Masturbation Desperation

I came to Sexholics Anonymous in desperation, certain that the path I was on would lead to an accidental, sordid death within a few months.  I had to stop the dangerous things I was doing. I had to. But at my first SA meeting, they told me I had to stop masturbation, and I was shocked!

In my world view at the time, that was the only thing that kept me from doing far worse things. It seemed to me that masturbation would curb my urges for awhile. I thought that stopping maturbation would only make it much harder for me to stop doing the more dangerous things.  But SA members explained to me that my actions actually fed my disease, and that they triggered the internal drugs I used to keep my problem going.  So in my desperation, I stopped.

But that presented another problem.  Without the release of masturbation, I was sure that my life would be really hard.  I had tried stopping before, and stopping just made everything else in my life worse.  I would become irritable and anxious--angry at everyone and everything.  I felt deprived all the time. How could I possibly live life without my habit?

A week later,  as I was reading in the Sexaholics Anonymous “White Book,” I found passage on page 88 that refers to “emotional sobriety.”  My eyes grew wide and I reached for a highlighter to mark those words.  THAT’s what I wanted!  The idea of bare sexual sobriety was terrible; what I needed was some sort of emotional sobriety that would straighten out my attitudes toward life and give me peace on a daily basis.

My Life Keeps Getting Better When I Follow the Sexaholics Anonymous Program

Thankfully, I found in the next year or so that is exactly what the Sexaholics Anonymous program did for me, and each year that has gone by in SA has made my life better.  Many years later, things still keep better, as long as I continue to live my life as suggested by the SA Twelve Steps. Recovery is worth every pain that I went through to gain that initial sobriety.

Sex with self was my drug of choice