How To Recover From Sex Addiction

How It Works

Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. There are such unfortunates. They are not at fault; they seem to have been born that way. They are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty. Their chances are less than average. There are those, too, who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders, but many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest.

Our stories disclose in a general way what we used to be like, what happened, and what we are like now. If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it, then you are ready to take certain steps.

At some of these we balked. We thought we could find an easier, softer way. But we could not. With all the earnestness at our command, we beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start. Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas, and the result was nil until we let go absolutely.

Remember that we deal with lust—cunning, baffling, and powerful! Without help it is too much for us. But there is One who has all power—that one is God. May you find Him now.

Half measures availed us nothing. We stood at the turning point. We asked His protection and care with complete abandon. Below are the steps we took, which are suggested as a program of recovery . . .

The Nuts and Bolts of Recovery

The reading above as well as the Twelve Steps & Traditions used by SA are all adapted with permission of Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. ("AAWS").
Permission to adapt and reprint the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions does not mean that AAWS has approved the contents of this publication, nor that AAWS agrees with the views expressed herein. AA is a program of recovery from alcoholism only.
Use of the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions in connection with programs which are patterned after AA, but which address other problems, or in any other non-AA context, does not imply otherwise.
Nontheless, we in SA have found that the tried and true methods of AA have served us well in Sexaholics Anonymous. The SA program is based on the principles of AA, and practiced in a way to facilitate recovery from our addiction to lust.
To continue the How It Works reading and view the Twelve Steps of SA please click on the green button below.
The Traditions help us to facilitate a safe environment that maximizes the benefits of fellowship while minimizing distractions as we recover in community. Please feel free to view the Twelve Traditions of SA by clicking the blue button below.

The Program

12 Traditions

The Twelve Traditions

Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends on SA unity.
For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority—a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.
The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop lusting and become sexually sober.
Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or Sexaholics Anonymous as a whole.
Each group has but one primary purpose—to carry its message to the sexaholic who still suffers.
An SA group ought never endorse, finance, or lend the SA name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property, and prestige divert us from our primary purpose.
Every SA group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions.
Sexaholics Anonymous should remain forever non-professional, but our service centers may employ special workers.
SA, as such, ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve.
Sexaholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the SA name ought never be drawn into public controversy.
Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, films, and TV.
Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.

Program of Recovery

We admitted that we were powerless over lust—that our lives had become unmanagable.
Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understoon Him.
Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to sexaholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Many of us exclaimed, "What an order! I can't go through with it." Do not be discouraged. No one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles. We are not saints. The point is, that we are willing to grow along spiritual lines. The principles we have set down are guides to progress. We claim spiritual progress rather than spritual perfection . . .

Our personal adventures before and after make clear three pertinent ideas:

That we were sexaholics and could not manage our own lives.
That probably no human power could have relieved our sexaholism.
That God could and would if He were sought.