Sexual Sobriety is All About Connecting With God
The whole point of the Sexaholics Anonymous program is to bring me into a right relationship with God.
I recently heard another Sexaholics Anonymous member share about feeling a heaviness. That got me to thinking about how heaviness contrasts with serenity--and I definitely prefer serenity! I had experienced years (decades really) of heaviness. My wife--who has observed me in as basic a state of being as I've been--tells me that she has seen a difference in me as a result of my years of SA sobriety and recovery. I can’t always see this change myself, because it has been happening to me slowly, as I have practiced the principles of SA--which I have learned by working the Twelve Steps with my SA sponsor's guidance.
But serenity is definitely one of the things that has changed. I have actually been able to experience serenity.
The Serenity Prayer begins with "God, grant me the serenity...." Serenity is not something I can conjure up myself; it is a gift of God, through the SA program of recovery. I haven’t experienced serenity because all of my circumstances have magically changed. I can have serenity while I’m still in the midst of those circumstances. God grants me the serenity. The full Serenity Prayer talks about "accepting hardship as the pathway to peace"--so circumstances at times may be very difficult, but serenity is still possible even then.
As I said before, the whole point of the SA program is to bring me into a right relationship with God. Sobriety, recovery, and serenity are all natural outcomes of a right relationship with God. There really is only this one thing to focus on, and then everything else falls into place--and that includes accepting the things I can not change, having the courage to change the things I can, and gaining the wisdom to know the difference. The Sexaholics Anonymous program tells me that the Steps are the path to serenity, and that a sponsor can guide me. That's how it works.
One of my sponsees reminded me of this last weekend, from the “Big Book” of Alcoholics Anonymous:
When we became [sexaholics], crushed by a self-imposed crisis we could not postpone or evade, we had to fearlessly face the proposition that either God is everything or else He is nothing. God either is or He isn’t. What was our choice to be? (AABB p.53)
Sexual sobriety is all about connecting with God.
