"The Gifts of the Program"

• One of the most important gifts of the program that I have received is a personal relationship with my higher power.  When I first came into the program I knew that God was working in my life, but I allowed my feelings of worthlessness to keep me from responding to him.  My sponsor encouraged me to keep trying.  On the rare occasions when I did pray, I put forth little effort.  These prayers had little or no effect on me.  I remember struggling to spend just 5 minutes in prayer.  Months later, after I returned from an S-Anon retreat, I was spurred to go through some books that had been gathering dust on my shelf. I came across a book of prayer that I had bought the previous year, and began to look inside it rather than just at it.  One of the first prayers I saw was a prayer for addictions.  I had just recently quit smoking and was looking for whatever help I could find.  And there it was!  I started using that prayer every day.  Before I knew it I was finding more and more prayers that applied to my everyday life.  Guess what?  I was spending 20 minutes in prayer daily, when I had previously been unable to fill 5 minutes!   I finally came to realize that, as with any relationship, to have a relationship with God takes work.  Now that I am truly working on my relationship with God, I am receiving a multitude of gifts.  I could not be more grateful.

• I came into this program in August of 2001. And in just a short few months it has enriched my life so much.  The program has led me to a real relationship with my Higher Power. I still have a long way to go.  But with all of the tools that I'm learning to use, I know that I can be successful in this painful process.  My qualifier has not chosen to go into recovery. But whether or not he recovers, I am regaining my sanity, and for that I am eternally grateful.  The greatest gift I have received from this program is myself. Thank you all for this program!

• When I walked into my first meeting two months ago, I was scared and not quite sure what to expect. All I knew was I needed to be there. I had been dealing with the knowledge of my husband’s sexaholism for a year already and had done plenty of research about it. I had confronted him after repeatedly finding that pornographic sites had been accessed on our computer. I had been lied to over and over again by someone I had completely trusted for the past thirteen years. I thought I was coping well, but little by little I was losing control and feeling constant anxiety and pain, and was crying or angry all the time. I had thought I had a good marriage, and now it was all crumbling around me. Just hours before I left for my first meeting, my husband and I had a huge fight, and I knew I needed to go and do something about me (with the thought that I could also do something to influence him).

  What I found at the meeting were five wonderful women who welcomed me. I learned that first night that others knew how I felt and knew ways to deal with the pain and confusion.  They had tools to give and even though they sounded strange I gave them a try. Two of those tools were the phrases “let it go” and “it’s none of my business.” Even though I thought what my husband was doing was my business, I took their word and their experience to heart and used those two phrases over and over again hundreds of times that first week. I couldn’t believe the difference just that one thing made in such a short time. It gave me back some sanity that I didn’t think I’d ever have again, and made it possible for me to hear more of what was being said in the meetings.  I learned to trust these strangers in a way I couldn’t trust anyone else.

  That was ten meetings ago.  I’ve now progressed from “newcomer” to “playing with the big kids” and it’s wonderful to move forward again. I had been frozen in place when I walked in the door but, week by week, I felt life returning to my spirit. I had felt that God wasn’t hearing me in the past year; that he had kept moving farther and farther away. My prayers felt like they were going nowhere and my life seemed hopeless and empty. I can now see it was God all along who was bringing me to the point where I needed to be - able to take that step to walk into my first meeting.  Thanksgiving has just past and I never thought I would be thanking my Higher Power for the sexaholic in my life, but I do.  Without him I wouldn’t be here embarking on the Twelve Step journey that will bring me health and life and hope. The Gifts aren’t just for the long term members, they’re also for brand new infants to the program like me. Thank you God and Thank you S-Anon for the wonderful promise of the Gifts of the program and how they have already begun to materialize in my life.