| Impossible Lust |
Preface
This paper is a
follow-on of two papers presented to the fellowship in the ESSAY newsletter
titled A New Look at Lust Recovery (December 1999 and Issue Two 2000). Since then, a few groups have been trying to
translate into a deeper recovery fellowship the principles which were
discovered when the program originated in Akron in 1935. The results, though meager in terms of
numbers, have been so heartening that we want to give any who might identify
and wish to continue the venture, the benefit of what we've experienced so far.
Twenty years of SA
history, in the context of the whole Twelve Step recovery movement, have given
us much to consider. Searching and
fearless inventories of where we are in recovery suggest that we examine
ourselves as never before. What many
groups and individuals are finding is not only insobriety, but the lack of Ins/
recovery, the unique calling and promise of our program. We are discovering how
"impossible" that is. We are
also painfully discovering the truth that without real recovery there can be no
inherent unity. And without recovery
and unity, there can be no effective service.
This paper points back to the simple origins of our program, suggesting
that the answer for us today is the same as it was for those other
"impossibles" in 1935.
In 1935-1938, in the
midst of a ragtag roundup of woebegone rummies, something was happening which
would turn into the greatest event of the twentieth century. This was the joyous discovery that God was
doing for hopeless drunks what they had never been able to do for
themselves. Before there was any AA
literature, before there were any Steps, this was where hope for lust-aholics
was born. That seminal AA experience
was centered around one simple fact—Surrender.
Surrender to God in a fellowship of deeply personal accountability.
What worked for
alcoholics was very simple, very direct.
And it wasn't for everybody. But
that's when the fire struck. That's how
the miracle began. There is great hope
here for SA individuals and groups which may be adrift today, wondering why,
after endlessly repeating, "Keep coming back; it works!" it is not
working. Trying to "work the
program" without real surrender does not work. It is our belief and hope that the Akron experience, applied to
sexaholism, will help us break through into the lust recovery and unity we need
and want today.
What we offer here
is not for everybody. It is offered in
the hope of better realizing a fellowship of lust recovery—the promise of our
program. We hope many will join us in
this venture so we can benefit from a broader field of experience and pass it
on. This kind of fellowship circle is
based on the Second Tradition, calling on a loving God as our only authority, not
just in group matters, but first for our mutual recovery. The priority need for such a companionship
of the spirit is in doing battle through the no-man's-land of insobriety, lust,
and rebellion against God, into the promised land of personal victory and joy
in helping others.
This is a work in
process. Although this paper is based
on recent experiences to date, the conclusions and opinions expressed are my
own. This is working for me better than
anything I've seen so far. As with
anything else written about recovery, this too will remain incomplete and
unfinished. God will disclose more to
you and to us, and we shall be interested in hearing from any who are getting
results from this approach.
Note: So far, our
only experience has been with circles comprising men only. Thus, the vocabulary is of necessity set
entirely within the masculine framework.
We would be anxious to learn if and how such an approach would work with
women or mixed groups.
Feedback- Comments
are solicited, especially from those trying this approach. Send comments to Libera Publishing. P 0 Box 3LSimi Valley, CA 93062.
1
Lust, The "Impossible" Addiction
Lust—What It Isn't
What Is Lust? (Group exercise)
Why Is Recovery from Lust So
"Impossible" (Group exercise)
Persistence of
Susceptibility to Lust
Does God Remove Our
Susceptibility to Lust?
Hardwired to Lust?
Lust Is Spiritual
The
"Psychology" of Lust
How Lust Changes Us
Implications for Recovery
False Lust Recovery Techniques
(Group Exercise)
Calendar Sobriety Syndrome
What Is Victory Over Lust?
So What Is Victory Over Lust?
Let's Face the Facts
Our Dilemma
The Promise
How Is Lust Active in My Life Today?
Group Exercise
Third Tradition Personal
Lust Inventory (Questions)
3
The Fire Strikes—Akron, Ohio, 1935
Origins
Surrender
The Process
The Frank Amos Report
The Scene
Working Principles
What Is An Accountability Circle?
The Surrender Session
Focusing and Implementing the
Surrender
A Group Exercise
Appendices
1 What Is Lust? (Group comments)
2 Why Is Lust So "Impossible" to Overcome? (Group comments)
1-Lust, The "Impossible" Addiction
Lust—What It Isn't
It is very important
to realize what we are not talking about when we talk about lust and lust
recovery. We are not talking about the
sex act itself. Sex can be lustful, as
most of us know, but sex is not lust.
Neither are we talking about whatever it is that produces the normal
chemistry of romance, attraction, attachment, and sexual passion. These are natural phenomena that have been
around forever.
Marital sex in
recovery can have all of this chemistry, and more—real sex with romance,
passion, attraction, attachment, and love.
Sex that is optional, free of demand, free of lust, and issuing from
real connection and love as a joyous physical-emotional-spiritual
experience. As one married man testifies
in Recovery Continues, We discovered we had each other, that we were bonded
to each other apart from lust and sex.
What a beautiful freedom! I would never have guessed that was
possible. And I began to see ... that the real sex was very simple and good,
that it asked for nothing, that it didn't demand anything and came from the
inside out, rather than from the outside in, that it satisfied, (pp. 31-33)
Our experience also
shows that life for the recovering unmarried can be every much as joyous and
fulfilling in its own way. As one
forty-year old man puts it, When 1 came to the program, it seemed that sex
was the best thing I'd ever known, even though it had completely messed up my
life. As a single, sober man, I've
found that my friendships with other people are now much more wonderful for me
than sex ever was. Looking back, my old
way of life seems like being a "dead man walking." Now I'm getting to
really experience life, instead of being drugged. Lately I've noticed a need to connect still more deeply with
others, including with women.
What Is Lust?
We are talking about
lust. Today's lust. What some call "the new lust," new
from the impact of photography, image-addiction, consumerism, the media, and
the whole cultural mind-set. Lust takes
a fantasy, memory, picture, image, person, body part, object, animal, words,
music, art ... and does something to it
for unnatural ends. Better than anyone
else, sexaholics in recovery can answer the question. What is lust? Try it and
see.
Group Exercise:
Try a powerful experiment, with group consent: Pass out 5 x 8 index cards and
spend five minutes or so writing on What is lust? Limit the time so answers will be concise and suitable for
sharing. Stress that this is
confidential, optional, and that the one requirement is absolute transparent
honesty. Then have all who want to
share read what they've written to the group.
You'll be surprised at the collective insight we have into the problem.
(Appendix 1
contains the results of one such group's writing and sharing exercise.)
Why Is Recovery From
Lust So "Impossible"?
Group Exercise:
Write for five or ten minutes (as above) on this question and then share. See Appendix 2 for one group's
statements.
There are many
factors involved in why lust recovery is so formidable. Let's look at it from various perspectives:
Persistence of
Susceptibility to Lust.
Men sexually sober
and with years in recovery testify to the persistence of susceptibility to lust
triggers, and this seems to be typical for lust-sex addicts of any stripe. "I'm sexually sober and want victory
over lust; why is this craving to take a "drink" still there when I
see a trigger?” This persistence of
susceptibility is no respecter of "orientation" and is no respecter
of length of sobriety. It seems to be
one of the fundamental and virtually universal characteristics of our
particular malady. Let me illustrate
from a typical experience of my own after several years of my current sexual
sobriety:
I pull into the
store down the street to make a phone call.
Suddenly, in the comer of my eye I see the image of a woman at the bus
stop. There's something about the
figure, body language, emanation, whatever, that wants to grab me, a powerful
magnetic force pulling at the center of my soul. I'm reminded of a prostitute I once knew. I want to look and connect. I have to.
The image is an overpowering trigger for my lust. I'm a goner! The compulsion to turn and take that first look is
irresistible. I know that I must
look—and drink. I'll die if I
don't. [This incident illustrates the
difference between lustaholics and "problem lusters."]
To not take that
visual or fantasy drink is a very real threat of death to lustaholics. The fact that I was given the freedom not to
take that particular drink points up the difference between wanting to drink
and having to drink. It's okay for a
lustaholic to be tempted by lust and want to drink. "I am a lustaholic.”
The freedom not to have to drink is the miracle of progressive
recovery. Surrender to God in the
context of accountability is making this possible for me and others. But the awesome power that temptation had in
me is the point here. Susceptibility to
lust persists in recovery. We must
acknowledge and accept that as a simple fact.
Our experience so
far reveals that most sexaholics sober from acting out are still susceptible to
wanting to lust as they did before. The
desire to drink is still there, though in time, the frequency and intensity of
such desire should diminish. However,
in some cases of uninterrupted physical sobriety, the frequency and desire to
lust have increased over time. In one
such case that is what led the man to enter the very surrender process we're
talking about. And it was a continuing
series of unconditional surrenders in his accountability circle over time which
reversed the trend toward almost certain acting out again and led to what can
best be described as real progressive victory over lust. However, the fact remains that he—and
apparently most others—still can and do feel the fire of temptation. Recovery must be able to deal with this so
we can be comfortable with who and what we are.
Does God Remove Our
Susceptibility to Lust?
Apparently not. One of the biggest misconceptions is that recovery
from lust means we should never have to feel the fire of temptation again. Before recovery, I prayed as though God
would remove my temptability, not realizing that that was part of my very
humanity and the basis of God's love and help for me. I see now that I was in denial.
The First Step cuts through that for me, and I know the truth of who and
what I really am, a luster, a resenter, a fearful person. .
. . God's remedy is for me just as I am, just where I am, with a
continuing compelling need to know him better in my powerlessness.
Hardwired to
Lust?
The neurology of
addiction helps in understanding our susceptibility and the complex nature of
lust recovery. Whole systems of the
brain's neurons are apparently configured by conditioning to respond to stimuli
as we become habituated to substances or behaviors. In other words, the brain becomes "hardwired" for the
lust response, much as it is for an automatic muscular reflex. This explanation has obvious merit and
points up another of the difficulties and challenges in recovery: We must
experience a personal Power which can transcend our electrochemistry and
neuronal programming so we can act against that programming.
