The topic of It Works If you Work It at the International SIM Marathon online conference

So my name is Shame. I'm a sexaholic. Good morning. If you're here on the East Coast of United States, it's 5:00 in the morning. Let's start with the Serenity prayer.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can,

and the wisdom to know the difference. I will not mind be done. So yeah, it works if you work it. I was talking to a sponsor yesterday, last night before I went to sleep said, you know, I don't even remember what the topic is. But regardless of what the topic is,

what I know is what in the heavens name would prompt me to wake up at 4:45 AM here in New Jersey to get on an international conference and talk about whatever topic it's going to be.

Which I know I chose. I just don't remember what it was.

And there can only be one answer, you know, it can't be because I'm eager to impress people with some, you know, some knowledge of what page something's on in the Big Book, you know, and, and trust me, I can do that. I know the Big Book pretty good,

but if at 4:45 in the morning, I really I'd rather be sleeping than tell you what page things are on in the Big Book.

So for me, the answer to that question is that

for a long time I was up at 4:45 in the morning acting out because I still hadn't finished acting out from yesterday.

And

for me to be able to

put a little bit into my recovery that I put into my addiction, like the book says, and

for the purpose of carrying the message to the sexaholic who still suffers, That's that's the only answer. If there's anybody on the line

who's in the program is struggling for me to be able to tell you that it works if you work it, That's really, yeah, it's a good topic because it's true. And that's really the only message I'd want to be talking to you about

because

Two wasn't so sure. I wasn't so sure for a long time in the program. I went to meetings, I made phone calls. I had a sponsor.

I I went to a lot of meetings. I made a lot of phone calls and I didn't have any sobriety to show for it.

And I just resigned myself to the fact that it works for some people when they work it. And I just might be one of those people who are doomed to failure,

diet dia sexaholic death. And and that's just my fate. And it bothered me. Like why? Why does everyone else seem to be getting more and more sober, more and more recovered as they, you know, and new people came in after me and

seem to catch on and get sober and before you know it, you know, what do they say? The light is shining in their eyes

and the light wasn't shining in my eyes.

Got pretty bad for me.

The first guy who was sponsoring me was instructed by his sponsor. Well,

let me back up a little, but let me finish the sentence. He was instructed by his sponsor that he shouldn't talk to me if he values his sobriety because he'll probably act out if he keeps talking to me. That was the end of that sentence.

Backing up. Actually have a funny story with Harvey. I know he did one of the talks on this on this conference. So I was at a conference actually during that time, a live conference, not an Internet conference. And I was there with, you know, my sponsor used to always talk about this guy Harvey that he talks to all the time. And I don't know who he's talking about. You know, I was new. What did I know? There was names that got thrown around at

like Harvey and Bill and Bob and Roy Kay. And what do I know who these people are? You know, I I don't know that half of them are dead at that time. Could be Roy was alive. But I'm at a conference and this little short guy comes walking by and talking. And I said to my sponsor, who's that? He's like, who's that? That's Harvey,

I said. Oh, Harvey, the guy you always talk about. So I walk. So we walk over to him together and I start talking to Harvey and,

and he turns to my my he turns to my sponsor or to me. He says he says are are you on medication?

Said no. He says you should think about getting on medication.

Something's wrong with you. So that was my first Hello.

Then we're talking for another minute and he turns to my sponsor and he says to him, are you his sponsor? And he said, yeah. He said, how do you talk to him and stay sober?

Oh man. So that was my second. That was the 2nd minute we had. So anyway, that that that conversation didn't go so fantastic. And Harvey and I, when we see each other, we still joke about it because, and he says the joke's on him because here I am

sober now since June 21st of 2010, which is not a lifetime. It's not an eternity

if if you're thinking like a normal person, like, you know, we're not going to be coming into 2019. So I'll be coming up on nine years, you know, middle of the year. But but for a sexaholic who can't get 24 hours of sobriety, I never thought I'd get a week of sobriety. And apparently the sober people around me, I didn't think I was going to get a weakness sobriety either.

