The Twelfth Step

One of the biggest struggles I have had in my recovery from a former sex and love addiction is something that’s called sexual objectification. What it means to sexually objectify someone is basically to look at them as a sexual object first and place everything else about them after that.

I know of many who have often told me that this is just a thing that guys usually do in life, but I tend to disagree only for the notion that it usually went way beyond just looking at someone who I thought was hot. In fact, whenever I got in the presence of someone I was seriously attracted to, I never really listened to anything they had to say. Instead, it’s like the rest of the world didn’t exist during those moments and the only thing that mattered was me looking at them as a sexual object and trying to figure out ways to sexualize the conversation I was having with them. Thankfully, I’m far better at listening and treating others less as sexual objects these days and more as spiritual beings of light, but I still do occasionally find myself getting caught up in compulsive sexual thoughts when I’m around someone I find really attractive. And that bothers me…A LOT.

For as much as I’ve worked on my spiritual program and my relationship with God, I don’t like the fact that I still feel such a strong compulsion towards sex, now that I have over four years of sobriety and am in a monogamous relationship with someone as well. But I’m told in recovery that this addiction’s recovery is far different than one like alcohol or drugs because with those they aren’t a part of our human makeup. Our sexuality is though.

And having acted out in this addiction for as long as I did, I’ve come to realize I hard wired sexual objectification within me as almost a normal way of life. Thus unprogramming it is taking a huge amount of effort. Just the other day in fact I was at the movies with a friend I hadn’t seen in a long time, one I do find attractive, and there I found myself having sexual thoughts about them that I didn’t want to have. My only solution to deal with that was to pray a number of times to God, which indeed did work.

Regardless, I don’t like the fact that I still think this way at times. It feels like it’s so ingrained within me and honestly if I knew where the switch was to turn it off permanently I would. Sexually objectifying anyone truly takes me away from feeling God’s love and presence and it also prevents me from spiritually connecting with some wonderful human beings.

Why I’m sharing this is because lately I’m finding the desire to spread more understanding about certain aspects of a sex and love addiction. Most people never talk about things like this, especially in writing for the world to see. But as I mentioned in a posting a few days ago, someone’s got to, at least for the purpose of letting others know out there in the world who may be suffering from this, that they’re not alone.

I’m just grateful that I’m honest about where I’m at in life nowadays with this addiction’s recovery, because even with writing about something like sexual objectification, I find it helps to take away some of the unwanted desires I still have with this addiction. And that alone makes writing articles like this more than worth it…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson