My Moment of Surrender

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My “rock bottom” was at a prominent event with celebrities, artists, and politicians honoring my favorite rock band.  I had made it; I was living the fantasy I always wanted.  I was seeing multiple women, able to have a date or event to go to every night and not be alone. I was living the “swinging” bachelor lifestyle, charming, funny, seductive, just the image of success. But the outward persona of feeling like I had it all still could not overshadow my inward depression and despair.  I was in a relationship with a significantly older woman while continuing to date other women, afraid to pursue an intimate, exclusive relationship with another woman, and still seeing other qualifiers, all while still trying to find the “one.”  I was in a delusional carousel, and there was no end in sight.  I had attended other 12-step programs and could not identify with other S-fellowships. Nothing could stop this inner emptiness, not even with a series of broken relationships, three failed engagements, or never getting the love/ relationship with the woman I desperately needed.  The lies would stop, and the emptiness would vanish if I could meet the one.  Then I wouldn’t need porn or a web of qualifiers that I could use when I began to feel low.  But one day, a men’s coach and podcaster I follow briefly mentioned his time with SLAA and a very dedicated therapist, which all but drove me to my first meeting. While sitting in a room with complete strangers, I thought these people did not get it and had no idea what I had been through.  They couldn’t get “it,” and I was close to finding the one this time; I was sure of it.  At the meeting, they read the 12 characteristics of the Sex and Love Addict, and I was hooked.  I privately laughed and cried as a stranger read out one desperate attempt to fill the emptiness after another.  I was no longer in a room with strangers and now connected with fellow souls struggling and finding healthy ways to live their lives without the desperation I was feeling.  I was now able to define my feelings and the thought process that led me to become addicted and what I was too afraid to face.  I wish my acting out had stopped that day, but it only ramped up. My addiction intensified as I stopped and restarted multiple relationships and acted out with a married person, something I told myself I would never do.  I was powerless and ashamed I betrayed the support group that was more than welcoming to me.  When I told them about my shortcomings at the next meeting, they were all just as supportive and encouraging; I received more phone numbers from fellows just willing to talk.  For once, I felt accepted, and the dark part of me I tried to hide, I could now share with people who could complete my sentences because they had experienced the same thing.  SLAA helped me realize that I needed help and that it was drastically necessary to change my life.  Therapy and SLAA meetings alone were not going to be enough, and joining SLAA allowed me to accept my need to take some much-needed time away and decide to go to rehab for intimacy disorders.  SLAA has given me an instant support community and a room full of strangers with the same thoughts ruminating around in their heads.  We hold space for our challenges, struggles, and victories, no matter how small.  I may have only completed Step 1, and because of SLAA, I know I can never go back to the fantasy life I lived and know I can continue in this journey because of all those whom I have met.  And with that, I am thankful and will keep coming back.

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-Kevin

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Surrender is the Beginning of Recovery 

SURRENDER, DOROTHY!

A little more than halfway through “The Wizard of OZ,” Dorothy and her three traveling companions – The Scarecrow, The Tin Woodman, and The Cowardly Lion – are enjoying a lovely time at OZ’s most fabulous spa “The Wash & Brush Up Co."

Feeling rejuvenated and refreshed, the movie’s four main characters cheerfully dance into the street singing, “That’s how we laugh the day away in the merry old land of Oz.”

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But moments later, contrary to their expectations and most recent experience, the newly formed band of friends quickly realize OZ is not all fun and games. Dorothy looks skyward. Her frightened reaction prompts her friends and everyone else on the street to also look up. They are terrified to see the Wicked Witch of the West riding a broom, smoke trailing behind her. The smoke quickly reveals letters reading…

The original script notes that it was initially intended that a longer message would appear in the sky. It was to read "SURRENDER DOROTHY OR DIE --W W W.”

Surrender or die. In the depths of my addiction, those were the two choices I faced. 

In “The Wizard of OZ,” the Wicked Witch of the West demanded Dorothy surrender her ruby red slippers. In the addict’s world, our addiction demands we surrender to it something infinitely more valuable, our very will. To start with. As in poker, our will is just the addiction’s ante. Once we have given up our will, our untreated addiction, like a metastasizing cancer, spreads throughout our life infecting everything and everyone with whom we interact. And similarly, like the most pernicious of cancers, its goal is nothing less than taking our very life as quickly as possible. 

A common SLAA meeting preamble includes the sentence, “We have found that while the details of our personal stories differ dramatically, the pain and insanity are usually very much the same.”

Like most addicts, I didn’t think I needed the help of anyone. For anything. Particularly for my addiction. I thought, I can stop these behaviors on my own. After all, they’re really only affecting me. And not that much. I’ll stop. Tomorrow. 