So

I'm sitting at meetings and my sponsor no longer wants to talk to me. And his sponsor is telling him, don't talk to me, for God sakes. Harvey's telling him not to talk to me. And and there's fewer and fewer people in the group that are, you know, willing to take my phone calls because I'm burning people out. So here I am really getting to feel what a first step feels like. That we admitted we were powerless, that our lives had become unmanageable.

And

I didn't really think or feel that it works if you work it 'cause I thought I was trying really hard on it. Like I said, I, it's not like I would act out and, and you wouldn't see me at a meeting for the next

five weeks.

I would act out sitting in the parking lot in my car waiting for the meeting to start. And then I go running into the meeting, you know, saying things like, I'm sorry I'm late,

you know, and checking in,

telling everybody my sobriety date was 5-10 minutes ago.

So I guess part of the question really is, So what happened? I get that question a lot from people who struggle. So what happened?

And it becomes especially poignant for newcomers who asked me that when, when they hear other people, like when I celebrate or when I tell my story. And people who've been here before I got here will share, you know, humorously because it got some funny war stories with me. And they'll share about like, oh, God, this guy. And they'll go on to describe what it was like sitting next to me at a meeting. You know, if, if we were Alcoholics Anonymous, I'd be the guy who smelled like alcohol at the a, a meeting, you know,

and they'd say, So what changed? What happened? So I want to share a couple of things that happen

and maybe even a little bit about my first three steps.

The first thing that happened was

I really, I really connected with this encouragement. The few people that talked to me told me a few things that helped me even when I wasn't sober yet.

I'm going to try to do this without crying. So

the first thing is you can't leave before the miracle happens.

And I really wanted a miracle to happen.

And if I leave, the miracle's not going to happen.

My spots are not the first guy I told you about. Eventually a friend in the program took me to a meeting and got me a new sponsor.

Unbeknownst to me or my sponsor, he kind of just introduced us and told my sponsor, Anthony, you're his sponsor. And then he walked away.

And Anthony has been my sponsor ever since. Recently I found another one only because of circumstances. Anthony moved down to Maryland. He's retired. We weren't talking as much and, and, and I'm working on certain things. I needed someone local, but

but my sponsor would say to me, you know, suit up and show up and that's it. And that's not something I'm powerless over. I can suit up and show up. Whether I'm silver a day, a week, a month, a year, a decade, it doesn't matter.

Regardless of what's going on in my life and what happened yesterday, tomorrow, right now, right here, I can get my rear end to a meeting no matter what. I can do that.

So don't leave before the miracle happened became something important to me and really, really

accepting that I'm a sexaholic. And the fact is, is that if nature takes its course, I will die a disgusting sexaholic death and that and, and there's nothing I can do about it. So get on with life. I don't mean that I shouldn't try to get sober, but but if I do or don't get sober became

it didn't become the point. The point was that if I wasn't going to get sober, it wasn't going to be because I wasn't going to try. So I was going to do whatever I can do to get and stay sober knowing full well it probably wasn't going to happen. And for me, that's my first step. There's this, there's this chat, there's this section in the book that I heard other speakers talk about over the last 24 hours. It's the acceptance paragraph and Doctor Paul's story in the big Book.

In the 4th edition it's on page 417 and in there there's a line he says

until I could accept my alcoholism, I cannot stay sober. That's a funny line, but for me it meant I wasn't going to start staying sober until I fully conceded to my innermost self. I accepted the fact I'm a sexaholic and doesn't matter why everyone else is getting it and I'm not. But I'm a sexaholic, so the fact that I'm working my rear end off and not having any sobriety was not a good enough reason to give up. Giving up

was taken off the table and if I was going to succeed or not was going to be God's business. If I was going to try or not was going to be my business. And I could honestly say from that day to this, the only thing I've ever done consistently without any relapses is I've kept on trying

without giving up. You know, when someone tells you that the sobriety date is June 21st of 2010, I hope you never think that means that whatever that sobriety date is, that they never struggled again. They never lost it again. They never raged again. They never, you know, had those phone calls with their sponsors. Should I reset my sobriety again or not? Especially early on? You know, there's a few things that happened in the first few months of my sobriety that if I laugh at it now, 'cause if I would do

like that today, I would not be calling myself sober. But I was so desperate. It was like I just put, I needed to put one day in front of the other, one foot in front of the other. And that's where I was at at the time, you know, so, but what I did do was I never gave up. Giving up is not an option. And, and, and my sponsor would keep telling me, don't leave before the miracle happens.

Suit up and show up. And that's what I did every single day.

The second thing that was really pounded into my,

into my brains by people, including my therapist, because he was an, A, a guy, he told me once he's like, why don't you go read the stories in the back of the big book and come back next week and tell me which one of those guys got sober without a higher power?

Now, I wasn't, I wasn't sober and I wasn't, you know, my brains were all over the place, but I was intelligent enough. I knew the answer before I went to look it up. The answer was nobody,

and I knew that without reading the stories. But I read some of the stories anyway and

and it was obvious the people who were sober had a power greater than themselves. They had a God of their understanding. And I was going to have to do that. I was going to have to get a higher power and,

and I'm so grateful that I

had to find my higher power

in darkness in, in crap when I was not yet sober because

a lot of people struggle to connect with their higher power when they are struggling, you know, when they just lusted, when they just raged, when they're when they know they're not behaving in the sober way. And I don't struggle with that because I first found a higher power who loved me and then I got sober. And I'll never sit and try to prove to you why God loves you.

Yeah, but what about all the horrible things that happen in the world? And what about all the bad things that happened to me when I was a kid? And what about the fact that this horrible thing happened?

I mean, I don't have a job and all these things that people will say to prove that God's not loving, to which I say I don't know the answer. Or maybe I do today I actually do. But that's not how I found a loving higher power. I found a loving higher power because I didn't have a choice. It was like find God or die. And the way I was acting out dying was not a a a cute

cliche.

Sorry, I'm getting distracted because I can hear,

I could hear my baby crying in another room and my wife knows that she's got to get him. So I'm going to try to ignore that. I

so you know, when I say find God or die, which is a, which the wife of, you know, talks about for me, it wasn't a cute cliche like die. Like, you know, Alcoholics can die from overdose or alcohol poisoning or liver damage or driving drunk. I was driving drunk, you know, coming down the Garden State Parkway here in New Jersey at 80 miles an hour

with a magazine on my steering wheel.

And I won't get too graphic about what I looked like in that vehicle, but I wasn't fully dressed and I definitely wasn't watching where I was driving. So to think that I could have been involved in a fatal accident just like an alcoholic is not a an exaggeration.

And just like a drunk guy will say, by God's grace I didn't kill anybody, myself or others,

I can say by God's grace I didn't kill anybody, myself or others.

So for me, it's, it's

I, I didn't have a choice. I just have to say, you know what? I start talking to a God that I didn't understand. I've heard people say God of my misunderstanding. You know, whoever's out there, if there's any love in you, can you keep me sober today? I'm really, I just start talking to him and just really start doing the things that people told me to do without being so intellectual and figuring out the theory and the philosophy of why it works. Just work it.

Just work it. And I did that.

So here's what started happening. I, I started, I started stringing together some time. And when I say sometime I'm talking two days, 3 days. And what? And what what I started noticing was there were certain days where I would go to a meeting in the morning

and

certain days where I would

really, you know, do that third step that they talk about. And I would do it right when I woke up

and I would do it on my knees. Now, that's not something that the book says you got to do,

but that's what was suggested of me by my first sponsor, the one I told you about before. He had told me to pray on my knees. I asked my second sponsor, do I have to pray on my knees? My second sponsor was a Catholic eye, and he said if you want him and I, I tried it both ways. But for me, something about getting on my knees was humble. It was powerful. It was me

really feeling like I, I can't do this without your help. And sometimes it was awkward. Maybe my wife was around or my kids. So I'd get on my knees and look for my shoes under my bed or get on my knees and take some socks out of the drawer so it looked like I was doing something else when people are around. And whatever the case is, I do the third step and I would, I would really, you know, Ioffer myself to you.

