Today She Chooses Life and Love (Olga S., Alchevsk, Ukraine)
I am a recovering sex addict from Ukraine, sober since the fall of 2015. My problem is that I am completely unable to cope with the lust that manifests itself in objectification, fantasies, and an unhealthy obsession with one person or a group of people. I have lost control of my thoughts, feelings, and actions. I am now 57 years old, and from a very young age I tried to achieve success in everything I did. The desire to achieve success still helps me in my recovery from alcoholism, drug addiction, and sex addiction. The desire to succeed in...
read moreThese Years Have Been So Much Fun (Sylvia J., Oklahoma, USA)
People would tell me things I wouldn’t hear because I was always off in my head somewhere. My older sister was a very smart person and got good grades, while I didn’t do well with people and in school. My younger sister was very pretty and everybody thought she was adorable. So I felt like I was misunderstood all the time. I discovered when I got older that my problem was that I had ADD, because I would disassociate and not know what people said to me. I felt “less than”, but found I got lots of attention by flirting. I had lots of...
read moreHow and Where I Found My Sponsors (Marie-Paule C., Luxembourg)
I am a sexaholic from Luxembourg, sober since May 31, 2004. I went to my first SA meeting at a convention in Germany In 1995 and found my first sponsor there. I was in a lot of pain and went up, after one of the meetings, to one of the women and asked her to be my sponsor. She agreed. In the process of finding a sponsor, pain has been an important factor. It pushed me to reach out and to ask for help. Because of my pain, I became willing to do things I would never have done before: I talked to members I didn’t know; I went to as many...
read moreTough Love Changing Lives in Hollywood North
I came into SA in 1987 in Los Angeles. I attended meetings, went to international conferences, had three sponsors in succession, made as many as four phone calls every day and followed directions from those three sponsors. I was never sober for the first six years. People ask what changed. In 1993 there was a confluence of several factors. I was broken, I had no job and drove a car that was so battered that people couldn’t agree on what color it was. I had no hope for change in any area of my life let alone sobriety and I was...
read moreThe Melbourne Experience: Strong Meetings Need Committed Members
There is no doubt that if every SA meeting was conducted along the lines as prescribed in our White Book (185-187), our fellowship would have thousands of strong meetings globally and many, many thousands of members with strong recovery. However, the starting point is to ask, what is the purpose of meetings in 12 Step fellowships? I think there are three answers to this question: (1) Not only to get our secrets into the open – but also ourselves. Ours is mostly an addiction of hiddenness, secretiveness and privacy. In meetings we work in the...
read moreThe Chicago Experience of Building a Culture of Sobriety
Hi Mike, thanks for your time today in sharing your experience, strength and hope. Could we begin by asking your sobriety date and home group? Yes, June 3, 1984 and the Holy Innocent group in Chicago. For a long time previously it was at St Teresa. We have been on Zoom for about a year now; when we were face to face, attendance was around 55-60 and we meet for 90 minutes. Can you briefly describe what life was like before SA ? In my teens I became addicted to porn and masturbation. I was hooked from the very beginning and while I could...
read moreHe Came to Believe and Found a Life of Unlimited Service and Fulfilling Relationships
My name is Bill, and I am a recovered sexaholic. My sobriety date is September 4, 1993, and for that I am never sufficiently grateful. When I arrived in SA, I was hopeless and suicidally depressed from over 35 years of untreated addiction. I had my first drink of beer when I was 4 years old and was drinking for effect by the time I was 7. I recall that during this period I was fantasizing about a different life. I was born into a family riddled with alcoholism, sex addiction, drug addiction, and mental illness. As early as 3 or 4 years old, I...
read moreInmate sponsor B.
Dear New Brother, The first thing I want you to know is that I will honor your anonymity; I will not use your name nor give you mine. At a large Saturday morning meeting of our 12-step program your sponsor read your First Step letter. It resonated with me, and I want to give back to the fellowship by writing my share to you. In early July 2020 I was granted an early release from a low level Federal prison where I spent four years of a six-year sentence for receiving and sending illegal pictures and video clips. I am happy to be home;...
read moreMy Experience As a Young Adult In Recovery
When I stepped into my first SA meeting I was about twenty-five years old. When I think back on what I had experienced up to then and how I was feeling at the time, I am astonished at myself today; at how the program has changed me; the extent to which it has helped me. It’s a miracle, a miracle which is still unfolding. I was less than six years old when I was visited – uninvited! – by lust. He was a rapist, nine years older than me; a relative who purported to be a friend. We were to play a game. And the game? Here, lust showed...
read moreI Joined SA As a 19 Year Old Girl
My first memories are of fear, resentment and separation. Lust first came on the scene when I was four, my mother moved with us to a foreign country without my father. During my first few months in this new place I was sexually abused by kids several years older than myself. I was terrified anybody would find out, I was sure it was my fault and I feel guilty for enjoying the physical aspect and all attention. We moved again and the abuse stopped, I blacked out what happened but it left something behind. When playing with dolls I...
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