DEMONIZING SOBER-SEX

Stop demonizing sober sex!

There is an unwritten rule in AA that is not without merit. “No sex for the first year sober” is the suggestion. Unwritten indeed. The rule teeters on a scale defined as either a beneficial and spiritual quest or controlling and insane demand depending on the context by which it is administered. Granted the “no sex” rule is not as well established as the “no relationships” for the first year rule. But admittedly they are similar, and sex can be huge distraction in early sobriety that leads directly to the cliff called “relationships”. After all a sexual relationship is still a relationship.

How can the rule of no sex for a year be potentially either spiritual or character defect both? It is a spiritual quest if we choose it to stay clear of distractions and deny the flesh to empower the spirit. And it is a decision I can change at any time preferably without being called an evil 13th stepper. If someone is demanding that I “stop all sex for a year” no questions asked and insisting I won’t stay sober if I have sex as a blanket rule for everyone…well then it’s insanity because there are a host of circumstances in life which could prove that newly sober sexual relationships can work. It depends on the person and the situation. Perhaps I enter the rooms married, or maybe I meet my soul mate in the rooms. Him with 13 years sober and me 13 days sober. We fall deeply in love and are still together many years later, in harmony. And yet the frigid and judgmental call it a 13th step. The most horrid of the AA offences, that is other than relapse.

Live by the golden rule and show others respect.

In the words of our great guru, king of the 12 steps, validator of the suffering addict, Bill W. himself. “We do not want to be the arbiter of anyone’s sex conduct.” Well you sure as hell could of fooled me! If “we” means the people at meetings I have been to that is. Seems to me the rule forbidding sex in the first year of recovery supersedes many of the more important sobriety suggestions. And Bill W. continues: “We remembered always that our sex powers were God-given and therefore good, neither to be used lightly or selfishly nor to be despised and loathed.” He goes on to mention that “everyone has sex problems.” I am sure that’s true also for the majority of humans, eventually.

Are certain members of AA mimicking religious fanatics?

Yes ironically, since the word “religion” is by far the most evil word in the AA pirate dictionary.

And the interesting part about all this shame inducing sex talk? We hear a very similar message echoing from the pulpit of many churches. Even though the Bible itself doesn’t talk much about sex. But rather the Bible condemns the betrayal called adultery. The word “fornication” in my opinion implies ‘betrayal’ and some sort of hurtfulness not sex alone. Let consenting adults alone with their consensual sex. Why, with all the violence, torture, abuse, murders, maiming, and molestation happening does an act of sexual harmony rate being called sin? Only for the misguided, clearly only for the misguided. Common sense tells me that harmonious sex is no more a sin than eating food. Sex is right there in line with eat, sleep, drink water, have sex, have babies, and breath air. Granted I am not referring to sex abuse that my friend is another mater.

What is addiction in the arena of substance abuse? Addiction means un-manageability. That is the difference between using a drug to help us and abusing a drug to hurt us. But don’t think you escape un-manageability just because your sober. ha ha ha ha

Recovery is about what we do to recover not about what we are forbidden. (excluding alcohol and our drug of choice of course)

Recovery happens when we go to meetings and do the work regardless of whether we are having sex with a newcomer who by the way used to be a prostitute. The program works if we work it. If you have sex you still make your meetings. If you have sex with a newcomer you still make your meetings and if the newcomer doesn’t make his or her meetings, well that’s on them isn’t it?

We are adults, we make our own choices. Newcomers make their own choices. Some programs like to take away the power of choice, even imprison or restrain adults but Alcoholics Anonymous is not one of them and the literature proves it.

WEBSITE ARTICLES THAT ADVOCATE NO INTIMATE, SEXUAL RELATIONSHIPS FOR THE FIRST YEAR

5 Signs Sex Is Undermining Your Recovery

The Addicts Prayer

Turn your recovery over by giving it to God through a more tried and true Higher Power than a door knob.

Pray this: God I realize we have not talked much, please, please reveal yourself to me that I may know you and understand what my relationship with you should be from here on out. Thank you for hearing my plea. I humble myself before you the Creator of The Heavens and earth. Amen Oh ya, P.S. Please let me know what your name truly is and that you do Love me as your child and blessed creation cursed as it has been. I fear if I don’t do something different I will end up back in the Hell that addiction has taken me. Please Help! Amen

If the above prayer makes you nauseous then you may not be a child of that God. It’s your choice to pray the following prayer instead.

HOW TO TRULY FIND AND CONNECT WITH YOUR OWN HIGHER POWER

“A God Of Your Understanding”

September 3, 2015

Church Releases Jarring Video: Battling Sex Addiction With Honesty

Scroll down to see video now.

The name of the Mormon website is LDS Living

In honor of National Addiction Recovery Month, the Mormon Channel is releasing a series of powerful and raw videos, which focus on the struggles and triumphs of those overcoming various addictions.

The 12-part series focuses on the personal experience of 12 former addicts who share startlingly honest and real experiences of their fights to overcome drug, alcohol, food, sex, and pornography addictions. read more…

Here is the link to the video

August 18, 2015

Sex Addiction

From Anonymous Sex Into the Right Body

Huffpost On Sex Addiction

Eventually I landed in the hospital with a “fever of unknown origin” (FUO, the doctors called it), which lingered over 105 degrees for a week and kept me shivering under an electric cold blanket, hallucinating all the while. The following week I was right back at it, having anonymous sex as soon as I was discharged — until, sure enough, I returned to the hospital with another FUO. This time I was worried, and alone: my boss from the theater where I had started working straight out of college didn’t come to visit, as she had the first time. I was trying people’s patience; things could only get worse.

