is dead." We receive that power «.s we take the action, not
before.
"A
hundred such incidents and I was beginning) to learn that the key to doing what
did not come naturally was surrender, the key to this whole program. The key to my own happiness. When I distrust my own feelings and just go
ahead and do what's right, the miracle happens and 1'in out of my dark
hole."
Many of us
discovered that once these actions become customary and incorporated in our
day-to-day living, we actually begin to change.
We become better people and, as a result, happier with ourselves and
others.
Giving up the "Gimmies"
In previous Steps
we became aware of how our natural tendency was to take from others, using them
as inputs to our lives, much as we used food, drink, or entertainment. Now, we start learning how to recognize and
surrender this "natural" impulse, deny ourselves the right to misuse
anyone, and start giving of ourselves with no thought of getting anything in
return except our own peace of mind and freedom. "The measure we give is the measure we
get back."
"When
the grass looks greener on the other side of the fence, I start watering my own
lawn."
"At
first, what gave me the most practice in giving was encountering lust objects. I grew to realize that in drinking in the
fantasy-intensified image. of that
person, I was taking. With or without
their consent, through that look of lust, I was taking something violently from
that person. I had them.
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So, I began praying for every one
my eyes wanted to snatch. At first it
seemed impossible; I felt like doing that about as much as. . . But as soon as I did it, not only did the
lust vanish, but I felt this great release.
I'd say anything, like 'Please help her,' just so it was going out of me
instead of my pulling her into me. It
satisfied! Lusting never did. Where had
I been all this time?"
We are filled in
the giving. We are fed as we deal out
our bread to another. It's not in
advance or for more than one event at a time.
All along, this is
what we had really been looking for, lusting for, sexing for, and taking
for. By taking, we had separated
ourselves from others, ourselves, and God.
By giving, we found true union with others and God, and, lo and behold,
love itself. But it slipped in
unrecognized through the back door.
"Surprised by joy."
True
We saw that the
truth revealed in the Twelve and Twelve applied squarely to us: "The
primary fact that we fail to recognize is our total inability to form a true
partnership with another human being." (p.
53)
The great love
"makers" were really love cripples all along and didn't know it. Sex partners were little more than targets to
be scored, materialized fantasies to be tracked down, captured, possessed, and
sooner or later discarded. In romantic
relationships sex was complicated with lust or unhealthy dependency. Often spouses, in addition to being sex
objects, were also parent figures and objects of dependency. So what were our chances of learning how to
relate normally to anyone when the heart of our relational apparatus was so out
of kilter?
We found that we
were just as powerless over trying to relate rightly to others as we had been
in putting down our habit; it was part of our habit. Thus, we had to approach it the same way,
using the Steps—the miracle-workers.
When
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we did, we could literally watch ourselves grow into true manhood and
womanhood.
To illustrate, the
story below reveals some of the changes one sexaholic went through in his
marriage in the first several years of sobriety. This is the same member whose introduction to
sobriety appears in the personal story at the beginning of this book. Single members have shared that they
identify; the same principles apply in all human relations.
Just the Beginning
I
began going to meetings and came off my physical drugs: sex, alcohol,
tranquilizers. Then I began coming off
the first of my spiritual drugs—lust.
From the wife I expected immediate, warm, overflowing gratitude and acceptance. After all, I was now sober, good, and true,
wasn't I? The response I got was NOTHING!
I
kept waiting for her to enfold me with love and care. I expected her response to be as great as my
newfound experience. Nothing! The
ingrate! I thought. Can't you see what
I'm giving up for you?! Resentment flared toward her for not understanding what
I was going through. That got me less
than nothing!
After
a few weeks, then months of sobriety, she and the boy were still doing
everything wrong. And I was back to
acting toward them like I'd always acted— irritable, flying off the handle at
the slightest thing, rejecting. Sober!
Sobriety
did bring one important change: whenever my anger or resentment surged, instead
of using it as an excuse to go sex out, I'd use it as an excuse to escape
out. But the back door still got it
every time. WHAM! I'd go to a movie or
just drive into the city to get rid of that awful feeling of inner pressure, a
kind of claustrophobia. Driving or
walking around the city streets was my old pattern. I just knew I had to get away from THEM.
150
Scenes
with the wife and boy continued in sobriety.
Such scenes seemed to be the only way I knew to relate on an intimate
level. (Seems our sex was not really
relating at all; just part of the illness! What a shock.) Each big blowup was
the END. "Finished!"
"This is IT!" "I can't take this any more!" This lasted for
years, but the incidents gradually got to be less often.
Somehow
I learned to leave just after the battle got started, and eventually before it
got under way. I discovered that
escaping to a meeting or to my sponsor's house was better than going "out
there." Progress.
More
of the same, only I stopped slamming the door.
Most of the time.
I
launched a program of trying to get my wife to go to Twelve Step meetings so
she would change, with or without me.
Nothing! "I don't need those meetings" was the short
response. "You do!" More
resentment and escape.
The
Sunday morning "talks." Me to her.
"It's very important for me to talk with you now," I'd
say. It doesn't register that she's less
than enthusiastic—dread would be a better word.
Turns out the talks are really monologues (How did she ever stand it so
long?), my trying to manipulate and convince her what's wrong with her. Only now I'm doing it with
"kindness." Well, I wasn't yelling as much, anyway. "Can't you see? . .
." I'd keep telling her.
Looking back on it, I get the strange feeling I was doing the same thing
I'd been doing in the psychiatrist's office or group therapy: ego rhea—
diarrhea of the ego. And whenever she'd
try and express herself, I'd get angry and stomp off.
It
took years for this pattern to change; that was all we knew! But she slowly
became gun-shy of those "talks." Turns out I was simply
unable/unwilling to look at myself, though she did force me to peek inside once
in a while. (Maybe the program was
giving me a little honesty.) Then I'd have to go to a meeting or see my sponsor
right afterward, the pain was so bad. I
didn't know it was the healthy pain of self-awareness
151
creeping in; I just knew it was
IMPOSSIBLE TO LIVE WITH THAT WOMAN! Now, I thank God for her courage and
honesty and patience, and the boy's.
God's gift to me. Pure grace.
A
few years into sobriety, instead of the marriage getting better, it seemed to
be getting worse. And the beautiful
light that had shone in her face at the beginning of our marriage continued to
fade, the joy and song dried up and blown away across the desert of our
desperation. In sobriety!
The
close encounters of the nasty kind became less frequent but seemed more
final. Time after time, we both went
away with the feeling that there was no possible solution.
Then
she began to see the pattern. Whenever I
was in "that mood," I'd apparently try to put it off on her with an
attack. Usually some tremendous issue,
like hair in the washbasin.
Earth-shattering. Turns out what
was really at work was my cunning, baffling, and powerful lust looking for an
excuse to change partners. No wonder
every once in a while I'd have fantasies of her dying.
Somehow,
she began to see that she was not the cause of my moods, that there was
something else behind these attacks on her that had nothing to do with her or
her "transgressions." Important discovery. She began to confront me with this, but I'd
close offer strike out all the more. I
now sec that what I was doing was transferring my own wrongfulness onto another
so I wouldn't have to bear it.
As
it dawned on her that I had been attacking her to cover what I was and what I
had been doing, her anger and resentment flared to white heat.
It's
important to note the time scale here, and the pain scale. Years.
And yelling, running, and walking through loads of pain. Years and pain—that's what it took for
us.
The
pain got so bad for me that I had no choice but to start working the principles
embodied in our Steps. And that's when
things started slowly turning
152
around. Mere sobriety, even lengthy sobriety, hadn't
healed me or the marriage! Going to meetings? Big deal! I had to start seeing
and changing me, or the pain would keep returning and the marriage keep
dissolving. I was like the man the
alcoholics talk about who, every time he went through a certain doorway, got
hit over the head with a two-by-four.
But he'd still keep on going through that same doorway! The brick wall
syndrome: if you run up against a brick wall, keep battering it with your head. Finally, I got sick and tired of being sick
and tired of clobbering myself with my own two-by-four ego.
The
principle of the Tenth Step was the key for me: whenever I was wrong to
promptly admit it. I began making amends
to my wife. Each time we'd have an
argument or there was emotional pain, I'd get away somewhere and do a short
written inventory on it. (I began to
believe what it says in the Twelve and Twelve that whenever I'm disturbed,
there's something wrong with me.) What was I feeling? Why? Where was I wrong?
Then, trying not to remind her of her wrong,
I'd confess my own and walk
away. Often I'd have to say it in a note
because I was afraid I'd open my big ego and hurt her again. I was beginning to conceal the glorious story
of how right I was and to confess where I was wrong.
It
worked. I felt better. I started making similar amends to the
boy. "I was wrong for rejecting you
when I chewed you out about that misplaced tool." I got good feelings
inside whenever I did this. I got
stronger. I sinned against them less
often. The key to my joy was seeing,
admitting, and correcting the way I related to others.
I
had made those "big" grand amends as soon as I had come on the
program. Such as, "I'm sorry for
all the wrong I did to you. . .
." And all that good stuff.
But that never changed anything. I
had always said I'M SORRY. It was the
little specific daily amends that started making the big difference.
I
fixed the damage to the back door. I
enjoyed it.
153
I
discovered I liked fixing things.
I liked fixing me. And I liked fixing
the marriage. (I had always been the one
who wanted to be fixed.) But I had to stop trying to fix her. I began taking an interest in what she was
interested in: the house, her stained glass, my responsibility as a
provider.
