No more hiding

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

by Richard K., SCA-San Luis Obispo, CA

Our addiction very likely had its roots in shame. Perhaps
we were told we were ugly, worthless, good for nothing, God
didn’t love us — by parents, relatives, siblings,
contemporaries, ministers. And that brought us shame. Perhaps
we were treated and looked upon as outcasts by those whose
reponsibility it was to nurture us — and our shame multiplied.
Perhaps we were violated physically and sexually — there could
scarcely be a more shameful thing for us to go through. Perhaps
we got the idea planted in our minds, one way or another, that
anything sexual — masturbation, touching, intimacy, sex with
another, being gay — was not to be talked about, not to be
indulged in, was SINFUL. Sex in all its forms became the utmost
manifistation of shame. Even God looked upon us as shameful
beings; or so we were told. Yet, somehow, we became addicted to
things sexual; our lives became compulsive slaves to sex; sex
became our master; our way to make a mark in the world; our way
to find “love.”

And each episode of acting out our addiction brought with
it additional shame. It got so bad that we finally decided that
we couldn’t get much lower — more shameful — so, what the
hell, we acted out all the more. And we felt more and more
shamed. And our lives became unmanageable. And the more we
tried to manage our lives — all by ourselves, not asking for or
accepting any help — the more unmanageable our lives became.

By whatever means — an arrest, words from a friend, a
seeming accident, a shove of some sort by our Higher Power — we
found ourselves in our first SCA meeting. Scared shitless!
When the meeting began, everyone in that room identified as a
SEXUAL COMPULSIVE. We did too, even though some of us had to
look up the word compulsive in the dictionary when we got home.
And we heard others sharing their stories. Shameful things for
the most part — shameful at least for those telling of them.
Yet, no one put any of them down for the things they told about.
No one shamed them for the shameful things they had done.

Then we too started telling our secrets; secrets which had
been locked up for so long inside us because we didn’t dare
trust anyone with them. Maybe it was at the first meeting,
maybe several meetings later. But the secrets started coming
out little by little, piece by piece. And each time we shared
one of our shameful secrets, we felt much lighter; the weight of
our shame was actually being lifted off of us. We began to
realize that we were beautiful human beings with an illness from
which we were beginning to recover. We began to know what life
is about, and how beautiful it is. We began to realize that
we didn’t have to hide behind our shame any longer.

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