Monday, September 28th
The members who share seem settled into their recovery. How can I ever be like them?
Many of us experienced wide emotional swings while acting out our sexual compulsions. We might have been excited or joyful one moment but depressed and despairing the next. Perhaps we resented another person’s successes or our perceived failures.
In recovery, we might retain some of these emotions. We might not identify with another member’s story or become envious of their recovery. Meanwhile, we might struggle to stay on our Sexual Recovery Plan or have difficulty with the Steps or finding a sponsor.
To help reduce the impact of these negative thoughts and emotions, we can look for similarities in meetings rather than differences. We can try to identify with the feelings, not just the facts, of what we hear. We may soon realize that we all suffer from the powerlessness and unmanageability of compulsive sexual behaviors, whatever our individual stories may be.
This common ground may help us benefit from others’ experience, strength, and hope as we work our recovery. We learn to live contentedly with our imperfections and our sexual identity. We begin to accept who we are and realize that this is enough.
We will seek spiritual progress, not perfection, comparing ourselves not to others but to the people we used to be.