HEADING FOR THE HEART - - PART 5

Having endured debilitating depressions for over twelve years, they were now much milder in comparison once I began on the road to recovery. I would eventually realize that I needed psychiatric help once I had stopped medicating myself with booze and sex. An amazingly unimaginable and unmanageable experience with mania finally convinced me that I needed medical help.

During that mania, I had some of the most incredible experiences with synchronicity. People I would think of would appear in my life. Complete strangers would be drawn to me and say things like “We've been waiting for you. How glad we are that you are finally here!”

There was also fear and paranoia. Once again my partner left me for he feared for his own safety. My moods could become volatile and filled with rage when I was not floating on my pink cloud. Life became incredibly unmanageable. Even so, there were so many moments of sublime peace. It was as if I was alternating between an experience of heaven and hell. Most of it was good. Most of it seemed like a reality so much more real than “the normal” experience of being human. I truly realized that I was a spiritual being having a human experience.

I was finally diagnosed with a bipolar disorder and put on life-saving, sanity-saving medication that following year - I shall write about my experiences with recovery from alcoholism and mental illness in future articles. The pitfall following my mania was that I left my recovery programs in the midst of delusional paranoia.


I did not return to them because I was mortified to face people who had seen me when I had been madder than a hornet or acting holier than Thou. Isolating myself from my support system only served to punish myself. Fortunately, I did not pick up a drink again, but I went back into my sexual addiction with a vengeance.

For the next twelve years I was back in the trenches of sexual addiction. During that time, my soul withered as I began to lead a life filled with lies and deception – to myself and others. I became emotionally stunted since I was once again medicating myself with the most potent drug I had ever experienced; that was the chemistry which occurred within my brain whenever I was under the influence of the hunt for sex and the oblivion of acting out my unending desires.

You can read my story about my sexual addiction and subsequent recovery in my article entitled My Secret Shame. Fortunately I made it back to SAA unlike so many others who don't return or never make it there in the first place. Sexual addiction is rampant in our society, especially among gay men.


I was blessed. I took my recovery seriously this time. I realized that, while I didn't come back into the program in a state of despair, I had become apathetic and spiritually bankrupt. Recovery opened my eyes to my spirit in a manner that would only continue to help me climb the mountain and claim a grace that I had forgotten was always available. It was up to me to grab for it.


As I did so, amazing things began to happen. Like anything connected to spirit, there are spiritual laws operating in the universe. You do not have to believe in God. All one needs to do is to embrace the idea that there is a power in the universe that is greater than oneself. Embracing faith in God was not a difficult step for me.

What would become a challenge would be to once again embrace my relationship with Jesus. The reason for this may amaze you. You see, while I had been manic, I had was under the delusion that I was the reincarnation of Jesus; or rather that he was the reincarnation of me. After all, time as we perceive it in a linear fashion is said to be an illusion. That is something I believe to be true. It was a comfort to me that other people I have known have shared similar religious delusional experiences. In some of their experiences they also believed that they were the reincarnation of Jesus. Just like always, I was not alone.

Author Davis Aujourd'hui

REACHING FOR RECOVERY (PUTTING DOWN THE DRINK) Part 9

I did go to a rehab since I realized that my sexual addiction could have placed my sobriety from alcohol in jeopardy. I chose an alcohol rehab that indicated they also dealt with sexual addiction. I would become disappointed that I didn't receive the kind of help I had hoped to receive.

What I did obtain was another thirty days of sobriety from alcohol and my first same period of sobriety from sex. I left rehab feeling depressed, but I now had nearly three months of abstinence from alcohol. I've never had a problem with alcohol since. The way I achieved that grace was by not drinking one day at a time.

AA opened the door to a joyous new way of life for me. Through the program, I developed a network of supportive new friends. I began to learn that I could be even happier without picking up a drink. I focused on sticking with positive influences. It all boiled down to people, places and things. Dealing with my sexual addiction would become the new and continuing challenge. Even so, I was on the road to a new life without bondage to the alcohol addiction that could have easily killed me.

Not drinking was just the first part of my recovery. The larger challenge was, and continues to be, living life on life's terms. It has required an attitude adjustment of maintaining a positive attitude and counting my blessings.

The part of my journey into recovery from sexual addiction began nine months after I stopped drinking. What I've had to do since my recovery journey began has been to deal with my feelings. I've also had to learn how to take care of myself spiritually, mentally, and physically. It's a balancing act and it's not easy.

