Author: Gary

Frank T. My Story

Every once in awhile I need to look back and see where I have come from. By telling my story, not only do I realize that I have come far, but I also realize how cunning and baffling, the addiction is. By remembering how unmanageable my life was, it makes me work the program even more.

The day I began having sex with men was the day I became an addict. I started having sex when I was 15 and from that time until 7 years ago I wanted sex more than anything. My first encounter was with a neighborhood boy who everyone new was a “fag”. Right after that encounter I quickly sought out 2 neighborhood boys for mutual sex. At 16 I  discovered cruising. In no time I was having sex with guys that I would meet in the bathroom. It did not matter what they looked like as long as I was sexually satisfied.

I learned very quickly where the other cruising places were . I started lying to my folks about working late at a fast food place, so that I could go cruise. Every spare moment I had was dedicated to having sex with as many different people as I could. When I graduated high school, I went away to college and that was heaven.

I now was in a city where I could be me. It took me less than an hour to find the cruising street. I knew I was meant to be gay since God had given me the gift of finding the place to pick up people. I entered into a relationship with someone and yet I had to cruise. My schoolwork began to suffer, but I blamed it on other people.

Then just before Halloween, I ended up being seduced by a young woman who was drunk. I could not believe the person I had become. The person, who I was dating, broke off the relationship because I was sleeping around. In the midst of the chaos of that year, I attempted suicide. I had to leave school, but again I blamed everything on other people.

Once back home, I began to cruise again and this time I was old enough to go to the bars. I discovered the wonderful life of the backrooms in the bars as well as the bathhouses. My appetite for sex grew and I thought it was normal. I believed that to be gay in the early 70’s meant having sex and lots of it. I mean what else could gay mean other than wanting to have sex with a guy. I continued to cruise even though I was arrested in a parking lot for having sex with a guy. I was lucky in the sense that I was given a warning. The undercover cops told me that they did not want to see me there again. The next week I found another place to cruise.

About a year later, sometime in the early part of 1973, I realized that
the life I was living was not what I wanted. I truly hated my life and knew that I had to change. And so change I did, I decided that since I did not like being a slut, then I should be straight. I decided to go straight. Well that lasted about 6 months. I became so irritable, short tempered, a real “bitch”. One day my sister asked what was up. I told her that I had gone straight and she laughed. She told me that I could not be something I wasn’t. She was right, I was gay and I needed to full accept it. Well it was gay pride day in NY when I went to my closest friends and told them that their “sister” was back and with a vengeance. I also decided that if I was going to be gay, I was going all the way which meant having even more sex more often. I began to have multiple anonymous encounters every day. The more I had a day, the more I thought I was being gay. Again in spite of getting a ticket for loitering and seeing my friend arrested I continued to cruise.

A year later I met someone and entered into my first long relationship. He was a wonderful person and yet I thought him strange, since he did not want to have sex with me right away. He explained that he wanted to love me for who I was and not for what I did in bed. In spite of this relationship I continued to have sex with other guys. My boyfriend even knew I was cheating and told me “I understand”. I found that funny at the time since I did not understand. Again I knew that something was not right but I could not put my finger on it. I decided to end the relationship (which was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do) and I entered the seminary. I thought that the answer was becoming a missionary priest.

Well I had to go back to college to study philosophy and I found a school that was at least 50% gay and no one being celibate. I figured well I would eventually get the hang of celibacy, but for now it was okay to have sex. The number of partners dropped considerably, from several in one day to several in a week but it did not stop completely. When I finished my philosophy studies it was time to take a year out in preparation of taking my vows. The year was meant to be one of prayer, contemplation and spirituality. Well for me it was also a year of continued sex.

At the end of the year, it was time for me to take my vows. When the ceremony was over, the priest who took my vows realized that I looked puzzled. He asked me what the problem was and I said that I was expecting a change; I thought that I would be different and I wasn’t. Well I was off to graduate school to get my degree in theology and to a new city. I was hoping for a new beginning, but the old behaviors were still there. After my first year, I went away to the jungles of New Guinea for a pastoral year. Again I figured, that this would change things. Things did change for about 9 months. I ended up sleeping with a young man there and soon there were drawings of a man wearing glasses with his privates showing. I knew that it could not be me. How truly blind I was. I returned back to the states and decided that I should tell my superiors that I was gay. I thought that if they knew I was gay, they would surly kick me out. I was wrong and three years later I was took my vows for life and was ordained a deacon. Again, I thought that the skies should have opened up when I took my vows. I was ordained a priest 7 months later and on the night of my ordination, I slept with someone. I told myself that it was okay, since I knew the person. I’d been having sex with this person on and off for six years, ever since he was a high school senior. The next day I celebrated my first mass and still I felt no change. I was still the same person as I was before. Nothing had changed.

