Had to miss my first AA meeting in a couple weeks today

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Anyone want to pick a topic?

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Step Four. I love that deep reflection, really taking an account of myself. It challenges me to look in the dark corners of my personal history and behaviour, to bring them to light and to understand them.

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My name is Matt, and I’m a sexaholic: I am addicted to lust, to the fantasy, to the “chase”, to the illusion that life can be reduced to a bunch of sexual objects and experiences, and not for true connection and true accountability. (Lust, as pursued by the sexaholic, is as hollow and harmful as the addictions pursued by millions of other addicts around the world.)

I am in the early stages of my recovery journey. I spent decades digging myself into this hole, and there is a lot more ground to cover in my way out. What I like about Step Four is the honesty it demands. In my addiction I completely lost hold of honesty, and I wasn’t even aware of it: in the fantasy life I lived, where I wasn’t really accountable for anything, there was nothing really honest or meaningful about my behaviour.

Step Four demands that I be honest, not only about what I did, but also about how much time and meditation and patience will be required for me even to be honest. I don’t have a magic wand that I can magically do this, like I’m special and I get to rush through it. I have to trust the process and remember it can take months or even years. (Not that I can’t do this step until years have passed - that’s not what I mean - but instead that I need to recognize it’s not a “one and done”: I need to remain open and receptive and sober, and I will gain more insight with each month and year that passes.)

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You have and are using a Sponsor, right?

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Yes I am :+1:

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Step Four is useless unless you intend to complete Step 5.

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All the steps function as individual parts of an organic whole. The are like breathing: a natural process following steps, with different parts (mouth, nose, airway, lungs, alveoli, heart), all of which are interdependent, and the process repeats again and again over your whole life. No step functions alone, any more than lungs work without a heart, or an airway :+1:

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I have no idea what your stream of thought is saying. But you have to complete Step 5 with someone.

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I understand. Thank you for your input :pray: