For many of us, the holiday season can be a difficult time. Since we know this period is coming up, it is helpful to have a plan. Just as we may have a sexual recovery plan, a dating plan, or a travel plan, having a holiday plan can give us a guide to fall back on if things get difficult.
Isolation is a strong part of this disease so decide in advance how you are going to keep in contact with people. If your sponsor is traveling, do you need an interim sponsor? Call people from program and ask them if they will be available. You can also announce at meetings that you may need extra support through this period. This is a great time to expand your circle of recovery contacts.
Review your recovery plan and your program. Is something missing? Try daily literature reading, prayer or meditation if you are not already doing them. Include a “top line” in your plan. Focus on what you gain by not acting out. What are things that you can do to treat yourself in healthy ways?
Failing to plan can be planning to fail. For more ideas to include in your plan, check out “14 Ways to Avoid a Slip” in the SCA Blue Book or online at www.sca-recovery.org, and happy holidays.
Defining Sobriety for Yourself—A Member’s Story
In the fall of 2002 my partner was chairing the Sunday night meeting of SCA. I had gotten sober from alcohol one and a half years earlier and was making my first approaches on the sixth step. Aspects of the character defects of unbridled lust, false pride and secret shame would not seem to budge. My sex behavior often caused me pain and guilt hangovers. As I walked with my partner toward the SCA meeting place one early October night that year, I pulled him aside and said, “I’m in. I’m coming to the meeting with you.” That was the beginning of surrender to sexual compulsion for me.
In SCA it was suggested that I work on eliminating bottom line behavior. I had a serious problem and hopeless obsession with patently unsafe sex. My addictive cycle took the following path: Unchecked life fears became temporarily blotted out and relieved by having unsafe sex of the most dangerous kind. The euphoria of the sex brought immense pleasure, while the fear of getting severely ill from the act supplanted the general anxiety of living a life reliant on self-will.
I would get tested for HIV and be relieved by a negative result time and time again. Then as I got faced with life’s fears again, underlying shame whispered to me that I did not deserve to survive which flamed the drive to have more unsafe sex. This pattern persisted unbroken from 1984 when I first came out, until December 6, 2002 which is my sobriety date from bottom line unsafe sex.
Since then, I have pressed on to eliminate still other behaviors, some of which I perceived that other members of SCA rebuked as unsober, despite the fact that the program truly asks us to seek our own definition of sobriety. My behavior pendulum has swung from safer (but still somewhat dangerous) sex, to hyper morality bordering on Biblical marriage codes. Through this process, I have more fully come out as a gay man who is gaining in integrity in sexual matters and life in general. Years of secret shame have begun to unravel. True pride has begun to take its place.
My own bottom line includes abstaining from going to the bathhouse. I had a slip against this bottom line on July 28th, 2004. This breach almost led me back to extremely dangerous acts. As painful as this slip has been, it is teaching me to seek more help from the program so that I may be spared the isolation and fear of my self-will run riot, and the pain of living in a vicious cycle of shortcomings.
HELPING OURSELVES BY HELPING OTHERS
Our annual Intergroup elections will be held on Sunday, February 13. Chicago SCA Intergroup supports area meetings in many ways such as maintaining the phone line, programming, buying literature, and carrying the message. Major accomplishments for the past year include the Saturday workshop series and the creation of the local website (as well as this fabulous newsletter).
Service through Intergroup can help you stay connected to the program and build relationships with your fellow members. Plus, you are working to ensure that the program is there for you and others.
Intergroup consists of meeting representatives and officers. Meeting representatives are the core of the group as they keep communication flowing from the individual meeting to the group and back. Currently, several meetings do not have active reps so encourage your regular meeting to send someone or think about volunteering yourself.
If you are interested in getting involved, try to make the January 9th meeting to get familiar with current issues. You can also check out minutes of recent Intergroup meetings on our website, www.scachicago.org. Please consider taking part in whatever way you can.