All
the while, I kept coming more and more off lust and my other spiritual drugs:
resentment-anger-hostility, fear, dependency, judging others, people-pleasing,
self-glorification. They all began to
yield once I could start seeing and accepting what I really was (my defects)
and taking God's action on it.
After
four or five years in sobriety, the difference in the marriage and family
relationships was markedly better; the breakthrough had been made. Thank God, and thanks to the patience, love,
and understanding of the wife and children (the older ones had long been gone
from the home). I knew it, and they knew
it. No matter what happened, things
would never be the same. (And as with
sobriety, we still have a marriage only one day at a time.) We had crossed the
threshold into a new beginning.
Throughout
this time I was progressively getting rid of all the old "bottles" I
had stashed away in the cupboards of my heart.
Those invisible attachments to whom I knew I could always turn if I ever
decided to take the "out" of last resort and walk out on the
marriage. I hadn't been acting on them,
but they were in there, just in case.
. . . Had
I been able to see what these still meant to me and discard them sooner, things
would have gotten better sooner.
Somewhere along the line, I came to a commitment of permanency with my
wife. In my heart. It meant giving up the right to run to anyone
else, ever—one day at a time.
Instead
of those dismal Sunday morning talks, we were starting to talk and touch as
friends. I had just begun to glimpse my
wife as an individual, had begun to see the limitless depth of what was in
there—a person, unique, vulnerable, human.
God was there.
During
periods of voluntary sexual abstinence we came to realize that true union could
not be based on sex or dependency, of whatever sort. During those times we discovered we were
actually closer together, on a deeper level.
She discovered she didn't have to give herself sexually to earn her
husband's favor, and I discovered that I was drawn to her as a person and
actually preferred the warmth of nonsexual relating insofar as the fostering of
our union was concerned.
We
still have rough times, and I'm sure there'll be more, with more pain and
desperation, but things are getting better and are the best ever. Paradoxically, we still have a marriage only
one day at a time. Release.
We give each other the right to fail. Turns out neither of us had any idea of what
marriage had to offer. Words can never
tell. It's like knowing my God personally;
words can never tell. I feel we're just
now at the very beginning—the right beginning.
Conclusions:
• The physical and emotional
state of my wife, children, cats, and doorways have been the truest indicators
of the real me.
• Sober is not well.
• It takes years of sobriety,
pain, and hard work to even begin to heal a marriage.
• Healing in the family begins by
staying sober, going to meetings, and working the Steps. It continues by staying sober, going to
meetings, and working the Steps.
It can end by not staying sober,
not going to meetings, and not working the Steps.
• My own diseased attitudes and
actions kept me looking at others negatively so I wouldn't have to see and bear
my own wrongfulness.
• My spouse, children, other family
and program members, friends, and coworkers are part of my healing and recovery
when I allow that to happen.
• Marriage is a sanctifying force
both in our lives and the children's as well.
And that's why for me the rela-
155
tionships didn't do it and fell short.
They were rooted either in lust or unhealthy dependency. They were openended; there was always that
"out"; we were cheated of having to stick with it and walk through to
victory, beauty, and song. And God was
not there.
• My spouse and children: They are God's gift, through all the pain, to
the completion of myself as a person and member of the human family.
• My own attitude and recovery are the key. They open the door to recovery and spiritual
life in my family and larger circle of relationships.
157
Overcoming Lust and Temptation
When we withdraw
from our habits and are able to stay sexually sober for some length of time, we
discover that even though we may not be acting out our compulsion, the
obsession is still with us, though it may seem to disappear for a time. Lust, as we have seen, assumes many
disguises, which we begin to recognize in sobriety as time goes on. For one person, lust may be lusting after
someone. For another, it may be the
obsession to be lusted after. For yet
another, lust may appear as a desperate sexual or emotional need for
someone. In any case, it is the inner
disposition of the heart that is the real problem, and the work of recovery
continues with altered attitudes and gaining progressive victory over
lust.
Lust only yields to
the slow, patient working of the program in the context of others who are doing
the same. This is one reason we need the
fellowship of sobriety on a continuing basis.
The rewards are unending, giving us the true freedom we always
wanted.
In the following
piece, a member tells how he overcame his obsession with lust. For many, these suggestions have proven to be
useful in maintaining sobriety and overcoming lust and temptation.
158
How I Overcame My Obsession with Lust
How did I do it? I
didn't. A woman in AA told me after she
spoke in a meeting, quoting Chapter 5 in Alcoholics Anonymous, that "God
could and would, if He were sought." And that's how I did it. By letting God do it. Because I couldn't. But God could and would—and did. But I had to go to meetings to learn things
like that. "Meetings, meetings,
meetings, meetings, meetings . . ." That's what they told me. "Just keep bringing the body."
"Work the Steps, work the Steps, work the Steps, work the Steps, work the
Steps." Going to meetings and working the Steps; that's how I did it. That's how I learned to let "the grace
of God enter to expel the obsession." Here's what worked for me:
1. Stop practicing the
compulsion. I stopped acting out sexually
in any and all forms, including sex with myself and non-marital
relationships. There could be no relief
from the obsession of lust while still practicing the acts of lust.
2. Stop feeding the
obsession. This meant eliminating from
what was under my control all printed and visual materials and other symbols of
my tyranny. I had to stop feeding my
lust by looking around, in my use of television, movies, and music; and by
using and listening to the language of lust.
I also had to stop
living only and always inside my own head.
That's one of the great fringe benefits of going to a lot of
meetings. Most of us sexaholics really
live on the inside of our heads; we're seldom in the real world.
3. Participate in the fellowship
of the program. I don't know of anyone
who can stay sober and free of the obsession of lust without such
fellowship. I couldn't. Fellowship is where the action is, where the
magic is, where Connection is, where feeling part of is.
At first, all I
could do was attend meetings. Then I
followed the suggestion of getting involved in the mechanics of meetings:
setting up, cleaning up, holding jobs such as literature chairman, treasurer,
or secretary. Getting involved made me
feel I could be part of, instead of apart from—my old nemesis. Later, I would be able to go out for coffee,
159
start meeting with others one-on-one, and begin the painful but
necessary process of growing up by coming out.
4. Admit powerlessness. At the very beginning, all I could do when
the compulsion struck was cry out, "I'm powerless; please help me!"
Sometimes a hundred times a day.
Powerlessness was the most beautiful word in the world to me then as I
was coming to experience the First Step at depth. It still is.
Later I would discover that I was really powerless over me.
The more I had
fought lust before, the more it fought back; all my willpower seemed to empower
lust rather than hold it in check.
Reading Step One in the Twelve and Twelve helped me see that my
powerlessness was the "firm bedrock upon which happy and purposeful lives
may be built" (p. 21). I finally stopped trying to stop. Only by admitting lust's power over me to
others in the fellowship could I receive power over my lust.
5. Surrender. Without surrender, mere admission of
powerlessness fails to connect us with our Higher Power. At first for me it was surrender to the group
where I began attending meetings. This
was simply going to the meetings and being as honest, open-minded, and willing
as I could. This was how I came to
experience the Second Step and have hope that a Power greater than myself could
restore me to sanity. This was what
prepared the way for the Third Step surrender later on, when it would be to God
as I understood Him.
As far as my lust
was concerned, I knew exactly what surrender meant and what I had to do. Every time I was tempted from within or
without I would say, "I surrender the right to lust after this person;
please take it away." And like it says, "God could and would . .
." and did. I may have had
some discomfort or fear and may have had to repeat the surrender over and over
again, but it worked. It felt scary at
first, but I was staying sober, and it was slowly getting easier, one
temptation at a time.
6. Bring the inside out. As I began to see that I would apparently
never be cured of the possibility of lusting, I
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had to bring other Steps to bear on me.
Steps Four and Five opened the door to being able to look at myself
critically. This was probably the most
important change of attitude in my early recovery.
But with lust, I
had to keep taking mini-inventories, as suggested in the Fifth and Tenth
Steps. Whenever I felt some experience,
image, memory, or thought was controlling me, as was often the case, I would bring
it to the light, talking it out with another program person. Get the air and sunlight on it. Lust hates the light and flees from it; it
loves the dark secret recesses of my being.
And once I let it lodge there, it's like a fungus and starts flourishing—the
athlete's foot of the soul. But as soon
as I bring it to the light, exposing it to another recovering sexaholic, the
power it has over me is broken. Light
kills lust. I did this with specific
experiences, not in generalities.
Sometimes it meant imposing on a person's time, but it cleaned me out
and kept me sober. Every time I talked
it out in surrender, the power of that memory or experience was broken. Another new and powerful breakthrough.
7. Trust. As I was able more and more to live above my
lust, learning to trust more and more in God's power to expel the obsession, I
soon learned to begin each day with a prayer of putting myself and my lust in
God's hands, just for that day. This
meant I was learning to live without lust and really wanted to be free of
it.
Now I begin each
day with the Third Step prayer (from Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 63), changing the wording to suit my own
case. It usually goes something like
this:
Please
keep me sober from my lust today, because I can't. ... I
offer you my will and life today to do and build with as you will. Relieve me of the bondage of self today that
I may better do your will. Take away my
difficulties today, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would
help of your great power, love, and way of life. Give me what I need today. Thy will, not mine, be done today.
