ESSAY Magazine (An International Journal of Sexaholics Anonymous)

ESSAY Magazine (An International Journal of Sexaholics Anonymous)

The mission of ESSAY is to serve as a source of information, experience, strength and hope to sexaholics, both inside and outside the rooms of Sexaholics Anonymous. Our vision is to provide a high-quality “meeting in print” that gathers together members from around the world. It can serve as a portable “extra meeting” especially for loners and for members who don’t have access to many meetings. In addition, Essay serves as an outreach tool to carry the message to those who have not yet found SA. We strive to include a mix of stories and shares from a wide variety of members, including men and women, prisoners, and international members. In addition, ESSAY provides Fellowship announcements and information on subjects such as new meetings, Fellowship events, and our service structure. We hope that all of the articles we publish will offer useful information and provide experience, strength, and hope to all who suffer from the disease of sexaholism. Fellowship actvities such as international conventions, regional events and local events appear in the Calendar section. Each issue has a theme and various sections to share sexaholic stories and practical tools. In addition to letters and group news, ESSAY offers short, edited articles written by members about recovery and our solution. The Practical Recovery Tools section features members sharing on the topic, “Exactly how I did it.” Submissions may also include meditations, poetry, and humor. ESSAY is guided by the principles of the Twelve Steps, Twelve Traditions and Twelve Concepts. Each issue contains the following statement:

Episodes

October 13, 2025 5 mins

Identifying the problem and stepping out of self allows him to live in trust and in the will of God.

I would like to define these terms because I believe that when we accurately define a problem, we arrive at the solution. I understand guilt to be the healthy and appropriate feeling of discomfort I get when I have caused harm to myself or someone else. This is a built-in reminder for me to take action to correct my behavior and mak...

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The Steps removed shame and perfectionism, a deadly combination that blocked her from being vulnerable.  

When I feel shame, I feel vulnerable.  The definition of vulnerability is “the inability to protect oneself from being wounded, attacked, or ridiculed.” The dictionary also mentions “a person in need of special care, support, or protection.”  

 

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He experienced a transformation from SA that helps him see is true identity.

 The Problem is not the problem!

When I came to SA in 1999 due to personal, family and relational crises, my feelings were all over the place. I really did not have feelings except anger. I knew exactly what to do and how to quickly solve all the issues in my life and quickly get back to “normal” again, playing the game of Happy Family.

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Working the Steps on fear allowed her to take action under God’s guidance. I’ve been married for almost 50 years. My husband has been unbelievably cruel, but I’ve been afraid to leave. My biggest fear has been that I wouldn’t be able to support myself, that I’d be homeless. 

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SA kepted him sober while therapy helped him heal from trauma and shame. My wife discovered my addiction for the first time before we were married. I promised if she gave me another chance, I would spend the rest of my life making it up to her. That turned out to be a lie. She discovered my addiction for the second time after I got myself into a legal situation. I sought professional help. Unfortunately, the professional treated my...

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God removed her fear and replaced it with faith with works. My whole life, I’d been so bound by fear, I’d lost hope for freedom. Through working the Steps, a brilliant light at the end of a long, cold, and dark tunnel suddenly shone forth with a comforting warmth. At each step, however, fears continued to loom. Picking up the simple tool of a Fear-to-Faith inventory helped point me back toward God and the Step Two and Three solutio...

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Fear prevented me from experiencing healthy guilt. Guilt tells me I have done wrong. Fear also prevented me from feeling healthy shame. Shame is a slight embarrassment that others may see my wrongs. But fear primarily stopped me from facing toxic guilt and toxic shame.

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Dear ESSAY, I am an incarcerated person in California. In the past, several of my fellow incarcerated persons and I have held SA meetings on a regular basis, and I've actually had a sponsor before.  However, over the years, things have kind of fizzled out, and we no longer have our meetings, mainly due to members being dispersed throughout the system and some of the participants having been paroled. 

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La Liberacion

On the last Friday of every month, the SA group "La Liberación" in Bogotá joyfully celebrates the gift of sobriety. Each member is honored with a sobriety coin and a certificate—a powerful reminder of the journey we share. For us, it’s more than a celebration; it's a way to strengthen our culture of sobriety and encourage unity within our beloved group.   

Grupo La liberación 

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“He will show you how to create the fellowship you crave.” My name is Levi and I’m a recovering sexaholic in central Nebraska in the USA. I have been sexually sober since July 20, 2017. 

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“He will show you how to create the fellowship you crave.”

My name is Levi and I’m a recovering sexaholic in central Nebraska in the USA. I have been sexually sober since July 20, 2017. 

I am a sexaholic of the hopeless variety. Prior to SA, I tried all sorts of religious exercises, accountability, internet filters and therapy. These helped me stop many times, but I could never stay stopped. I attended my first meeting in late July...

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A letter of experience, strength, and hope to encourage the Fellowship. Dear friends, There is a strong message that was recently shared in our West African SA fellowship. It comes from Tradition Five in the White Book, page 209: “Each group (SA meeting) has but one primary purpose—to carry its message to the sexaholic who still suffers.” There is a deep meaning in this Tradition.

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A powerful practice that prevents him from reverting to his past ways. Today everything felt serendipitous. I met a couple who were splendiferous. Ladyewell, near Preston, a Holy Shrine. I met a couple who gladdened my mind.

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She discovered the two things that make up her self-esteem. I learned very early that life was all about being a good girl, pleasing, being obedient and nice. I was being raised to be a good wife in the style of those days. My parents, of course, were blameless, giving me everything they knew to shape me as they had been.

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SA taught him that letting go of guilt was not only okay, but necessary Fear and shame were awaiting my entrance into the world. My grandmother was harassed and bullied for her parents’ financial struggles, language, skin color, and country of origin. So she resolved to protect her children from the same fate by refusing to pass down her native language, traditions, customs, or history, and insisting that they marry spouses who emb...

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An elder member in SA helped him see that he was addicted to himself. “You’re the most arrogant [person] I have ever met!” Although a more colorful word was used instead of “person,” this statement still saved my life. 

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His gratitude list was the hammer that crushed his guilt and shame.

I didn’t think I was fearful. I was a strong, tough male who had gotten in fights before and played contact sports like football, hockey, and rugby. So I thought that I wasn’t afraid of anything.

Then, after completing my Fourth Step fears inventory and talking to my sponsor, I realized and admitted that the fabric of my life was shot through with fear.  I had so m...

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With his sponsor’s help, he learned to deal with shame and guilt.  As we persist, a brand-new kind of confidence is born, and the sense of relief at finally facing ourselves is indescribable (Twelve and Twelve 50). 

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Peter shares in his article that initial guilt is a healthy response for him. However, shame and lingering guilt were very detrimental to his long-term recovery. He needed to understand how these harmed his recovery and what he could do to move out of guilt and shame as soon as possible—so that he could continue on his journey. 

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She found the freedom to choose in sobriety. Sobriety is a gift that your wise decisions give you. Sobriety is not limited to stopping sexual relations with another person or with yourself—that is only the beginning. Sobriety is having sanity in the face of life. It is exercising the self-control that already resides within you, that was given to you by your Higher Power to choose between what is good for you and what harms you.

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