The Foundational Principles of
The Daily Reprieve Group of Sex Addicts Anonymous
Our sex addiction distorts our very nature. It is said that we are made in God's image. Consider, then, that in our sexuality our Creator has shared his greatest power with us: through an act of love we create life. Our masculinity, moreover, tells us who in large part we are, what it is to be a man. Our love-making is designed to be a powerful bond that nourishes a couple emotionally and spiritually, a safe harbor for our most tender feelings. We sex addicts, however, have gone off the tracks somewhere. We use our sexuality as a drug to numb painful feelings; we make our sexuality a barrier to intimacy. The good news is that there is recovery, and through recovery we can have lives filled with joy. Our experience is that working the twelve steps with a sponsor, regularly attending meetings with other sex addicts and reaching out with a hand of comfort and support to our fellows in this program who are suffering is an infallible path to that joy.
We addicts are profoundly stubborn and self-centered; we recognize no will but our own. We look on our addiction as God's device to bring us, helpless, to our knees. Facing something which will destroy us and which we are wholly unable to evade, placate or control, we turn in desperation to God. And He answers us. We have found that the Twelve Steps are the path that brings us addicts to the God of our understanding, brings us to trust Him enough to surrender our will and our lives to Him. The steps nowhere promise us sobriety. Nor do they promise us that our defects of character will be taken from us. What they do promise us is conscious contact with God and a spiritual awakening. The gifts of the steps are not material or behavioral; they are spiritual. It has been our experience, however, that in working the steps – or perhaps better put, in letting the steps work us – all manner of addictions fall by the wayside and every aspect of our character improves, not by our work, but the mysterious action of God's grace. Why that happens is beyond our understanding, but our lives, before and after, are proof that it does in fact happen.
The best description that we know of how our lives are different now is the following paragraph from the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous:
We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.
The Big Book also tells us that we will be unable to stop our addiction on the basis of self-knowledge and that as we work this program, we will obtain no more than a daily reprieve, a respite entirely contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition. The focus of this group is that daily reprieve and the maintenance of that spiritual condition. We invite you to join us in this great adventure.