The twelve step program has given me an outline for living a sober and spiritual life. It has involved letting go of the past, taking a good hard look at what I have needed to work on, making amends to those I have harmed, and developing a spiritual relationship with God. All of this has required work and surrendering my ego in order to allow God to help me with my life challenges. That's a daily act of surrender. I do it with joy. Spirituality is the most important ingredient for me to maintain a happy life.

I don't do it perfectly. As with any twelve-step program, AA provides a framework for making progress rather than perfection. What I have been able to achieve is a life filled with a sense of purpose. I have reclaimed many of my previous interests that I'd let slip away when I had been in the grips of addiction.

Some of these things have been playing the piano, singing, and spending more time with sober friends and family. I've also developed wonderful new interests which have included my writing. None of this would have been possible while I had been in bondage to addiction. It's an example of how God has done for me what I could not have done for myself.

I love my life today! That's not to say that life is easy. It's just that I now have the tools I had been missing in order to deal with life's challenges. I have no regrets about the past. I can see where everything that's happened in my life has served a greater purpose.

Even those things that had seemed terrible had actually been clouds with silver linings which contained hidden blessings. They have brought me to my today and today I am a transforming person who sees life with new eyes. I have self-esteem and, for the most part, I have a positive attitude. All of that comes from the grace I have received. For that, I am grateful!

Author Davis Aujourd'hui

REACHING FOR RECOVERY - (PUTTING DOWN THE DRINK) Part 8

What happened in the course of the next few weeks was a pure demonstration of God working in my life through this new friendship. My friend gave me so much of the support I badly needed. I, in turn, became a significant person in helping him with his own coming-out process after he had spent so many years in the closet.

Meanwhile I began to have some conflicts on my job as a social worker. I was becoming more assertive and that rocked the boat. I was also confused and hurt that many of my formerly friendly colleagues seemed to be keeping a cool distance from me. When I approached my supervisor to tell her I was in recovery from alcohol and thought I might need to go to a rehab, all hell broke lose.

She went into a rage and she yelled at me, “I'm sick and tired of hearing about your personal problems!” She showed me no sympathy and seemingly turned me into her personal scapegoat for the next month. I'm not really sure what I might have done to provoke the situation, but what ensued played out my history of allowing myself to be a victim.

What I did next undoubtedly exacerbated the situation. I went three levels above her head, appealing to our kind deputy commissioner. She acted as mediator between my supervisor and myself, serving as surrogate supervisor to me during that period of early recovery.

Granted, my own supervisor undoubtedly had cause to take issue with my work at the time. I'd gotten way behind in my paperwork - those endless client assessments, times forty. I also imagine that my second requested leave of absence within my first fifteen months on the job didn't make her life any easier. (I'd had to take an earlier medical leave following a suicide attempt.)

There was another bizarre work-related twist that happened during my first week of recovery. One morning, as I was approaching my workplace, I encountered one of my schizophrenic clients. This was a woman who, in my experience, had always been totally out of touch with reality. She never called me by name and she rarely even said anything at all.

That day she caught me off-guard. In spite of her disheveled appearance, she approached me on the street as if I were an old friend. She appeared to be mentally clear as a bell when she actually spoke to me! She called me by name when she said, “Mister, you seem to be getting better!”

Wow! I felt as if I had entered an episode of the twilight zone. While my supposedly sane supervisor would literally yell at me when I was in the office, surrounded by my colleagues, this supposedly insane client behaved appropriately and could discern I was on the road to wellness.

Author Davis Aujourd'hui

My Secret Shame - Part 1

I have shared a host of addictions in my past. These would include alcoholism, drug addiction, sexual addiction, codependent relationships, love addiction, tobacco addiction, compulsive shopping, workaholism, caffeine addiction, sugar addiction. The list could probably go on. That's enough for now!

Gratefully, some of these addictions such as alcohol and drug abuse are no longer issues within my life. From some others, I am seeking recovery. I may never recover from some. Fortunately there are only a few that are truly life-threatening. I keep my focus on recovery from the greater of “the evils.”

What I've come to learn is that I cannot work on all of them at once. That is what the perfectionist who lurks in my brain would like me to do. It's also a recipe for failure. I am like everyone else. I'm not perfect; I am only human.

I have once heard it said that to be human is to be addicted. I believe this to be true. It seems that it's the human condition to expect something or someone to make us happy rather than to look for happiness within ourselves. That only works for awhile until we feel the aching longing within ourselves once again. As for me, only spirit can fill that gaping hole of need.