Lust Is
Spiritual. If alcoholics and drug
addicts can overcome (not eliminate) their neurological conditioning so as to
no longer crave the chemical, why does susceptibility to lust remain so potent
in the lustaholic? Why are the pull or
craving still there, even when one is sexually sober and/or abstinent and where
sustained victory over such temptations may be in effect for a long time? I don't think we have anything like a
complete answer to this important question; and we must be willing to learn.
For one thing, lust
reveals a deeper dimension of human existence, which, for lack of adequate
vocabulary, we call the spiritual.
Denying myself the drink in the above incident felt like the threat of
death. But since the threat of death had
nothing to do with physical craving, as with a drug, the threat was spiritual. Knowing I would die if I did not drink tells
me I have created within myself a spiritual life-connection with Lust. A life-support system. Little did we know that it was The Big
Mis-connection. Anti-life.
This means I've been
having spiritual intercourse with Lust and have become one in spirit with
it. It means Lust has been my god or
goddess, my object of worship, the life-giver without which I cannot live. ("Man worships what he cannot live
without. ") Thus, through a religious-spiritual addiction,
I have created a perverted soul-set.
And thus, my spirit-to-spirit interface has become diseased, changed,
programmed. Not just neurological
programming, soul programming! And
breaking that spiritual connection is the threat of death. No wonder lust is so hard to surrender
absolutely! And no wonder our relation
with God is wrong and cries out for continual surrender.
The
"Psychology" of Lust.
The
"impossible" nature of lust recovery hits home when we see what's
really going on within and its effects.
A slow-motion replay of a typical lust event reveals the following:
How Lust Changes Us
Reality distortion
and transformation
Delusional
anti-reality
Character change
Distortion of
sexuality
Progressive loss of
masculinity
Inner violence
Sexual reality
progressively diminished
Diminished capacity for love
Functional impotence
Increased negative
feelings against the gender used in lust
Self-hatred
Crippling of
interpersonal relationship capability
Increasingly
possessed by the negative force
Increased isolation
Increasing
susceptibility to other addictions.
Spiritual death
Implications for
recovery:
Also, consider:
All of the above—why lust is so
"impossible” to overcome—is why the recovery solution must penetrate as
deeply as the problem.
For recovery, we
must be willing absolutely to give up—surrender to God—our "right" to
lust, even though in so doing, the very basis of our human identity will be
threatened, and even though we know that in ourselves we cannot change. This brings us to the
surrender-accountability we're talking about.
So let's begin by seeing what constitutes lust recovery, then see where
we are with lust today.
We need to talk more
openly about what lust recovery entails.
Let's start by reexamining the question of false recovery
strategies. False, not necessarily in
themselves, but in how they can be used to shut out what we now see as a better
Remedy— surrender.
False Lust Recovery
Techniques
Group Exercise:
Write for five minutes or so on false lust recovery techniques we or others
have used. Then share and evaluate
their effectiveness.
Here's a list drawn
quickly from a few members at random.
As in any group exercise, no judgment is made on one's particular
comment. The point is to spark honest
dialog and evaluation of impact on lust recovery.
Calendar Sobriety
Syndrome.
The following
questions are taken from one member's lust inventory and point up the tricky
issue of how calendar sobriety can be a detriment to true recovery.
"We have
found that more important than the mere length of our calendar sobriety is its
quality and our own personal integrity.”
(White Book,
p. 192)
What Is Victory Over
Lust?
Group Exercise:
Write for ten minutes on the question.
What is lust recovery? Then open
the meeting for sharing and discussion.
So far, we don't
seem to have found anyone who has permanently been kept free from lust
temptation. We frankly admit we can
still get hit in the gut with a double-whammy and feel its power so strongly
that we know we're powerless over it.
We finally admit we are lust-aholics, who actually still want to lust;
resent-aholics, who actually still want to resent, etc. The desire to lust and resentment is still
inside us somewhere. This is what makes
our program different, and not only more difficult, but "impossible.” The drug is within, and we can't avoid
exposure. That's why we need to
discover what was working for those other "impossibles" (AA) in 1935.
So What Is Victory
Over Lust?
Let's Face the
Facts. Human males and females, as well
as those of other animal species, ogle and judge each other's physical
attributes and appearance as a matter of course. It's part of our natural biology. We can't change that, though some have gone to great lengths to
try and turn that instinct off. We are sexual
beings, so ordained by creation, with all that entails.
However, something
has happened to complicate matters.
Something has entered our human consciousness which creates problems not
only with the sexual instinct, but with our other instincts as well. "Instincts gone astray.” We find within ourselves a principle in
conflict with our best interests.
Something in us opposes natural fulfillment of our biological instincts,
and sex is one of the more obvious victims of that "something."
The Twelve Step
program, judging from AA's two main texts, has been rightly called a “God
program.” In this context, we physical
beings with our animal natures find ourselves thrust into another dimension—the
spiritual. So we exist in both the
animal and spiritual kingdoms and have to struggle with something the rest of
the animal kingdom doesn't have to deal with— something opposing the divine
consciousness. The best word the race
has been able to come up with to describe this opposing principle is sin, from
the Old English synn, dating from around the year 800. A simple three-letter word, but a concept
fraught with immense complexities.
Especially for sexaholics. (Why
should we be afraid of talking about sin when those who discovered this
solution did?)
Our Dilemma. So we're caught in that strange dilemma of
being males with all our sexual instincts intact—though gone astray and
infected with lust—who cannot help noticing and evaluating various physical
attributes and degrees of attractiveness, as any other males or females would
do. But while experiencing our natural
sexuality, we can be hit with something unnatural—lust. “Can we recover normal sexuality? And if so, how can we do so without recovery
from those "other sins" which drive it—fear, envy, resentment, rage,
hate, or any number of other "sins?
This is why, as we
shall see, point three in the Frank Amos report is so crucial. It says that for recovery, ". . . he must remove from his life other sins such
as hatred, adultery, and others which frequently accompany alcoholism. “
Because that's what Dr. Bob and
Bill and the others were saying and doing in Akron and elsewhere. And that's why Bill W. confessed, "I ruthlessly faced my sins
and became willing to have my new-found Friend take them away . .
.” (Alcoholics Anonymous, p,
13) And this is precisely why, for us
to recover from lust, we too must remove these sins from our lives. But what does it mean to "remove"?
Can the lust be
expelled? Does that mean I won't be
tempted any more? Or does it mean that
when tempted, I won't have to drink? Is
our prayer to be, Keep me sober from every lust today? or.
Keep me sober in every lust today?
The latter prayer acknowledges that I shall be tempted and that part of
me wants to drink. I have found this to
be a key to my freedom and joy today.
What I call "impossible joy."
The Promise. In presuming to work the original program of
AA, we come face-to-face with the promise expressed in the Preface of the
Twelve and Twelve: "AA's Twelve Steps are a group of principles, spiritual
in their nature, which, if practiced as a way of life, can expel the obsession
to drink and enable the sufferer to become happily and usefully whole."
Can we say that SA's
Twelve Steps, if practiced as a way of life, can expel the obsession to lust
and enable the sufferer to become happily and usefully whole? Our experience says, YES, but with two
qualifiers: 1) if by "expel" we mean the obsession to drink—the
compulsive necessity to drink—and not the temptation to drink, and 2), if
practiced as a way of life in the context of the kind of surrender and
accountability experienced in 1935. Our
recent experience is confirming this.
That brings us back
to what is lust recovery? Should we not
eventually be able to look and see and be attracted to people in terms of
normal sexuality—without lusting? If
recovery cannot offer that, what is lust recovery? Why is natural attraction—seeing and looking—so complicated for
us sexaholics? Can we never be healed
of the lust response? Can lust be taken
out of the natural-attraction response?
Can we ever be free to look and see and evaluate "clean and
sober"?
I say YES! But I
need a Friend who can take it, just like Bill and Dr. Bob had. I need the God
solution, which is the sin solution, which is the lust solution, which comes
through unconditional surrender and accountability. My wrong relation to God, mediated through my lust and other
sins—my wrong attitudes and behaviors—can then be discovered and dealt with
through Steps Four through Ten. And
this is the very surrender process made effective on a continuing basis in our
accountability community.
All this puts Akron
1935 in a new light, doesn't it? For
real lust recovery, we're going to need something more powerful than
"meetings, meetings, meetings
" and program legalism.
What is program legalism? Here
are answers given by two members who were buttonholed after reading the above
section: .
So the question is:
How can we overcome lust without fighting it or trying not to lust? Or is that even possible? Will what they were doing in Akron work for
us? How will we know, unless we try
it? Let's begin by becoming absolutely honest
with where we are with lust and put our program to the test.
How is Lust Active
in My Life Today?
Since "We're as
sick as our secrets," uncovering the secrets is the starting point for
recovery. We come to see the depth of
our sickness as we discover how lust is kept under wraps in ourselves and
others: in marital sex, in dreams, in various lust-avoidance or lust-battle
strategies, etc. Our lust is truly
"cunning, baffling, and powerful." That's why we need help in
uncovering, discovering, and surrendering.
Group Exercise. One of the most powerful exercises any group
can engage in is to periodically take their lust inventory. One way is to set aside a meeting just for
this purpose. This can be done with or
without a writing exercise. We've found
that writing it out—the Fourth Step process—is most effective.
Pass out 5 x 8 index
cards to every member present. Write,
answering the question, Where or how is lust active in my life today? Write for a set number of minutes, say five
or ten. Stress that this is
confidential, optional and that the one requirement is absolute transparent
honesty. Note that in this session, there's no roll call of length of sobriety;
we're all equal before the bar of absolute honesty. Since this is optional, members may choose to refrain. Then open the meeting for members to share
what each has written. You'll be amazed
at how this brings the group together at a level never before experienced.
It is amazing how
this becomes a leveling process when we come clean with our common
adversary. This exercise reveals what
our underlying problem really is. not
physical sobriety—"sober is not well"—but lust, of whatever
sort. (Appendix 2 contains the results
of one group's exercise.)
Third Tradition
Personal Lust Inventory. The following
is a list of questions developed for surrender workshops. Remember the Twenty Question on the SA
brochure? Well, those were drafted when
SA first got started in 1981 and dealt primarily with our acting out. Over time, physical sobriety has led us to
discover the power of lust—acting in.
