One day a number of years ago I looked up in my office and my eyes fell on a poster I had had on my wall for years. It was a picture of an owl - I love raptors and birds of prey - but for some reason this day my eyes fell on a quote at the bottom of the picture. It had been there for years, but I had never really paid any attention to it before.
It said: "The important thing is this: To be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become.... Charles Dubois"
I'm not sure why that quote struck me at that moment or maybe even the fact that the authors initials were the same as mine, but I do know that that particular moment was one of many if not the first, of a realization that to get where I wanted in life I HAD to give up where I was.
I was born in the country , the youngest of five children. My closest sibling, a sister was 10 years older then me, and the oldest 20 years older. My parents were both close to 40 when I was born and did not have much though I never thought of us as being poor. We raised our own food, including having a cow for milk and chickens for eggs so I never was hungry. My very first memories when I was very young were around sex. Strange in a way because that was a subject that was taboo in our house. I was brought up as a Catholic and Catholics didn't think about sex! Still I have pre-verbal memories (explored in therapy) of being abused as an infant. When I was six I was sexually molested by a sister in law, (which continued until I was in my 20's) and was molested by a older neighbor boy, though I never considered this to be molestation.
At about nine or ten years old I found my Fathers stash of pornography. Though this was right after WWII, the stories and pictures and stories in his stash were as graphic as anything available today. My Father I'm sure was a sex addict and I suspect my mother was as well. I can't say this find started my addiction but it did certainly fuel it. Another thing that I believe added to my addiction, was that my Mother like many others during that period, for some reason believed in frequent enemas. I still remember getting them when I was young. My later acting out behavior was most likely also influenced by this.
My addiction started very early. I started with anal stimulation when I was quite young, and I learned to masturbate when I was nine. Also about that time began to act out with the few other boys in the neighborhood. I thought for years that this was normal experimenting for kids, but I was told by several therapists in more recent years, that oral and anal intercourse are NOT normal childhood experimenting, that these are learned behaviors. This activity went on with several different boys until I was 16. Probably the most horrible experience I can remember as a kid, was when I was about 10 or 11. I decided one day to try having sex with our dog. I didn't know much yet about male dogs anatomy, and as a result he injured me pretty bad, I still can remember the fear.... lying on the floor, in pain, crying, bleeding and scared. I was so scared, I didn't know how bad I was hurt or if the bleeding would stop, but I couldn't tell anyone or ask for help because they would know what I had been doing. I still remember that as one of the most terrible, and shameful experiences of my life and a secret I kept hidden from everyone until just a few years ago.
At 16 I had sex with a girl for the first time. Boy, I thought that was great and that started a whole new quest. With teen-age hormones fueling my developing sex addiction, sex was all I thought about. A year later when I was 17 I met the girl who would become my first wife. My Dad had died a few months before, and I was already working full time and helping to support my Mom. That was in the days when good girls "saved" themselves for marriage. We dated for almost a year before we first went "all the way". Once we had sex the first time she was hooked. We dated several times a week and our dates were always the same. Going to one of our several favorite parking places and making out. We were constantly trying new things even though we were relatively still inexperienced. Soon, she made it obvious she wanted to get married. I had dated and had sex with a few other girls during this period and was not anxious to marry so soon. But, feeling guilty about taking her virginity, reluctantly I agreed and married her when I was 19.
Shortly after our marriage my job moved to Kentucky. We were both about 20 then and suddenly in a strange area with no friends. Several things happened at this time. My voyeurism grew, I drilled a hole between our bathroom and the one for the apartment next door, and watched the lady there when she was in the bathroom. I also started sneaking up on couples in parked cars having sex and getting close so I could listen to their lovemaking. About this time I also discovered bondage. I think now the B&D came about over feelings of hostility I had towards my wife. I was angry at her for feeling I had been "tricked into getting married", and I think this led to thoughts of wanting tie her up and rape her. I shared this idea with her and she became turned on to it. Soon we were acting out what started as a fantasy. Surprisingly she really liked it and it became a part of our regular sex life. Through magazines I learned that other people did the same thing and discovered more of the secrets of this life style.
