In the Tuesday Noon Sex Addiction 12-Step Recovery Meeting, there were three “old-timers.” These are people who have been faithful in attending at least once a week 12-Step meetings for several years. They are considered as sources of wisdom and hope for persons new to recovery from self-destructive sexual and relational behaviors.

The first is George G., an attorney in his fifties. George is short, balding, and plain looking. He has been divorced for some time, and has been in a long-term relationship with his much younger male partner. He believes he’s now bisexual, but I wonder about that. He has three adult children, one of which is still in college. George doesn’t mind telling people who come to Tuesday meetings that he’s been in recovery from various addictions for 14 years! First there was alcohol, then nicotine, and then gambling. “I used to smoke three packs of cigarettes a day, and drink two cases of beer a week!” After giving up all three, one day he was driving down the interstate, when “something took control of the wheel and he found himself in an adult bookstore.”

So began his journey into what he calls his “core addiction.” He would cruise public places and seek anonymous sex with other men. He would frequent gay bathhouses for more quick fix encounters. Then, eleven years ago, he began his healing for sexual addiction.

George is very opinionated, and usually very sure he is right. He is very judgmental, but criticizes others when they make judgments. He lays the blame for his addiction on his highly dysfunctional parents, and a gay music teacher who abused him as a preteen.

George has calmed down a bit, from his formerly very jittery self. At weekly meetings he used to appear very anxious, his head and eyes almost constantly scanning the room and the door. Now he often sits with is head down and eyes closed, and tries not to talk as much.

George likes to say that now he is so much happier than in the past, but he doesn’t look that way. He repeats himself so much, that his telling the same story repeatedly bores other old-timers, or those who have been attending for some time. Does George realize this? I don’t think so.

You would think that 14 years of frequent 12 step meetings would result in more insight into how one’s words and actions effect others, but not so with George. Now, if someone tries to even gently critique him on such matters, he might just get up, red in the face, and leave the room in a huff. I know, he’s done this in response to my criticism, both in meetings and in restaurants.

His children asked him to enter family counseling together with them. They wanted him to realize how hard he can be on them. George gained a little insight, but still thinks he knows very specifically what’s best for his children, and when they need it.

George contributes free versions of the “Big Book,” of sexual addiction, and gives them to new attendees. This means a lot to him, and he wants others to appreciate it. Even though he keeps a box of this book in the closet of the meeting room, he doesn’t want anyone but him giving them out; even if he’s not at the meeting. Actually, he recently moved the books to the trunk of his car, because someone from another group was taking them.

He worries a great deal about his physical health, and doesn’t mind sharing in detail his latest ailment or age-related problem. After all these years in recovery, you might say he is still a very self-centered person. Here let me say again that he has mellowed somewhat in the almost ten years I’ve known him.

Sue S. is the second “Old-Timer.” I don’t like Sue, let me say right off. In the three years she has been coming to the Tuesday group, she has never spoken to me, nor responded when I spoke to her. Even when I say the usual introductory, “My name is Ronald and I am a sex and relationship addict,” she does not respond with the others, “Hi, Ron.” One day soon after she had switched to the Tuesday group, she was alone in the room, when I arrived. I said, “Hello Sue.” She said nothing, nor did her eyes acknowledge my presence.

That bothered me a lot for several months, but I don’t think much about it now. I prayed about it and the only response was maybe I reminded her of a male figure from her past. So I don’t say hello or speak to her anymore. Why bother? I figure its her problem, not mine.

Sue is big, and I mean big. Sue is ugly. In the summer she wears shorts, when she shouldn’t. She looks like someone they might make a movie about and entitle it, “The Elephant Woman!” She is crass and nasty, and her mouth often snarls up as she speaks with a tone of thinly disguised rage. She talks about her past romantic relationships with men. Is she serious? I cannot imagine any man being the least bit romantically or sexually interested in her.

While George has been in recovery 14 years, Sue has been for 16 years. She doesn’t mind telling time and again that she has been in recovery for eleven different addictions! I don’t recall her naming all of them, for which I am grateful.

She was raised in a Christian Science home, and obviously has not forgiven her parents for their dysfunctional upbringing. Every other meeting she recites a litany of what her family was like, especially her Mother. It was a rich and proper family. Her siblings were good looking and successful. Only Sue was otherwise, and obviously she still has not healed from her past. Sixteen years of going to 12 Step Meetings more than once a week, and this is what we have before us?

But my better self gets hold of me sometimes and has me ask, “What would Sue be like if she had NOT been in recovery?” However, I then wonder, “Has she ever been really in recovery?” Could it be she is so obnoxious and isolated that recovery groups are the only place she is really tolerated? Could be. It could be that a lot of 12 Step Old-Timers have been coasting along for years’, pretending their “Higher Power,” has changed their life, when they don’t have a Higher Power beyond themselves.

In the last several months Sue S. has been stepping up a role has “the authority,” in the group. “Let’s move all the chairs out further in a circle, it’s too close in here.” “Someone open that window over there, it’s too stuffy in here.” “Will someone get some more chairs from another room.” “If you’ll stay after the meeting, I’ll tell you what you need to do.”

Now, like George, Sue has mellowed through the years, although not as much. At least she doesn’t through horrific temper tantrums and berates group members, as in the past. Thank God also our group is larger than it used to be. Instead of 4 or 5, the group averages a dozen. I think this makes both of these Old-Timers behave themselves better.

Don’t let me neglect to say that both George and Sue do have a lot to offer to newer participants in the recovery program. They do have a lot of wisdom and experience that those just starting on the difficult road of healing need to hear. It’s just that when you hear this wisdom time and again, it gets rather boring.

This brings me to myself, Ronald, the third old-timer in the Tuesday Noon Group. For almost all ten of my years in recovery from sex, relationship, and romance addiction I have been in this same group. When I first began, we averaged just three or four men. Two of us were George and I. Then about three years ago, the numbers began increasing, with the group finally getting some diversity. Now we average 12 or so. We have the old and young; male and female; blue collar and professional; gay, bisexual, and straight.

I wrote praises of this unity and diversity in the bimonthly magazine of our international recovery group. Then it came time for my family and I to move thousands of miles to another section of the country. For ten years I had been the “unofficial” leader (trusted servant in 12 step terminology). I had collected monies, paid rent, ordered publications, been a liaison with headquarters, and a sponsor of several new members. I had also been the one volunteer to give information on the phone about our group and recovery program.

When I announced my last meeting would be in a few weeks, there were few expressions of regret. Then came my last meeting, at which I said my thank you and farewell. The only responses were from two men who had been in the group a year, and who had called me for their initial information.

I didn’t expect Sue to say anything or express any positive emotions. But I was hurt by what George did, or did not say. In the meeting he said nothing. Afterwards, he invited me to lunch, but then paid only for his. At lunch I could tell he was there only out of duty. He kept looking at his watch, and left in a hurry, with a quick, “let’s keep in touch.” He left most of his meal on the table.

Ten years of being in the same recovery group each week. Ten years of phone support and conversations, and then this?

But could I expect more after seriously considering his words and actions in the group had not changed that much in this same period of time? Of course not, as Jesus said, “By their fruit you shall know them.”

That is the only way to see if a 12 Step Program of Recovery is for real. To listen and look at the people who have “kept coming back.” Have they changed that much over time? Are they pretty much the same person they were when they began?

This Old-Timer, when he is honest with himself, knows that those nearest and dearest to him are the best judges of the depth of his recovery. I can’t fool them like I might fool people in my group; like I might fool myself. I can’t fool my Higher Power, least of all, for He is the only one who can set me free from slavery to compulsive sexual and relationship behavior. Thanks be to Him!