Why do we call this
a Third Tradition lust inventory?
Because "a desire to stop lusting" is a requirement for
membership in SA, specified in our Tradition Three. Taking a personal lust inventory can help us see where we are in
lust recovery, the core challenge facing us today. (This questionnaire is still a work in process. Lists drafted by other members are also
available.)
1. When trigger material appears, such as in
real life or in the media, do you continue taking it in?
2. Do you "drink" on fantasies or
memories when they come up? That is, do
you consciously dwell on them, get a hit off of them, nourish them, let them
continue to play?
3. Do you deliberately seek out images/people
to drink on?
4. Do you resort to other images, memories, or
fantasies during marital sex?
5. Do you have erotic dreams? How often?
6. Do you have sexual dreams, with or without
climax? That is, do you engage in
sexual encounters of whatever sort in dreams, and let them continue to play
out? How often?
7. Do you fantasize about leaving your wife (or
husband) and finding another?
8. When with your wife, husband, or friend and
encounter a trigger, are you free not to look?
9. Do you feel you can still tolerate certain
kinds of lust? If so, what kinds
of lust do you still tolerate and
why?
10. Do you have a core fantasy? What is it?
11. Do you want to be lusted after?
12. Do you have any lust objects or media in
your possession?
13 Does the fear of
triggering the lust cycle prevent you from entering into a loving physical
relationship with your spouse (or with a relationship with anyone)?
14 Describe the
connection your lust may have with attitudes such as anger, race fear
resentment, unforgiveness, etc. [If the
roots of our lust are deeper than the lust itself, then how can we surrender
lust to God without also surrendering the deeper issues?]
15 Do you identify with what some call
"the spirit of lust" ? What
is it? When/how did you let it in? What power does it have over you? What power do you have over it?
16. Do you have a choice to not have to take the
first look?
17. Are you free to not want to take the first
look?
18. Do you want the obsession to drink expelled?
Add other questions
you think might be helpful:
3-The
Fire Strikes — Akron, Ohio, 1935
Origins
It was 5 PM on
Mother's Day. Mayl2th. 1935.
in the Seiberling mansion gate house in Akron Ohio, where two men met
for the first time. That was where
transpired—for the sex- and lust-addicted—the most significant event of the twentieth
century. Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith, two hopeless alcoholics
discovered that two drunks, surrendered to God and working together, could find
what had eluded science, medicine, and religion. Sobriety for the addicted strength for the weak, hope for the
desperate, peace for the restless, safety and home for the lost and
disaffected, joy for the discontented.
On the verge of
drinking again. Bill Wilson had sought
out another drunk and began working with Dr.
Bob. When Dr. Bob got and stayed sober, they sought out
and began working with number three, then with other alcoholics in Akron where
the first group formed.. After that
first three months with Bill and Dr.
Bob working together, Bill returned to New York City. and Dr.
Bob immersed himself in what I call the Akron Experience.
With each of the
growing number of recovering alcoholics working together to find and help other
alcoholics. Dr. Bob was able to admit one after another into
detox for a week in Akron City Hospital, where he was a staff surgeon.
Surrender
Of the many
interesting aspects of what was happening then, I d like to call attention to
the one that was central, one largely ignored today—unconditional surrender to
God. My source is Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers - A Biography,
with Recollections of Early A.A. in the
Midwest, especially chapters 7-10.
(Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. 1980). I’ll begin by
relating the experience of Ernie, who became the fourth member m late July of
1935. In Akron City Hospital, he went
through medically supervised withdrawal for six days. The three recovering alkies who came to see Ernie in the hospital
got the feeling that he seemed willing to take direction.
They then told him,
"Well, in that case, we'd like to have you make a surrender."
"What do you
mean by a surrender?" Ernie asked.
"Well, you have
to say a prayer."
"I'm not very
well prepared to do that, because that's been a little out of my line," he
replied.
Nevertheless, they
agreed to help him. They said the
prayer and had him repeat it after them.
"For some reason or other, I felt quite relieved after making this
so-called surrender," Ernie said.
"The surrender business was something that was in effect at the
time and continued up to a few years later.
I don't know when it was stopped.
But I believe even today it was a good thing." (pages 92-93)
The surrender was
more than important; it was a must. Bob
E., who came into A. A. in February 1937, recalled that after five
or six days in the hospital, "when you had indicated that you were
serious, they told you to get down on your knees by the bed and say a prayer to
God admitting you were powerless over alcohol and your life was unmanageable.
Furthermore, you had
to state that you believed in a Higher Power who would return you to
sanity."
"There you can
see the beginning of the Twelve Steps," he said. "We called that the surrender. They demanded it. You couldn't
go to a meeting until you did it. If by
accident you didn't make it in the hospital, you had to make it in the upstairs
bedroom over at the Williamses' house [before they were allowed to go to the
meeting downstairs]."
Dorothy S. M.
recalled the 1937 meetings when "the men would all disappear
upstairs and all of us women would be nervous and worried about what was going
on. After about half an hour or so,
down would come the new man . . .
And all the people who were already in A.A. would come trooping down after him. They were pretty reluctant to talk about what had happened, but
after a while, they would tell us they had had a real surrender.
"I often wonder
how many people that come in now would survive an experience like that—a
regular old-fashioned prayer meeting," said Dorothy. . . "The newcomers surrendered in the presence
of all those other people." After the surrender, many of the
steps—involving inventory, admission of character defects, and making
restitution—were taken within a matter of days. (101-102) Times change.
Our addiction is incredibly more complex. We are discovering that for us today, surrender is more involved
than "saying a prayer." Our wrong attitudes and rebellions seem to
lie deeper under the surface than those last-gaspers facing either insanity or
death. For those alkies, there was
apparently no doubt that their entrance into recovery meant surrender to
God. For one thing they were near death
and confined to a hospital bed. For
most of us lust-aholics, however, who haven't been beat up that badly in body,
the point of our required surrenders is less obvious, especially since most of
us profess religious faith. But that's
the very place where we need to re-examme our own "program." So let's
revisit that scene in mid-1935 and see what it might have for us today.
The Process
A raw alkie is
admitted to Akron City Hospital and put under Dr. Bob's care. Dr Bob
usually the first sober member to get to him, introduces him (in no uncertain
terms) to what's working for him and the other sober men. The word gets out to the fledgling little
group in Akron, and on each of the next five or six days, two or more
recovering alkies drop by and also talk with the man They get to know him and
his drinking history and share their own stories with him. During this process, the new man on the bed
begins to get the picture He is told what he must do to recover. What he was being told-in other words, the
"program" in effect at that time, when there was no literature or
Steps-is contained in the Frank Amos Report on page 131 of Dr. Bob and the Good
Old-timers.
This five or six-day
period has relevance for us today. It
takes time for a person to see and surrender.
And it takes continuing contact with others in deeper recovery. That's why we wonder sometimes, when working
with one in need of surrender, where they are in their "hospital
stay." Is this Day One for him or Day Five? Do we keep on with him, or go on to the next? Thus, when there's the prospect of a new member
coming into the surrender process circle members in some groups start calling
and/or seeing the prospect ahead of time to get to know where they're at. Basic questions are asked, and they get to
know each other at a deeper level. This
saves time in the actual surrender session, which might otherwise go on for
hours, just getting to know the person and his history. (A list of such background questions being
used for prospects in some circles is available on request.)
The Frank Amos
Report
In 1938 J D
Rockefeller sent Frank Amos. a business
executive, out to Akron from New York to see what was going on. what these drunks were up to. Bill
Wilson had asked
Rockefeller for money to keep the thing going, such the excitement of what was
happening in Akron and Cleveland (and such Bill s mistake that this thing had
to get money from outsiders).
So Frank Amos goes
to the Akron meetings and stays for awhile to investigate, talks with members
and non-members, interviews Dr. Bob’s
professional associates, and gets the low-down on this strange happening. Mr.
Amos then returns to New York with his report. Remember, this report was written by an outsider, a
non-alcoholic, observing—with initial skepticism, no doubt—what was going on
with these rummies. But what this outsider
witnessed and reported was something which was working for those "impossibles"
like nothing had ever worked before.
It is this very
report which has inspired our efforts to see if that Akron experience could be
translated into a new beginning for lust recovery. The following are the first three of seven items in his report,
describing how the Akron alkies were recovering. The following is what we come up with as we try translating these
requirements into lust recovery. Read
them for yourself, discuss them in your group, and see what you come up
with.
"1. An alcoholic must realize that he is an
alcoholic, incurable from a medical viewpoint, and that he must never again
drink anything with alcohol in it.
"
Whether you can stop
drinking is not the issue. Of course
you can't, if you're a lustaholic. The
real issue of what's necessary for this recovery experience is the rock-bottom
realization that you can't get away with if anymore. That's the real power of the First Step. And unless we make this deeper surrender
giving up our right to drink, we're cut off from recovery. That's why the early alkies—and some of
us—are calling this surrender "absolute," not in the sense that it is
perfect or a once-for-all-this-is-going-to-be-IT kind of thing, but that it is
"unconditional." This draws a line in the sand. This is also why these surrender circles should
not be open to everyone.
In SA we confess to
being truly powerless over the looking, dreaming, and fantasizing. We too need this kind of desperate, absolute
recognition of powerlessness leading to surrender which the Akron alkies
practiced. What makes lust so
seductively cunning is that we think we're getting away with the sipping, or
even guzzling, because we can say we're still technically SA sober. That's a delusion in the SA air, isn't
it? We're the only ones who can change
that.
“2. He must
surrender himself absolutely to God, realizing that in himself there is no hope.”
·
Do you really
know that in yourself there is no hope for lust recovery?
·
Are you will to
give up resting in your current stage of recovery, surrender it absolutely to
God?
·
Are you willing
to give up your right and desire to lust in any way?
·
Are you willing
to give it up to God because there’s no way you can overcome it yourself?
“3. Not only must he want to
stop drinking permanently, he must remove from his life other sins such as
hatred, dultery, and others which frequently accompany alcoholism. Unless he will do this absolutely, Smith and
his associates refuse to work with him.”