It seems to me that so much of our unfulfilled needs come from the materially-driven society in which we live. What happened to me in my past was that I became so consumed by my wants instead of focused upon my needs. I certainly have had a tendency to try to fill myself up with things outside of myself in order to make me feel better. That's only worked for the time I had been engaged in those addictions, attachments, or compulsive behaviors. After the thrills wore off, I was just as lonely and needy as before.

It was my first and primary addiction that fueled something even more toxic. That was my secret shame which would ultimately lead me back into this addiction following more shame, emptiness, apathy, or despair. For many years I fooled myself by justifying my sexual behaviors. So many gay men were leading promiscuous lives in the 1970's and 80's. For many that ended with the fear of illness and death connected to AIDS. For many of those who survived, AIDS had become the wake up call for them to have made changes in their sexual behavior. Unfortunately that didn't work for me. I was addicted to sex.

My Secret Shame - - Part 2

I don't need to put any chemicals into my body to get high. Such is the case with any process addiction such as that of sex. As for my sexual addiction, I would experience “a high” during my sexual acting out that was more potent than any substance I'd ever put into my body. I have since learned about the altered body chemistry that's activated while under the influence of the addiction.

My sexual behavior was not a moral issue as I'd wrongly believed. I had been absolutely unable to stop my compulsive behavior even knowing that I was doing something that went against my personal values. That only increased my shame.

During that experience of powerlessness, I would often engage in behaviors that I would have never dreamed to have been possible for me. I would end up feeling so ashamed. That would only serve to drive me back into the addiction in order to try to make myself feel better. It never worked.

I would continue to engage in inappropriate and unsafe behaviors which would exacerbate my shame. As time wore on, I began to experience more and more unpleasant consequences. In addition to relationship problems, I experienced debilitating depressions and suicide attempts, sexually transmitted diseases, robbery, serious threats of bodily harm, and apprehension by law enforcement to name a few. None of that stopped me; that is, not until I hit a bottom connected to pure despair. That's when I found my way to a twelve-step recovery program named Sex Addicts Anonymous.

What I came to learn once I had come into recovery was just how devious the addiction is. As with all addictions, the behavior is simply a symptom of a deeper distress. Coming to terms with accepting my feelings and dealing with life's problems instead of running away from them would become the greatest challenge of my life.

My Secret Shame -- Part 3

As with any addiction, sexual addiction and its accompanying shame is indeed as much a physical as well as mental and spiritual disease. It had its roots in my early life. That's when I learned to cope by soothing myself with sex whenever I became troubled. That's how I survived. What was my amazing discovery was that the addiction didn't have anything to do with sex per se. I simply wanted to be loved. I just didn't know how to appropriately find that love from others or from myself.

Unfortunately my sexual soothing became very dysfunctional for me when I became an adult and tried to maintain a semblance of a healthy relationship. I didn't have the tools to do that because I discovered that I truly didn't love myself. That made it impossible for me to develop an open and honest relationship in which I could give freely of myself. What's more, I didn't even really know who I was. I'd been running from myself for all of my life.

What happened instead was that I'd developed a double life. In what seemed like my normal life, I pretended to be a well-adjusted person. I'd go through the motions of life while using my double life as a sex addict as a means with which to cope with whatever feelings were uncomfortable. By uncomfortable feelings, I'm talking about feelings such as worthlessness, loneliness, anxiety, sadness, self-pity, anger, and resentfulness to name but a few. This would translate into basically any feeling that had a negative charge to it.

I would also invariably turn to my addiction whenever I felt elated. Then I would use sex as a reward. Ultimately I didn't know how to take care of myself at an emotional level. Additionally I would find myself turning to my addiction during times when I wasn't taking adequate care of my physical self; for instance, when I was hungry, tired, or feeling sick.

I couldn't remain faithful to my short-term wife or my first male partner for any substantial period of time no matter how hard I tried. On those occasions when he learned about my behaviors, I would tearfully promise that I would never cheat on them again. Unfortunately, when it comes to addictions, promises are meant to be broken. I wrongly thought that I should be able to control my behaviors. That mistaken thought only added to my shame whenever I would slip back into lifelong behaviors which only continued to cause my partners and myself more pain.

Over the years, my behaviors became even more frequent and outrageous. Consequently my life became more and more unmanageable. Following many years of devastating and often suicidal depressions, I finally reached out for help. This came on the heels of a suicide attempt, a break up in my long-term relationship, and recovery from alcoholism during which my sexual behaviors escalated. I came to realize that I was totally out of control. For me, it became a matter of life and death. I didn't think that I would be able to survive another suicidal depression

My Secret Shame -- Part 4

I could tell you a long story about how the seeds of addiction and shame were planted in my childhood, how I suffered from some traumatic experiences, my feelings of inadequacy, my early sexual memories and behaviors which escalated once I began to explore gay sex as a young man. By that time, I had become a full blown sex addict. It would take me several more years before I could accept that fact. It would take me another decade before I came into recovery for the first time.

