God alone can judge our sex situation

We want to stay out of this controversy

“We want to stay out of this controversy. We do not want to be the arbiter of anyone’s sex conduct. We all have sex problems. We’d hardly be human if we didn’t…God alone can judge our sex situation. Counsel with persons is often desirable, but we let God be the final judge.”

-Alcoholics Anonymous pp. 69-70

I bet you have heard this advice in Alcoholics Anonymous: don’t date for the first year; just work on yourself. I have heard many sponsors, most of the women, give this advice to the people they sponsor. And it sounds like good advice in theory. After all, working the 12 steps of AA should be a priority during year one; if we date or otherwise get distracted, we may not be willing to do the difficult work of recovery.

But I believe this philosophy of getting distracted can also apply to many other areas of life. For example, I have witnessed newcomers get very wrapped up in work. They try so hard to get themselves on their financial feet that they slow down on meetings and step work. Similarly, members with with young families try to spend as much time with their children and spouses as possible—that can become a distraction. You see, there are many opportunities to avoid doing the work.

But, in a very real way, relationships, particularly new relationships, can be very challenging in early sobriety. I know that I wore my heart on my sleeve when I was new. I felt everything very intensely. I was very unsure of myself and didn’t really know who I was. For that first year and a half as I was working the steps with my sponsor, it allowed me to really get to know myself and both my character assets and defects as they showed up in relationships. I also got to see the harm I did in previous relationships. And of course I got to make amends. Most importantly, I learned to trust my Higher Power instead of human power. I stopped making men my God.

And while I was doing my AA program, I did date in early sobriety. I was one of those people who was newly divorced and looking for Mr. Right—or Mr. Right Now if I’m being completely honest. I had been living in a loveless marriage for many years. And I was relatively young in my middle 30s. Do you know what happened? I didn’t get drunk. I didn’t relapse. That is not a part of my story. In fact, dating made me more desperate to work my program.

So, beyond my opinion and experience, we have the Big Book. The information regarding sex and relationships is found in the fourth step reading in Chapter 5: How It Works. It is the third of the three inventories: resentments, fears, and sex conduct. And the big book is pretty clear on this issue—we stay out of the matter entirely. As a sponsor, as a fellow member, I don’t give advice about dating and I don’t tell the women I sponsor not to date. That is simply not my experience and is not backed up in our literature. If a woman is going through something in her relationship, and I have had that previous experience, perhaps I can be helpful. Otherwise, I try not to get involved.

Now, as a sponsor, I am not perfect. Sometimes it makes me insane what these ladies put themselves through. But the truth is that I did the same thing to my sponsor. She knew the pain I endured in some of these relationships, but she gave me the dignity to learn from my own mistakes. She stayed out of the matter entirely. I was free to be the woman I was becoming and growing into. That growth in my own sex conduct was such a pivotal part of understanding my past and present. It truly helped me develop my own ideal about a partner. I learned that I was worth loving and being in a relationship with. However, there was a lot of trial and error along the way, and my heart broke more than a few times during these years. This was all to the good.

Bill W. said sometimes the good is the enemy of the best. If I look at this in terms of sex and relationships, it helps me better understand that the good of offering advice about no dating may be preventing the growth that’s needed in trial and error along the way. That growth is for the best.