I had not acted out with boys from the time I was about 15 or 16, until after I was married. One day while going to the restroom in a department store, I was introduced to "tea-room" sex, with a man there. That rekindled that part of my life and I began frequenting restrooms regularly in search of sex. At the same time we had made friends with another guy I worked with in Kentucky. I quickly realized he was an alcoholic and was not taking care of his wife's needs. It was a very short time before she and I were in bed together, the significance being this was the first of a long, long string of affairs for me. Soon I was having affairs with numerous women at work, still seeing my friends wife, engaging in bondage with my wife and having frequent sex with men.
Our B&D lifestyle began to expand, first with adding new twists to our acting out and then, for the first time, I invited another man to come over and join in. My wife and I had fantasized about this many times, and the fantasy excited both of us. I don't think she ever expected I would really do it, but in my addiction it was inevitable and just a matter of time. There was no thought on my part about the danger involved, disease, being found out, my daughter waking up, etc. She was blindfolded, nad no choice , and never knew who the man was. At the time these things happened were very exciting in the moment, but then afterwards I would go through a real period of shame and guilt and wonder what kind of sick degenerate I was . Of course the shame and guilt lasted only until I saw something else that again turned me on.
A few years later we left Kentucky and moved to Colorado. A new start, new friends, new location, etc. Of course as a sex addict I did not yet realize that EVERYTHING I did was with sex in mind. People I picked for friends, stores to shop at, things to do for recreation, all were done with the ultimate consideration being - how would it contribute to my sexually acting out? Very soon there were new affairs with numerous women, co-workers, employees, friends, etc. Acting out places with men were "scoped out", and I was back to my old habits with new energy, and without ever breaking stride. In Colorado I also discovered my first gay bath house. I had a hard time believing what these were like. A sex addicts heaven if there ever was one. Then the adult book stores began to open, and the internet came to life. There were more ways to act out than could be imagined and I did them all. I was acting out in every way possible.
Our B&D activity expanded with new found "friends". I was acting out with my wife, acting out on the internet, mail, chat rooms, going to adult book stores, gay baths, and having anonymous sex with men in restrooms. Like drugs and alcohol, the more I did the more I seemed to require to get my high. I found a woman who would become my mistress for 17 years. I initiated her to the B&D lifestyle (D&S) also. The difference here was that she liked on a occasion to reverse things and take the dominate role. This was very significant because it introduced to me something I had not really experienced before and something that was to become the most addictive of all my acting out. I was hooked on the submissive role and it soon became my "drug" of choice. The years went on, partners came and went, new ways of acting out, new places (all in addition to the old ones, not replacing them) continued.
Once on a trip back East I visited a female relative. She was in her mid 30's at the time, married with two children, and having some difficulty in her marriage. I of course "helped" by having sex with her. I suspect now now that she also has sex addiction problems which indicates something about our family dynamics. Especially since there were never any outward signs to indicate it.
At this point an important piece of information comes to mind. I still don't understand the significance, but a lot of the things I did involved reckless behavior. When I had first moved to Kentucky I used to sneak up close to couples parked in cars so I could hear them (and hopefully see them) having sex. One night a farmer came to chase the couple parked out by his barn, and when he pulled in with his pickup, the headlights caught me lying on the ground close to the car. He chased me across the field in the truck and I managed to jump a fence and cut back through the woods where my own car was parked and got away. When I was a teenager, I had tried to break into an illegal still just to see what it was like. Again I almost got caught and ran off a cliff running away from the bootlegger and his dog. Another kid and I used to make bombs out of black gunpowder. We started blowing up mason jars and graduated to 2" pipe bombs. Later when I was in management working for a large corporation. I would have sex with people who worked for me and other employees, sometimes at work in vacant offices. If I had been discovered I would have been fired on the spot and lost everything I had. I still haven't sorted out the reasons for this kind of reckless behavior but I think it played some part in my acting out. I loved my family and tried to care for them and be a good Dad, but the addiction would totally cloud my thinking and reasoning. Strangly after I had acted out I could never figure out why I had done it, because it really never was that good or satisfying.
In the early 80's I went into therapy. Not, surprisingly for my sex addiction, but because I felt I was having difficulty in dealing with my peers at work, and because I did not feel I loved my wife, I wanted to get out of the marriage and could not bring myself to leave. This was when AIDS was just starting and my therapist warned me how dangerous my behavior was. This of course fell on deaf ears. Finally in 1984, with the help of therapy, I was able to leave my marriage. I think my mistress was expecting me to move in with her but through the grace of God and my therapy I instead decided to live on my own for a while.
My acting out continued, and in 1986 I was seeing 4 women regularly plus my mistress, still having anonymous sex with men, going to book stores, acting out on the internet , etc.
Hitting bottom was really a strange experience. I was working full time, plus a lot of overtime, and also owned my own business. I had a retail shop and a full time employee, and we had 24 hour a day, 7 day a week service. When I got off from my regular job, my employee would go home and I would cover calls until 7:00 AM the next morning, plus do all the bookkeeping, inventory, and all the other things owning a small business includes. How I found time to act out as much as I did still amazes me. One night about 11:00PM I had just gotten into bed and as usual felt the urge to act out. I could have called any of 4 women, who would have come over and joined me in bed, or had me come over and spend the night with them. Instead I got on a "hot line" I had heard about, and connected with a woman in east Aurora. I got up, got dressed and drove down to Aurora to meet her. We spent 3 or 4 hours together having sex and I found myself driving home about 4:30 in the morning. I knew I had to be to work at 7:00, so at best I could only nap for about an hour. I managed to get to work on time though very, very tired.
The next night, I knew I had to get some sleep. I started getting ready for bed about 8 PM. I sat down in the chair in my condo alongside the bed to take my shoes off. Glancing out the window I noticed a light on somewhere in the condo across the way. A college girl lived there, she had a roll down wooden slat shade on her bedroom window that was nearly transparent at night. I knew she didn't usually go to bed until close to 11:00 but there I sat, immobilized in the chair knowing eventually she would come in the bedroom sometime in the next 3 hours, undress, and be naked in front of the window for a few moments. I was very tired, the bed was only two feet away and I could not bring myself to get out of the chair and go to bed. There were no circumstances I could blame it on, no one else had tempted me, no one else involved but me. I just sat there helpless. It was at that moment I realized how sick and out of control I was.
The next day I confessed to the lady who is now my wife of 16 years. She had done some work with the ARC in Boulder and located a contact for SA. I called a lady in SA (Our group later became affiliated with SAA)who actually lived very close to me. She took me to my first meeting and became my first sponsor.
It has been 17 years since that day. I wish I could say I immediately stopped acting out and was cured, but unfortunately that's not the way it worked for me. It was a long hard struggle, one day at a time not without its slips. Years of acting out had created a whole life style. So much had to be changed. Every part of my daily routine had been shaped around my acting out. I had to change my daily routine, lose many friends I had (looking back they were friends only because our sexual behaviors were in common) One of the most difficult was breaking it off with my mistress.
I had to find new stores to shop in, take different routes when I went places, and even learn to talk differently. After all I had spent a lifetime in seeking sexual partners and everything - even much of it unconscious- I had been doing with that ultimate purpose.
My recovery has been virtually a lifesaver for me. I truly believe that had I not gotten into recovery I would have died from the addiction and hurt many, many people in the process. I estimated at one time that I had had over 2000 sexual partners(this is a conservative estimate!). Probably many more than that. I contracted and passed on to my wife various minor STD's (chylamedia, yeast infections, etc.) and once contracted syphilis - but did not pass on to anyone else I'm aware of. Had I not stopped my behavior, I am sure I would have contracted Aids or something else, or have wound up committing suicide.
17 years ago, I lived alone, alienated from my kids, and family, had no real friends, no financial security, no purpose and was depressed. I acted out constantly, getting a momentary high and then was left with feelings of remorse, shame, guilt and depression.
Today I have a happy life. I love my wife dearly, and for the first time in my life know the joy of true loving intimacy that brings with it the most wonderful sex I have ever experienced. I have a relationship with my kids and my ex-wife that I never thought was possible. I have a nice home, we live comfortably and I have new friends like I never had before in my life. The 12 promises that I thought when I first started in the program were kind of "bogus" have really been fulfilled. I now realize how true that quote on the poster was. I had to sacrifice what I was - the affairs, the anonymous sex, the mistress, the lies, the highs- before I could become what was really important.
I am still a sex addict. Though it doesn't rear its ugly head anywhere near like it used to, the addict is still there, and anytime I might forget and could come roaring back. I worked for 50 years digging the hole of addiction. I guess I can't expect to fill it all back in just a year or two. I have to keep remembering to "Act as if..... "
I'm open to feedback and questions. If you have comments or questions on my story please click on "The Colorado SAA Community Bulletin Board" on this site and post it there or you can reach me by e-mail at saarecovery@bonami.us.