How 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 meetings and conventions as possible; I told people that I needed a sponsor.

After I had been sober from sexual acting-out for five years, I relapsed in masturbation. At that time, I had stopped working with an SA sponsor. I couldn’t stop acting out, I was desperate. I shared it with a friend from a food program and asked her to be my sponsor. This worked for me. I started working the Steps in that program and became sober from food anorexia, as well as from sexual acting-out.

In 2014, although I had always continued going to SA meetings, I realized that I needed to work the Steps with an SA sponsor again. I was obsessing about a priest and was in pain. I needed help to look closer at the different faces of my lust: emotional dependency, obsessing about men, fantasy. 

This time, finding a sponsor was a longer process. I talked about it to friends in SA and one of my SA brothers provided me with a long list of email addresses. I wrote many emails. Often, the women I contacted were not available any longer for sponsorship. I finally went to an International Convention and shared in the meetings I attended, that I was looking for a sponsor. At one of those meetings, three women were available for sponsorship and one of them has become my current sponsor.

For me, conventions seem to work best to find sponsors. I believe that God has been guiding these processes and, if I am willing to ask for help, if I take little steps every day and reach out to others, I will get the help I need. 

Marie-Paule C., Luxembourg