And then what movie aired on TV as I lay in my hospital bed but Philadelphia, in which Tom Hanks plays a lawyer who’s fired for being gay and ultimately dies of AIDS.

“Okay, God,” I said. “I’ll stop.”

But of course I didn’t. I am an addict.

I acted out for ever more potent highs with, paradoxically, ever more debasing behavior, so that demoralization imbued whatever self-worth I had left, until I saw myself as deserving nothing more. I began to believe what I believed other people believed about me.

Years and years into the cycle, reprieve would come at last in the form of recovery meetings. I needed to show up in the rooms to stay abstinent, not from sex altogether, but rather from the addictive behaviors that made my life unmanageable: phone sex, cybersex and pornography, in addition to the anonymous sex — all forms of sexual activity which were, for me, attempts to rub out the unease of being in the wrong body through forms of self-effacement.

The root of the problem was that I did not want to be in a male body; I never had. Anonymous sex provided an avenue for assuming the role in which I was comfortable, while covering up the longings I felt inside, if only for as long as I acted out. Since the sex was over before it began, and I never knew my partners, the underbelly of my gender dissipated upon expression. Thus I sought to suppress myself under the illusion of control.

But denial only exacerbated the discrepancy between my reality and my potential. The mirror of life followed me everywhere, and the shame in which addiction coated me obscured the reflections I saw.

Impulsion distorted any sense of self-worth, which worsened the disgrace of being unable to control my addiction. After engaging in behavior that I’d promised last time I would never do again, here I was doing the same thing once more — again, and again, and again and again — and again.

I ventured further into the abyss each time I acted out. Yesterday’s rush fell short of what I needed today — riskier danger, steeper precipices and more, always more. There was never enough of anything because my addiction craved annihilation above all else. Every letdown fanned the flames of the hell that life became when I acted out.

And yet I sought even more.

I wanted to stop. I promised myself I would stop.

I could not stop. read more…

July 18, 2015November 19, 2022

Big Book Sexual Inventory Page 69

BIG BOOK SEXUAL INVENTORY PAGE 68-71

Now about sex. Many of us needed an overhauling there. But above all, we tried to be sensible on this question. It’s so easy to get way off the track. Here we find human opinions running to extremes – absurd extremes, perhaps. One set of voices cry that sex is a lust of our lower nature, a base necessity of procreation.

Then we have the voices who cry for sex and more sex; who bewail the institution of marriage; who think that most of the troubles of the race are traceable to sex causes. They think we do not have enough of it, or that it isn’t the right kind. They see its significance everywhere. One school would allow man no flavor for his fare and the other would have us all on a straight pepper diet. We want to stay out of this controversy. We do not want to be the arbiter of anyone’s sex conduct. We all have sex problems. We’d hardly be human if we didn’t. What can we do about them?

We reviewed our own conduct over the years past. Where had we been selfish, dishonest, or inconsiderate? Whom had we hurt? Did we unjustifiably arouse jealousy, suspicion or bitterness? Where were we at fault, what should we have done instead? We got this all down on paper and looked at it.

In this way we tried to shape a sane and sound ideal for our future sex life. We subjected each relation to this test – was it selfish or not? We asked God to mold our ideals and help us to live up to them. We remembered always that our sex powers were God-given and therefore good, neither to be used lightly or selfishly nor to be despised and loathed.

Whatever our ideal turns out to be, we must be willing to grow toward it. We must be willing to make amends where we have done harm, provided that we do not bring about still more harm in so doing. In other words, we treat sex as we would any other problem. In meditation, we ask God what we should do about each specific matter. The right answer will come, if we want it.

God alone can judge our sex situation. Counsel with persons is often desirable, but we let God be the final judge. We realize that some people are as fanatical about sex as others are loose. We avoid hysterical thinking or advice.

Suppose we fall short of the chosen ideal and stumble? Does this mean we are going to get drunk? Some people tell us so. But this is only a half-truth. It depends on us and on our motives. If we are sorry for what we have done, and have the honest desire to let God take us to better things, we believe we will be forgiven and will have learned our lesson. If we are not sorry, and our conduct continues to harm others, we are quite sure to drink. We are not theorizing. These are facts out of our experience.

To sum up about sex: We earnestly pray for the right ideal, for guidance in each questionable situation, for sanity, and for the strength to do the right thing. If sex is very troublesome, we throw ourselves the harder into helping others. We think of their needs and work for them. This takes us out of ourselves. It quiets the imperious urge, when to yield would mean heartache.

If we have been thorough about our personal inventory, we have written down a lot. We have listed and analyzed our resentments. We have begun to comprehend their futility and their fatality. We have commenced to see their terrible destructiveness. We have begun to learn tolerance, patience and good will toward all men, even our enemies, for we look on them as sick people. We have listed the people we have hurt by our conduct, and are willing to straighten out the past if we can.

In this book you read again and again that faith did for us what we could not do for ourselves. We hope you are convinced now that God can remove whatever self-will has blocked you off from Him. If you have already made a decision, and an inventory of your grosser handicaps, you have made a good beginning. That being so you have swallowed and digested some big chunks of truth about yourself.