the Journal is a publication of
Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous
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What it is.What is the Journal? It is the heart and soul of the S.L.A.A. innovation. It is the creative output of many members brought together to inspire, elucidate, and strengthen one another and the recovery groups within the fold of the S.L.A.A. community. Sex addiction and love addiction are significant issues in our day. Everywhere from Romeo and Juliet to the nightly news we see the tragic outcome of sex and love addiction. When do we get to see the bright and hopeful story of recovery? Here in the Journal . Sex addicts; love addicts; sexual, emotional, and social anorexics; and the vast majority of us who suffer from more than one of these related maladies, come together to support one another in mutual recovery. The Journal is like a meeting in print. It is like an SLAA meeting in print because it conveys the hope of recovery and the tools, attitudes, and perspectives that get us there. It conveys the importance of the Twelve Steps and the Twelve Traditions that are at the center of the spiritual solution that makes recovery possible. It is one sex and love addict helping another. It is the sharing of experience, strength, and hope. It is the expression of recovery through the eyes of many. |
Brutally Honest
(excerpted from the September-October 2009 issue of the Journal)
God, I’m supposed to be doing the Seventh Step. I’m supposed to ask you to take away my character defects. I’m supposed to know what they are.
I thought I knew what they were when I finished Steps Four and Five, but a few weeks have passed, and now I’m not sure. It was pretty clear that there were some selfish and twisted motives that guided my thoughts and actions. But I’ve started to question more in myself, and, to be brutally honest with myself, I’m not really sure just how bad it is.
Do I even have a single untwisted intention? If you take away my character defects, is there any intention left but biological necessities like breathing?
Can I love? Can you teach me that? Can I care about someone without trying to be caring?
Can you do that? Would you? Should you even try?
I suppose I should be grateful to have one honest intention, even if that one intention is simply to someday have another honest intention. That would make two. That would be a miracle.
I won’t ask for help because that would imply that I have something to offer to this process, and I don’t. It isn’t help that I need; it’s open-heart surgery.
Now I get those ancient ways. Now things I’ve heard make sense.
Spare nothing, God, but a pure desire to have a single thought that would not be tragically self-centered. I guess that’s my Seventh Step. I can’t think of anything else to say.
- Flavia T., Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Staying Together
(excerpted from the January-February 2010 issue of the Journal)
I was just minding my team, hiring the kind of consultants that could get the job done. Two of the best that I could find had come aboard, and my department’s Director was pleased.
Back at home, my husband was still as emotionally unavailable as he had been since the beginning. I wanted more. We both wanted a child, but we were told that his sperm count was too low, and these two worlds met during a period of time when I felt vulnerable and confused. One of the consultants started to indicate his interest in replacing my husband. Looking back, I probably invited it by looking for emotional support in the men I hired - not exactly a formula for marital success, and probably not too career-wise either.
Fortunately, the other consultant had two qualities I have recently come to fully appreciate: He was a great listener, and he had the integrity to tell me the truth at the risk of his stay at the company. For all I know, he might have been just as attracted to me as the other one, but his actual words and actions were much different.
One night, he was working late to meet a deadline, and I decided to work late too, riding the edge of initiating an affair myself. The city was dark when we left the office, and I was parked several blocks away, whereas his car was in our building’s garage. He was a gentleman and asked if I needed a ride to my car.
As we drove, he listened to my story about the limitations of my husband’s fertility. When we arrived at the other parking garage, I went on about my husband’s inability to connect with me and how I was considering leaving the marriage. At that moment, if he invited me to his house, I might have gone there instead of home, but he didn’t. I don’t remember what he did say, but it was diplomatic; he neither denied me my right to be frustrated nor joined me in the character assassination of my spouse. We left in separate cars and drove to our respective homes.
The next morning, I went in to the office with apprehension. I was embarrassed by my previous night’s ramblings, yet I made no firm commitment within myself not to do it again. I was on a course to the destruction of the commitment of faithfulness I had made before God.
The seed of my recovery was given to me that morning, when the consultant that didn’t invite me home requested a private conference room in which we could talk. He did not tell me about S.L.A.A., but what he did say eventually created my Step One crisis and the reversal of my course. I closed the door, and he started a gentle, but direct interrogation.
"Did your husband cheat on you?"
"No."
"Does he gamble?"
"No."
"Has he hit you?"
"No."
"Does he get drunk?"
"No."
"Did he run the family’s finances into the ground?"
"No, he makes good money and spends it wisely."
"Does he leave the house in the evening and stay out late?"
"God, no!"
"Is he a slob?"
"No."
"Does he watch sports all night long and ignore you completely."
"No."
"Does he take you out for dinner or a show occasionally?"
"Yes."
"So your only complaint is that he can’t connected with you on a deeper emotional level and that, by no act of his own will, lacks what one doctor told you is required for fertilization?"
"... yes."
"May I be frank?"
"... Okay."
"In the big picture, your husband is in the 99th percentile for good husbands. You could divorce him and ending up with someone much worse. My advice to you is, ‘Stick with him and find out what medical options are available for couples like you who want children.’ Oh, and I also suggest that you avoid the advances of the other consultant. Anyone who would do what he’s trying to do is probably not a desirable mate for you. That is all I wanted to say."
Although he was smiling in a respectful sort of way, he got up, indicating that we were done. I said nothing, but my face probably spoke volumes. We left the room. Perhaps because of the bond I had already formed with him, I was able to hear his point. The cheap advances of the other consultant began to look cheap and obvious.
I started to receive my husband differently when I saw him at the end of the day. Soon after, my recovery began. It was gradual, but the powerful jump-start given to me by my consultant was what I needed. I started to see the need to connect with women for friendship and support. Smart and emotionally present men, which had always been at the core of my love addiction, began to feel dangerous, so I steered clear of them.
We did find a doctor who had been successful with fertilization methods designed for couples like us, and in a short time, we were pregnant with twins. They are the love of my life today. Had I not been faced with the truth of my own wandering interests on that day in the conference room, they would not be here to brighten my world.
The path of my recovery led me into church involvement, something I had always avoided out of cynicism and distrust. There were women there who have taught me much and augmented my support network. Thanks to my current sponsor, I have recently begun to read more recovery literature. I’ve read the entire S.L.A.A. basic text cover-to-cover, the Bible, books on codependency, the Sex and Love Step Recovery Booklet, and numerous other books. I missed the step retreat in the Poconos last year, but plan to make the next one.
All of these events, studies, and tools have resurrected my marriage. Although all relationships have spotty moments, the entire experience of being married has been very positive for me. My husband seems grateful that I have taken a more spiritual path, even if it is not entirely understandable to him. He has his own path, alongside mine, and we grow together as a couple and individually as human beings.
Today, smart and emotionally present people still attract me, but I can appreciate without engaging with them on a romantic or emotional level that would endanger my marriage. My husband is doing much better with listening and sharing as expressed through words of encouragement and sexual availability. He may not get five gold stars for emotional availability, but I do appreciate that he has risen to a level well above average, and I no longer feel entitled to perfection. I have developed patience and a positive attitude toward the process of developing intimacy, a lifelong project of mine.
Leaving my current partner may have been necessary if I had honestly been able to answer differently any of the questions I had been asked that day, but reality took me down the path of renewal, and my marriage has become just one of the many bright spots in my life.
- Leslie A., Connecticut