Reaching Out For Help

We have found, through long and painful experience, that we are unable to achieve recovery from sexual addiction through our own efforts.  Our program is based on the belief, confirmed by our own experience, that a Power greater than ourselves can accomplish for us what we could not do alone.  By surrendering our addiction to a Higher Power, we receive the gift of recovery, one day at a time.  Sex Addicts Anonymous page 1

I had a strong faith tradition and I believed, not out of legalism but out of sincerity, that acting out for me was wrong.  I tried many ways to stop.  I prayed.  I repented.  I even at one time said that I would give to the church the same amount I spent on prostitutes (that strategy didn't work or last long).  Every time I think I got the right doctrine or thinking or key, I would go along just fine a while.  And then seemingly out of nowhere I found myself in a massage parlor or an adult book store once again.

It wasn't that the things I was trying is wrong.  I still personally believe in prayer and repenting and exercising my faith tradition.  It's just that I was trying to do it all by myself by reading a book or by trying to puzzle it out.  This thing was so strong that it wasn't going to be broken on my terms.  I needed something greater than myself even if it was another person who had obtained sobriety and was willing to share with me the path of how they found it.  This is what I received in joining the SLAA meetings in Boone.

A Progressive Disease

Sex addiction is a disease affecting the mind, body, and spirit.  It is progressive, with the behavior and its consequences usually becoming more severe over time.  We experience it as a compulsion, which is an urge that is stronger than our will to resit, and as obsession, which is a mental preoccupation with sexual behavior and fantasies.  In SAA, we have come to call our addictive sexual behavior acting out.   (Sex Addicts Anonymous, page 1)

My foray into sexual addiction was as a young man when I went into a pornographic theater for the first time and thought I was in heaven.   I then moved to escort services and then found Asian massages.  Later, it became street pick ups and then acting out with men in bookstores and public places.

All of this went against my moral beliefs.  Yet, I found that my addiction was like concentric circles of ever increasing behavior and risk.  One person said that they couldn't lower their moral standards fast enough to keep up with their behavior.

I attempted many things to stop but the obsession and mental preoccupations would return at will and I would find myself acting out again.

We Are Sex Addicts

We are sex addicts.  Our addiction nearly destroyed our lives, but we found freedom through the recovery program of Sex Addicts Anonymous.  In the fellowship of SAA, we discovered that we are not alone and that meeting regularly together to share experience, strength, and hope gives us the choice to live a new life.

Sex Addicts Anonymous, page 1

Before I got into the program I thought to admit I was a sex addict would be to somehow evade responsibility.  I was taught that if I said I was an addict, I wouldn't be admitting that I was committing sin.

I found that this is not true.  In the program, I was able to face my choices, character defects, and people I hurt.  But first, I needed to do something bigger.  I needed to admit that I had a problem that was bigger than me and that by myself I was out of control.  While I didn't go directly to SAA (I visit this excellent group when in Charlotte), I did find SLAA, a similar program, that meets each week in Boone.  Here, over time, I learned how to make choice over against my addiction to enjoying a much better life.