SBGradMag Stony Brook's Graduate Student Magazine

 Sex Addiction is something a few people have heard about (remember Halle Berry's ex-husband?) but the majority of these people are usually left wondering, What's the problem? Following a loose theme of space and bodies (and, of course, sex) in my work for this month's edition of the GradMag, this article will be focused mainly on the spaces of Sex Addicts Anonymous, or SAA. This is a 12-step program, based on the tried-and-true Alcoholics Anonymous, whose members are devoted to rising out of what they see as negative behavior patterns stemming from an addiction to sex (and sometimes love).

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

The first step, the saying goes, is often the hardest. Step One: We admitted that we were powerless over our sex addiction--that our lives had become unmanageable. But, while one might understand what it is to be powerless over something, often one can't distinguish just what the addiction is, really-what the parts, the object, of it encompasses. There are too many components of the addiction, and the entrance doors to the addiction don't necessarily lead to the exit of it, or even open again once one is inside. Finally, in this recognition of the unmanageable, there is a humility and surrender that creates a pain of being described aptly as "rock bottom." It's an easy place for one to get to but a hard place to stop digging once one is there in the hole.

Hi my name is Chris and I'm an addict.

SAA meetings are often held in the basement or meeting room of a church. Often there will be finger paintings of religious symbols by the church members' children on the walls and one will have to move boxes of lace doilies and half-burnt candles and pastel-blue floral-print pillows around in order to arrange the folding chairs into a circle. Often in the middle of the circle the person who is leading the meeting that night will place a lit candle, perhaps several; perhaps he or she will prop up small laminated signs, homemade platitudes run off from an ink jet printer:

Fake it till you make it.

Some meetings are mixed meetings. These include both men and women. Some are just for men, others are just for women. Some are open (meaning one doesn't have to be an addict to attend) but there are few of these. The point of the space is to cultivate a safe place to work through one's most small, most angry, most painful memories, experiences, and actions.

Hi Chris.

Welcome.

Hi Chris.

Hi Chris.

Hey Chris.

Addictions range from chronic infidelities, to an inability to commit to relationships, to habitual use of pornography (including, rarely, child porn); they manifest in online chat rooms and master bedrooms and hotel rooms and bathrooms in bars. Addictions come from places of insecurity, self-loathing, isolation, and co-dependency. There is no "model" addict; the addicts are white- and blue- collar alike, women and men, young and old. Some are married or in long-term partnerships, some are single, some are committed to long-term abstinence. Some are there at the meeting for the first time; some have been attending meetings for some fifteen years or more.

It's been almost a year and a half since I last acted out on my bottom-line behaviors.

Meetings, also, vary as much as the people who attend them. Some are book meetings, meaning that the group takes turns reading a passage out of the program book and then, after the passage is finished, the themes of the passage are discussed. Some are step meetings, where there one step is taken and unpacked thoroughly. Some are share meetings, the traditional format that the movies or tv shows use when representing an AA meeting. One stands, introduces oneself, and speaks for three minutes on something--a roadblock, a triumph, a suspension--in the path of recovery. ESH: experience, strength, and hope. After one has finished he or she is thanked for sharing his or her experience and the next person to raise his or her hand introduces him- or herself, speaks, and is thanked. At the end of the meeting landmarks are recognized, tokens, resembling poker chips, are given out for a week, a month, a year, of "sobriety," avoidance of bottom-line or inner-circle behaviors.

I haven't told Allison about my addiction yet. I know that I have to soon, that I should have already told her. We've been officially a couple now for over four months and I just can't figure out a way to tell her. Things are going so well. I was afraid by this point in the relationship I'd be starting to act out again--you know, that the newness, the excitement would start to wear off and I'd be getting bored and starting to at least check out the scene again. But it hasn't happened yet and we're still, well, I'm still, trying to live in the moment. One day at a time. And I know that the boredom is only me feeling I need to be fulfilled by someone that's not me. Still. I don't know. I'm afraid that this will be too much for her. But I'm more afraid that I'll be rejected. My addiction is what's preventing me from telling her... He looks down at the worn page of a white and blue book with no words or pictures on the cover:

Freed from this burden, our sexuality was becoming more like a barometer--an expression of what was, already, in the partnership. It could be no more, no less, than this.

In a lot of ways this being in a relationship is harder than the year I "took off" from dating. I could avoid my triggers more effectively--if I felt like I was in danger of loosing my sobriety I could head for the door, leave the party or bar; I had mechanisms in place to help me. This is different. Now the triggers are different, they come more cleanly from my own sense of isolation and inadequacy, they come from within a relationship. How can this woman love me when I'm this fucked up? Surely, I think, she must be deeply flawed to want to be with me. Now I can place my negativity, my blame, solely on her. It's not fair to her and it only stops me from dealing with myself. From acknowledging my own insecurities... Ego is not self-esteem.

There is no such thing as recovery as an event. It can only be a process, a path, with no destination. Working one's way through the 12 steps can take months or years; there is always the possibility for relapse, for falling off the wagon. Sometimes step ten (or four or seven or nine or whatever) can take one back to step one (or four or seven or nine or whatever). Often addicts will also be in therapy to help them deal with longstanding depression or anger or abuse. Some of them will have partners in COSA, an organization like Al-Anon for the co-dependant on his or her own path of recovery. Some do not keep a computer with internet access in their home, some can never open a Glamour (or Maxim, or Vogue, or GQ) magazine again, some can't listen to popular music or film, and some can't masturbate. All because of the potential of slipping back into the addition. Because the internet access or the song on the radio is just one more facet of the addiction. Some have been arrested for sex-related crimes, some lost their jobs or partners or custody of their children. One tells about how a partner finds animated pornography on their teenager's computer and believes it to be the addict's. One is reminded of a getting a lapdance by a stripper named Serenity when the serenity prayer was spoken at the beginning of a meeting. One breaks down in tears as four and a half years of sobriety was broken the night before.

So...I guess that's where I'm at today. Thanks for listening.

Thanks for sharing. Thanks for sharing, Chris.

Thanks for sharing.

Thanks Chris.

The point of this is not to walk you, voyeur-like, through a meeting or to give you a checklist of behavior patterns that suggest a sex addiction. A beginner's guide to ________. Rather, I hoped to position both the addict and the SAA meeting as a verb, as an active space made of surrender and humility, as an action of being that will never reach a conclusion, and to expose the damage present in the question, What's the problem? I am not presumptuous enough to close this essay with the twelfth step, the step that is to carry the message to others, so I will conclude with:

Progress not perfection.