"Of course, we recognize that one can be sexually "dry" but not sober from lust or dependency. The "dry drunk" syndrome (being technically sober but having all the problems and misery of the "drunk") discovered in AA, applies to us as well, single or married... The real problem for all of us (single, married, man, woman, from whatever lifestyle) is one and the same: the spiritual misconnection...
... Physical sobriety is not an end in itself but a means toward an end - victory over the obsession and progress in recovery. We are often the only ones who know on the inside of our souls whether we are truly in sobriety and recovery. (It is also possible we can be fooling ourselves.) Better to acknowledge where we really are than hide behind the badge of our sobriety date, cheat ourselves, and threaten our union with one another.
The fact that marrieds can have sex with their spouse and call themselves "sober" is no advantage at all. It can even work against recovery. Some marrieds confess that even though they aren't "acting out" any more, victory over lust still eludes them. As a matter of fact, it often seems harder for marrieds to get victory over lust and dependency unless they go through the experience of total sexual abstinence. And more often than we might suppose, marrieds can be heard complaining that singles have it easier! Let's face it: sexaholics (recovering or not, single or married) can expect to have problems with sex! (Not to mention the host of other problems entailed in trying to live with and relate to others).
What we strive toward is not only the negative sobriety of not acting out our sexaholism, but progressive victory over the obsession in the looking and thinking.We also strive toward the positive sobriety of acting out true union of persons. The great blessing (or curse, as the case may be) of our condition is that unless and until we can give unconditionally and relate with others, the vacuum left inside us from withdrawal will never be filled. All along, we had thought we could make the Connection by taking; we see now that we get it by giving. Our whole concept of sex begins to change. Sex finds a simple and natural place it could never have before and becomes merely one of the things that flows from true union in committed marriage. And even here, we've discovered that sex is optional."
"Healing in my marriage and in the family is one of the most blessed areas of this new life, even though things aren't always a bed of roses. I've found something better than lust - reality. But I have to be willing to give up any thought of changing partners, either actually or in fantasy, even if it means not having sex at all. Each time, I have to surrender my right to sex and depend on the grace of God. What else can you call it? And there are times my wife and I have gone without sex for extended periods. But it's all right; sex is optional now. I have a choice. And mutually voluntary periods of abstinence for a year or so have proven to be the most constructive-and happy-times of our entire marriage. For me the key was finally giving up all expectation of either sex or affection, and working on myself and my defective relations with others.
It has been a totally new beginning for us. I'm just starting to get acquainted with my wife of seventeen years. I discover to my delight she's a person: unique, independent, an individual, a whole universe of personality I was blind to before. And the more I die to any thought of resorting to someone else and commit myself to this one union, the more pleasure and love and freedom I find.
I can't believe that the person I'm writing about today is the same one who used to think and do the things I've been describing. Actually, that other person was a slave; he was living in a world of fantasy and illusion, only for himself, and always alone. He had never matured through emotional adolescence and was spiritually dead. He could not cope either with his own emotions or with life in the big world out there, and was constantly running. Running to satisfy demands and lusts that could never be satisfied. Running from who he really was; running from others; running from life; running from God, the source of his life.
The running is over. I've found what I was really looking for.