I started classes at a local university for a master’s degree in Chemistry. It took me less than a day to find the cruising places. I soon had to withdraw from graduate school before I was kicked out. I was off to the Philippines and a new start. The school I was to teach at was right in the middle of the “red light” district. On the one side there were female prostitutes, the other side there were drag queens looking for straight men and on the third side were male hustlers. I was glad that I was being sent away for six months of language school on another island. I figured if I could get the right start, things would be different.

While at language school, I was given a language buddy to help me when I was away from school. He was to be my translator and teacher when not at school. Well after being with him one day we were in bed together. I also ran across a birthday beach party one night. All the guys were gay and by the time the night was over, I had sex with all of them.

Back at the university, I began visiting a gay bar about 2 blocks from the school. The purpose of the gay bar was to watch dancers and then select one that you would have sex with. It was not a place to meet other gay men. I would go there to pay a dancer to have sex with. Also right near the gay bar was the pick up spot. At least 3 times a week I was out looking for and paying for sex. My life was so out of control that I truly believed that no one knew who was at the gay bar or on the cruising street, in spite of the fact that I celebrated mass three blocks away every Saturday and Sunday evening, and close to 2000 people attended mass. I truly believed that no one knew I was a priest. There were of course a few people who knew I was a priest, mainly the college guys who worked at the church. They would need money on occasion and I would give it to them in exchange for sexual favors. My life was spinning more and more out of control.

I began to get involved with a renewal program among businessmen and women. I thought that maybe joining this group, the crazy behavior would stop. I was even “baptized in the spirit”. The crazy behavior did stop, but only for 4 days. Things were getting worse. I picked up a hustler one night and 2 months later he demanded more money. I began to pay him off, but soon it was too much for me. Out of desperation I told my superior and we both sought out lawyers. While it might have been somewhat acceptable for a priest to hire a female prostitute, it was totally unacceptable for a priest to hire a male prostitute, and the hustler I had knew this. Both lawyers suggested that I leave the country for a period of time. I quickly packed everything but left the city thinking that I would return. I flew on to the capital city and had to wait there until the appropriate papers where filed so that I could return. Again I could not control the crazy behavior and was soon cruising a local mall and acting out. About two days before I was scheduled to leave the lights came on.

I remembered a conference that I had attended 9 years earlier on sexual addiction and I also remembered word for word a questionnaire that I read in which at the time I answered no to every question. Now I was answering yes and it scared me. I arrived in San Francisco and went to my parent’s home. I told them that I was sick and needed help. I called my superior in Chicago and told him that I needed to fly to Chicago right away and see him. He suggested that I take a week or two and just relax and have a vacation. I told him that a vacation was not what I needed. I told him I needed help and that I was an addict and could not stop. I was booked on the first flight to Chicago the next morning. When I arrived in Chicago I opened up completely. I now knew what the problem was. I was a sex addict. My superior told me that there was a treatment center in St. Louis that I could go to. I was also told that a priest from my religious community was scheduled to go to the center, but he could not get out of the Philippines. There was a ticket for me to St. Louis and a place at the treatment center. I flew to St. Louis and knew that I was on the right road. That was a week before Thanksgiving Day in 1992. A week later I attended my first SCA meeting and again I knew this was the place for me.

I wrote my bottom line in January of 1993 and have been true to it ever sense. When I left the treatment center in St. Louis I moved to Chicago and was blessed again for there was a growing SCA community in Chicago. After 2 years of aftercare, I chose to ask for a leave of absence from my religious community. I was able to make the request, because I had surrounded myself with a rainbow of support, a good sponsor, good friends in recovery, good friends outside of recovery and a loving religious community. A year later I had to make a very tough decision. Again being blessed with a nurturing support group, I decided to leave the priesthood permanently.

