Relapse realities

Yesterday I and two others collected a relapsing sponsee from a psychiatric hospital to which he had been taken by the police. My sponsee's psychiatrist said there was nothing wrong with him other than paranoia and released him on the spot. But this sponsee is such a perfect mirror to me of all my own past insanity that I'd like to describe some of his (and my mostly former) symptoms,  so I and you never forget how bad my lusting can get...

1. Loss of moral compass. Lust had so warped my mind that my values and behaviour became completely at odds (for example it was years of inventorying before I admitted that my first adulterous affair, when I was just 16, was actually sexual abuse).

2. Loss of my ability to think clearly. For example it is now more important to my now penniless sponsee to wander around town lusting than to accept an offer of a square meal. He has by now completely forgotten that 4 years ago he called SAICO for help. In my own case it became more important to play Mr Big in my home community, mistaking lust for power and influence for the fruits of recovery -  until lust itself brought me to my knees again. 
That is how far down lust has to take some of us.

3. Inconsistency.  For example, only last night in another moment of clarity, my sponsee recommitted to sobriety. By lunchtime today he had already forgotten. In my case also,  a moment of lustful recall of my old life can lead me right back out there... 

4. Rashness/imprudence. In my desperation to please my second wife (the wife of my lustful dreams), I managed to spend $1.5 million in only 3 years,  and be cut out of my family Trust fund as a spendthrift...

5. Irresponsibility. In all that craziness, it never occurred to me to put the needs of my son by an earlier marriage first...I just had to have HER!

6. Self-centeredness. My sponsee, (like me when I came into SA 25 years ago), is now so self-centered and his attention span so short that he can no longer stand not being the center of attention for more than 30 seconds. A conversation with him is now impossible. I remember a good friend saying how "How sick to the eye teeth" he was of me talking about about myself and my so-called problems.... 

7. Despair. As I once was, my sponsee is now convinced that God has abandoned him because God doesn't answer his prayers. Now he just disappears back into town, so sensitive to lust through the eyes that all he has to do is walk and rubber-neck to get some semblance of a fix...and all the time wondering why he feels so crazy and why God "is punishing me so...". What a miracle that God eventually got through to me. My sponsee has an HP of his own too... 

8. Materialism. Any spirituality this man (and I too in my time) once had, has gone. He seems to have forgotten/lost interest in recovery. He just wants money so he can act out some more. I have become his enemy because I  offer "only" meetings plus occasional food and shelter - none of which he is now particularly interested in... My part in this?  My own materialism must have had something to do with it... 

9. Paranoia. Like me in my time, my sponsee believes that someone is out to get him, that I too am in league with the police to "kill him". Bumping along my own sexaholic bottom, I too thought my friends were my enemies and my enemies were my friends... 

And these symptoms are only part of the story of my own descent into that pitiful moral, spiritual, emotional and physical insanity of my own making...whether or not a consulting psychiatrist insists that we, like my sponsee and I (all those years ago), are clinically still "sane".  
And because I have this incredible capacity to forget just how bad my own successive SA bottoms have been, I'm now asking you to remind me, with memories, or maybe even current experiences, of your own, what it was like.

May I never forget just how bad things once were.. I thank God and my sponsee for reminding me.