·
Do you want to
stop lusting permanently: Scary, isn’t
it? But why not? Isn’t tolerating lust the Achilles heel of
our recovery? Look around; see what
it’s doing to us, to you. What if that
is what we must surrender in our Third Step – giving up the right to lust? That’s what they did; they gave up their
right to drink. How can I turn my will
and life over to God without including my right and desire to lust? How can you?
·
Are you willing
to remove from your life other sins, such as hatred, resentment, rage? Do you want to keep trying half measures, or
are you willing to go to any lengths to be free from the obsession of having to
drink or fantasize?
This is the
Step-One-Two-Three-Four Akron Experience – Surrender. Sound extreme? Stop and
ask yourself, Have I been trying to “work the Program” without real surrender: Let’s take a look at an actual surrender
session in action patterned after what was happening in Akron.
The Scene
It is 10 AM on a
wintry Saturday morning, inside a members modest apartment A glass-topped table
is surrounded by chairs. The wall of
light from a large glass patio door behind the table gives the room an inviting
feeling. A small upright piano is in the far corner of the room.
Two men are in the
kitchen chatting and pouring themselves some grape juice when they hear a knock
on the door. The door pushes open and
Michael eagerly enters. As they
exchange Hi's and embrace, there s a gladness in the air: a specialness. Michael, a tall lanky man around thirty, is
a graduate student and lab assistant at the nearby university. Greg, John, and Michael, not real names) are
all sober members of an SA group they attend.
They exchange hearty How-are-you's, as they gravitate to the table. Michael and John are single, Greg is older
and married. We get the feeling they've
broken bread here before - bread of a different kind, that this is their
coming-together place. Not the place;
the coming together.
The friendly chatter
continues as they settle into chairs around the table. Though they've been meeting together like
this often, sometimes with others present there is no special format. Normally, they would begin with spontaneous
prayer for guidance and help, then go around briefly leading with their
weakness. But today, there's a heaviness
about Greg, and he breaks in by confessing the dishonesty of a remark he had
made to John earlier.
This is a sanctuary
for coming clean - no secrets here – deeper than in program meetings. They are here to help one another by being
accountable to each other under God.
They've learned the hard way that any wrong harbored between them shuts
God out and makes the real fellowship they crave impossible. This opens the session in absolute honesty,
the hallmark of their fellowship recovery.
Sponsors have been
known to get caught in the trap of winding up outside continuing accountability. And recovery from this malady, perhaps like
no other requires accountability of us
all. Do any of us have the dubious luxury
of standing "outside"? The
very essence of our illness is isolation and self-centeredness and to recover,
we must recover relationally. How
better than by rubbing elbows, egos, sins, and hearts together, day after day,
week after week, in such a circle of absolute honesty, where God's light is
working and burning?
Greg's amends sets
the tone for this morning's session.
After he and John clear the air, sharing the truth between them, Michael
speaks up. From this, it turns out the
special focus of this session should be Michael's "surrender."
This is not an SA
meeting, as such. Variously called
check meeting, surrender session, accountability circle, discovery meeting.
Third Step meeting, or best, nothing at all, its ultimate aim is focused Third
Step surrender to God together, for ongoing deeper recovery. A process with a beginning but no end.
Michael, sober in AA
for twelve years and in SA for a couple of years with long stretches of sexual
abstinence, has been troubled from the beginning with heavy lusting, both
during the day and in his dreams. In
these special get-togethers over the last several months he has become
progressively aware of behaviors or attitudes needing surrender which were not
revealed in his regular program meetings, and he has made these surrenders at
various times in this surrender circle.
In previous
sessions, they might have begun by helping a newcomer toward his first
surrender or by asking how someone's surrender made at the previous session was
going. That's where the accountability
comes in. But this time, it's just the
three of them, and Michael gets right into his "top plate" issue. Last week's session had revealed that he
needed to go into open-ended abstinence from dating to recover from lust and
the threat of his acting out, which was virtually certain. But Michael did not make that surrender
then, and says he's not ready for it now.
Matter of fact, he reveals he's gone "whacko" again and
doesn't know where he's at. The
direction he got last week is only a distant nag.
Thus, half an hour
or so into their get-together, the priority need among them is getting
clarified. Often, one person may be
slated as the designated surrenderer, but the honest sharing and prayer at the
outset reveals another priority. Time,
patience, and being open to the Spirit of guidance are the key to these
get-togethers. So Greg and John begin asking
Michael questions—the all-important searching and disclosing process at the
heart of these very special times together.
Supportive questioning, prayerful questioning, is aimed at helping the
person discover the underlying issue that's in the way, needing surrender to
God.
These men have come
to a place where they have become accountable to one another, not just with
what they're doing, but in the "thoughts and intents of their
hearts." That's why there is only one absolute requirement in their fellowship—
honesty. They sense they need more than
program "meetings, meetings, meetings, meetings, meetings." Something
deeper. And something different from
what they get even from their sponsors, as helpful as that is.
This is not
one-on-one or two-on-one; it's three or more together--under God A fellowship
of recovery. .
Finally Michael
comes clean with where he's really at today, the result of a process through
his two years in SA, several accountability sessions such as this one and much
phone and personal contact with the circle in between.
"To be honest
with you guys," he says abruptly, "I haven't found anything better
than sex in a woman's arms. Even AA and
SA haven't given me anything better than that." Greg and John are hit in the
gut, but say nothing. The force of
Michael's transparent honesty leaves them speechless—and powerless. "But if I go back there, it's
death!" Michael exclaims, the conflict tearing at him.
Michael's disclosure
echoes the sentiments of other SAs who may never have had actual sexual
intercourse, but who can identify with the all-consuming ecstatic rush of the
trance while masturbating to images or fantasies. Without freedom from the tyranny of this common underlying obsession
of lust and without finding something to take its place-and better-what
sexaholic has a chance at recovery?
"So why should
I abstain from dating," Michael agonizes, when I can t get beyond the fact
that for me there's never been anything better than sex? I want to get well-that's why I'm in SA! -
so I can control and enjoy lust!”
Michael's dilemma
stops John and Greg cold. Advice is
cheap, but there s no way they have the answer for their friend, and they know
it. Greg drops his head to the table
and prays; and then John joins in. They
are powerless to help. As Michael
stares straight ahead into his own desperation, Greg asks that God reveal to
him, Greg, anything that may be unsurrendered in his life. John follows by making his own prayerful
surrender and request for help and wisdom.
Here's the key to
this fellowship of recovery and its powerful promise-each person is as open and
willing to see, turn, and surrender as the one seeking surrender. Anything else, and it can turn into just
another group therapy "Let's-play-shrink," power trip. or some kind of religious session, devoid of
the special grace and presence of a loving God meeting sinners who want help
and want to help others. Instead of
having a rigid format the priority is on the spiritual. This does not come easily. It takes a solid recovery base practice, and
experience. And above all, reliance on
God instead of self. No one has to have
any answers; but we do need to be absolutely honest where each of us is. in the light of God, right now. today, together. Michael feels safe in putting himself under the authority of such
searching questioning because he senses it comes from identification and
reflects the leading of a loving God.
We can't really
enter this kind of experience in regular group meetings, because that's where
there are untested newcomers to the program who don t even know which end is
up. Plus, some members aren't sober,
and some don t even seem to want sobriety.
It takes time for most of us to see our need for deeper recovery or
discover whether we even want recovery, much less know what real recovery
is. Also, in meetings, we usually don't
pray together. And it's here where the
baring of our souls together before God is the very holiest of
sanctuaries. Surrender-consciousness is
in the air, and unless one is personally in tune with that, he doesn't fit
in. Actually, his presence would be
working against the Light. This is how
it was in Akron in 1935; those who had not made their surrender to God could
not be part of the fellowship circle.
After Greg and John
pray out of their desperation, powerless to help Michael, there's a deep and
silent pause. These men are learning
that God often speaks and leads in such silences—"that God could and
would—if He were sought." Plus, they know that in the ultimate sense, they
have to give each other up to God. Not
everyone makes it.
This shared trust
and prayerful honesty of his two helpers draws out of Michael something deeper,
and he makes a startling confession: What he's been recently revealing to them
as his new-found faith is really based on his fear that John and Greg would
reject him unless he believed and prayed as they did.
Another bombshell!
And this eventually leads John and Greg to discern a surrender priority:
Michael has to let go of such sham religion before he can even begin to see
what the real problem is, much less surrender it unconditionally to God and
find the peace he seeks.
Mind you, Michael is
SA sober. He has not sexually acted out
for over a year. Which points up the real
need in our recovery - “Sober" is not well. Sobriety is the mere beginning of recovery, opening the
door. Sobriety progressively reveals
the underlying sins of the spirit which need to be discovered and surrendered
in an ongoing fellowship of surrender.
Michael's new
honesty at depth helps give John and Greg insight and direction in their
further questioning. This clarification
process is most important and should be open-ended. We never know where it's going, and it could take hours, or
another session. It turns out that
Michael's surrender to God must be to God as Michael really understands God,
that is, where Michael himself honestly is with God today. It was now clear that Michael's relation to
God was the problem.
This powerfully reveals
one of our most basic and recurring discoveries: When we come into SA,
regardless of the degree of our religious persuasion, belief, or practice, our
relation with God is wrong; and for us to recover, that relation must change. How could any of us be doing and thinking
the things we were doing and thinking and have been rightly related to
God? But we could not see that alone.
We have discovered
that our relations with God must not only change but be continually open to
stages of new surrender. Third Step
surrender is not some one-time prayer or "decision." Surrender is a
process with a beginning, leading to continuing stages of discovery and
surrender. That's what makes it
possible for Steps Four through Ten then to become effective in changing us.
Greg then asks,
"Michael, you're coming down pretty hard, so black-and-white on what
you're calling false faith. I
appreciate your honesty and humility but I seem to remember in the last year of
your doing battle with lust and journey toward God that there were times when
you might have actually been experiencing his saving power. Was that illusion or sham? Was there anything real going on?"
"No, you're
right," Michael says. "There
were times when I was at the end and cried out, and there He was. And I knew it."
"Then what's
wrong?" John asks. "Is there
something in the way of that Connection, as weak as it was?"
That struck
home. Michael leaned back in his chair:
"Yeah. it keeps coming back to
this, doesn't it? Suddenly real clear. The conflict. On the one hand continue in SA, my newfound church-going, and
trusting in God doing what I can't do for myself, as I'm trying to do; or, on
the other hand, follow the idea that I can through analysis, therapy and
medication figure out what s wrong with me and eventually get to the place
where I can control and enjoy lust That through my intellect and education I
won't have to depend on God." Michael threw up his hands and suddenly
blurted out: "I have to give up graduate school!"
Two or three hours
of yielding to the light of honesty with two other men. under God, had gradually sharpened this
person's surrender focus. What began
with the idea that he should surrender to dating abstinence, wound up with
something else. That's the object of
these sessions; that's the clarity that is well-focused surrender. Not an easy venture. And not for everybody.
Michael's earlier
surrenders—to stop lusting, have sex in dreams, etc.—which he had been
progressively making in this accountability circle—had been leading the way to
today's top-plate issue. But he could
never have discovered that without having made the previous surrenders. That's the way recovery is working for us in
these circles, layer after layer.
•
• •
This particular
story doesn't end here. Michael wasn't
done with this surrender yet. And this
illustrates another aspect of this kind of Third Step surrender fellowship: We
get progressive revelation toward that next sticking point which is in the way
of our farther recovery. Plus, you
never know where any particular session is going. What an adventure!
Michael's surrender
session was adjourned, and the three broke to a local eatery since everyone was
hungry and needed to get away from the intensity of it all The next day. Michael kept in touch with his circle by
phone as he faced the hard choices involved in his decision. It was in one of these extended phone
conversations that Greg detected something he had never sensed before about
Michael. (Another reason why this takes
time, patience, and great care on the part of everyone in .the circle. We go slow.
And we do unto each other as we would have them do unto us. This is love—even though sometimes it has to
be tough.)
Greg sensed that
Michael had to have some kind of belief System on which to ground his life,
some kind of "religion" to rest on as the foundation of his
being—whether philosophy, self-knowledge, twelve Step program, or
Christianity. Allegiance to faith in
some system. And when this point was
examined honestly through more prayerful questioning, it became apparent that
Michael's whole personal security, his very identity, had to be grounded in
some kind of System or "religion." That's when the real surrender
became apparent. His conflict was not
between SA and graduate school or between Christianity and graduate school or
between Christianity and analysis. The
conflict was, what would he have as the source and foundation of his
being? Knowledge? System?
Religion? Or a personal
indwelling Friend who saves? Trying to
serve two masters was tearing Michael apart.
That's where this
particular surrender session ultimately led.
No two are alike. There's no
pushing; we "live and let live." Another session awaits Michael and
his accountability circle next Sunday at one o'clock in the afternoon, when
there will be one or two additional men present. And based on prior experience, no one knows where that session
will go. We hope Michael, based on his
previous willingness, will break through again and continue his process of
surrender to God. The same with Greg
and John, as their needs continue to surface also. Truly an odyssey charged with wonder and grace.
In the meantime, we
pray for each other and ask for another to whom we can carry the hope we are
discovering together. Working
Principles From experiences such as the above, we are discovering that certain
principles have evolved:
In 1948, Dr. Bob recalled the absolutes as "the only
yardsticks Alcoholics Anonymous had in the early days . . ." He said he still felt they held good
and could be extremely helpful when he wanted to do the right thing and the
answer was not obvious. "Almost
always, if I measure my decision carefully by the yardsticks of absolute
honesty, absolute unselfishness, absolute purity, and absolute love, and it
checks up pretty well with those four, then my answer can't be very far out of
the way." he said. (Dr. Bob and the Good
0ldtimers,
p. 54)
·
Each member of
the circle must be as open and willing to see, turn, and make their next
indicated surrender as the one up for surrender. Sponsorship status and length of sobriety take a back seat.
·
Unconditional
surrender of one's current point of rebellion to God has a beginning, but
apparently no end, as we continue to confront what was surrendered in
successive sessions. And more is
revealed in the continuing fellowship of recovery.
·
Each surrender
brings the person into a deeper supportive relationship with the others in the
circle. We continue to bring to the
light of the others how we're doing on that particular issue after the
surrender has been made. We become
accountable to the others on that point.
Thus, surrender is not made as if that's the end of the matter; it's
just the beginning. We know we'll be
tempted on that point again. True
recovery on that issue begins with unconditional surrender, which then becomes
an attitude in process.
·
This is not for
everybody. Not even for people who
might need or want it. It's for those
who are willing to give up sobriety status, yield to the authority of a loving
God together, and pay the price of continuing surrender—in community. It's for those who want a deeper fellowship
of recovery, centered, not on themselves, but always reaching out to the next
one in need. This is what was going on
in Akron, Ohio in 1935, when our program was born.
This section contains reprints and/or revisions of material made
available in previous Third Step surrender workshops.
What Is An Accountability Circle?
How It’s Working. In the
previous chapter, is a fair representation on of a typical surrender session of
an accountability circle. The term came
about in 1999 when we began translating the Akron 1935 experience into
lust-surrender get-togethers. It goes
back to what was happening in Akron City Hospital with Dr Bob the
newly-admitted wet drunk, and the few sober men who showed up at the hospital
and went to work on him. The term helps
differentiate this kind of recovery get-together from scheduled meetings, which
are available to all. It is a gathering
of the few core members to whom one is personally accountable on a continuing
basis in supporting each other's recovery.
This goes beyond the one-on-one of sponsorship and is deeper than what
we have in typical SA meetings
In 1935 the new man in the hospital bed was visited by at least two
sober men every day for five or six days.
These visiting alcoholics became those who dealt intensively with the
new man. They got to know him and he
got to know them. If the man eventually
made a surrender to God in their presence, he had at least two or three men who
were with him in one of the deepest spiritual experiences a man can ever
know. This brings accountability and
bonding; we're in a lifeboat together in an uncharted sea. In a similar context this is called "bearing
one another's burdens."
Just as there were
two or more sober members supporting each man m the hospital the accountability
circle is three or more sober members supporting each other in comprehensive
recovery. This becomes one's core
recovery fellowship because recovery is deepest here. The individuals may or may not be members of the same SA group,
depending on need and circumstances.
What is required is that the members of such a circle maintain close
personal contact with each other based on absolute honesty, both within and
among themselves and willingness to continue the surrender process.
Our experience from
check meetings, and especially surrender sessions indicates that an
individual's accountability circle should comprise at least two others and
perhaps not more than five others.
However, at this writing, one group, begun specifically for the purpose
of surrender accountability, keeps on growing in numbers. We'll all learn from experience. What has happened in some cases is that
those who participate in a surrender session become the person's accountability
circle.
In a sense, members
of an accountability circle are in an ongoing check-and-surrender meeting. They check on each other, and are
accountable to one another in the continuing surrender process. This is how what needs to be surrendered is
often revealed and where we support each other in implementing the next
surrender.
Most important: Such
a circle, if born in the crucible of powerlessness, surrender to God, and
accountability to one another, is not self-centered but is reaching outward to
the next prospect—driven by the power of a growing spiritual awakening in
carrying its message of recovery to others in need.
Note: Check
meetings, so-called, have been used as a tool among members for years. Though focused on problem solution and member
support, check meetings have not had the surrender-to-God focus and objective
surrender meetings do, while every surrender session does have all the elements
of a good check meeting. (See Appendix
3 for the latest version of the Check Meeting paper.)
Third Step
Unconditional Surrender
The following paper
is the result of our experience so far, and is a work in process. This revision is based on recent
experiences, largely in one surrender group.
It was created originally to serve as a suggested guide during an actual
surrender process, if and when any individual gets to that point.
Surrenders can also
follow naturally from any number of situations: a person's lust inventory,
after a check meeting revealing the person s surrender priority, perhaps even
after a First Step inventory. This
material can also be used for those doing their initial Third Step surrender to
stop acting out or for those at a stage where surrender of any sort is
indicated. Keep it simple. As one participant observed, "This is a
very simple surrender, made on a specific point before God, in the presence of
others to whom we're accountable.”
We have discovered
that each session should be guided, not by format or set questions, but by the
guidance of the loving God at work in that particular session, as exemplified
in How It Is Working. This is the
indispensable Tradition Two principle at work in the accountability
circle.
1.
Have the person
formulate their surrender in writing beforehand. Ask them to be as specific as possible. For example. "I
surrender unconditionally to God and this group my right to consciously look at
porn or to contact my former______.”
2.
Get
together. Meet privately. The leader should state the ground rules,
and the session should open with voluntary spontaneous prayer(s). Continue in an attitude of prayerfulness in
the light of God's presence. Allow an
open-ended period of time (two or three hours is not unreasonable.) Pagers and
cell phones off. Those witnessing the
surrender should have the same willingness by asking themselves, "Where am
I unsurrendered?" The one doing the surrendering should have the right to
exclude any with whom they do not feel comfortable. By the same token, others who continue to resist surrender, or
who do not fit in for whatever reason, should be excluded.
3.
Stress the
requirement of absolute honesty. The
only requirement, and that for everyone present, is absolute honesty. We tell the person there is no agenda or
expectation or judgment, but we do insist on honesty in everyone s
responses. There is no ritual to follow
here. And there should be no
expectation on their part or ours of any special happening. They need not even complete their
surrender. Sometimes it takes more than
one session to get to the bottom of things, even for an initial surrender. Don't rush the questioning. Stop the questioning at any stage where
there's any reservation. Let the person
think about whether they're really ready.
Let them count the cost. Better
to go slow. Here's where the
accountability circle comes in; often, only continuing sessions reveal the
direction one's surrender should take.
We've found it helpful to begin the session by going around briefly stating
where each of us is, with lust our own surrenders, especially helpful when we
don't know one another intimately. That
honesty helps put the surrenderer at ease and puts us all on the same level
before God. More than once this initial
honesty has led the group in a direction unanticipated when the focus shifts to
someone else (e.g., see How It's Working, above).
4.
Make clear what
this is not about. Make sure the
surrenderer knows that this is not to be some new self-willed commitment or
attempt at stopping. Also, this is not
a "fix" or another Program technique that will solve the problem;
it's a beginning. It is surrender to
God out of absolute powerlessness, giving up to God and those to whom we are
accountable the right to continue.
