Hi, I’m Jacob, a grateful, recovering sex and love addict. I’ve been sober for almost eight months.
I’m taking a break from my story for the next two posts to share with you the two most profound readings I’ve encountered in my recovery. Both come from Sexaholics Anonymous and can be found on their website at https://www.sa.org/solution/. If they come after me for reposting their document, I’ll leave you with the URL.
The first one is called “The Problem” and is included here exactly as it appears on the SA website.
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.
© 1982, 1989, 2001 SA Literature.
From https://www.sa.org/solution/
I hope this resonates with you as much as it did with me.
Jacob The Addict (jacobtheaddict@gmail.com)
Jacob The Addict 