Since being in recovery, I have come to believe in the promises. The promises do indeed come true. My life is a testament to the promises. I have job, in which I love and am appreciated. I have a family that has for the most part accepted not only my being gay, but also has accepted the man I have been dating for almost a year now. I am in a loving relationship with a man, who loves me the way I am and who wants to make the relationship permanent. Of course now that I am in a relationship, my addiction has put on a new face. While my addiction took the form of anonymous sex in the beginning, it now has now taken on a new form in my relationship. I find myself being compulsive in my relationship. This disease, this addiction is indeed very cunning. As I stated, the promises do come true, but not without a price. I have had to work for my recovery. Doing the steps, reading literature, making calls, going to meetings, meditating and doing service has caused the promises to come true in my life. I’ve also had to stay away from people, places and things that were harmful to me. I’ve had to say goodbye to friends who would keep me in the addiction, bye to places that were slippery for me. But the goodbyes were worth it, for I have gained something very precious, my life.

What really causes Addiction?

A talk by Johann Hari suggests that everything you think you know about addiction is wrong.  As he has watched loved ones struggle to manage their addictions, he started to wonder why we treat addicts the way we do — and if there might be a better way.

The opposite of Addiction is not abstinence or sobriety. The opposite of Addiction is CONNECTION. In SCA we connect to others that share our addiction. We connect to a fellowship that supports us and we can connect to a Higher Power, a spirituality that unconditionally loves and guides us.

Could addiction be about isolation and being disconnected from society? Listen to this TED talk by Johann Hari for some interesting insights on this subject.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PY9DcIMGxMs

Questions & Thoughts

“I am hopping and trying to find meetings with open communication. This will only help me with my own Honesty, Shame, Trust, Hope, Strength & Willingness to Learns and to Stay & Remain OPEN Always .. Please 🙏 Any HELP IS & Will be Appreciated”  – D.W.

Dear D.W.,

All SCA meetings support member’s sharing their feelings, experience, strength and hope with each other, that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from sexual compulsion. If our behavior was illegal, we might seek out someone (like our sponsor) with whom we can be entirely honest without fear of consequences and choose to share our feelings at meetings instead of the details.  We ask members to respect the anonymity and confidentiality of every person we meet and everything we hear at meetings.

Anonymity assures that our meetings are safe for those in pain. This respect of anonymity keeps the program safe for members and prospective members to attend. Through the anonymity offered at meetings, we find a refuge where we are neither judged nor shamed.  Many of our meeting’s format have a sharing portion where members may share breakthroughs or breakdowns in their program, ask questions, get current on situations in their lives, or just express honest feelings they may be in touch with. Crosstalk is discouraged and is defined as: Giving advice, criticizing, or making comments about someone else’s share, questioning or interrupting the person speaking, talking while someone is sharing, or speaking directly to another person rather than to the group.

We suggest attending a few meeting to find a “home” meeting that you feel most comfortable.  We have available in-person, on line, virtual and hybrid meetings that can be found on our website: sca-recovery.org

Please make these announcements at your meetings, intergroup and to other interested parties

We have updated and changed the new SCA YouTube Channel link to: https://www.youtube.com/@SCA-Recovery . Please subscribe to the channel to help its visibility. New videos are being uploaded on a regular basis. Feel free to give this information to therapists, health and recovery facilities and to the addict who still is suffering.  We also need members to be of service and allow us to use and share their recordings of their commentaries on various chapters of our Big Book, A Program of Recovery.
Also
You can now subscribe to the SCA newsletter at SCAnneronline.org to get announcements e-mailed to you of new SCA related news and articles. Please send any related information to the SCAnner Editor under the “About Us” tab or at the “leave a comment” at the end of each news article.
Thank you for your help,
Gary S  ISO Outreach Committee Chairman

Sexual Addiction or Sexual Compulsivity: What to Call It?

Should sexually compulsive behavior be designated a disorder or an addiction? Relatively recently, the World Health Organization (WHO) added compulsive sexual behavior disorder (CSBD) as an official diagnosis. Clinicians have long required clear criteria to establish a diagnosis and engage in a treatment protocol.

