I was directed towards a WhatsApp group where a community of fellow sex addicts would be waiting for me, so off I went after the conversation concluded to go searching for my solution. I came across a directory of sorts leading me to a place where I could introduce myself as “Newly Sober Sex Addict” seeking sponsorship from a trusted confidant who could help me liberate myself from the trenches of my own degeneracy. It was here that I posted my timezone, my phone number and expressed my frustration at my own moral failure and inability to feel happy without some kind of “drug” or physical attention. I explained how much I hated myself, the world and everything else. How my addiction had taken me to new lows and even scared me!

Fortunately I was contacted by a man named John who I linked up with and with no hesitation, we began our journey. John introduced me to the wider community, including resources for phone call meetings, times these meetings would be taking place and even the official SAA Conference Approved 2016 Edition. I ordered the book off of Amazon and we began our journey through the twelve steps, mirroring the same twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.

However, during the process we inevitably reached Step Four, which is “Did a searching a fearless moral inventory of ourselves”. This involves taking stock of something known as Character Defects-these failings in our character which cause us to subconciously create toxic patterns which cause harm to ourselves and others. This includes a thorough review of our pasts, where we had harmed others and a list of resentments where we go through a simple process to understand what our part was in our feuds with others. This process isn’t just limited to people harmed during our addictions, but also extends to all people to whom we had harmed or harbored deep resentments throughout our lives! This list is what creates the list for Step Eight; “We made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all unless to do so would injure them or others”. This particular time through when we reached my sister Molly, all kinds of unpleasant and angry emotions came to the surface.

I had experienced unpleasant emotions when thinking about losing my older sister to my past actions, but something about this time felt very different. I had ruminated many times before, but somehow going over and reliving the resentment this time around had a profoundly negative effect on my psyche. Feelings of abandonment, of betrayal, of sadness and of revenge boiled deep inside of me. Days at work started to feel exhausting. Stress levels went through the roof. I couldn’t tell if something was working for or against me, but I was dealing with a type of insanity I could not figure out what to do with. Though I continued through the steps, my condition worsened as I found it difficult to sleep. I knew I was doing it to myself but did not understand why I felt so affected by my emotions at this time.

Each morning I would get up and drag my dead ass to work. This attitude worsened as did my mental health. I remember one day in particular I found myself quietly praying that God would put an end to the feud, because in my heart I sensed the type of vulnerability I rarely allow myself to feel. Perhaps it’s because of a sense of pride in feeling stronger than my enemies that I will not wave a white flag of defeat in admitting my sadness or maybe it’s a desire to feel in charge of a hopeless situation. In any case, years of holding on finally broke me for a brief moment that day as sadness overcame me.

I wanted to cry but as so many working people such as myself will understand, I did not want to open up the door to conversation with co-workers about my problems as we all have them and work is no place for such discussions. Somehow I managed to soldier on holding back tears for the remainder of that day, realizing that I just wish I could take back everything I had done in my past which had placed me in this predicament to begin with. One day I decided to do an exercise to practice what I might say to my biological mother.

At this point it had been several months since I had last spoken to Mary and our last conversation had ended with me bullying her once again, because I was never able to let go of old baggage which had prevented me from being totally free. To cope with our broken relationship, I texted her number for practice which I thought had been a safe idea since I had blocked her and she likewise would not want to talk to me-or so I thought. I texted her apologizing for creating a rift between herself and her youngest daughter, which is a story for another post.

I had gotten an idea from Chatgpt on what to say so the conversation didn’t start totally organically as it should have but none the less it sparked a meaningful but tragic interaction which would set the stage for a major loss down the road. The impact of which would be greatly lessened by a simple choice to close out the relationship on more favorable terms despite the rough and rugged state of our years’ long broken relationship. My mother went onto explain that she had gotten hepatitis C from my younger sister’s birth father many years ago and had been left untreated and undiagnosed for a number of years leading to a severe liver condition which caused her to need stints and surgery. During our last interaction prior to this in early december of 2024, one of the things I told her out of anger was that I wished she would “die and go away!”. Now though, she was severely weakened by her condition and spoke of an episode in which she had vomited blood in a restroom at her home and passed out. Fortunately, my stepfather Larry was alerted by their dog and an ambulance was called which had saved her life!

Being informed of this I knew then that the years long pattern of “frenemies” was at an end and that an important decision was to be made if I were going to have a peaceful life with fewer regrets. My mother had very poor vision due to an accident that she suffered from which impacted her vision drastically. I don’t remember all of the details but essentially she was blinded by it, on top of her Hep C diagnosis. I had never sent her a mother’s day card before so I searched for a card with a popup bluejay on amazon and ordered it, along with a card where I could record my voice in order to accomodate my mother Mary, who had been severely visually handicapped.

She never told me her address and I was afraid to ask for it considering our shaky history, but I knew enough about her to look up her address based on the information I knew about her; mom’s first, middle and last name, what town in Texas she lived in, her approximate age and so on. After receiving the card, envelopes and popup paper bluejay card, I assembled everything together and recorded my voice, sending it to the address I had found online.

Days later I got a response from her telling me she had received the voice card and popup paper bluejay saying that she loved it and thanked me for it. As it would turn out, this would be my final gesture for her. After our conversation ended, she sent her last message ever to me which I have saved on my phone: “Son, I will call you when I get better! My immune system is low because of my medicine so I guess I will get sick a lot! I got the mother’s day cards. Thank you, I love them. But what was the purpose of sending me the pictures? Where did you get them?”. I had sent a picture of my mom, my older sister Molly and our stepfather Larry from facebook with the cards.

From this point forward we had no further contact other then the rare message when she would update me, which happened maybe twice. Over the next few weeks I sent my mother captioned pictures about faith and believing in God, including encouraging words of love. Being aware of the severity and extent of my mother’s health issues I knew I would regret it forever if I did not change my behavior towards her in case she passed away. At least every other day, I would say something nice believing that my mother was at least peaking what I was telling her. Her final words to me had seemed so encouraging and I really did believe we would speak again. Like a foolish naïve child, I forgot that life is not like a Disney film. That bad things do happen to good people. That there was no chance she would die before we got to have a proper followup conversation and do some much needed catching up!

After a couple of weeks of silence went by my stepfather Larry called my adoptive mother Kerry to tell her that my mother had passed away. She then called me to tell me what had happened. I remember very clearly I was in the middle of doing a thorough cleaning of my house. A particularly thorough cleaning in which I moved furnature, disinfected every surface in my office area, vaccumed meticulously and took out some trash after picking up. I was sweating quite a bit when I received the call. In the middle of reassembling something as I recall. I remember the moment I heard the word died, my whole world felt shaken! I did not know how to process it and let me tell you that the next few days at work were very rough!

I was quiet and did not want to talk to anyone. I felt weaker and less like doing anything than ever before. Fortunately I was able to take advantage of the bereavment paid leave, but I was no better coming back to work than when I left. In fact, that was the beginning of a significant decline of performance at work and a desire to do much of anything at all. I had been working the job for five years and was already experiencing extreme burnout, but now I was faced with an emotional crisis which had rocked my world and seemed to make every little thing feel overwhelming.