The problem was that every day had a tomorrow. And that no day was today. 

In time, I recognized I was not only harming my life, but I was also negatively impacting the lives of others. Whether they knew it or not. I was leading a duplicitous life. My addiction demanded secrecy. And I was more than willing to oblige it for the “payoffs” it gleefully delivered.  

So I tried recovery meetings. They didn’t take. I was a 12-step drop out. But that’s okay, I thought. I’d heard enough to know that whatever they were selling I wasn’t willing to buy it. What I later understood was that it wasn’t that I wasn’t willing, it was that I wasn’t ready. 

So, like living with an undiagnosed cancer, I did nothing to improve my spiritual health because I wasn’t aware I needed to. And, not surprisingly, my condition worsened. Gravely.

In time, my addiction took over my life. And I knew it. But by then, it didn’t matter whether I cared or not; I didn’t have a say in the matter. My addiction dictated how I spent my time, who I associated with, what I aspired to become, and the person I wanted to be. I had surrendered to it. Willingly at first. But eventually,  it worked its way into my very being, without choice. And feeling I had no choice, I wanted my pain to end. I became suicidal.

As with any physical malady that undeniably demands medical attention, there was no question that my disease – and the thoughts, actions, and feelings it imperiously demanded of me – needed spiritual attention. And it was abundantly clear to me that, like the original message to Dorothy from the Wicked Witch of the West, I was given two simple options – Surrender. To a better life. Or die. 

As noted in the SLAA “How It Works,” “Our description of the Sex and Love Addict, and our personal adventure before and after makes clear three pertinent ideas:

(a) That we were Sex and Love Addicts and could not manage our own lives.

(b) That probably no human power could have relieved our Sex and Love Addiction.

(c) That God could and would if God were sought.”

I don’t know about your personal adventure, but after being unable to stop my acting out behaviors on my own, those first two “pertinent ideas” were so well-defined to me that they inspired my second attempt at recovery:

- I could not manage my own life. 

I’d tried countless times. And failed with each attempt;

- My own power was insufficient to relieve me of my sex and love addiction. 

-And since I didn’t think there was any human power greater than my own, I had to reluctantly check this box as well;

- “That God could and would if God were sought.” 

- Before recovery, I had no concept of God. I did not believe in a Higher Power because I didn’t think one existed. But once I was in the rooms for good, it became clear that others did believe in a Higher Power. And most important, whatever Higher Power they were using was working for them and I wanted some of That. Whatever That was. At least enough to stop my acting out. Enough to not feel powerless and that my life was unmanageable. A desire for anything more positive than this was, at first, completely inconceivable. I only wanted one thing. I wanted my pain to stop.

So I went to meetings. I listened. I got a sponsor. And as others shared their stories, I heard courage. I experienced wisdom. I felt love. Most amazing of all was the realization that I had these wonderful attributes in me the whole time…if I was willing to reach for the support of others and share myself with fellow addicts traveling a similar “yellow brick road.” And as I progressed along my road of recovery with an incredible diversity of others, to my very real surprise, I began to have growing feelings of great happiness, real joy, and previously unimaginable freedom. 

I experienced – and continue to experience – these life-affirming feelings because I had surrendered. Not my ruby red slippers, but my ego. I made the choice to surrender, not to my addiction, but my will to a better life. Through very real humility, I was able to surrender my beliefs that I didn’t need help, or the support of others, or the guidance of a power greater than myself. I learned I was not alone.

Best of all, through my active participation in a program of recovery, I began to truly believe that I had found a very real and very loving home. And for me, there’s no place like it. 

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- A grateful traveler on the road of recovery

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Well, that’s certainly one choice. Or two if we consider both statements.

“Never give up. Never surrender.” is the ongoing refrain that drives the action in the movie “Galaxy Quest,” a fun film parody of sci-fi movies and TV series. 

Unfortunately, in active addiction the concept of never surrendering underscores the immovable nature of our will; that we refuse to even consider that surrendering our current addiction-driven way of life and turning it over to the care of something even greater and more powerful (a Higher Power as it’s often referred to) might possibly lead to a sober and more fulfilling life. 

Thus, the paradox of an immovable object (our will) meeting an irresistible force (a Higher Power). If we give equal weight to each, nothing changes. Ever. 

But what if we make a choice to surrender even just a bit of unbending will? What might our world look like? We’ll certainly never know until we try. And guess what? If history is any indication, if we decide that a sober, more fulfilling life is not for us, the addiction will still be there. And it’s always an option. And that’s exactly what the addiction wants us to always consider. But through the grace and infinite strength of our Higher Power, we discover that sometimes surrendering is not just an option. It’s the best one. And the only one.

-Anonymous

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