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8. Use the literature of the
program. The Twelve and Twelve and
Alcoholics Anonymous were my first guides in working the Steps. Again and again I found what I needed in
those original documents that launched the Twelve Step program. Many of us now find that working the
principles outlined in our SA literature adds another dimension and is very
helpful. Using it in the solitude and
privacy of our own quiet times, we gain insights about ourselves and our
recovery in a way uniquely suited to who and where we are.
9. Go to work on the other
defects. I discovered to my utter
amazement that lust was not my root problem at all; it was just another symptom
of my underlying spiritual illness—diseased attitudes. Lust was just one more manifestation of this
huge negative force within me that had to bust out any way it could. As soon as lust started to go, resentment
started taking its place. Then
fear. Then a judging spirit. It was like trying to stop a leak in a
dam. While you're trying to plug up one
hole, it springs a leak somewhere else, because there's this huge body of water
behind the dam, and its pressure is going to make it break out at the weakest
spot.
This huge body of
water, it turns out, is the destructive negative side of me. And the degree to which I can connect into
the positive Power (God) is the degree to which I disconnect from the negative
in all its forms. Thank God, today I
have a choice.
The fringe benefit
of having to work on my defects to rid myself of the obsession of lust is
finally being able to plug into Life.
But I can't be free of any obsession while I'm drunk on another. I can't be free of lust while drunk on
resentment. And so on. ...
I went to Step
Study meetings to learn how others were actually getting victory over their
defects. I was told that one of the best
ways to nip a resentful thought in the bud is to pray for the person I resented. Ask for them what you want for yourself, they
suggested. It worked! My first employer
in sobriety was the object of scores of such prayers daily. They didn't seem to do him much good (who
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knows?), but they kept me from falling into the snake pit of
resentment.
10. Learn to give instead of
take. This technique worked on lust
too. Whenever I'd catch a likely image
in the corner of my eye, instead of obeying the impulse to look and drink, I'd
keep looking straight ahead while praying for that person. It might be a simple, "God bless her and
give her what she needs." Or, depending on the intensity of the lust
stimulus, it might be more fervent: "God bless her and make her a
blessing; Thy will be done in her life."
I began doing the
same for models in ads that had a similar power over me. Whenever I do this kind of thing, I feel
good; I get something back that is clean and strong and free and good. I somehow become a channel for releasing good
into me instead of opening up a conduit of lust for evil to come in. The measure I drink in of that image is the
measure I am enslaved by it; the measure I give out to another is the measure I
am released from its power. Plus, it's
so much easier to give than try that old self-mortification kind of
willpower.
Try it sometime:
You cannot lust after the one you're praying for in such a manner. Here's an experience related by a woman
member:
“I
remember early in sobriety seeing a very suggestive video in a department
store. I got drawn, into it, and before
I knew what hit me, that image took me over! So I started praying for that
singer, over and over. And it worked! I
have tried this many times since, and if always works/or me."
This action may
also serve to make indirect amends to all the anonymous objects of my lust and
sex acts—those many strangers I have helped confirm in their destructive way of
life. It seems to be a law of the
universe: The measure I give is the measure I get back.
11. Get an SA sponsor. I needed someone who could see me better than
I could, even though he might have had some
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problems of his own. (Everyone I
used as a sponsor had imperfections big enough to turn me away if I wanted such
an excuse.) It was my reaching out and taking direction that worked. I made regular contact and followed
directions. It helped make me teachable
and saved me a lot of grief and lost time.
12. Make friends in the
program. My sexaholism had forced me
away from true intimacy. I had become a
loner and a love cripple. To recover, I
had to begin coming out of isolation and connect with people. But I didn't know how. At first, I was forced to make phone calls to
stay sober. Then, as I shared with
others in my distress and they shared their trials with me, a common bond developed. Partners in sobriety—what a boon! It helped
change that lonely grey inner world of the separated self into the bright
sunlight of glad times shared together.
Victory over lust was not the grim experience I had feared. I was getting connected to life and began to
feel impulses of joy. I was beginning to
have what my lust had really been looking for.
I can't have the inner freedom from the need to lust without this real connection.
13. Carry the message of your
recovery. At first, I began by guardedly
talking about my sexual obsession and desire for recovery to those who gave
hints of similar problems. I didn't know
this was part of working the Twelfth Step; I was doing it because I wanted to. Then I started sharing the truth of my
experience in other meetings I was going to.
Very few ever responded, but the point is, it was helping me.
Bill W. of AA used to say that Twelfth Step work
"takes a little money and a lot of time." And I found that being
willing to spend a fraction of the time and money on carrying the message of my
recovery that I had spent on my habit helped keep me sober. When I give freely of my time and means in
this manner, I get back the priceless gifts of freedom from lust plus joy and
serenity. In the process, I have also
taken the first faltering steps at learning how to love another human
being. I couldn't ask for a bigger
payoff.
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14. Practice taking the actions
of love. Negative sobriety—simply not
doing it—fizzles out after a while.
That's all I had for many months, and that's why one day, with no
particular problems and having just told my old high school friend I was a
recovered sex drunk, I proceeded to "go back out there." I didn't
know what hit me. I didn't slip; I fell!
The crucial thing
about my recovery is that unless I find what my lust is really looking for, I'm
not going to make it. Stopping the
negatives without connecting with the positive is no good. For the sexaholic like me it's all or
nothing. "Half measures availed us
nothing," Alcoholics Anonymous says on page 59. And so it is with me.
Program people
taught me that right thinking never produced right actions, but if I took the
right actions, the right thinking and feelings followed. I discovered in sexual sobriety that I was
not inclined to touch my wife except when it was a sensual, erotic, or sexual
thing. I never touched her simply as a
person, a spiritual touch, if you will.
But I learned that if I took the action of touching her as a person, the
feeling of wanting to followed. I'll
never forget the first time in sobriety when, after that awful separation and
chaos, one day I was able to glance into her eyes and reach out and touch her
arm and say "Thank you" How the power of love flowed through that
connection! After I took the action. It
brought tears to my eyes.
Another time, my
wife had fixed supper, but my negative emotions had taken control again and I
was on my way out the door—to nowhere. I
managed to stop long enough to call my sponsor, who gruffly reminded me that it
was Sunday and he was busy (none of my sponsors pretended to be saints). In ten seconds he saw through the
"problem" (self-obsession) and said, "Sit down and eat your
supper" and hung up. I mechanically
sat down and ate the supper she had prepared for me. And that awful feeling of having to run
passed. I took the action, and the
feeling followed.
The greatest
opportunity for practicing love is not in meetings but in my own
household. And that's the very place
it's hardest to do. It's actually easier
for me to pray
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for prostitutes and other SA members than take the actions of love
toward my wife and children. But I have
to do it or I can't break through into life.
And I want to live!
Another action of
love that seems to produce remarkable results is praying for my wife; again,
asking for her the very best that I want for myself. This goes along with one of the above items
on practicing giving instead of taking.
Since I had shut myself up to my spouse as the only sexual expression, I
discovered, in taking my own inventory, that my dependency on her was
unhealthy. As a result, I abstained
sexually over a considerable period of time, with her consent, so I could deal
with my dependency.
Afterward, I
concluded that I was willing to go without sex completely as long as my
dependency was still infected with any aspect of "buying and
selling." "Wife or no wife, we simply do not stop drinking so long as
we place dependence upon other people ahead of dependence on God."
(Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 98)
Thus, every time I
had a negative feeling about my wife, I prayed for her. I didn't feel like doing it, but I did. It works.
But I have to be willing to give up the resentment and forgive. That's where Steps Six and Seven come
in.
15. Recognize and feed your hunger for
God. As I came into another stage of
awareness, I began to sense that my most basic drive was neither sex nor power
nor whatever but my spiritual hunger—my God-drive, the need for God
himself. It seems what I'm really looking
for in these visual drinking bouts with lust as I walk down the glamorous
avenues of the world is a Connection.
What I really want is to make the Big C with the Source of my life. And in my illness, Woman is the source of my
being, my god. Lust deceives me into
believing that is what I cannot live without, when it is really God I cannot
live without.
Thus, another technique I use
successfully in the moment of temptation is to ask—before turning the head and
drinking—"Whatever it is I'm really looking for now, let me please find it
in You." Again and again and again,
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with every person I'm attracted to, the prayer goes up. It works for me. And what better way to take the Eleventh
step?
This principle of
displacement works for all my negative emotions. I fill the place that lust or resentment or
fear or judging another would take in my mind with the presence of God. Substitute the Real for the unreal. I reach out for God in that situation. It helps to close my eyes while doing
this.
16. Cast it out. There are certain times when I've felt like I
was walking through a lust minefield, with charges going off all around
me. It was so unusually severe and
persistent, that I've wondered if I were under some kind of attack. At such times I have taken the extreme
measure of casting it out vocally as though it were a foreign evil
presence. Not in my own power or
authority, but in the power and authority of my Higher Power. I don't claim to understand this, and 1 don't
make a big deal about it, but it has worked for me when I seemed otherwise
totally at the mercy of what was going on.
In ensuing years, I've heard other members share similar
experiences.
17. Take refuge in God. Often I call on God's presence as a shield to
protect me from my own lust or emotions or from the lust or emotions of
others. Again, as soon as I feel
overwhelmed or see the image in the corner of my eye and want to turn and
drink, I'll say, "I take Your presence to shield me from my lust (or
whatever it is)." But / have to take up that shield! I have to turn to Him
for refuge.