Perhaps I will tell you that story some day. I have indeed written my autobiography. Writing the book was an exercise in trying to piece together a very fragmented life in order to look at the light and dark sides of myself. It became a cathartic experience during which I sought to become whole. I hope to have my memoirs published at some point in the future. For now I will tell you about my experience in recovery.

As I had implied, my journey toward recovery began after I joined Alcoholics Anonymous. Within the course of the next year, I finally found the courage to seek help from Sex Addicts Anonymous also known as SAA. As crazy as it may sound, I didn't know how I would be able to explain what I perceived as my perverted behaviors to another human being. I didn't stop to consider that people in that program might have experienced behaviors that were similar to my own.

I was horribly nervous when I met with two men at a Ground Round restaurant. They shared their personal experiences of addiction with me while telling me how the program worked. I couldn't believe that I was meeting in a public place while having such a discussion. What struck me as particularly odd was that these two fellows didn't seem to have any shame in talking about their pasts during our meeting.

This was to be the meeting before the meeting. Out of respect for the other group members, prospective members were always met in a public place before the new members were allowed to attend a meeting. This served two purposes. It created a feeling of safety for the current members and it also gave the new member an idea of what was about to happen. I will never forget that day.

I arrived at the actual meeting to discover to my horror that I was the only gay man there. What only served to make matters worse were those two women in the group. I had no idea how I would ever be able to talk about my “degrading homosexual experiences” with a group of straight men and women.

I quickly learned that, while many of us engaged in different compulsive behaviors, the underlying feelings were the same for us all. I quickly formed bonds with these men and women who spoke intimately about their own experiences in a way that quickly disarmed me. I didn't know what to make the attitudes of the longer-term members as they discussed their experiences. Many of them seemed to be happy. I decided that whatever they had was something I wanted for myself. I did my best to do what they told me had worked for them.

My Secret Shame - - Part 5

I got myself a sponsor and I began to work the steps. The first step was to admit that I was powerless over my addictive sexual behavior and that it had made my life unmanageable. I didn't have any problem accepting that in theory. Even so, it was difficult to let go of an addiction that had, at one point, been my friend.

I began to focus on staying abstinent from toxic and inappropriate behaviors one day at a time. During many points, I had to cut that down to an hour or even a minute at a time. Sometimes I simply felt as if I was coming out of my skin. Whenever I could put together a few days or weeks of abstinence, I would feel as if God had worked a miracle within my life.

Then I would find myself allowing myself to fall back into the addiction. Recovery wasn't going to be easy and no one made that promise to me. Even so, I kept going to meetings. I felt as if my emotional life depended upon it. Truth be told, I always felt better after I'd gone to a meeting even though it often felt like pulling teeth in order to get myself to attend in the first place.

Within a few months, I gave a formal first step presentation to the group. I talked intimately and honestly about my sexual behaviors and how they had made my life unmanageable. It truly helped me understand how powerless I was over the addiction at that point in my recovery.

I felt a tremendous weight lifted off me following my presentation. I was told by the other members that they loved me and could relate to my experience. They told me how honored they were that I honestly shared my story with them. It was such a cathartic experience as years of shame seemed to melt away.

Unfortunately, as is often the case with newly recovering people, I went out of the program a year and a half later during a difficult period in my life. The subsequent shame of not coming back only kept me away that much longer.

I went back into my addiction with a sense of sad resignation. I became apathetic and managed to let go of my guilt toward cheating on my partner since we had stopped becoming sexual with each other. I rationalized my outside sexual behaviors as acceptable since I deserved to have sex.

Truth be told, I was the one who had stopped that part of our relationship. Unable to allow or know what intimacy was, I preferred to have sex with others. It would be a long time before another bottom finally brought me back into recovery. That happened twelve years later.

My Secret Shame -- - Part 6

I was back in the trenches of addiction as I continued my “field research.” What did I find that was different? The answer was nothing! The addiction only continued to escalate as I became more and more out of control. On some days, I would have sex with ten or more partners. It was such an easy thing to do in those places where both gay and straight men sought to have sex with other men.

