Recovery Reflections: Working the Steps

About these reflections

What follows is a set of short notes written by a sponsor in long-term recovery from sexual addiction, addressed to the men he worked with. They were published on our earlier website between roughly 2015 and 2018 and are preserved here largely as written.

A word about what they are and are not. These are one person's lived experience, not clinical guidance, and the voice is explicitly faith-centered — which reflects both the writer and much of the community our practice serves. Take what is useful. If something here does not fit your beliefs or your situation, leave it; recovery does not require you to adopt someone else's framework wholesale.

If you are looking for the clinical picture instead, our article on how compulsive sexual behavior develops covers that ground directly.

On the first-step inventory

My heart goes out to you as you work your first-step inventory, and at the same time I am glad for you, because you are about to get some real distance from your past. Take care of yourself while you do it — prayer, scripture, decent food, sleep. This is an important step and it asks a lot of you.

Two things came out of it for me.

First, I saw much more clearly how far lust had taken me — into things that were genuinely dark and destructive and shameful. That gave me a healthy respect for the power it had over me, and a clear sense of how badly I did not want to hand it that power again.

Second, and this surprised me: it freed me from an underlying shame that had been making me vulnerable to relapse. I had told my very worst to a faithful witness who understood how cunning and baffling and powerful this thing is. After that I could stand on equal footing with any man, and no longer carry the private sense that I was somehow less than everyone in the room.

On approaching step 4

I encourage the men I sponsor to write a brief summary of the incident pattern that led to the negative feelings, rather than a long narrative.

The reason is practical. A long account of everything that happened tends to leave a person stuck inside the story, re-feeling it. A summary keeps the focus where the step actually wants it: on the character patterns that led into and out of the incident, and on the bigger picture of healing.

So the entry might name the person, then briefly what happened, then — and this is the part that does the work — my part. Not always my fault. But the things I did then, and the things I may still tend to do, that are no longer serving me now that I am grown.

That last column is where step 4 stops being an accusation and starts being useful.

On making calls

I want to emphasize this one, because it is not easy and it makes an enormous difference. Use your telephone. Call other men in the program.

People in addiction typically hate making calls. It is one of the clearest dividing lines I know between the men who are recovering and the men who are not. Lust builds up, and surrendering it out loud to another person — as well as to God — neutralizes it. Calls do that, and they teach you a thousand things about connection along the way, which is its own kind of practice.

Would you commit to three calls a week to a recovering man, and keep texting besides?

Most men with a couple of months behind them start to feel slightly complacent, as though they have got it now. It is remarkable how quickly this thing finds the small openings we leave when we stop being watchful.

On sponsoring

Sponsors sow. The seed falls on whatever ground it falls on and does what it does there.

Our job is to be diligent and patient about providing structure and guidance. The men we sponsor receive it or reject it one choice at a time. We do not do the work. We provide the program, and God does the work through the program, for those who receive it.

The best attitude I know for a sponsor is this: I love my brother, and I am doing this as much for myself as for him.

There should be no ego in how your sponsees do. Sadness sometimes. But never anything personal.

On what recovering men actually do

It was not the program itself that healed me, in the end. It was demonstrating a willingness to submit consistently to a program — any decent program.

That realization came as an enormous relief when it finally landed. What I was doing, in the only way I could understand at the time, was giving up my will: go to the weekly meeting, do the daily reading and writing, pray, surrender lust to recovering friends. That was it. Then I could rest, and watch what happened.

The surgeon cuts; God heals. We water the plant; God grows it.

The program shifts over time as needs change or a new phase arrives. But be careful and prayerful about never making your program too easy or too punishing. Mostly, follow counsel.

On small commitments

Commitments are different from things I would also like to do, and different from goals.

As an addicted, ADD, commitment-guy-in-training, I started with what I knew was possible. At first that meant only today. At work I never commit to more than one to three things at a time — things I know I can finish before the day is out. In my personal life, one or two small things: getting to bed at ten, say, for the next three days, no matter what.

I can do that. And in doing it I surrender the illusion of control over anything beyond what is immediate and genuinely doable.

Once keeping small commitments became a habit, and I found I could trust myself, my capacity expanded — a week, then a month, still surrendering the temptation to skip it one day at a time, but now knowing how.

So when I catch myself saying "I'm going to start getting to bed at ten," I pause and ask: is this something I would like to do, or am I making a commitment? And if it is a commitment, how many days can I hold it no matter what? Until I know how to surrender the temptation to quit, I commit for today, and renew it tomorrow.

On not forcing it

You are doing well, and that deserves to be acknowledged — by other people and by you.

I found the path of recovery to be gentle. As I trusted the program enough to do it fully, shifts I had struggled toward for years began to soften on their own. There have been many times when I was doing something entirely unrelated — driving, talking to someone — and became aware of a small, sweet change.

So do not force yourself to go and face difficult emotions. Stay sober, do the actions of the program, one day at a time. The rest tends to arrive on its own schedule.

On keeping connections

Sobriety, for me, has always come with clearer thinking, less obsessiveness, and more flexibility about ordinary things that have nothing to do with the addiction. That alone makes it worth it.

What maintains that freedom is connection. With God and with other people. I need it daily or I become vulnerable to all the old material, so it comes first regardless of what else is going on.

Call or text your recovery friends, your sponsor, or whoever holds you accountable at the first sign of lust. Surrendering it early neutralizes it, so that it never builds up behind the dam and leaves you wondering later how you ended up where you are.

A clinical note

These reflections describe one man's experience, and it is worth adding two things from the clinical side.

Step work and therapy are complements, not substitutes. The Steps are very effective at uncovering what is underneath a compulsive pattern; they are not designed to treat trauma, depression, or anxiety, and they do not claim to be. Where step work surfaces something significant — and it often does — a trained therapist can help you process it rather than white-knuckle through it.

And a note for anyone for whom the faith language here does not fit: the underlying mechanisms in this work — honesty, connection, surrendering shame to another person, small consistent action — are not exclusive to any tradition. Plenty of people build durable recovery from a different starting point.

If you want to talk about what a combined approach might look like, start with a free 30-minute consultation: 801.272.3420, text 801.997.8760, or book online. Care is available in Orem, Murray, and online across Utah.