It also includes the 20 Questions to help people decide if their sexual behavior is becoming a problem.
Our Announcement Corner listed several upcoming Events.
Patience for the Changes that Take Time
I was 30 years old when I got sober from alcohol. It took 18 more years for me realize that for me, compulsive sex is just as deadly a drug. Happily, the Twelve Steps approach allows me to be grateful for all the gifts that came to me after I put down my last drink, even though I continued to act out with sex for almost two more decades.
I had tried SCA or SLAA three times before showing up at a meeting a couple of months after I moved to Chicago from Fort Worth in January, 1996: in New York, in 1981; in Boston in 1987; and in Fort Worth in 1991. I just didn’t get it, and after abandoning my efforts to control my acting out behavior in 1992, I moved into a phase where sex became the center of my life.
Living in a new city, I hadn’t made many contacts. That was fine. I stopped going to AA meetings as well as SLAA meetings, I stopped answering the telephone, and pretty soon I was where I wanted to be: alone, and free to get as much sex as I could. I had no local friends, no activities outside of my job and swimming. Occasional telephone calls and visits to friends and families in distant cities fooled me into believing I had a social life. I also traveled a lot for work.
When I was in town, my routine was simple. Monday through Friday I returned home from work, the pool, and dinner at about 7:00. My heartbeat would quicken as I approached my mailbox, hoping there would be a new shipment of pornography, or at least a catalog, or even the latest issue of a certain explicit magazine. I remember the excitement I would feel when I saw the black plastic bag covering this special treat. I spent much of every evening acting out with videos.
I had a standing 10:30 am appointment for a manicure on Saturday mornings. I had that appointment expressly to keep me from driving to the bath houses in Dallas, about 30 miles away, on Friday nights. After leaving the spa, I would spend the rest of Saturday doing the chores and running the errands needed to keep my life going, promising myself not to go to Dallas that evening.
Every week I fully intended to return to my apartment after my solitary dinner in a Chinese restaurant, but somehow my car would almost always pass by the downtown Fort Worth exit and head for Dallas instead. Once in a great while I would make it straight home, but almost always, I headed out later, sometimes as late as 3:00 am Sunday. Often I would play upbeat audiocassettes to help the drive seem shorter. I remember frequently singing God Bless America along with Kate Smith, my excitement growing as I got nearer and near my fix.
Once in Dallas, I would spend the entire night going from one bathhouse to the other, searching of just the right partners. I never found them, but I would with as many men as I could. Exhausted, I would leave Dallas sometime Sunday morning, usually stopping to eat halfway home, and often, breakfast taken care of, I would turn around and go back to the bathhouses. One of them offered a poolside barbecue every Sunday afternoon. My weekends ended Sunday night, or even early Monday morning, with a painful drive back home.
In October, 1995, I suddenly lost my job. I landed one in Chicago, and in January, 1996, I boarded a train for my new home. After seven years in Fort Worth, the only people I said good-bye to were the doormen in my apartment building and the women who gave me manicures and cut my hair.
I chose the train rather than a plane because I wanted to watch the space I would be putting between myself and my old ways. I swore that in Chicago I would turn over a new leaf, but within two weeks of washing up on the shores of Lake Michigan, I had located a Chicago bathhouse and returned to my old routine. I was going to AA meetings, however, and one Monday evening at a Twelve Step clubhouse, I found myself by mistake in an SCA meeting. As soon as I realized where I was, I gathered my possessions and fled.
The following Sunday afternoon, I discovered another Chicago bathhouse. It had recently been renovated, and I marveled at its custom-designed facilities. Everything was at the right height. There were lots of men. I was in paradise. As I was buzzed out of the bathhouse that night, I realized that I could spend my life in that Grade A location.
For some reason, as I was making that classification in my mind, I was overcome by a wave of nausea. “Is this what my life had become?” I asked myself. What about the many interests I had once had? What about personal relationships?
It was dark. It was cold. It was windy. I walked along the lakefront, studied the ice blocks, and seriously considered suicide. Then I remembered the meeting I had gone to by mistake. The next night I was there. As I walked in, a little late, the characteristics were being read. I heard the words “I neglected my life,” and I knew I was home.
I stayed, followed the suggestions, and I have not had anonymous sex in nine years. I have not cruised for r used pornography for six years. I went to four meetings a week for years. I joined in fellowship after meetings regularly. I attended SCA social events. I performed program service work. I used the telephone. I had sponsees.
Today I have friends. I have a full plate of activates, some in recovery programs, many outside. My sexual obsession has been lifted, but my life is not problem-free. I have dealt with challenges in all the usual arenas—work, family, health, relationships—but I have not had to use sex as a . I battle depression, so I go to therapy. I go to meetings. I do my best to live one day at a time. My recovery is my most precious gift.