Trust in God, not the experience.
5.
Ask the
Questions. Suit the questions to the
person's specific situation. Ask other
questions that may arise, examining the person's surrender statement,
powerlessness, sincerity, willingness, etc.
This is why it is valuable to have those present who know you and to
whom you will continue to be accountable in implementing your surrender. That's where the accountability comes in.
1- What are you
surrendering? State it
specifically. As the surrender
statement is examined by those present, reformulating it may become (and usually
is) necessary. Leader: Take your time
here! This is the most important part of the examination, where typically most
of the time is spent. Be crystal clear
on focusing down to the person's surrender priority. Initially, surrenders tend to be general or abstract, instead of
specific and to the point. In one case,
instead of "I surrender my shame and guilt...." it turned out that it
had to be "I surrender this woman and give her up unconditionally to
God..." In another case, instead of "I surrender my anger..." it
turned out to be "I surrender unconditionally to God any and all abuse of
my wife...")
2- Are you powerless over
this (whatever you have just confessed to)?
3- Is there any chance
you can control or limit this yourself?
Why not?
4- Are you powerless over
the appearance of this? That is, do you
have any control over whether you'll be tempted again? (You will be tempted again! It s okay to be
tempted, but we can be free not to drink.
You will be tested, and that will enlarge your need and desire for
God. Such unconditional surrender
creates a surrender attitude.)
5- What has this defect
cost you?
6- How can you live
without it?
7- What will it cost you
to give it up?
8- What is it going to
take for you to recover from this?
9- Are you
willing to stop? Why? Permanently? (The word "permanently" makes us think, as it should. Spend some time exploring this, honestly and
in depth.)
10- Do you want to stop
now? Why? 11. Will you make that
specific surrender now? (The person
then prays his surrender audibly in our presence, all on our knees.)
12- Spend time after the
surrender "coming down."
13- Follow-up questions
to help continued implementation of the surrender in the accountability circle:
• Are you willing to be accountable on a
continuing basis to us here?
• Will you have a quiet time?
• Will you start helping and working with
others?
• Will you contact another when you are
tempted?
• Are you willing to be called when another is
tempted?
• Will you ask God
to keep you sober in the next temptation?
• Will you ask God to keep you sober from all
lust and sex in dreams?
• Are you willing to see there may be another
stage beyond this where the love of God will be leading you in deeper
awareness, surrender, and victory?
• Will you continue through the Steps? (Add other questions appropriate for this
individual.)
• And finally since "faith without action
is dead," will you start making things right with others right now? What will that mean for you now, today?
14. Take time to stay together and be there for
the person afterward. How are they
doing? Have they got clarity and
direction? Where are they going from
here? See how others present may also
have been affected. Honestly assess
what took place. (The person may wish a
copy of this questionnaire.)
15. Pass it on.
Learn from each surrender experience and exchange experience and helpful
ideas to other surrender groups.
Focusing
and Implementing the Surrender
The following
follow-up questions have been used in group exercises and in surrender meetings
where applicable.
1.
Focusing
narrowly on the core lust (or other problem) your inventory reveals, write out
your core surrender to God in one sentence (NO NAMES, please). For example, "I surrender
unconditionally to God........................................................
2.
Since
"faith (or surrender) without action is dead." what action(s) must
you take to fulfill your surrender?............................................................
3.
How and when
will you implement those actions (#2, above)?
(For example, changed relation to TV, Internet, writing a letter, a
face-to-face meeting . . .) ……………………………
4.
How will you become
accountable to your core group in this matter on an ongoing basis? (The group referred to is those in your
fellowship to whom you will be transparently accountable in this matter as you
are tempted.) Example: Call one when
tempted, ask for a check meeting, etc ……………………………………………
A Group Exercise
The following
writing exercise has proven very helpful as a change in meeting format for
special sessions of the group. Some
groups have done this where, after members have finished writing, each member
reads what they have written. This was
described by one member, who said, "This honest sharing turned out to be
the most significant thing this group has ever done for its recovery. It broke through."
1.
In what ways is
lust active in my life today (including dreams)?
2.
Focusing
narrowly on the core lust (or other problem) your above inventory reveals,
write out your core surrender to God in one sentence. NOTE: This is not intended to take the place of an actual
surrender, as we have been talking about.
However, this group exercise opens us up to honestly seeing what our
"top plate" surrender might be.
Some may later want to actually do their private surrenders (as
described above) with their core accountability group.
Appendix 1
The
following are comments written by members or one group during a lust inventory
session:
Appendix 2
Why Is
Lust So "Impossible" to Overcome?
The following
comments were written by members of one group in a special inventory
session. Members were asked to write
for five minutes on the question. Why
is lust so "impossible" to overcome, either generally or for me
personally"? Members shared aloud
what they had written. The follow-up
question was. Based on why you said
lust was so "impossible" to overcome, what will recovery have to do
to fix that? Or. What must I do to or what must happen in me
to recover from lust?
·
Lust happens in
my head, so I can't stop it by not doing something physical (like turning my
head). I can lust without even moving a
muscle! I don’t even have to be awake.
It seems like if I try to fight it.
I'm lusting just by fighting it.
I can't even be sure whether I've done it or not. It seems so close to normal things, like
attraction to members of the opposite sex.
What must happen for me to stop? I must
give up any possible way of tryin" to fight it, even if I'm afraid it'll
kill me. I must give up fighting for my
life in all its forms. I need to come
to trust, through experience in God, to give me and to care for me so that I
can be free of having to make it happen through my effort. I also need to learn to connect with other
people in a more healthy way.
·
Lust has been
such a big part of my life for 30 years and has been an obsession for most of
that time. That's 30 years of getting
positive reinforcement for acting out on that lust. I would think about lust then act out think about it. act out.
And I would get the reward of the pleasure of sex from that Over time,
this has become somehow ingrained in my soul.
It's who I am. It only seems
natural that to try to overcome something so powerful and so deep inside me
would be impossible.
What do I have to do or change so I can overcome lust? Attitude.
Attitude has been the most important part of my recovery. Changing my attitude from: What I am doing
is okay, good, normal and natural. To:
hey wait a minute, lust may be a natural instinctual desire, but what I m doing
is wrong I've taken this instinct and turned it into an obsession. lusting after any woman I see. compulsively acting out. I have to realize that what I am doing hurts
other people, people I love. And most
importantly, it hurts me. This is not
who I want to be. I don't want to be a
pervert. I want integrity. I lust because I want to. To stop, I must want that more.
·
Because in
growing up and maturing, males are "conditioned" to believe that lust
for females is good-okay-natural, and satisfying the lust physically is
okay-natural-good.. Because the female
is constantly portrayed as an acceptable lust object for males.
To recover: Must enforce difference between general lust and love of spouse
plus sexual acts as expressions of love only.
• My eyes have been fed images for so many years that this has caused
such a strong addiction ofdrinking-in the sexual anatomy of women, causing me
to only see a female as a sexual image or object to lust after and desire to
lust out.
·
To recover: I
need God's strength from His Word daily and through prayer ask for His
help. For me, I always have to not
allow myself to take any first drink when a very sensuous female appears, I
have to remember to look away from her attraction and pray for her to be
blessed. I also need to be ever mindful
of the end result of my addiction when let run wild, taking me into the deep
pit of incarceration and the horror of that humiliation of being a sex
offender.
·
Lust seems
impossible to overcome because it is so deeply rooted in my sexual need. I want what is sexually desirable and when I
can't have it, I fantasize about having it through lust. Sometimes I feel like a man walking through
desert yearning desperately for a drink of water. Suddenly, a glass of cool refreshing water is offered, put right
up to my lips to drink, but the holder of the glass tells me that I cannot,
must not drink. That is what sexual
lust is like. To realize that I don't
need that drink of water while I am standing there under the hot sun of the
desert seems I impossible.
To recover, the man in the desert has to come to an awareness that the drink
being offered to quench his thirst is not water at all, but poison that does
nothing more than bring on more thirst.
I must find the thing that satisfies my thirst. Jesus said, "I offer water that will
become a wellspring rising up within you.
And you will never be thirsty again." Then I must find my way out
of the desert. My lust will be replaced
by something greater: Love. Loving God,
loving my wife and kids, loving myself.
·
First of all,
it's attraction and the false sense of feeling good for a short period of time;
the escape of reality for a brief moment.
It makes me feel good about myself and run away from everything and
everyone. It's all a big lie. Its too painful to face reality most of my
life. So my addiction is my temporary
escape. It's truly addiction, like a
drug I'm hooked.
First of all, I must truly want to stop lusting and ask and do whatever it
takes to go down to the root of the problem and face it and truly work towards
recovery. At any cost, if it takes all
the rest of my life, which will probably be.
·
Lust is so
"impossible" because it's part of my brain, body, mind, and
soul. It's more powerful than I
am. My antenna is permanently tuned to
lust s wavelength Lust is radiating everywhere in my world, wanting me to tune
in and be lusted after. Lust was my
god-connection. Lust programmed my
sexual identity. Lust programmed my
personal identity. Lust was the biggest
payoff in my life. To recover, I'll
have to have something more powerful than lust. Something that can transcend my chemistry and neurology. It must be more personal than lust. Be true instead of deceitful; clean instead
of dirty. Enable me to see what lust
was covering, what was driving the lust so I could deal with the real
problem. I must have something better
than lust, a connection with God that works.
Recovery must enable me, a total love cripple, to discover love, enable
me to give instead of take.
Tall order, isn't
it. No wonder "meetings, meetings,
meetings . . . ." isn't enough.
Appendix 3
Check meetings have
been around for quite awhile and have proven to be a valuable means of
implementing the deeper fellowship we need in our recovery. ("Recovery never ends for the
lustaholic. ") Often a sponsee
will have a problem that does not readily yield to the sponsor's knowledge,
recovery experience, or ability. In
such cases, there can be wisdom and breakthrough by bringing the issue to a
small select group of trusted members, together, under God. At least two others, and not more than five
others has been found to be effective.
It is ideal if this can be done in one's accountability circle—the few
core members to whom one is personally accountable on a continuing basis in
mutual recovery support. See How It's
Working and the Accountability Circle paper.
Check meetings can easily led into surrender meetings.
Examples: A member
who can't get or remain sober or who is a habitual slipper. A member can't breakthrough into lust
victory or wet dreams. A member doesn't
know how to cope with his wife's response for his decision to go into total
sexual abstinence. A member has a major
decision, like whether to break off with a girlfriend, whether to get married,
accept a job offer, etc. Other members
seek help with problems such as fear, dating, career. . .
Sometimes Akron 1935-type Surrender meetings wind up being check
meetings only, when it becomes apparent that the person is not ready to proceed
with the surrender. At other times,
check meetings called for some other purpose lead right into focused
surrenders.
Sometimes it becomes
apparent that the person needs to write on something that surfaces during the
check meeting that had little direct connection with the original topic.
How We Go About It
1. Get together. Meet privately. The
leader should state the ground rules and the session should open with
prayer(s). Continue in an attitude of
prayerfulness in the light of God's presence.
Allow an open-ended period of time (two or three hours is not
unreasonable.) Pagers and cell phones off.
Those participating should have the same honesty and willingness as the
checkee. The checkee should have the
right to exclude any with whom they do not feel comfortable.
2. Stress the requirement of absolute
honesty. The only requirement, and that
for everyone present, is absolute honest)'.
We tell the person there's no agenda or expectation or judgment, but we
insist on honesty in everyone's responses.
There is no ritual to follow here.
And there should be no expectation on their part or ours of any special
happening. Often, the check meeting has
as much or more value to those participating than for the checkee.
We've found it
helpful to begin the session by going around briefly stating where each of us
is, with lust or surrender, for example, especially when we don't know one
another intimately. That honesty helps
put the person at ease and puts us all on the same level before God.
3. Approach.
We do not criticize, pass judgment, or give advice. We simply play back what we hear, what comes
through between the lines. We do not
take responsibility for the other person's life or decisions. We are simply a sounding board. We speak as we would be spoken to. We ask questions for clarification, the aim
being to bring clarity and direction.
Often, a check meeting can lead directly into revealing the present
point of resistance in surrendering to God's will. (Also, using the four absolutes as a guide in decision making has
proven helpfal to Dr. Bob and others.)
(See the Third Step Unconditional Surrender paper, since the sessions involve a
similar approach: privacy, open-ended time, honesty, and accountability.)
Example: A woman a few years sober realizes she still cannot forgive the men
who perpetrated wrongs upon her.
In this case, it was
suggested that the woman write a concise Step 8 1/2 inventory (see page 125 in
the White Book) on her unforgiveness.
The woman wrote on each person or incident: what happened, how her
unforgiveness expressed itself within her, and what this told her about her
herself and her own spiritual condition and attitude. The focus was to be on her response to the wrongs, responses both
within her and in her behavior, not on those who wronged her.
The woman wrote it
out and called four or five members to hear and offer feedback. They began with prayer for guidance, and she
asked for guidance and courage. She
read her inventory all the way through.
(Had it gotten off track, the members could have intervened, if
appropriate.) When she was through reading it, they prayed again, and one by
one the members shared what they heard.
She was able to break through into free and total forgiveness. Example: A member who is a minister has been
sexually involved with members of his congregation calls a check meeting for
guidance on how to make amends to these persons. It's very touchy because this might injure others. Penetrating questions are asked, which reveal
that his "top plate" priority is a surrender of anger toward his own
wife.
Example: A member is
stuck in her career/education and seeks a broader range of input and wisdom
than her sponsor is able to offer. She
was asked to bring a written "inventory" dealing with her education and
employment history. The questioning
revealed that the underlying problem was the person s tearfulness. This led her to begin working all the Steps
on this new "addiction," leading eventually to a new job.
John's Story . When I first came to SA eight years ago, it
became clear, as I talked to other members and heard their stories, that if I
continued my acting out habit, it would lead to death or jail. So I became willing to lay down my habit,
get a sponsor, and start working the twelve steps with my sponsor and others in
my group. It became clear that I could
not stop on my own power, and that even SA could not keep me physically
sober. So, it is nothing short of a
miracle of God that I have not had to
act out physically for the past eight years.
But, like they say, "sober is not well."
A little bit about
me: I'm a single man, never married, 32 years old when I came into SA My acting
out had centered around masturbation and fantasy. When I first started this program, I was beginning to act out the
fantasies that could have put me in jail, or six-feet under: exposing myself or
suffocating myself while masturbation.
(The technical term for the latter, I believe, is auto-erotic
asphyxiation.) Given the way I was going, were it not for God's work in my life,
by now I would likely be in jail, in a mental hospital, or dead.
What has happened to
my lust during the past eight years? At
first, I kept doing all my lustful behaviors except physically acting out, but
this experiment did not work. So, 1
accepted that I had to stop lustful behaviors that could lead me to act
out. If I started one of these
behaviors, as soon as I realized I was lusting, I surrendered my lust to God,
and to my surprise, he took it! The realization of lustful behaviors kept
coming earlier and earlier, so that eventually I completely stopped going to
newsstands to look for triggering material, and then I started to be able to
give up the first "glance" to check out who was walking by. It was (and continues to be) such a relief
to not have to do these things any more! Eventually, I came to see that God
actually takes my place in bearing my lust, so that I am free of having to do
it. I came to the program simply to
save my neck, but what I found was the real God.
Although I was happy
with the progress I'd made, there was a nagging problem: I was surrendering the
glances with my eyes, was still lusting after people in my head, even without
looking, and there didn't seem to be any progress in this area. Furthermore, there were impossible
situations when I had to look at the triggering person, such as when working
with someone, or (later on, when I tried it) going out on a date with someone.
Furthermore, I
became aware that other people, some with many years of recovery, were losing
their sobriety, never to regain it, even though these people seemed to be doing
all the things I was doing. This really
scared me, because I cannot act out, it could cost me my life.
About two years ago,
I started to have a series of worsening erotic dreams, which made me fearful
that my sobriety, and hence my life, was in jeopardy. I was mechanically doing all the program actions that had worked
before, especially calling people and bringing to the light my lust, yet the
problem kept worsening, the dreams coming almost every night. At that time one of the men I was calling
with my dreams suggested that I try an absolute surrender with a group. I resisted the suggestion at first, since I
wanted to believe that if I kept doing everything in the program I had done
before, it would be enough. Eventually,
I became desperate enough to take the suggestion, and got together with several
others for a check/surrender meeting.
This first meeting led to a series of meetings over several months as
the crisis continued to get worse for me.
The initial breakthrough
for me happened at a rather large surrender meeting where I'd called together
most of the people I'd been close to in my years of SA I read an inventory I'd
written, and a statement of what I thought I needed to surrender, which was
something like, "I surrender my lust and obsessing, including in my
dreams." The group didn't think that was specific enough, so we started to
talk about what was it that I really needed to surrender. I really believe God was at work in this
meeting, because there were a number of times when we seemed to be completely
stuck, that there was no solution to where we'd gotten. But each time, a different person would know
where we needed to go next. Eventually,
my resentment toward the person who'd suggested the surrender came out, and we
looked at that. Bringing this out
allowed all of us to see the real sticking point: that I was running my life as
a sham, using the program to help me look good to my family, my church, my
coworkers. So, I got on my knees, and
surrendered to God my right to my sham.
The next several
months for me were scary. I knew what I
had to do. Although it probably would
have gone better if I'd stayed in closer fellowship with the people from the surrender
meeting. I stopped going to church for
an indefinite period, had some honest talks with my parents about my addiction
and our relationship, and let people at work know in various ways that I wasn't
all together the way I'd pretended to be.
I fell into a frightening depression, as I began to realize for the
first time the depth of my rebellion against God. I seriously doubted that he would give me any more help, given
who I really was. For the first time
ever, I could not carry out my job properly, and was getting in trouble with my
boss because of this. There was fear
that I would act out, and kill myself doing so. Without my even trying, my mind developed a new fantasy for how I
might commit suicide while masturbating.
Looking back on this experience now, I have a sense that God was very close
to me, even though I didn't know it, and all seemed hopeless. Although it seemed that there was nowhere to
turn, in desperation I surrendered the new lust fantasy to God, and asked him
to show a way out of the crises. My
thoughts were completely confused, and gyrating back and forth, yet as I asked
for his help, there would always be moments of clarity when I’d know what my
next step was to be. Eventually, there
was another surrender meeting where I became willing to let go of my job, my
status, and my right to myself.
Although I doubted if it would make any difference, I went ahead and
surrendered these things to God, admitting that there was nothing left in me
with which I could take care of myself.
Over the next few days, as I stopped fighting for my life, my mind
started to clear, and God started to return me to sanity. Several people, inside and outside of the
program, noticed a change right away.
Over the next few
months, things still seemed quite shaky, but I kept close to those I’d surrendered
with, keeping myself in the light with them and with God. Eventually, there was another, wonderfully
freeing surrender in which I let go of my right to mind unconditionally giving
it to God and leaving to him whether or not I would remain sane and
functional. (My trying to analyze what
was going on in my recovery had become an addiction all its own.) Since then I have felt less and less in
danger of slipping into insanity or depression, although I continue to have the
capability to do that.
Over the past year
and a half since my crisis, God has done for me what I was unable to do in all
those years of strictly “working the program.”
He’s giving me victory over the lust inside my head, including the erotic
dreams. The biggest miracle is that I’m
starting to find out what it’s like to connect with women, and, yes, even feel
attracted to them, and maybe tempted to lust, but to let God in and be saved
from lust in that moment. By the way,
my employers are happy again with my work, although I’m not sure how long I
want to continue the current job.
The book Sexaholics
Anonymous says that fighting lust doesn’t work, and giving in to lust
doesn’t work; the only thing that works is surrender to God. Looking back on the last few years, it is
now clear that I was “working the program” including going to meetings, calling
people, doing inventories, etc., as a way of fighting lust, all because of my
fear that I might go back “out there.”
Fear-based sobriety! Surrender
to God is freeing me from this tyranny of having to “work the program” hard
enough to keep myself sober. I’m just
beginning to find a God who can save me from my lust, resentment, and fear, so
that I can follow him in freedom, instead of out of having to do it to save my
neck. I’m learning that freedom which I
really want, freedom to follow God’s call because it’s what I want to do,
instead of what I have to do.
One more thing: it
used to be at meetings that I would seek out people who seemed to have certain
qualities that I wanted in a friend, hoping that I would find fellowship that
way. It turns out that the best way I'm
finding fellowship today is to look for the person at the meeting who's messed
up and knows it, who's experiencing their powerlessness over something; because
that means we have something in common, powerlessness. Instead of trying to fix them with my
program knowledge, what seems to work best is to get several people together to
meet with them in a spirit of surrender, admitting that we're all powerless
over their problem. God is working in
situations like that. This afternoon,
I'm going to be spending time with a lustaholic who, like me, is powerless over
something in his life. I don't know
exactly what it is, and I don't know what I can say to help him. I'm powerless over this person. So we'll see what God does this time!
Appendix 4
For the typical lust
addict, our whole system screams out that we're going to die if we don't take
that "drink." It's too fearful not to drink. Lust is our spiritual life-support
system. Yes, the fear is that
real. So, we wind up drinking. We're hooked on it and remain a slave. It's the fear of this kind of death that
keeps us in bondage and forces us to keep slipping with lust.
The sad fact today
is that so very many in the sex addiction recovery movement remain in bondage
to lust because of this very threat of death.
They are unable or unwilling to connect with the Life-giver instead. We can t break through this death-barrier;
we shrink back at the death-threat of not drinking. It's so unnatural for us not to lust or misconnect. Ours is the compulsion of the look the
fantasy, or the misconnection, which when denied, is the very threat of death
But eventually we learn the hard way that for us to drink is to die So recovery
is learning to act against the fear—to lean into the fear—and go ahead and
die. So we can live. The amazing paradox of our program.
This is why the
decisive action-point of our malady is the instant of temptation, typically in
the look, the memory, or the fantasy.
That's where we face the feeling of death each time. And that fear drives us to resort to that
drug again and again and again. So we
won't die! We've used and heard all kinds of formulas on how to deal with it. Some are foolish or frantic, such as the
three-second rule: "If you look for over three seconds, you're
lusting. (What's yours'?) As though
lust had anything to do with duration.
Lust has nothing to do with duration and everything to do with intent. If the intent is to snatch a quick drink,
does it really matter how long it is.
or even what we see? The intent
is what we are. We need salvation from
the intent, from the disposition of our heart.
Most of us initially
feel it's something we must do to get out of it. "I shouldn't be doing this!" we say to ourselves, as we
go ahead and take the drink This tells me that we don't fully understand the
nature of what we're dealing with and that we underestimate the strategies of
spiritual blindness and denial We don't comprehend that lust is a disposition
of the heart, an attitude. We rely on
our own efforts—even our prayerful efforts—to save us. (Who says religious exercises can't support
the illness?) This is why so many of us—sober from "acting out"—do
not recover from acting in. Mere sexual
sobriety just deals with externals.
Sober is not well. The tragedy m
such lust-avoidance or lust-distraction technique is that we can still
"feel better about ourselves" and support the illness.
Is Victory' over
Lust Progressive?
Our program affirms
that "true sobriety includes progressive victory over lust." How can
there be any argument with that? We
know of no instant cures from lust yet (though we keep an open, if skeptical, mind). But our relation to this sobriety definition
may be too shallow. We can abuse
it. We can hide in it. So let's examine the question: Is there such
a thing as progressive victory over lust?
There are two ways of looking at it.
On the one hand, I
came slowly to see in my own progressive recovery what lust is and the many
ways I denied and blinded myself to what was really going on. Apparently it takes a certain amount of
recovery to begin to see lust for what it is.
I didn't discover lust as the underlying pathology until I stayed
sexually sober. The overt
"drool" is merely one of the more obvious forms. What about addiction to Woman or Man—
"Connect with me and make me whole!"? What about the "wandering heart"? Ours is preeminently the malady of the
misconnection. What about lust in the
marriage? Lust and sex in dreams? Lust is cunning, baffling, and powerful, and
more gets revealed. In this sense, victory
over lust is progressive; unfortunately, it many of us, it isn't, and we pay
the price.
On the other hand,
in the instant of temptation, there is absolutely no such thing as progressive
victory over lust. Any rationalizations
we have notwithstanding, whenever that image, that fantasy, or that memory
hits, we either lust or we don't. We
either drink or we don't. The intent is
either there or it isn't. There's
nothing progressive about it. There's
no in-between. Suppressing it through
will power might be considered kind of an in-between, but not really.
Suppression or
repression—will-powering it—is just another avoidance technique which may be
worse than consciously going ahead and lusting. Worse because in that forced ascetic denial, we think we're
making it. But the lust is still there
inside, building up steam. It's like
saying I really want to lust, but for whatever reason, / will put it away. That's really not surrendering it to
God. It's locking it in a cage deep
within. That's not victory over lust;
it's merely trying to put a bridle on it, putting lust on hold. There's no freedom in suppression, only more
fear. And it all lodges in the
subconscious, storing up energy, only to bust out later in dreams or get
expressed in other forms, such as resentment (or even self-loathing) or cross
over into other addictions, such as food or TV. For the lustaholic.
there's no way out of our awesome dilemma. Except the Program way of surrender to God, dying to it, and
being released from it in that moment of temptation.
In AA we hear the
expression, "Resentment is the number-one killer of alcoholics." With
us, the killer is lust. "Lust
kills the spirit.. .Lust kills me"
(White Book, p. 44).
Too often this idea
that victory over lust is progressive becomes the excuse for aborting true
recovery. "I'm sober so many
years" equates to "I'm okay now " As though calendar sexual
sobriety is the "real" sobriety.
Or, as we hear so often, "I'm dealing with lust the best I can;
it's a goal to aim toward." More often we hear nothing at all about member
lust temptations. We discover the
person who calls himself technically sober is still drinking. Missing out on true recovery. This is tragic and damages group and
Fellowship unity. Continuing sexual
sobriety is only prerequisite for recovery, not recovery itself. The recovery which our program promises is being
saved in that next temptation, being released from its power. Instead of being self-driven or fear-driven,
recovery is the victory of incredible joy.
Therefore, the first
and only line of defense in a lust temptation must be a prior changed attitude
of the mind and heart. If that prior
attitude—which only comes via unconditional surrender to God—is a decision to
give up lusting and rely on God, that attitude will be in place before we're
even tempted. Then, when hit with the
image, in that first blink of an eyelash, the shield of God's presence is
already in place, and you don't have to do anything. Victory over lust is where you are, where you are in your
attitude with your Lust-bearer, not what you do. The Shield is already in place, and you don't have to do
anything. That's where we are either
saved from it or not. Victory over lust
begins with the daily decision to give up lust to God. Deliverance in the moment of temptation
follows as a consequence. (Morning and
evening, I surrender my right to drink and ask him to keep me sober from every
lust.)
Real Recovery
We may have this
whole idea of sex addiction sobriety backwards. We need to consider and talk about this very seriously. Victory over lust is the real recovery, and
continued recovery from acting out sexually flows from that. There is no true recovery if all we're doing
is not acting out. Merely not acting
out only minimizes the real problem, which is acting in. Question: Should the persistent practice of
acting in be considered sober? More and
more, people are saying No.
On coming into the
program, most of us are mainly concerned with stopping the acting out. That's what we thought was killing us. But once sober, we begin to see the real
problem. Remember that our program is
aligned with the AA model of/?o/ drinking, because ours is an internal drug,
the alcohol of the spirit. How does
SA's Third Tradition read?—"The only requirement for membership is a
desire to become sexually sober"?
No. It reads, "The only
requirement for membership is a desire to stop lusting" (then adding)
"and become sexually sober." Think about it. We need to get down to the nitty-gritty
basics. The Calendar Sobriety Syndrome
is killing us! I laud those who are beginning to set their dates back with a
decision to stop acting in Let's encourage and support one another in breaking
through the Lust Barrier. Maybe that's
the SA equivalent of AA's statement of "separating the men from the
boys."
It's Impossible
This is where we'll
discover that true sobriety from lust by our own doing is impossible. This is where we're up against our real
powerlessness and have no recourse but to One who can restore us to sanity in
the very temptation. I wonder if it
would not be better to challenge people right up front with the fact that
recovery is impossible without victory over lust. Once we discover we're powerless over lust, let's challenge each
other so we don't hide it. Let's keep
bringing it into the light.
For myself today, I
am absolutely powerless over lust in some form or other. But there is One, who himself is my victory
over it, whenever I go through that fear of death, die to the temptation,
upward to him, and bring him in, personally, savingly. It works.
He works!
We should honestly
face this impossibility of a "lust cure" so people will be forced to
find their saving connection with God before settling into either the Slipper
Syndrome or the Calendar Sobriety Syndrome or shifting from acting out to
acting in. Why not state the nature of
this problem as it really is, right up front: True recovery—joyous victory over
lust—is utterly impossible without finding God, cleaning house, and working
with others. That is the distilled
essence of the original Twelve Step program.
Have you found God in your lust?
Fear of dying to
lust holds us in bondage to the slavery of impossible addiction. And the longer we're in the fellowship of
recovery, the clearer we see the true spiritual nature of our addiction and our
utter dependence on a Power greater than ourselves, greater than our lust. But in each temptation—over and over
again—we, you and I, must be willing to go through the threat of death to
discover that there really is life after lust.
.
. .
The whole point here is that we don't have to lust at all. We can and will be tempted—by triggers, memories, and fantasies—but we don't have to drink at all. We can have total victory over lust in that next temptation, which is all we ever need. There is no victory over lust before the fact! No magic bullet that makes us immune. The victory is in the prior attitude before we're ever tempted—an attitude issuing from unconditional surrender to God. The victory is in the prior disposition of our heart. We either have it or we don't. And it's our choice, either for the god of Self, the god of Lust, or for the One who is eager and able to deliver us in the trial. The choice is ours. The choice either to give up, to die to self, to die in that next temptation, or to drink.. Thus, victory over lust, our Great Impossible, becomes The Great Possible! We can discover and experience the expulsive power of a new affection. This is our calling, our hope, and our great joy in fellowship.