Another telegram
for help I send up today, after some years of sobriety, is something like this:
"I don't want any part of this lust (or other negative emotion or
attitude); I want You to take it." It works every time. But / have to give it away.
18. Look lust in the eye. Now I'm also discovering a new way of dealing
with the day's temptations so they won't come back and hit me in my
dreams. I've noticed that instead of
true surrender, I can sometimes, during the day, push lust down out of sight by
sheer willpower. There have been
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times after doing this when lust has later resurfaced in erotic dreams
in such a way that I knew I could act out sexually in my sleep without even touching
myself and knowing I had the choice! How super-powerful those temptations are!
And scary! They get your attention.
I've had enough of
those close calls to take preventive action.
Just before going to sleep, I deliberately recall to my mind's eye each
lust temptation that stuck with me during the day, looking that person full in
the face. I bring each person to the
light, before God, as I surrender, admitting my powerlessness over lust. I say, "You know my heart, how
I really want to lust. I send it
away to You. Come be victorious over my
lust; I don't want any of it—conscious or subconscious. I want You to bear it for me. Please keep me sober from all my lust
tonight." Often I'll add a prayer for that person involved in my
temptation, going outward in giving.
It's my way of staying clean at the subconscious level. It's also my way of coping with fear of
falling in my sleep.
Summary
These various ways
of overcoming lust take practice, but they work. It took many years to program myself to
lusting as I did; I found it takes time to stop that and program myself to
reality.
Whenever I began
any of the above techniques, it felt artificial and forced. I didn't want to do it; it didn't feel
right. I try not to trust those diseased
feelings any more; they're what got me here.
Taking some of
these measures was like killing off part of me, they were so much against my
natural inclinations. But I found that
what I needed to be set free was to take such forceful stands against my old
ways of thinking and doing. These were
breakthroughs into right action.
I always have to
remember that it's not the person out there that's causing my lust and
discomfort; it's me. This brings up one
final point. The lust I want to stay
sober from is my lust. I made it what it
is. I am a lustaholic. In the
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same way, I am a resentful and angry person, a judging and condemning
person, a fearful person. There is no
healing for me if I deny, evade, or cover my defects. "I'm as sick as my secrets."
On the other hand,
I can live free of the power any and all these defects have over me by
resorting to God instead of such negative emotions. I thus have a daily, hourly reprieve from my
lust, etc., based on maintaining the right attitude. And I maintain the right attitude by working
the Steps and Traditions and going to meetings, meetings, meetings, meetings,
meetings.
God has apparently
not chosen to eradicate my defective self so that I am no longer capable of lust,
resentment, fear, and the rest. If he
ever did that, I'd have no need of Him; I'd be an automaton. It's progressive victory over my defects
that's the name of the game. I myself am
what could be called a "sinner." But I take from God the power I do
not have in myself to transcend my sins.
Victory through powerlessness by the grace of God!
That's the
beautiful paradox of this program: In and through my powerlessness, I receive
the power—and love that come from above.
And that's the
difference between self-denial and surrender.
Self-denial—white-knuckling it—brought misery and failure. Acknowledging what I am, surrendering, and
relying on God's power bring release, freedom, and joy.
Recovery is an inside job.
The above list of
suggestions on overcoming lust will be forever incomplete, as will the
experiences reflected in this book.
Everyone who stays sober and grows in recovery will add to our
collective experience what works for them.
Our lives, such as they are, are the real book, "known and read of
all men." As time goes by, more is revealed, and it keeps getting
better. This is the great adventure of
recovery from sexaholism.
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A Vision for You
We realize we know only a
little. God will constantly disclose
more to you and to us. Ask Him in your
morning meditation what you can do each day for the man who is still sick. The answers will come, if your own house is
in order. But obviously you cannot
transmit something you haven't got. See
to it that your relationship with Him is right, and great events will come to
pass for you and countless others. This
is the Great Fact for us.
Abandon yourself to
God as you understand God. Admit your
faults to Him and to your fellows. Clear
away the wreckage of your past. Give freely
of what you find and join us. We shall
be with you in the Fellowship of the Spirit, and you will surely meet some of
us as you trudge the Road of Happy Destiny.
May God bless you
and keep you—until then. (Alcoholics
Anonymous, p. 164)
Sexaholics Anonymous
will be glad to hear from you.
Address P. 0. Box
111910, Nashville, TN 37222-1910.
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PART III
Starting
a New SA Group
Meetings (How They Work )
The Sobriety Definition
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The Fellowship of Sobriety
To have a share in any
earthly inheritance is to diminish the share of the other inheritors. In the inheritance of the [Fellowship], that
which each has goes to increase the possession of the rest.
In this inheritance, a man
may desire and endeavor to obtain his share without selfish prejudice to others;
nay, to fail of our share in it, would be to deprive others of a portion of
theirs.
The true share ... is not what you have to keep, but what you
have to give away.
Every one of us is
something that the other is not and therefore knows something (it may be
without knowing that he knows it ( which no one else knows. It is every one's business ... as inheritor in it all, to give his portion
to the rest; for we are one family, with God at the head and heart of it. . .
George MacDonald, 1891
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Starting a New SA Group
The Group*
General
The primary purpose of an
SA group is "to carry its message to the sexaholic who still suffers"
(Tradition 5). Traditionally, as with
AA, any two or more sexaholics meeting for purposes of sexual sobriety by following
the SA program may consider themselves an SA group, provided that as a group
they have no affiliation with any outside enterprise or other fellowship and
receive no outside support. The
following are suggestions gained from our experience to date.
Starting the Group
1. Find a weekly meeting place and set the
time. At first, this may be a private
home or office, where anonymity
*The following material is taken from the
SA Meeting Guide. Answers to many of the
questions and issues often confronting new or established SA groups are
suggested in this material. All members
are urged to read what has proven to be of value in maintaining successful
groups and good meeting quality.
173
and privacy can be assured. Churches are
often willing to provide facilities.
Check with churches and other organizations where other Twelve Step
program meetings are held. Often such
facilities are made available to other groups.
Check with the SA Central Office.
2. Select a group secretary, treasurer,
and literature chairperson. These are
explained below. Members who accept
these responsibilities serve the group; they do not govern, in accordance with
Tradition Two.
3. Advise the SA Central Office of the
name and phone number of the secretary and an alternate contact and meeting
particulars. Each SA group should have
at least one contact and one backup contact for the SA Central Office for
referrals. Advise Central Office of
changes.
Secretary
Should have successful
sexual sobriety; length of that sobriety should be agreed upon by the group
conscience. Suggested term of office is
six months or a year, although each group is autonomous and may hold elections
whenever it wishes. Rotating leadership
is best. Secretary's responsibilities
include:
1. Selects a person or sees to it that a person
is there to lead each meeting and provides that person with meeting format and
literature. A good idea is to select the
leader a week in advance.
2. Is responsible for the meeting place and
notifying members.
3. Maintains communications with SA Central
Office and notifies it of any changes.
4. Maintains communication with other nearby SA
groups and SA as a whole. Announces SA
conventions and get-togethers.
5. Sees to it that the Essay newsletter is
available to all members. Each member
may also ask to be placed on the Essay mailing list.
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6. Handles necessary correspondence and phone
calls or delegates these.
7. Calls business or group-conscience meetings.
8. Seeks to incorporate the principles of our
Twelve Traditions into the spirit and activities of the group.
Treasurer
Should have successful
sobriety; length of that sobriety should be agreed upon by the group
conscience. Same term of office as
secretary. Responsibilities include:
1. Is custodian and disburser of money received
by passing the basket at meetings.
Collections are usually counted and recorded by the treasurer and one
other member.
2. Keeps detailed accounts of group's finances
and reports on this at business meetings.
3. When directed by the group, sends regular
group contribution to SA Central Office for national and world services. The fellowship has evolved a means of
supporting its world services that is working.
Individual groups, either at every meeting or on a regular basis, pass
the basket around a second time, the proceeds of which go entirely to support
the SA Central Office. Some groups have
the policy that a certain percentage of excess money left over after paying all
group expenses be sent regularly to the Central Office. All groups are urged to develop some means of
contributing a share in our expanding worldwide Twelfth Step work. Such contributions support the work of the
Central Office. SA is totally
self-supporting.
4. All member contributions to Sexaholics
Anonymous are tax-deductible, since SA is a nonprofit, exempt organization as
registered with the U.S. Internal
Revenue Service. For countries other
than U.S.A., check appropriate ordinances.
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Literature Chairperson
Orders literature from the
SA Central Office and from A.A. Sees to
it that meetings always have a supply of Sexaholics Anonymous, the SA brochure,
Recovery Continues, and whatever other SA literature is available, such as
Essay and Discovering the Principles. AA
literature is the only non-SA material used in meetings. (See the article "Meeting Quality and
Use of Non-SA Literature" in Discovering the Principles.) Steering
Committee This is a means for handling the group or inter-group business and
policy matters in groups large enough to have one. Service on this committee, like most SA
responsibilities, is on a rotating basis.
All of the group officers are usually included on the steering
committee, with as many other members added as needed. The steering committee serves the group or
groups by providing a convenient experienced cross-section of sober group
membership to take care of group(s) functioning.
Other Positions
Some groups may find it
convenient to have refreshment, setup, and cleanup committees. Some groups operate well with only a
secretary and treasurer. The members of
the group decide the service structure it needs.
