When I came to SA, I had to unconditionally surrender several of my life goals into God’s hands:
- To be a caricature illustrator in a city center, as I was in my 20’s (it triggered too much pride and lust)
- To be self-employed / freelance
- To have a nice girlfriend
- To live in a peaceful and quiet home
- To have a joyful and fulfilling job
I had to surrender these goals unconditionally and focus on my recovery (“First Things First”). Today, as an abstinent sexaholic, there are four things that give me much joy in my life:
1. Meeting foreign fellows. Sometimes I visit members in other countries, and sometimes they come to my country to visit me. That particular joy becomes bigger every year, when I see old friends who have become like foreign cousins. This joy also includes seeing the “SA shine”--that beautiful radiance of sobriety and inner joy on the faces of my fellows--that I did not see at first.
Another great way of meeting foreign fellows is by attending conventions, workshops, and any other SA events. I love SA events! They are not always easy for me (maybe because of my over-sensitive ego), and I of course always bring all my character defects with me. But still these events include priceless hours of spirituality, friendship, recovery, and fun.
2. Doing SA service
From the beginning, SA service has given me unlimited inner joy. In fact, it is the surest source of unlimited joy, because there is no limit to service that I can do. When I was in my first three months of recovery, I went to Nashville for 90 meetings in 90 days, and I immediately started writing a little email each day, to share with the fellows in my country what happened each day. I did this to be of service and also to give freely what I was receiving for free.
Recently a member mentioned to me that there is always a party going on on the middle of the SA life raft. That party is probably the most well-kept secret in SA: the party is the real inner joy that we members experience when we devote all we can to the service of SA, and to helping other members. There are numerous ways of giving service in SA. As for me, I have served in all service positions in the group and Intergroup level, as well as service positions in my region, and positions International level. I have also chaired local workshops, and have delivered workshops in various countries. All of these service positions have given me a lot of joy--even while, again, they were difficult at times, because my character defects never rested, trying to distort the fun.
3. Twelfth Step Opportunities
Twelfth Step opportunities have given me a very special kind of joy. It is intensely joyful to be able to present Sexahlolics Anonymous to a team of professional mental health workers or doctors or to post-master students in sexology, to have an SA information stand at a mental health fair, to cooperate with two of us with a newspaper journalist and give an anonymous testimony, or to talk at a radio of my faith tradition. It is such a joy to be able to combine my years of suffering, years of recovery, and the talents that God has given me, and to use them to help people still suffering.
4. Being Engaged
I will not say much about this, except that the relationship is getting more and more joyful as we go along. We have gotten to know each other better, and as time goes on, we both get less stuck in our character defects (such as oversensitivity, resentment, and fear of speaking up). I have enjoyed getting to know this wonderful woman as a person instead of as a body/object. It is fun to not have kissed her on the mouth nor have touched any sexual part in our dating, and in this way I have gotten to know her as a person.
So, after I unconditionally surrendered the things I have shared here in the beginning, and tried my best to let go of my real problem (self-obsession) by doing service--He decided to give me last year a wonderful girlfriend with whom I am establishing the spiritual connection that I had always dreamt of before, but never thought was possible.
I might become a teacher in the next year, if that would be His plan. It is one of the things I have always wanted. I have noticed that the more engaged I become in “getting out of myself”--by doing service--the happier I am.
I lived a very intensive and extremely expensive 30-year long “'preparatory course” as an active lust and sexaholic, followed now by a never-ending formation in SA. My background enables me in a unique way to have a soft heart for sexaholics and to be of unique help to them. Thank you God for Sexaholics Anonymous!!!
