Sex and People

There is a big deal in the addiction recovery process that has taken more people back to their addictions than any other - Sex. Is that true? It's as true as anything. You'll hear, "Finance and Romance", quoted a lot as "slippery" things to watch out for. There is also a lot written about the sexual inventory and making amends for breaking things due to ones sexual exploits. So, sex is a big deal.

As people we all have to deal with the sex thing. Not just as addicts, but as people. I don't know about all the people in the universe but I do know something about earth people and I've been watching this sex thing for a long time. I've been watching people and society for a long time and sex is a huge part of this whole complicated experience.

It's suggested, in the Big Book, that we form a sexual ideal and do our best to adhere to it. This is good advice, but it brings with it consequences and complications of it's own. Mainly that our newly formed sexual ideal - which basically translates into "what we do" sexually - will always involve others. Even if we decide that we're better off not having sex with other people it effects other people.

I had to come to terms with what I really thought about sex and what I was going to do about it. For me sex has nothing to do with love. It had, in my past, everything to do with - self worth, approval, fun and companionship/security. I never felt anything that I could say was love when having sex or wanting to have sex. Still don't. For me they're not related in any way. On the other hand I don't really like having sex with people I don't like. This resulted in having sex with a lot of people I didn't know. If I don't know the person I can at least pretend that I like them.

I often mention that all these things we wind up dealing with, once we decide not to seek escape via addiction, are just the same things that everyone else deals with (or doesn't deal with). We addicts have very few, if any, exclusive problems - other than getting so deep in an addiction that we can no longer function. Every human being has to deal with the sex thing - period. As youngsters we deal with that part of the sex issue that is common to all - we want sex bad. This happens at the hormonal teen stage. It would be a lot simpler if we got the hormone thing at around thirty. At least then our brains would be more fully developed and we'd have had some time to make a few observations. But No....

It happens at a time when we're scatterbrained, full of not knowing anything and looking for our "personal identity niche". We're just barely coming to grips with being here - then whammo - the sex drive rocket is on the launch pad, we're in the captains seat but the co-pilot is missing. As a result there are a lot of actions taken that wouldn't have been taken if we'd had more time to prepare. Now we have driving hormones, little sense - plus the consequences - from actions taken, or not taken. Actions, taken or not taken, can eat a person up for years - decades. Just remember - it's not an addiction thing.

So for me I accept that I don't make a sex love connection. I want sex, when my body wants sex. This used to be once or twice a day. Now it happens about twice a week. The other stuff, the self worth, approval, fun, companionship, security stuff, is other stuff. So I make sure I separate it when I think about it. I can't answer the sex question for people. My suggestion is that we disentangle the sex thing from the other things. If people want to have sex, or go looking for sex, when they feel lonely, insecure or for any other reason - they have things tangled up. As long as it's tangled up in our thought world we'll have a tough time forming any rational ideals.

When we don't have these things laid out before us where we can look at them we will play hell trying to deal with any of them. It won't work - we have to know what we're dealing with. Remember "It's hard to solve a problem when we don't know what the problem is...." (?) well - why try? We can see this, entanglement deal, played out in the current events of whatever society we're involved in. You could have seen the same thing in any society, at any time, throughout history. Our government will never solve the problems of society as long as it never addresses the problem. We, as individuals, can get caught in an entanglement loop and do the same thing. Or we can get started on a self determined path and begin finding out what's really at work in our lives. When we know what's happening and why we can take some action.