ESSAY Magazine (An International Journal of Sexaholics Anonymous)

Dear ESSAY, Greetings from India. I am Iris from India–grateful, recovering, and blessed lustaholic and sexaholic. My SA journey and sobriety began on May 25, 2021, one day at a time(ODaAT). I heard about ESSAY and its garden of recovery at the beginning of my SA journey. I was approached to be a part of ESSAY’s garden, and I blossomed through sharing 3–4 articles. ESSAY has been one of my very st...

Informing Professionals about SA One of SA’s 18 committees that helps to carry the message and serve the fellowship is the Support for Institutions and Professionals Committee (SIP). Formerly, it was called the Hospitals and Institutions Committee. Our mission is still the same, to inform institutions and professionals as to how SA can help restore and maintain their clients’ mental, emotional, an...

I broke up with my last girlfriend when I came to the program, after a two-year relationship. The reason was my shocking admission to the truth about myself—that I used her, trying to find a sense of self-worth at her expense, satisfy lust, and not feel lonely. This realization was painful, but honest and therefore healing. I saw that I had always had this kind of unhealthy attitude towards my par...

Time being single and sober has allowed her to hear Higher Power’s will for her.  I have been sober for several years now, and have taken my first steps toward recovery. By “recovery,” I don’t just mean working the Steps, but that I am literally “recovering.” I’m talking about healing and restoration. This allows me to better discern the voice of my “lower self,” but also my “higher self.” My lowe...

He discovered that being single allowed him to devote his whole life to God. I was not put in this program by a spouse. I put myself here of my own volition. I don’t have to get found out or exposed because I have the opportunity to expose and find out about myself here in safety and connection with others, united in fellowship all across the world. I may not ever marry. It is possible that I coul...

God’s love and will in her life are all she needs, and anything else is extra. I grew up with an urge to be a grandmother; I just loved the idea of having a family and children. I would name my daughter after the girl who sits on the last bench in my class. I was in first grade, and I looked at my crush and thought, “If we had a daughter, I would name her after my classmate who’s at the top of our...

By repairing the past, through working the program, he found the freedom of being single. Throughout my lust addiction, romantic relationships became a golden calf to me. I thought an attractive, emotionally compatible girlfriend would fulfill and complete me.  Having a girlfriend became a persistent fantasy, but every time a woman would say yes to my proposition for a date, I would run from the r...

She came to accept Higher Power’s plan for her. I had to learn to love myself, not in the way a conceited person does, but as a precious child of God. I had to learn to enjoy my own company and to remember I am a precious child of God. Not a perfect one, but a work in progress with my Higher Power molding me to His will. I am not in charge of my life; my Higher Power is in charge. I have to accept...

Surrendering Lust helped him to surrender the shame that came with it. Yesterday, I started the day in the usual way with prayers and readings—I thank God for that. I then went to do some errands.  About mid-morning, there was a lust hit. I knew the danger, and I acted swiftly. I averted my eyes, got out of the situation, surrendered the look, and prayed. I acknowledged my powerlessness. The lust...

This tool helps him to release the past. There are moments in life when the past will not let go. I’ve started the path of recovery, made amends where I could, committed to change, and yet — the memories remain. The images return. The shame lingers. While I’ve begun to move forward on the outside, my mind is still caught in the painful echoes of what I’ve done. This is where the Prayer of Divine R...

Recovery radically changed how he celebrates Father’s Day. I used to think Father’s Day was about waiting for my children to shower me with drawings, or words that would make me feel like a good father. I thought it was a day to sit back and receive—to be told that all my sacrifices were noticed, my sleepless nights appreciated, my worrying understood. But something has shifted in me.

This period of being single has given him time to work a rigorous program. For most of my life, I’ve been looking for someone to connect with me and make me whole. I felt “inadequate, unworthy, alone, and afraid” (SA 203), always comparing my insides to the outsides of others. I was terrified of people seeing me for fear that they’d reject me—which was why I never learned to date. It felt too risk...

Sobriety has helped him deal with the highs and lows of being single. I am single. I am not always happy, joyous, and free. It can be lonely. Divorce is painful. I don’t feel happy, joyous, and free. Today, I am 18 months sober—miraculous proof that God can do for me what I couldn’t do for myself. I have also been depressed for about a month. I have been officially single for about half the time I...

Learning how to surrender and open up to healthy activities affirmed that he belonged. My name is Ryan, and I am a child of my Higher Power. As a former SA sponsor once humorously suggested, “You qualify to be in the program, you are one of us!” I came to SA in 2017, but after a while, it became clear that I needed to leave the Program. I needed to find a genuine and authentic spirituality—a relat...

Having had a spiritual experience has allowed her to accept the plans God has for her personal life.  Sitting in the counselor’s office in early 2020, I voiced my biggest fear: that one day my sexual behavior would destroy a marriage. Fetish-oriented fantasy, masturbation, literature, and pornography had been a part of my life for as long as I could remember, for no apparent external reason. I man...

Good service leadership at all levels is indispensable for our future functioning and safety.  I began service in SA to practice leadership based on the principles and values I am learning from our 12-Step program and to learn a new sober way of life and functioning in the world. SA service means I am too focused on helping sexaholics find the Program and affirming them in their recovery.

Hearing others share from their weakness helped him realize he was not alone. Hi, I’m Justin, I’m a grateful recovering sexaholic.  I came to SA in 2019 when a priest friend introduced me to the Fellowship. I had just started a new job and it was summertime. He invited me to a meeting, gave me the SA White Book, and encouraged me to attend. At that first meeting, I heard other men share openly abo...

This period in his life has given him time to grow. Hi, I’m James D., and I’ve been incarcerated since January 28, 2022. I’ve been sexually sober since November 29, 2023—one year, ten months, and one day from the worst day of my life. That day, I experienced the first of many of the best days of my life: the day I entered sobriety.

Surrendering her life to God through the steps I am single in SA. And I am content. How is that possible? It is possible because I feel content each day as I surrender to my Higher Power’s care. I don’t look into the future about what that means. My focus is on today. Each day, I decide to turn my will and my life over to the care of God as I understand Him (Step Three). I ask for the knowledge of...

If single, have you embraced this time in your life to grow? The author of the article “The Availability to Dive”  brings to light how beneficial it can be to live single while recovering. While it can also be challenging, the single life can give us the time needed to learn how to live without our drug and relate to others. This prepares those who plan to sober date at some point. 

Detachment was the path that led him to a break from the unreal and to seek what was real. Without a doubt, my program is one of progress, not perfection. It has taken me some years to understand how infatuation has kept me bound to lust. Infatuation, I believe, is a distortion of reality. What begins in me as a natural response, appreciating what is attractive in another person, slides out of rea...

As a result of working the Program, this member likes the man he is growing into. Before SA and recovery from chronic lusting and the acting out that followed, I was frequently lost in fantasy, on dating apps, or in an “intimate encounter.” The irony was, there was nothing intimate about it. This behavior eroded away my soul and made me feel deeply ashamed. It was also causing aggravation, fear, a...

Participating in the Fellowship helped him to accept his disease and to laugh with those carrying the message to him. Ontario’s SA Spring Retreat 2025, themed “Acceptance is the Answer”, took place from Friday, May 23rd–Sunday, May 25th, coordinated by the Peterborough SA group.

Are you ready for another caption challenge? We invite you to craft the perfect recovery caption for the cartoon below, centered on October’s theme, “Surrendering Shame.” If your caption makes us laugh, it will be featured in the October ESSAY edition. Don't miss out—the submission deadline is September 15. Send your entry to essay@ sa.org. Unleash your creativity, and may the cleverest caption wi...