I like to say it in modern English, by the way,

I don't speak old English, but so, you know, Ioffer myself to my higher power. And I imagine, I imagine like as if I'm a waiter at A, at a fancy restaurant and I'm wearing a tuxedo and I've got this,

have got this tray. And you know, the, the trays with the lids on them, like in the movies where you serve the, the steak and you pull the tray off and there's the dish, you know, and I, and I pull the, the, the lid. I mean, I pulled the cover off the tray and there's me on the tray, a little version of me. And I come before my higher power and I say Ioffer myself to thee. I'm offering myself to thee, to you, my high power to do with me and to build with me as

as thou wilt. That means that whatever happens today, you know, you can do whatever the hell you want. And if I'm using shame words to do with me however the heck you want, and it would be in the morning, I would start thinking of things like what if I spill coffee on my tie? Like, am I OK with that? You know, and I struggle like, no, I'm not really OK with that, you know, And then someone said to me, well, then don't wear your tie when you're drinking coffee, Shim.

You know, like, oh, you mean there's some things I can do, but this is how it slowly started to just sink into my consciousness. And I would do the third step in the morning and I'd go to that meeting and I'd quickly make a few phone calls in the morning on my way to work and say, you know, I don't want to pull off the road today and, and, and suddenly end up at work not knowing how I just ended up acting out somewhere between home and work. And because that would happen and then just throughout the day,

go back to that third step and go back and do the things that people were saying. And I had a sponsor who was telling me certain step work to do. And I would, I would do those step work, the questions or whatever it was. And on days like that, I go to sleep at night and I'd look at my day, I'd say, whoa, you know, I didn't act out today. And I, I'd say, well, how did that happen? And I'd realize I did a whole bunch of program things today,

a whole bunch of things that were suggested of me. Not just going to a meeting and making a phone call, but doing step work and really surrendering

in a way that I was taught to surrender by the old timers being of service, you know, getting coming early to a meeting to set up, calling a newcomer or somebody who's struggling, just different things people are telling me to do my sponsor and other people and I go to sleep at night and say, wow, I didn't act out today. So I really,

he appreciated that. And one of the things that would happen at night is I was taught to say thank you if I was sober today, even if I was sober for the first day or for half the day, whatever it is, whatever sobriety I had, don't, you know, don't minimize it. Thank you, God for whatever sobriety I had today. And if I had, and if I had not stayed sober, I would still talk to God. I'd say, take you for my day, good night. And I started talking to God

and on those days I had better days. And then there'd be some days where maybe I went to a meeting or I didn't, and maybe I missed the meeting. Or maybe I'd, I would skip the third step prayer in the morning or I just somewhere in the middle say, forget that program stuff. And I'd go to sleep at night and I'd look at my day and it was a disaster. You know, I'd be like, whoa, what, what happened today? How did that happen?

And I'd say, Oh

yeah, those phone calls I've been making, I, I wasn't making those or I was, but you know, but I was lusting while I was on the phone looking at people walking by my car because I can do that, by the way, it's, it's tough, but I can do it. Or I just kind of gave up. And I realized not only does it work when I work it in, in New Jersey, we say it works if you work it, it won't if you don't.

Because we're, we're a little, we're a little thick up in the skull thick. What is it called?

Thick headed at least I am like I need you to explain to me it works when you work it and it won't if you don't. Like I need that part

reminded. I need to be reminded it won't if you don't. Which means if I give up somewhere in the middle of the day, I'm probably not going to have a good rest of my day. So for me, that became my second step. It works if you work it and it won't if you don't became my second step. I came to believe. I came to believe that it works if I work it. And

I laugh a lot when I sponsor guys who struggle and they say, well, the program doesn't work for me. And always I'll say, all right, let's look at the record. With the big book says let's look at the record. The days you're struggling, are those the days you're working really, really hard at the program? Or are those the days that you're kind of giving up and saying forget it, But usually today's what we're not doing the work.

So that doesn't prove that the program doesn't work for you. That kind of proves that not doing the program doesn't work for you.