The Meetings
Closed Meetings
As a general principle, it
is suggested that SA meetings be open only to those who want to stop their
sexually self-destructive thinking and behavior. "The only requirement for membership is
a desire to stop lusting and become sexually sober" (Tradition
Three). There are hundreds of thousands
of people with sexual and marital problems of every
177
conceivable description. Many may want a
support group, but not sexual sobriety, and some may be more intent on changing
SA than changing themselves. Keeping
meetings "closed" (open to sexaholics only) will help protect the
membership from the curious and the insincere.
At the same time, we realize that desire for sobriety can be hidden
among mixed motives and may grow in time and with participation in the
fellowship.
General Meeting Format
Suggested meeting formats
are included with this guide. Length of
meetings is usually an hour and one-half.
Meetings should begin promptly.
Being responsible in this regard helps our recovery. We're acting for the good of the whole, which
turns out to be the best for us as individuals.
Types of Meetings
- Participation meetings
that allow opportunity for all members to share.
- Step or book-study
meetings using the SA book and the Twelve and Twelve. Portions are read and then discussed by
members in terms of their own sobriety (or lack of it) and needs. Seeing how this is done in other Twelve Step
program book-study or Step-study meetings can be very helpful to SA groups with
no prior experience. One of the best
things we can do is have meetings where we read the SA book together.
- Speaker meetings. After the standard preliminaries, one, two,
or three sober SA members tell their stories, following the traditional outline
of What It Was Like, What Happened, and What It's Like Now. Speakers are only those who are sexaholics in
SA and who have achieved a considerable period of sexual sobriety. Use of notes or prepared speeches is
discouraged. Experience has shown that
it is better to speak from the heart from wherever we are at that time. We don't tell; we share. We can only bear witness to the truth of our
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own experience. We do not have non-sexaholics
speak in SA meetings.
- Combination speaker and
participation meetings.
Mixed Meetings
In new groups, the
question sometimes arises as to whether meetings should be mixed, with both
women and men. Less frequently,
questions arise about mixing those from different lifestyles or mixing singles
and marrieds. It is understandable that
some of us experience initial discomfort at attending mixed meetings;
sexaholism is the misconnection with other bodies and spirits. For some, the objects of our lust or
resentment are sitting right there next to us, and we can imbibe and get drunk
without so much as batting an eyelash! (That's why we avoid inappropriate
attire in meetings, out of consideration for others.)
What we tend to forget is
that our drug is not really "out there" in another person, but within
our own hearts and minds. It is this
fact that makes our program so all-encompassing, regardless of whether we're in
a meeting, outside on the street, or in a closet praying. Our problem is lust, misplaced dependency,
and defective attitudes. What better
place to work on overcoming temptation than the sanctuary of a meeting where
temptations may be present? This is where we can bring temptation to the light,
talk about it, and work through it without having to lust, sexualize, or go
into dependency, anger, or rebellion.
The meeting is the crucible in which our recovery can be safely tested
and purified.
Considering what we are,
reason might seem to indicate that we segregate to "protect"
ourselves or so that we might have greater freedom "expressing our unique
problems and concerns." We have found the very opposite to be true: In the
long run, it has proven better for us to be together. The only exception to this seems to be with
those who have not surrendered lust and are still acting out in some
manner. Having such persons present in
meetings where they make sexual or other improper moves on mem-
179
bers is a threat to individual recovery and group unity. If such cases arise(and there have been very
few(the group should discuss the matter in a business meeting and deal with it
at the group conscience level. The group
learns from such experiences.
We benefit from seeing
reflections of the problem and recovery from other points of view. For example, after the initial fear of having
a woman member come into an all-male group, men typically have testified to its
value, saying they would not have it otherwise.
Likewise, when women work through their fear of such a situation, they
too recognize the value of meeting together.
We all have the same problem.
When we disclose the thoughts and intents of our hearts in surrender, we
identify with one another at depth. Our
common problem is not sexual at all; it is spiritual. We identify at the level of feelings: guilt,
shame, remorse, loneliness, resentment, anger, rage, fear... On the other hand, we are careful not to be a
temptation to others in the way we talk about our sexual acting-out. As susceptible as we are to suggestion, our
lust can get carried away into realms never before imagined. This is why we can quietly raise our hands if
descriptions are getting too graphic or suggestive. The meeting should not be a place where our
lust horizons are being broadened.
After any initial
discomfort from mixed meetings, members come to see their benefit. Most people come into SA to stop lusting and
become sexually sober. When we are
united by this common commitment to sobriety and recovery, any uneasiness that
may arise can be worked out. Such a
process seems to be a necessary part of our recovery, freedom, and growth.
Twelfth Step Attraction
The impulse of life
arising out of our Twelfth Step reality carries the message of our recovery to
other sexaholics. Contacts are made in
our own personal lives where we live and work in the world. The Central Office can often supply
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names of serious inquirers in any given area.
These are ready-made contacts, waiting for that precious
person-to-person encounter to introduce them to sexual sobriety. The Central Office also can make available to
groups the experiences of other groups that have gone through similar problems
and issues. (Read the article
"Publicity and the Twelfth Step," in Discovering the Principles.)
How Do We Deal with Newcomers?
Many groups use the
following approach: Before inquirers attend their first meeting, one or more
sober SA members talk with them on the phone or, preferably, meet with
them. If the inquirer is a woman, there
should be a woman SA member present, and if a man, there should be a male
member present. Telling them our story
usually encourages them to tell their own; and once newcomers do this, they
(and we) are better able to tell whether they identify and want recovery. By all means, give newcomers a copy of the SA
brochure and tell them your story.
Depending on the
situation, we may feel it appropriate to ask certain questions: (a) "What
brings you to SA?" (b) "What do you want from SA?" (c) "Do
you want sexual sobriety?" (We don't hesitate to read from the sections in
this book titled "What Is a Sexaholic and What Is Sexual Sobriety?"
and "The Sobriety Definition") (d) "What do you want to
stop7" (e) "Are you here for any reasons other than your own personal
recovery?" Some have had occasion to ask whether the person was connected
with the media in any way.
Our common experience
indicates that people who are opposed to our concept of sexual sobriety can
cause division and other problems. We
recognize, however, that the desire for sobriety can grow and work in stages,
one level at a time. Let's deal with
newcomers as we would want to be dealt with if we were in their shoes. The best way to introduce SA to a newcomer is
to tell our own story: what it was like, what happened, and what it's like
now. In other words,
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we're saying, "This is what we're about; is this for you?" (Read the
article "What Can We Say to Newcomers in Relationships?" in
Discovering the Principles.)
Precautions
1. We suggest that no ads of any kind be placed
in newspapers, periodicals, on bulletin boards, etc., even in other Twelve Step
meetings, that disclose the whereabouts of SA meetings. Advertising time and place of meetings to the
general public can cause problems. For
the same reason we suggest that no signs be put up outside meeting places
identifying them as SA meetings.
2. In certain situations it is advisable that
only SA members know when and where SA meetings are being held. This may include those agencies and
institutions that want to put us on their referral lists. We can give them a P.O. box number or phone numbers of SA members
available as contacts. As time goes on,
these situations may change so that less caution is needed.
3. We suggest that before seeking or consenting
to media interviews or coverage, members contact the Central Office. Our national policy is that individuals and
groups do not grant interviews. In
today's instant-media climate, this can affect other SA groups and/or SA as a
whole. (See Tradition Four.) Once an
article appears in the press, it becomes common property of the media. Thus, an article in some local newspaper may
wind up getting onto one of the national wire services, and if it happens to
mention our address, we can be inundated with thousands of inquiries with no
means to handle them. At present we feel
it wiser to grow from the inside out, rather than from the outside in. Please contact the SA Central Office of questions
regarding the media arise. (Read the
article "Publicity and the Twelfth Step," in Discovering the
Principles.)
4. Before a group lists a telephone number in
the name of Sexaholics Anonymous, it should be carefully con-
182
sidered by the entire group and neighboring groups. Such a listing can imply existence of an
office and staff. It is not a step to be
taken lightly, even if no address is given.
Once it is done, there must be those who will always be available to
answer and carry out the responsibilities that ensue. In that act you are offering a public
service; you become subject to the public.
On the other hand, having such a phone listing is one of the best points
of contact with other sexaholics seeking help.
5. We suggest limiting smoking to outside the
meeting area proper. Increasing numbers
of people are not smoking, and some members have medical problems related to
cigarette smoke. Increasing numbers of
other groups are practicing this approach as awareness increases. Each SA group is autonomous and must consider
this problem for itself. However, if
this precedent can be accepted from the very beginning, as it has been for most
SA groups, the question need never become an issue.
Group Conscience Meetings
Group officers or
individual members can call for group conscience (business) meetings to decide
on all matters pertaining to the group: election of officers, terms of office,
length of sobriety required for holding office and voting, finances, and other
matters affecting the group and its relation to other groups and SA as a whole.
The group conscience determines
the length of sexual sobriety required before a member can vote in the
meeting. (Read the articles "Group
Conscience Meetings and the Twelve Traditions" and "What's a Group
Conscience?" in Discovering the Principles.)
SA Get-Togethers
The Sexaholics Anonymous
fellowship has an increasing number of regional, national, and international
get-togethers, lasting from one day to entire weekends. These are
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sponsored by local groups or areas and announced in the Essay newsletter. These have proven to be unforgettable
experiences. Here we meet and enjoy
friends old and new. We rediscover
laughter and have fun together. Our
recovery is validated and enhanced in new and stronger ways. We see how SA is working in different groups
and at the national and international levels.
