June 15

“One of the most dangerous aspects of our addiction is our inability to see it for what it is.”

Sex Addicts Anonymous, page 8

At age twenty-nine, my life felt torn apart by the sudden death of my father from a heart attack. He died when our relationship was still superficial and unresolved from his alcoholism and my teen rebellion.

I didn’t know how to handle, or even recognize, my grief. Within a few months of my father’s death, I turned from my wife and two young children to a one-night stand and then to an affair with someone else at work. That grew into multiple affairs and one-night stands. I put my own family in the addiction blender and broke their hearts one by one. However, I couldn’t see that I had fallen into the pit of my own addiction—sex addiction. I was putting my family through the same hell that my father’s addiction had put me through.

When I finally begged God for relief, I found SAA. In my first meeting, I heard and saw how the Twelve Step program had helped others achieve recovery from compulsive sexual behavior. This knowledge took thirty years for me to discover, yet the sweetness of my recovery has eclipsed those years.

I no longer blame my father’s death for my years of acting out. That was my choice in how to medicate the pain of both losing him, and of not having the chance to reconcile our relationship.

–

Running, hiding, and self-medicating never worked. Thank God, all I have to do is stop and ask for help.