So how that equals forget it, I'm going to leave the program doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

Well, it makes sense if I take a step back and realize that it's frustrating and it's painful and we just want to run away and forget it. And I and I get that, but it's not true. The program works, but I've got to do the legwork. I've got to do the footwork, I've got to do the actions. It's not what I thought it was when I was a newcomer. Or just show up in some magical thing happens and the group will somehow save me. No, it won't.

I've got to be responsible for my recovery and I've got to be responsible to make those phone calls.

I've got to be responsible to do those step work. So step work is the final thing that really

separates what my program looked like when I was just doing phone calls and meetings

and not staying sober and what my program looked like when I was doing phone calls, meetings and I was staying sober. Working the steps for me is

not a convenience. It's not a cool thing to do after you got some sober time.

I can't stay. I can't get so overtime without working the steps. For me, steps 1-2 and three are not three steps I work after I get sober. Those are the three steps I work in order to get sober. Step 4 is the step I start doing after I get sober. I really believe that's not a smart thing to do when you're not sober. I sponsored a guy who tried doing his fourth step when he wasn't sober.

It didn't go well

'cause it's a pain, It is a painful step. It's not as scary as people think it is, but there's a lot of resentments in there, which usually means we're going to be writing about stuff that happened to us as a as a kid, which ironically is very related to the development of sex addiction. I didn't know that when I was new. I just thought there was this weird phenomenon in me called sex addiction. But as I did the step work, I started realizing the relationship between

all of the

resentments and trauma that I went through as a kid always coincided with my addiction getting worse. You know, my addiction started when I was in second grade. It got worse when I was in 7th grade, even worse when I was in high school, then even worse when I got married. You know, so, so I started recognizing the correlation between certain events. But if I try to do that work when I'm not sober, I'm just going to be frustrated and it's going to make my addiction worse.

But for me,

steps one and two, I just told you what that looked like for me, that was all in my acting out time. Now, if you're sober and you haven't started your steps, please don't go back and act out so that you can do it my way. You don't ever have to go back and act out. And please, though, get into your into your steps because these steps, these 12 steps to freedom,

these are the steps we took, which are suggested as a program of recovery.

That's what the book says. Here are the steps we took, which are suggested as a program of recovery. So if you want to know what is the program of recovery, we talked about the program, The program is the steps. And that's something that I really, really had to learn. And I'm grateful I was, I was told it by people who weren't scared to say it. And I'm not here to get involved in debate. You know, I know there's people who call me all the time and say, well, my sponsor,

I should first get sober and then start the steps. I can only share my experience, strength and hope. As a guy who struggled, it didn't work for me. I had to start my steps. I had to admit and concede to my innermost self that I was a sexaholic, that I was going to die in miserable sexaholic death and find the power greater than myself to one day at a time, just get up in the morning and turn my will in my life over and say, please help me. I cannot do this without you.

You know, Step 2 and then over time realize. Wait a minute,

this is working. So Sham, Are you ready to turn your will in your life over the care God as you understand them? Step three, you know, by the time I finally took that third step, I was sober probably about 90 days, you know, where I was really ready to turn everything over and get into the rest of the steps. But the program of recovery are these 12 steps.

I think in terms of my story and the topic of it works if you work it. I've shared the experience,

strength and hope that I've got on that angle. There's obviously a lot more to the program than, you know, getting through the struggles of early sobriety or, or holding on to the, to the hope that, you know, not leaving before the miracle happens and keep trying. But I thought it'd be a better idea. I don't know if one of you guys could tell me if there's any comments or questions, now would probably be a good time to address them.

Yeah,

that was the best talk I'd ever heard in my life.

What are you doing here?

I really want to be quiet on the standard side, talking about technology, running the show over there. I stole the show for 10 minutes and now we don't want to do is hate you to talk to each other.

I'm going to tell them to take over and I'm reaching myself.

Come on. No, that was great. Yeah, it really was. It was really good. And

yeah,

I, I'm interested in that. I'm interested in your, in what you're saying about, you know, these, these, these three aspects, you know, that you need for, for recovery. But that business of, of, you know, the crashing again and again and again and again and, you know, keep coming, keep working the steps or whatever. What was the,

you know that I've listened to a lot of speaker tapes and this is kind of defining moment where somebody just comes in and you just feel they've just got it now there's just something that, you know, they've been searching for whatever. And somehow the light bulb went on and

you know, what would you say was your of that? And you've seen your talk, but like sort of more more clearly. What was your light bulb moment and and what was the thing that really pushed the ground?