Local and personal problems come to take on a different cast when viewed
against the backdrop of the larger experience.
We come away strengthened. We
have a new sense of purpose, understanding ourselves and others better, and
having an increased bond of love, unity, and joy. And we sense as never before the loving care
and direction of the One guiding and watching over us all.
SA Is Self-Supporting
Sexaholics Anonymous is
entirely self-supporting at the group, national, and international levels. We accept no money or gratuities from persons
or organizations outside SA Being responsible for our own finances is part of
being responsible for our own recovery.
This time-tested Seventh Tradition has served us well: "Every SA group
ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions "
Member and group contributions make up the bulk of support for the Central
Office world services, with some additional funds accruing from literature
sales.
The fellowship has evolved
a means of supporting its world services that is working. Individual groups, either at every meeting or
on a regular basis, pass the basket around a second time the proceeds of which
go entirely to support the SA Central Office.
Some groups have the policy that a certain percentage of excess money
left over after paying al group expenses be sent regularly to the Central
Office. All groups are urged to develop
some means of contributing a share in our expanding worldwide Twelfth Step
work. The Central Office, increasingly
well-equipped to handle the growing volume of mail and telephone inquiries,
employs help for secretarial and other services in commercial offices in
Nashville, Tennessee.
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Financial statements are provided in the Essay newsletter and are also
available on request.
All member contributions
to Sexaholics Anonymous are tax-deductible, since SA is a nonprofit, exempt
organization as registered with the U.S.
Internal Revenue Service. For
countries other than the U.S.A., check appropriate ordinances.
185
Meetings - How They Work
"As I come into the fellowship, I'm confronted with my
disease. First, in my initial contacts
with other members; then in meeting after meeting. But there are parts of the disease still
hidden in that deep hole inside me, sides of me I never want you to see, and
eventually they start festering. So, one
by one, I'm forced to get rid of them.
The problem is, how do I keep my disease from always running into a dark
corner?"
That's how one member
put it in trying to describe something of what happens in meetings. The problem is our blind sides; we all have
them. So, the question for us is, How do
we work our personal programs and conduct our meetings and fellowship so as to
"walk in the light"? Here's what has been working for us:
1. By getting sober and staying sober and
holding to the concept of sexual sobriety in our SA meetings. Without sobriety we have nothing to offer
anyone. SA offers sexual sobriety,
progressive victory over lust, and recovery.
When this is our aim, meetings can become a sanctuary of serenity and
light.
186
2. By not imposing uniformity. We don't prescribe doing the Steps by formula
or in exactly the same way some other member does them. We do the Steps in our own way and time; we
"Live and Let Live." But working the Steps does work for us.
3. By telling the side of our stories we really
don't want to tell. This is different
than a mere "sexalog," relating our sexual experiences. It is rigorous self-searching and
self-revealing honesty about every aspect of our lives. We arc fitting the pieces of our lives
together differently every time we tell our stories or share.
4. By telling exactly where we are today(where
we're failing today, as well as where we're succeeding. "I'm as sick as my secrets," the
saying goes. So we reveal our secrets;
we bring the inside out. Self-honesty,
in humility, yet so powerful. We lead
with our weaknesses.
5. By continually working the principles of the
Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions in our lives first, and in our fellowship.
6. By helping others through
identification. When we want to
communicate to another member, we speak in terms of "I," not
"we" or "you." We don't tell them what's wrong with them or
give advice; we relate what happened to us.
When we thus identify with another, it may not only help that person,
but often reveals something about ourselves we've missed before. We don't tell; we share.
"I
can tell you what's wrong with you without identifying, but this keeps me from
looking at myself and can be destructive to you. But when I bring it up by identifying through
my own experience, it means I'm bringing myself out into the light."
7. By taking responsibility for our own
recovery. There's a difference between
taking responsibility for our recovery and being in charge of it. When we take responsibility, we've stopped
saying "Fix me" and are willing to take the actions necessary to get
well. We're
187
willing to take direction and work the Steps.
This same attitude is what leads us to tie in to another sober member as
helper or sponsor(one who can help us learn how to work the Steps in our daily
lives. When we remain "in
charge," however, we're shutting ourselves off from the light and help of
other recovering members.
8. By leading with our weakness. There is an attractive healing atmosphere in
meetings when someone is transparent, naive, "innocent," and
self-revealing at depth. He or she may
even be a newcomer, which is often the case and why we need them to help keep
us honest. Vulnerable, and like a child,
we take the supreme risk of exposing the truth about ourselves, dark as it may
be. We lead with our weakness because
that's where we're hurting, and this becomes the point of our identification
with each other, the point of true union.
Once this single ray of light shines in a meeting, it finds ready
reception and response in the others present.
Honesty is catching; we're learning to walk in the light.
9. By commitment to the group. SA members commit themselves to SA
meetings. We attend every meeting we
can. On time. Meetings, on time. Why this emphasis?
When the meeting is
handled in a haphazard manner, there's a feeling of What's the use? There's the
feeling of being let down, that the secretary, leader, or other members don't
care and are not really a part of. And
if there's no feeling of mutual caring, then / can't be a part of. How can I become a part of something that's
always shifting around? A feeling of separation and isolation comes into
play(deadly for us.
Meetings starting on time
and a general orderliness are one of the legacies we've gotten from the best of
other Twelve Step programs. Instead of
"doing our own thing," which characterizes our self-obsession, we
commit ourselves to every meeting and to being on time. No matter what(spouses, jobs, money(we put
the group first because we put our own sobriety first.
Commitment to sobriety is
commitment to the fellowship of sobriety.
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Meeting Guidelines
We can benefit from the unwritten
guidelines that have contributed so profoundly to the success of other Twelve
Step program meetings and have proven as valuable in our own.
1. Leaders of meetings are servants of that
meeting. They don't "carry"
the meeting; they merely facilitate it.
A common mistake of those who have no prior Twelve Step meeting
experience is to feel they must comment on everything that is said or
"help out" in some way by giving "the answer." The effective
leader surrenders this impulse and lets the meeting work itself.
2. The leader of the meeting does not have to
acknowledge a raised hand; he or she can call on someone else. They can interrupt the one talking, if it is
called for. This is in line with our
common tradition. At the same time, a
good meeting is one where the leader's presence is inconspicuous and
non-controlling.
3. Most groups stick with a certain basic set of
readings that are read at every meeting, adding to this to suit the particular
meeting. A list of suggested readings
from which to draw is included in the Suggested Meeting Format. We use authorized SA and AA literature only,
both for use during meetings and for distribution on the literature table.
4. Participation guidelines:
- There is no cross
talk. We don't interrupt others. However, the leader has the right to remind
the person sharing of guidelines, time consumed, etc.
-
We don't give advice. We talk in the
"I," not the "we" or the "you," speaking from our
own experience. If we want to respond to
what someone has said, we do so only in terms of our own experience. "I can only speak for myself, but
whenever I did such and such, this is what happened in my life . .
."
- We don't get carried
away analyzing what caused our behavior or attitudes. If we were victimized
189
in early life, we slowly learn to face and work through it in acknowledgment,
acceptance, and forgiveness. We talk as
those who are now responsible for our attitudes and actions and are willing to
take responsibility for our lives and recovery.
- In sharing, rather than
displaying our knowledge or insights, we lead with our weakness and give of
ourselves.
- We avoid politics,
religious dogma, and other divisive issues.
We also avoid explicit sexual descriptions and sexually abusive
language.
- We avoid dumping,
self-pity, and blaming others.
- We don't take the
"inventories" of others; that is, we uncover and work on our own
defects, not those of others. We refer
to our own experiences.
- We do speak honestly of
where we really are today. We try to
develop transparent honesty of complete self-disclosure, letting the other
members know where we are currently, regardless of length of sobriety.
- We do lead with our
weakness and take the risk of total self-disclosure.
- By attending on time and
sharing regularly, we give of ourselves to others in the group. We get back recovery.
(See the material under the heading
"I Am a Sexaholic" under Step One, in this book, and read the article
"Meeting Quality and Use of Non-SA Literature," in Discovering the
Principles.)
The Sobriety
Definition
Tradition
Three states that "The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop
lusting and become sexually sober." Given this requirement, one might
think that sexual sobriety would be a relative matter that we define for
ourselves. On the surface, this might
appear to be an attractive and democratic idea.
We think not.
Our rationalizations are
ingenious. We tried masturbation only,
or having "meaningful relationships" only, or having affairs where we
"truly cared" for the other person.
Or, we resorted only to one-nighters, prostitutes, or anonymous sex
"so nobody got hurt." Over the long haul, these forms of
experimentation did not work for us.
There was no real recovery.
Sobriety works for us.
How can we consider
ourselves sober if we are still resorting to whatever or whomever we are using
addictively? With most of us coming in, there was never any doubt what we had
to stop doing. We knew. However, if we come into an SA group where we
can define our own sobriety, watch those rationalizations come alive! And if we
define our own level of sobriety, that's all we're likely to reach.