For additional information read the article from Psychology Today: https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/love-and-sex-in-the-digital-age/202411/sexual-addiction-or-sexual-compulsivity-what-to-call-it

 

Thanksgiving Gratitude Meeting – via zoom

The glass is half full – let’s share about it.

Please join us for our SCA Thanksgiving Gratitude Meeting

Start Thanksgiving in a positive way

Thursday November 28, 2024

10:00 AM – 11:00 AM Pacific Standard Time

Click here to join the meeting

For more information see the Los Angeles SCA website: scalosangeles.org

 

ENTRAPPED-A SEXUAL HISTORY

My first sexual experience was at the age of eight when my neighbor across the street molested me and forced me into orally copulating him. That afternoon was the start of the worst year of my life, until this year. Thanksgiving morning my grandfather woke up sick with what we all thought was either the stomach flu or food poisoning. By Easter he was being treated for bile duct cancer. He passed away several months later in July. My grandfather was my male role model and the first person who I was close to that died. The entire time he was sick I would still on occasion be molested by my neighbor, which also eventually progressed into him sodomizing me as well. A couple of months after my grandfather died as I entered the 4th grade, I had an extremely authoritative and emotionally abusive teacher. With the emotional loss of my grandfather as well as the sexual abuse at the hands of my neighbor I began having disciplinary issues at school which only led to me having more troubles at home.

Things managed to settle down and the abuse from my neighbor stopped, however when I started middle school I was attacked in the boy’s locker room by two older boys. That incident was the first time that I had an orgasm. Not having any idea of what had happened I was left utterly confused by the feelings they had given me and even though I was terrified by what they had done, on some level I wanted it to happen again. I began puberty around this time and became one of the tallest kids in school. This helped me make it through the rest of my schooling without any real incidents and as a good student.

Things were different around home. Most of the kids around my age also had younger siblings. As I turned 15 my erotic thoughts and feelings started to change and often centered on doing things with the younger boys who lived on our street. I was pretty sure that I was gay. I had also been raised in a Catholic household and firmly believed that it was a mortal sin to be a homosexual. I was terrified of my parents and classmates finding out. Feeling like I had no one to talk to that would understand, I escaped by spending hours looking at pictures of boys between the ages of 8-14 on the internet. That would eventually lead me down the road to the outer periphery of the dark web and chat boards. Being in denial of the dangers of what I was doing I would openly confess on those boards to being 15 years old and sexually attracted to my younger neighbors. In the beginning I was seeing validation and support about my feelings and my sexuality. Those sites also hosted child erotic images and soft-core pornography of young boys fully nude. Eventually, I’d make the mistake of asking older members for pictures from their private collections involving child pornography. These images “triggered” old feelings and intensified my sexual obsessing.

At 17 I was able to drive myself to school and back home and depending on traffic resulted in me getting home from school about 20-30 minutes before everyone. That would regularly be time for me to masturbate to whatever hot guy I saw in the locker room or look at pictures from that site of younger boys. One afternoon when I was alone in the house masturbating to nude boys on the family computer, I left the room and my mom and sister came home and saw them. I was forced to come out to my mom although I tried to say that I wasn’t really gay, just confused. My mom decided to get me into therapy to change my behavior. That attempt would last barely a month until I swore to my mom that I had learned my lesson and would never do that stuff again.

That was a lie and the first of what became the pattern of lying that I would need to do in order to cover up my compulsive sexual behavior. However, my behavior would only get worse and things more unmanageable. Now in college I had classes free on Friday which meant I had the entire day, from the time I woke up to the time my sister got home from school, to look at child erotica and masturbate. It was also around this time that I started posting ads on-line for casual hookups. I had my first consensual sexual experience with another man, but it only brought back painful memories and flashbacks to the molestations I had gone through as a kid. This led to several attempts to work on my “issues”. After several months and several therapists I realized that I was still not fully ready to come out of the closet and admit to being gay. One positive did happen, it helped me to finally realized that I was going down a path that could lead me to getting arrested. That helped to get me to stop looking at images of child erotica, but I still would regularly post ads looking for guys to have sex with. Slowly this started consuming more and more time cruising until I met a guy that I could hook up with “regularly”. The only problem was that he was 17 and I was 20. Eventually, he would move away to go to school ending what “relationship” we had.