I practiced unsafe sex almost exclusively as I continued to put myself at risk of HIV infection. Having not acquired it, I was under the delusion that I was invulnerable. The truth is that no one is. At some level, I must not have cared if I remained alive. Addiction is a terminal illness for those who continue to pursue it with all its inherent risks. How I managed to survive only spoke to one truth. I remained alive in order to tell my story.

My symptoms of active mental illness were now being controlled by medication after I had finally been properly diagnosed. That's another story I will share with you in another article - I'm sharing these different aspects of my life with you in a piecemeal fashion in order for you to absorb them according to each subject. Otherwise you would need to read a long book. The larger story will be told another time and in another way.

After twelve years of slowly destroying my spirit and my relationship of over twenty years, my partner confronted me. He'd found a bottle of Viagra which I had come to need in order to sexually perform - My guilt and shame had had a psychological effect with which I had needed physical help. He gave me an ultimatum. I could either go to couple's therapy or my partner said he would leave me. I felt trapped, but I didn't want to lose the relationship that I had thought would last me for the rest of my life.

My Secret Shame - - Part 7

Kicking and screaming on the inside, off to therapy with him I went. As soon as I got there, I realized I would need to work on the addiction. The only thing that made sense to me was to go back to SAA. I also realized that the only way that the program would work for me would be if I was to do it for myself. To do it in order to save the relationship would hopefully be the end result. Only time would tell.

I also realized I would need to do personal therapy in order to deal with “the demons” of my past. Shame haunted me from the core and it had infected me from so many sources. These would include: childhood sexual and emotional trauma; the thought that I needed to please others in order to earn their love; and my other secret childhood shame that I might be gay and therefore unworthy of love from my family or even from God.

I returned to SAA filled with shame, though I was quickly reminded that I was no different than any of the other members. I was only doing what had become an ingrained pattern. I was only seeking to survive my pain. Yet, once again, I was reminded that there was another and better way. They loved until I learned to love myself and give that unconditional love to others.

I worked the program with a diligence. I attended four to five meetings per week. I obtained a sponsor and I practiced abstinence from my toxic sexual behaviors one day at a time. I couldn't possibly imagine myself being free for a lifetime after so many years of being in bondage to lust. Practicing freedom in small doses made my life more manageable and helped free me from perfectionist thinking. That would remain a challenge for me as is still the case.

I learned to recognize and deal with my feelings in a healthy way. I stayed connected with others as I sought to end a lifetime of isolation from people and from God. I immediately found that I was freed from compulsive behavior, though I would mistakenly test the waters again. As time went on, I was able to put together longer and longer pieces of sexual sobriety. It was a daily challenge and I was gaining more and more hope and faith as I went along.

I looked to a Higher Power that only loved and who had no judgment. I experienced God's presence and His voice through the other members of my program. I began to feel worthy of that love as I learned to love and trust myself. I also began to trust God because He was doing for me what I could not do for myself.

" I AM MY CHARACTERS", Part One- By Author Davis Aujourd'hui

I am my characters. The truth of the matter is so are you. For any of my characters to whom you relate or to whom you take a dislike, you are looking at a part of yourself. One of the most fascinating, and perhaps most exasperating, spiritual truths is that what we perceive in others is an aspect of ourselves. The odd thing is that sometimes those characteristics are something of which we have remained unaware. That's the continuing challenge for each of us with which to come to terms if we are going to grow, improve, and accept ourselves as we go along our merry or not so merry way.

This has become one of the ongoing challenges of my own life. After a lifetime of taking on labels, playing different roles, trying to please others, and trying to be like others, I have come to embrace a more authentic life. I've learned that I must be true to myself if I am going to recognize my full potential within this particularly unique life which has been given to me. In so doing, I've come to discover who I truly am and this has taken a lot of hard work.

What I've come to understand is that I can operate from two perspectives. The first perspective is from that of my ego which thinks that it knows everything, but is invariably wrong. The second is from that of my spirit which is only about love. That's where I will discover what is true.

We all serve as mirrors to each other. When we see something we like within another, we are affirming that quality within that person. It is also a quality we too possess. Unfortunately the opposite is also true. When we see something within another that we don't like, we are also looking at something that is or has been an issue within ourselves whether or not we have realized it. That means it's back to the drawing board; there's more work to do on ourselves! After all, it's an inside job.

What I'm learning to do is to focus on that which is positive within myself and others. It has helped me appreciate the goodness within people and life in general. It has also served to enhance my happiness and state of well-being. That's been a huge lesson for me after living through many years of unhappiness and depression. I am largely free of that today. For that, I'm so very grateful.

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