In defining sobriety, we
do not speak for those outside Sexaholics Anonymous. We can only speak for ourselves. Thus, for the married sexaholic, sexual
sobriety means having no form of sex with self or with persons other than the
192
spouse. For the unmarried sexaholic,
sexual sobriety means freedom from sex of any kind. And for all of us, single and married alike, sexual sobriety also includes progressive
victory over lust.*
Of course, we
recognize that one can be sexually "dry" but not sober from lust or
dependency. The "dry drunk"
syndrome, discovered in AA, applies to us as well, single or married. But we try to avoid passing judgment on the
quality of another's inner sobriety.
That must come from the individual.
And if such persons keep coming back, the fact of whether or not they
are living free from the power of sexual lust, fantasy, or dependency, not to
mention switching addictions, usually becomes apparent. This aspect of recovery seems to be
progressive. Thus, our SA expression:
"True sobriety includes progressive victory over lust." But progress
we must or recovery eludes us! The real problem for all of us(single, married,
man, woman, from whatever lifestyle(is one and the same: the spiritual
misconnection.
We have found that more
important than the mere length of our calendar sobriety is its quality and our
own personal integrity. Physical
sobriety is not an end in itself but a means toward an end - victory over the
obsession and progress in recovery. We
are often the only ones who know on the inside of our souls whether we are
truly in sobriety and recovery. (It is
also possible we can be fooling ourselves.) Better to acknowledge where we
really are than hide behind the badge of our sobriety date, cheat ourselves,
and threaten our union with one another.
The fact that marrieds can
have sex with their spouse and call themselves "sober" is no
advantage at all. It can even work
against recovery. Some marrieds confess
that even though they aren't "acting out" any more, victory over lust
still eludes them. As a matter of fact,
it often seems harder for marrieds to get victory over lust and dependency unless
they go through the experience of total sexual abstinence. And more often than we might suppose,
marrieds
(* In SA’s sobriety definition, the term
“spouse” refers to one’s partner in a marriage between a man and a woman.)
193
can be heard complaining that singles
have it easier! Let's face it: sexaholics(recovering or not, single or married(
can expect to have problems with sex! Not to mention the host of other problems
entailed in trying to live with and relate to others.
What we strive toward is not
only the negative sobriety of not acting out our sexaholism, but progressive
victory over the obsession in the looking and thinking. We also strive toward the positive sobriety
of acting out true union of persons. The
great blessing (or curse, as the case may be) of our condition is that unless
and until we can give unconditionally and relate with others, the vacuum left
inside us from withdrawal will never be filled.
All along, we had thought we could make the Connection by taking; we see
now that we get it by giving. Our whole
concept of sex begins to change. Sex
finds a simple and natural place it could never have before and becomes merely
one of the things that flows from true union in committed marriage. And even here, we've discovered that sex is
optional.
Unity in fellowship and
good spiritual quality in meetings are supported by this definition. Without defining sexual sobriety, we would
make it possible for those who are still practicing lust in some fashion to lead
meetings and hold policy-making positions affecting not only the group but SA
as a whole. This could also compromise
the spiritual atmosphere so that the power of God's presence would not be
active in the meetings and fellowship.
While groups may stay together without a commitment to sobriety - just
as individuals may temporarily feel better without it(we have found that there
is no true spiritual unity in groups without a shared commitment to sobriety
and progress in recovery. "Personal
recovery depends on SA unity" (Tradition One). Sobriety and victory over lust are the bases
for our unity and common welfare, which must come first. Our sobriety is the sine qua non, the
necessary basis of our recovery and fellowship.
Without experiencing it, we have nothing.
For us, sobriety works.
We "Live and Let
Live," but we do not call one another sober unless we are practicing
sobriety.
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APPENDIXES
Appendix 1 SA Meeting Formats
Appendix 2 Readings Commonly Used in Meetings
Appendix 3 Where to Go for More Information
197
APPENDIX 1
SA Meeting Formats
SUGGESTED MEETING FORMAT
1. "Good evening; my name is
__________, and I'm a recovering sexaholic.
Welcome to this meeting of Sexaholics Anonymous.”
2. This is a closed meeting. Only those desiring their own personal sexual
sobriety, please.” “This is a no smoking meeting.
3. LEADER ASKS SOMEONE TO READ “The SA
Purpose.
4. LEADER ASKS SOMEONE TO READ “What Is
a Sexaholic and What Is Sexual Sobriety?”
5. “Let’s take a minute to introduce
ourselves by first name and state our length of sexual sobriety. I’ll begin, and we’ll go around the
room. My name is ___________. I’m a sexaholic, and I’ve been sober for
__________.
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6. "Will you please join me in the
serenity prayer. 'God, grant me the
serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I
can, and wisdom to know the difference.' "
7. LEADER ASKS FOR PERSONS TO READ TWO
OR THREE SELECTIONS: (Select readings beforehand.) Pick two or three from the
following list: "The Problem," "The Solution," portion of
Chapter 5 (AA), The Twelve Steps, The Twelve Traditions, or portions from
Sexaholics Anonymous, Meeting Guide, brochure, or other SA or AA literature.
*8. LEADER READS: "In
participation, we avoid topics that can lead to dissension or distraction. We also avoid explicit sexual descriptions
and sexually abusive language. The
emphasis is on honesty, recovery, and healing—how to apply the Twelve Steps and
Traditions in our daily lives." "No cross talk, please. If someone feels another is getting too explicit,
they may so signify by quietly raising their hand."
9. LEADER BEGINS PARTICIPATION OR CALLS
ON SOMEONE ELSE.
10. (At conclusion of participation)
"It's time for our Seventh Tradition.
While we pass the basket, do we have any announcements from the
secretary?" (PASS THE BASKET) "We have no dues or fees but we are
self-supporting through our own contributions."
11. Have someone read The Twelve
Traditions of SA, unless done above.
*The following optional procedure has been found helpful by some groups:
"All participants in the first part of this meeting will be members of SA
who have been sexually sober for 30 days or more. We do this to help set the tone on recovery
and program. After that, any member may
share."
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12. CLOSING STATEMENT. "Anything you have heard at this meeting
is strictly the opinion of the individual participant; the principles of SA are
found in our Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions.
"This is an anonymous
program. Please keep the name, address,
and phone number of anyone you meet or learn about in SA to yourself. And what we say here, let it stay here."
"Remember that we
never identify ourselves publicly with SA in the press, radio, TV, or
films. Neither does anyone speak for
SA"
13. LEADER READS OR ASKS SOMEONE TO READ
"A Vision for you" or "The Twelve Promises."
14. "After a moment of silent
meditation, I'd like to ask ——————— to lead us in the Lord's Prayer."
(Stand and hold hands in a circle.) "KEEP COMING BACK!"
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SUGGESTED FORMAT FOR BOOK OR STEP-STUDY MEETINGS
(Substitute the following
for item 7 in the participation meeting format.) "We read from Sexaholics
Anonymous or the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions or both. We go around the table, each person reading
one or more paragraphs, until we've read through the portion we have set for
ourselves (either the whole chapter or portion thereof). The leader then opens it up to
discussion. The aim is to see how we can
learn to apply the Step and use it in our own lives. We try always to see the difference between
mere understanding and belief and actually putting that principle into action
in all areas of our lives."
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APPENDIX 2
Readings Commonly Used in Meetings
THE SA PURPOSE
Sexaholics Anonymous is a
fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength, and hope with
each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to
recover. The only requirement for
membership is a desire to stop lusting and become sexually sober. There are no dues or fees for SA membership;
we are self-supporting through our own contributions. SA is not allied with any sect, denomination,
politics, organization, or institution; does not wish to engage in any
controversy; neither endorses nor opposes any causes. Our primary purpose is to stay sexually sober
and help others to achieve sexual sobriety.
(Reprinted for adaptation with permission
of the Alcoholics Anonymous Grapevine.
Copyright The AA Grapevine, Inc.)
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WHAT IS A SEXAHOLIC AND WHAT IS SEXUAL SOBRIETY?
We can only speak for
ourselves. The specialized nature of
Sexaholics Anonymous can best be understood in terms of what we call the
sexaholic. The sexaholic has taken
himself or herself out of the whole context of what is right or wrong. He or she has lost control, no longer has the
power of choice, and is not free to stop.
Lust has become an addiction. Our
situation is like that of the alcoholic who can no longer tolerate alcohol and
must stop drinking altogether but is hooked and cannot stop. So it is with the sexaholic, or sex drunk,
who can no longer tolerate lust but cannot stop.
Thus, for the sexaholic,
any form of sex with one’s self or with partners other than the spouse is
progressively addictive and destructive.
We also see that lust is the driving force behind our sexual acting out,
and true sobriety includes progressive victory over lust. These conclusions were forced upon us in the
crucible of our experiences and recovery; we have no other options. But we have found that acceptance of these
facts is the key to a happy and joyous freedom we could otherwise never know.
This will and should
discourage many inquirers who admit to sexual obsession or compulsion but who
simply want to control and enjoy it, much as the alcoholic would like to
control and enjoy drinking. Until we had
been driven to the point of despair, until we really wanted to stop but could
not, we did not give ourselves to this program of recovery. Sexaholics Anonymous is for those who know
they have no other option but to stop, and their own enlightened self-interest
must tell them this.
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THE PROBLEM
Many of us felt
inadequate, unworthy, alone, and afraid.
Our insides never matched what we saw on the outsides of others.
Early on, we came to feel
disconnected — from parents, from peers, from ourselves. We tuned out with fantasy and
masturbation. We plugged in by drinking
in the pictures, the images, and pursuing the objects of our fantasies. We lusted and wanted to be lusted after.
We
became true addicts: sex with self, promiscuity, adultery, dependency
relationships, and more fantasy. We got
it through the eyes; we bought it, we sold it, we traded it, we gave it
away. We were addicted to the intrigue,
the tease, the forbidden. The only way
we knew to be free of it was to do it.
"Please connect with me and make me whole!" we cried with
outstretched arms. Lusting after the Big
Fix, we gave away our power to others.
This produced guilt,
self-hatred, remorse, emptiness, and pain, and we were driven ever inward, away
from reality, away from love, lost inside ourselves.
Our habit made true
intimacy impossible. We could never know
real union with another because we were addicted to the unreal. We went for the "chemistry," the
connection that had the magic, because it bypassed intimacy and true
union. Fantasy corrupted the real; lust
killed love.
First addicts, then love
cripples, we took from others to fill up what was lacking in ourselves. Conning ourselves time and again that the
next one would save us, we were really losing our lives.
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THE SOLUTION
We saw that our
problem was threefold: physical, emotional, and spiritual. Healing had to come about in all three.
The crucial change in
attitude began when we admitted we were powerless, that our habit had us
whipped. We came to meetings and
withdrew from our habit. For some, this
meant no sex with themselves or others, including not getting into
relationships. For others it also meant
"drying out" and not having sex with the spouse for a time to recover
from lust.
We discovered that we
could stop, that not feeding the hunger didn't kill us, that sex was indeed
optional. There was hope for freedom,
and we began to feel alive. Encouraged to
continue, we turned more and more away from our isolating obsession with sex
and self and turned to God and others.
All this was scary. We couldn't see the path ahead, except that
others had gone that way before. Each
new step of surrender felt it would be off the edge into oblivion, but we took
it. And instead of killing us, surrender
was killing the obsession! We had stepped into the light, into a whole new way
of life.
The fellowship gave us
monitoring and support to keep us from being overwhelmed, a safe haven where we
could finally face ourselves. Instead of
covering our feelings with compulsive sex, we began exposing the roots of our
spiritual emptiness and hunger. And the
healing began.
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As we faced our defects,
we became willing to change; surrendering them broke the power they had over
us. We began to be more comfortable with
ourselves and others for the first time without our "drug."
Forgiving all who had
injured us, and without injuring others, we tried to right our own wrongs. At each amends more of the dreadful load of
guilt dropped from our shoulders, until we could lift our heads, look the world
in the eye, and stand free.
We began practicing a
positive sobriety, taking the actions of love to improve our relations with
others. We were learning how to give;
and the measure we gave was the measure we got back. We were finding what none of the substitutes
had ever supplied. We were making the
real Connection. We were home.
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FROM CHAPTER FIVE OF ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS
Rarely have we seen a
person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people who
cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually
men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with
themselves. There are such unfortunates. They are not at fault; they seem to have been
born that way. They are naturally
incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous
honesty. Their chances are less than
average. There are those, too, who
suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders, but many of them do recover
if they have the capacity to be honest.
Our stories disclose in a
general way what we used to be like, what happened, and what we are like
now. If you have decided you want what
we have and are willing to go to any length to get it, then you are ready to
take certain steps.
At some of these we
balked. We thought we could find an
easier, softer way. But we could
not. With all the earnestness at our
command, we beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start. Some of us have tried to hold on to our old
ideas, and the result was nil until we let go absolutely.
Remember that we deal with
lust — cunning, baffling, and powerful! Without help it is too much for
us. But there is One who has all power —
that one is God. May you find Him now.
Half measures availed us
nothing. We stood at the turning
point. We asked His protection and care
with complete abandon. Here are the steps
we took, which are suggested as a program of recovery:
1. We admitted that we were powerless over
lust — that our lives had become unmanageable.
(Reprinted for
adaptation with permission of Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.)
207
2. Came
to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made
a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we
understood Him.
4. Made
a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5.
Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact
nature of our wrongs.
6. Were
entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7.
Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made
a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them
all.
9. Made
direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would
injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when
we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to
improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for
knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the
result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to sexaholics and to
practice these principles in all our affairs.
Many of us exclaimed,
"What an order! I can't go through with it." Do not be
discouraged. No one among us has been
able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles. We are not saints. The point is, that we are willing to grow
along spiritual lines. The principles we
have set down are guides to progress. We
claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection. Our personal adventures before and after make
clear three pertinent ideas:
(a) That we were
sexaholics and could not manage our own lives.
(b) That probably no human
power could have relieved our sexaholism.
(c) That God could and
would if He were sought.
208
THE TWELVE STEPS OF SEXAHOLICS ANONYMOUS
1. We admitted that we were powerless over lust
— that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than
ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our
lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory
of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another
human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all
these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and
became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever
possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when
we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to
improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for
knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the
result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to sexaholics, and to
practice these principles in all our affairs.
(Reprinted for
adaptation with permission of Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.)
209
THE TWELVE TRADITIONS OF SEXAHOLICS ANONYMOUS
1. Our common welfare should come first;
personal recovery depends on SA unity.
2. For our group purpose there is but one
ultimate authority - a loving God as He may express Himself in our group
conscience. Our leaders are but trusted
servants; they do not govern.
3. The only requirement for membership is a
desire to stop lusting and become sexually sober.
4. Each group should be autonomous except in
matters affecting other groups or Sexaholics Anonymous as a whole.
5. Each group has but one primary purpose — to carry
its message to the sexaholic who still suffers.
6. An SA group ought never endorse, finance, or
lend the SA name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems
of money, property, and prestige divert us from our primary purpose.
7. Every SA group ought to be fully
self-supporting, declining outside contributions.
8. Sexaholics Anonymous should remain forever
nonprofessional, but our service centers may employ special workers.
9. SA, as such, ought never be organized; but we
may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they
serve.
10. Sexaholics Anonymous has no opinion on
outside issues; hence the SA name ought never be drawn into public
controversy.
11. Our public relations policy is based on attraction
rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level
of press, radio, films, and TV.
12. Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all
our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before
personalities.
(Reprinted for adaptation with permission of Alcoholics Anonymous World
Services, Inc.)
210
A VISION FOR YOU
We realize we know only a
little. God will constantly disclose
more to you and to us. Ask Him in your
morning meditation what you can do each day for the man who is still sick. The answers will come, if your own house is
in order. But obviously you cannot
transmit something you haven't got. See
to it that your relationship with Him is right, and great events will come to
pass for you and countless others. This
is the Great Fact for us.
Abandon yourself to God as
you understand God. Admit your faults to
Him and to your fellows. Clear away the
wreckage of your past. Give freely of
what you find and join us. We shall be
with you in the Fellowship of the Spirit, and you will surely meet some of us
as you trudge the Road of Happy Destiny.
May God bless you and keep you — until
then.
(Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 164)
THE SERENITY PRAYER
God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and
wisdom to know the difference.
211
APPENDIX 3
Where to Go For More Information
Making Contact with Groups in Your Area
1. Try your local area telephone directory or
information operator or ask for directory information in a large neighboring
city. An increasing number of SA groups
are placing listings in local or area telephone directories.
2. Call or write the Sexaholics Anonymous
Central Office, which handles our world services. This is our most complete service with the
most up-to-date listing of groups and contacts.
The address and telephone are listed below:
Sexaholics Anonymous
P.O. Box 111910
Telephone (615) 331-6230
3.
All new and existing SA groups are urged to list themselves with the SA
Central Office so inquirers in their areas may be referred to contacts. Call or write the
212
Central Office and provide
names and phone numbers of one or more contacts for your group. This also makes it possible for the Central Office
to send news of matters affecting SA as a whole, which should be made available
to all members.
Literature
This book, Sexaholics
Anonymous, and other items such as the SA brochure, Recovery Continues,
Discovering the Principles, and the Essay newsletter are available at local SA
groups or can be ordered directly from the SA Central Office, listed
above. Contact the Central Office for a
current literature and price list. AA
literature can be obtained from any local AA office or group or from the AA
General Service Office,
SA Newsletter
The Sexaholics Anonymous
newsletter, Essay, is issued periodically.
Members are urged to call or write the Central Office, above, and ask to
be placed on the mailing list. The Essay
has a Calendar of Events section, describing the various conventions,
marathons, retreats, and other regional, national, or international SA
functions that take place throughout the year.
Sections on Group and Member News provide excerpts from letters around
the world on group and member experiences.
The Essay also contains Central Office news and financial reports and
news of matters affecting the whole fellowship, with articles on various
subjects and personal experiences reflecting what is happening in SA. Essay has proven to be an important channel
of recovery and link for union of our fellowship at the broader levels —
something that has become rewarding to a great many of us.
"The Promises"
From the Book ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS
Chapter 6 - "INTO ACTION" (Page 86)
If we are painstaking about this phase of our
development, we will be amazed before we are half way through.
1. We are going to
know a new freedom and a new happiness.
2. We will not regret
the past, nor wish to shut the door on it,
3. We will comprehend
the word serenity,
4. And we will know
peace.
5. No matter how far
down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others.
6. That feeling of
uselessness and self-pity will disappear.
7. We will lose
interest in selfish things and gain insight into our fellows.
8. Self-seeking will
slip away.
9. Our whole attitude
and outlook will change.
10. Fear of people and economic insecurity will leave us.
11. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which
used to baffle us.
12. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what
we could not do for ourselves."
Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being
fulfilled among us - sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always
materialize if we work for them...