Did I skip the part where I met Jesus?

I'm kidding, I'm joking.

So I'm a Jewish guy and I'd be happy to meet him because he was a Jewish guy, but it didn't happen.

Yeah. So

here's the thing.

I think that every time, every single time

that I had to make a decision. Am I going to give up or try again?

And I came back

was a defining moment, maybe not a permanent defining moment, because, you know, here's the thing that that the book tells me, which is

lust is a subtle foe. We're not cured of sexual holism. This is in the big book. I said I wouldn't quote pages, but I will. This isn't step 10 in the big book on page 84. Maybe it's on 83, but it's it's on 83 or 84.

So lust is a subtle foe. We're not cured of our sexual holism. What we have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition.

What that says to me is there is no long term solution in sex Alex Anonymous. There's a one day solution in Sexaholic Anonymous. And for me to buy into this idea that I my sobriety is not going to be about a week at a time or a year at a time or a month at a time. It's going to be a moment at a time and the longest possible amount of time that I'm going to be able to work my program. Is it going to be 24 hours?

That's a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of my spiritual condition. So each time

I

time I, I, I relapsed or I struggled or, and this still happens today by the way, because I don't need to reset my sobriety to do this work. Any kind of, you know, struggling, lusting, raging, whatever the case may be, I want to go back to my program, to my sponsor, to my book, to my inventory. And I want to say, so what's happening? How is it that I'm here again?

You know, so early on was the same thing. It was like, what do I need? What can I do to up my program? Because I don't want to do that again. I really don't want to act out. I really don't. So each time I came back, there was a defining moment for that awareness, for that growth. And somewhere along the line, there's a compilation of those experiences that start to click together.

And, and, and for me, I don't know that there's any way I could have learned all of that in one shot,

you know, learnt all of those lessons in one shot, you know, service stuff, work, phone calls. I mean, it's overwhelming. Forget it, I'm out of here. It's like each thing happened in its own time, but there were a couple of things that happened that really forced me to

take a good look at it. What's going on? One of those actually was my wife. So at some point in my in my struggling, we ended up getting separated. I moved in at my sister's house,

she had a basement, a bedroom in the basement and and I told her it would be a couple of weeks till we sorted some stuff out.

The holiday of Passover was coming in a couple weeks. I told her I would be out by Passover.

I, I, I thought it was going to be Passover of the year. We were talking about I was out by Passover of the next year. So I did tell the truth. Technically I was out by Passover, but it was 13 months later.

Now, during that time at there was one point where I don't remember the circumstances, but I ended up going out for coffee with my wife not far from where she worked.

And she said something to me that

I happened to have really,

you know, made an effect on me. She said to me something like, I think you're afraid

to be sober

because like, I was getting 3-4 days, five days, even 6 days, but seven days was like the Max. I could not pass that threshold. I would go to a meeting on day six and say I'm gonna get through this day. I'm gonna come back tomorrow and I'm gonna have seven days of sobriety. And that never happened. Week after week I would go. And for me, that was great progress because I was, you know, you go from acting out seven times in a day to once and every seven days. I think the program's working.

You know, that's where I come from. But

she said, there's something about you, you seem to be terrified to, like, really get into that next level of sobriety. And

that really made me pause and think, like, what am I scared of, really? And I was scared. I was scared of a lot of things. I was scared of what living sober would really look like. I was scared. You know, I used to get scared. Well, what if I get sober and then I relapse? Like, then it's even worse. So just do it now.

And I learned about this thing called future tripping. Like really, anytime I act out, I'm really living in the future because I can get through the day sober. So why am I acting out now? Well, I usually say things like, well, how much longer can I do this? But what does that mean? How much longer can I do this usually means I'm going to act out anyway. So just get it over with today. I know how to respond to that stinking thinking, which is how much longer can I do this? I don't know. We're going to wait and find out.

