Naked in Public: A Memoir of Recovery From Sex Addiction and Other Temporary Insanities by Sprout Staci

Author:Sprout, Staci
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: amazon

––– Chapter 23 –––

Resentment and Relapse

I was now up to calling two or three recovery friends for support every day, though I didn’t talk much about my therapy or the new revelations of sexual abuse. Except for telling Diego, I felt safer keeping my therapy and my 12-Step program in two separate compartments. The fewer people I told, the less real the memories seemed. I was trying to hang on to some semblance of control, and to keep what I was recalling from sending me into a tailspin.

Working again increased my confidence, as did finally getting off disability and slowly crawling out of financial crisis. I continued to stay sober from my bottom-line behaviors—the most destructive parts of my addiction—and my energy returned a little bit each day, like the light lengthening after the seemingly endless dark of a winter solstice. I finally felt ready to return to my step writing—Step Four, another “moral inventory.”

“We look at our character defects because they disconnect us from other people and our higher power,” Diego explained. I asked him why I had to do another inventory when I’d already finished one with Janine in my codependency program. Couldn’t I just use that one?

“It’s not a one-shot deal, Staci. Recovery is a lifetime process. Working the steps on different addictions means starting over.”

Unlike before, Diego showed me a method for starting Step Four that his sponsor taught him, first used in AA and later applied to sexual recovery. I was to write down everyone I resented, why I was mad at them, and how their actions affected me. It felt good to get my anger out, but the hardest part came after that, when I was supposed to look at each relationship and admit my contribution to the conflict. As I went through my long list of names, it was painful to realize that, over and over, what I blamed on others always seemed connected to something I’d done to them. Continued therapy with Conrad helped me avoid becoming overwhelmed, because looking more closely at the dramatic patterns often reminded me of painful experiences I’d had growing up.

After months of agonized writing, far more detailed than the one I wrote on codependency, I finally finished my second Step Four, and was ready to read it to my sponsor for Step Five.

With sweat trickling down my spine and my stomach churning with anxiety, I read the entire inventory to Diego in a four-hour marathon. He periodically interrupted to point out how I’d caused or contributed even more than I’d thought, particularly regarding my problems with Jason. Diego was sympathetic to my anger, but repeatedly said that what really mattered was what I could learn from looking at my part of the conflicts. “That’s the only thing you have the power to change,” he explained. “Yourself.”

Finally, after what seemed like forever, we were finished. Although I was relieved, I felt like vomiting. Then I realized I already had, verbally, for the previous four hours.

That night I slept heavily, and awakened the next morning with a warm, tingling feeling in my chest.

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