During my final year in college a fellow student called the campus police after finding my lost thumb drive containing pictures of underage boys that I had saved from the internet over the years. I was charged with possession of child pornography. I accepted a plea agreement to a lesser misdemeanor charge and sentenced to 3 years of formal probation. After twice violating my probation I was then sentenced and served 40 days in county jail. The one positive thing that came out of this was that I found a sex addiction therapist who I still see to this day.

For the next several years I continued looking for hookups and was not always careful about checking how old they were. I now had stable full-time employment, which meant that I could afford hustlers and prostitutes.While I was able to be financially responsible for a lot of things, any “extra money” was spent on obtaining sex. This became more problematic over time. In 2016, I started working for families with kids who had developmental delays. I found myself attracted to and fantasizing about one the children that I was assigned to. I knew that I could never do anything sexual with him, so I found some regular sexual partners that I paid to roleplay and act out some of my fantasies. I was now spending more and more time cruising on hookup apps and trying to set up the perfect erotic encounters. I found that I was less able to manage all the details involved. Later that year I was terminated for leaving inappropriate materials at the job. I decided to change my career path and go back to school to work in the medical field. Since I hadn’t really saved any money I moved back home and became completely dependent on my parents. This additional stress only made me find new ways of acting out. As my addictive activities became more risky and dangerous the more I needed to escape. Eventually, I was able to get a job at a Covid testing site. The long hours at work helped to build back my bank account that I had completely depleted.

Eventually one of my hook ups turned into something more, for lack of a better term it became a sugar-daddy relationship. He knew how to manipulate my self esteem. It wasn’t long before I developed some very serious feelings for this boy and became willing to do anything he wanted me to do. We carried on this pay-for-love relationship for roughly a year. It was hard to remain in denial as I would drive him around to meet with drug dealers so he could get his fix and then ignore me while he got high enough to be willing to do stuff sexually. I guess that’s what Love Addiction is, continuing to stay with a person in spite of all the red flags. Even with all that I continued to stay with him. Our relationship only ended when he eventually blocked me on all his social media accounts. I no longer had a way of communicating with him.

This became a bottomless spiral that would lead me to my rock bottom. Work became my distraction from the pain and shame that I was feeling. I didn’t want to be around any of my family or friends, so I became more and more isolated. This isolation only fueled my addiction for underage boys. I escaped into the internet world of pedophiles. Eventually my “ex” would reach out to me and created yet another story, another reason for me to give him money. When that didn’t work, he resorted to blackmail, saying that he was really 16 when we met and the pictures I had of him would be considered as child porn. I called his bluff. Several months later I was arrested at my parent’s house for possession of child porn and Distribution of Obscene Matter to a person under the age of 18.

The stress of the child porn case carried over to my job and I was asked to take a paid leave of absence. I felt like I was having a mental breakdown. Even the pending court case did not stop me from needing to act out. I contacted someone who’s profile said that they were 18, but relatively quickly into the conversation he told me me that he was really 14. That’s when I entered the addiction bubble and turned the conversation to sex. We agreed to meet later that night. In reality there was never a 14-year-old boy, and I stepped right into a sting operation set up by some online vigilantes with a film crew. Eventually, they would call the police, and I would be arrested again. I’d spend the next 5 days in custody before being ROR’ed by the judge. Four months later we reached a plea agreement with the District Attorney’s office, and I accepted a plea to a lesser charge and agreed to attend SCA meetings.

So, what have I managed to get out of this SCA 12 Step program since I’ve been attending? Mainly it’s helped to break down all the isolation that had become such a big part of my life. It’s also to some degree helped me see that I am not alone in my struggles with sex and love addiction. I’ve become more aware of how denial and minimizing is a big part of this disease. I have found a sponsor and started to work the first few steps of this program. It has also helped me become more aware of things that I hadn’t realized had as much of an effect on me and those are things that I now know I need to address in my therapy. The program has also shown me just how powerless and unmanageable I let my life get. Working with my sponsor has given me an appropriate outlet where I can talk and discuss the things that may not be safe to be brought up in therapy. He’s also given me someone who I can check in with rather than immediately act-out over. But most of all it has shown me just how compulsive my behavior was and is, and if I use the tools of this program I will manage to successfully redirect myself, one day at a time.