Well, I'm gonna act out anyway. My response to that is, well, then when that day comes, it will come. But like Harvey taught me, even if my ass falls off, it's not going to happen now or today.

And then someone else once told me and even if it oh, my sponsor told me, I called my sponsor, I said, Anthony, even if my ass falls off, I'm not acting out today. And he left and he said, and I'm going to tell you a little secret, Shim, an insider secret. It's not going to fall off.

And I remember another time where I was so badly wanted to act out that the only thing I can think of was it was going to be like, act out or die. And I called my sponsor. I said, you know what? I'm willing to die today. And he laughed and he said, that's great. Just you should just know you're not going to die if you stay sober. Your ass is not going to fall off. You're not going to die. Staying sober doesn't do that. But it was causing me to have panic attacks. So I needed to learn in therapy how to be able to deal

anxiety, which was coming back when I stayed sober. When I wasn't sober, I didn't have anxiety because I wasn't sober. It only started happening after I tried staying sober for a little while, and then my anxiety started rising. I never knew what that was. So I don't think we have one defining moment. You know, there's a defining moment that got me into the program, but I don't have a defining moment that suddenly taught me how to stay sober because nothing taught me how to stay sober. I'm a powerless sexaholic

and it was just keep going back to God, the steps, the program and not for me. I don't think about long term sobriety even even right now. I mean, we're at 20 to 6:00 AM here in New Jersey. When this meeting is over, I'm probably going to go to an essay meeting where I live at 6:15 in the morning and my focus is going to be what do I need to do to get to sleep sober tonight?

That's it. It's the only day I have is today, and I know how to stay sober for one day.

I do. And the secret that I think is that if you know how to stay sober for one day, then you can stay sober for the rest of your life. And if you choose to stay sober in the day that you're in. So that's my answer to that question.

This is great. Is there anybody who has got questions, anybody like to sort of shoot up a question there on the chat and sort of

anybody out there? Yeah, there is a question. So the question comes from Federico. He says hi, Shim, and thanks for your ESH. Hello from a few of us logged in from Exeter, UK. So it's not just one guy. You know, this has been a pattern for the whole, for the whole SIM that there's been a group, groups of guys gathering around the little screen.

And we're spreading the message not just through one, you know, through a bunch of guys, he said. We want to ask you ESH on talking some tough love in meetings, when fellows dump in the meetings. On the one hand, we recognize that it's loving to be direct and to call it for what it is. On the other hand, we're all sensitive sexaholics, and we want to avoid harsh judgement of others. Thank you.

All right. Let me go see that person that was

said, Rico.

And I appreciate the question very much and I appreciate you guys logging in and I love that people are committed to the program. And I got to remember that when people hold the rear end out of bed and they get out of their house and they go to a meeting,

they're doing something. They might not be good at what they're doing. They might not be successful at what they're doing. But please don't assume that someone sitting in a chair at your SA meeting

is full of crap, because I can tell you as the, as that guy for a long time,

I, I could tell you it didn't work for me. And then I could tell you how I, you know, my experience strengthened up when I, I, I came in to the program. I was, I was beaten up enough by myself by my disease. I mean, my disease beat the crap out of me and I didn't need anybody else doing it.

What I I needed somebody to hug me

and and for me to believe that they knew what I was going through. They knew how it felt to be a sexaholic because out in the world, I don't believe anyone knows what it's like when my wife catches me, you know, when she goes through my browser and sees that I was looking at pornography, She's pissed. She's not saying, wow, I feel bad for you all. You know, let me give you a hug. It's so painful to No, she's not saying that. She's saying what the heck you doing? Get out of the house

and the only if I'm not going to get love at A at an essay meeting, where am I going to get it? Now, that doesn't mean when a guy relapses and comes in and he's dumping on the meeting that we all clap and say here, why don't you take us out with a prayer of your choice? I think that's ridiculous.

So

I as the, as the chairperson of a meeting, if some guy is sharing in the problem or talking explicitly or dumping, I'm more than happy to raise my hand