...much sought after relief from lust?

Here is a thought. My lust comes directly from my inability to cope with my difficult feelings. so I use lust (or whatever your favorite distraction is) to distract myself from my feelings. 
So here is the solution. By applying the 12 steps to my Feelings, I can accept them for what they are i.e. A 'negative' feeling is something given to me by a higher power that I have no power or control over to change.
I leave changing the way I feel to my HP who either will or will not change the way I feel.
But through applying the 12 steps to my feelings I can now just sit with my 'negative' 'bad' feelings and not have to distract myself with lust (or whatever your favorite distraction is). 

can we make a survey? All our lusting troubles come from our inability to deal with uncomfortable feelings. do A) agree or disagree & why.

looking forward to your feedback!

Not sure how the smiley got there but whatever..

looking forward to hearing your opinions

There is no question that negative emotions has a strong impact on lust.

acceptance wrote on 31 Aug 2017 15:07:

Not for me. The core reason for my lust addiction is my lust addiction. I have a physical addiction to the dopamine rush that comes in when I take in lust. I will not stop until I get the serotonin overload that I crave. The serotonin sensors will be more and more dulled as I overload them and I will need a bigger thrill each time in order to satisfy myself.
Dealing with my emotions is integral to my recovery, but the main way I deal with them is I accept them and let them go. Feelings are overrated. I'm more focused on how I am doing rather than how I am feeling.
Will dealing with my emotions stop me from lusting and will it give me sobriety? No. I need to deal with the lust head on.

In my situation, the frequent masturbation was (an unsuccessful) attempt to escape dealing with emotions. Doing it so often caused me then to get depressed. Being that I could not deal with that feeling, I started doing it multiple times a day.

Secondly, much of what we call lust started as innocent curiosity. Nobody taught me what was assur, so I got hooked before knowing that it was so terrible.

At the same time, realize that there are many forum entries from people who seem to have been lust driven from quite young ages without any real emotional baggage.  

We all have different things we are powerless over.. There is no one rule of thumb.
When it comes to the twelve steps, its important to find the fellowship that speaks to you the most.
If you are able to stop acting out sexually by dealing with your emotions, and you admit powerlessness over them and this works for you then thats great!
SA is full to the brim of ex junkies and Alcoholics, who got clean in NA/AA but then realized it didnt help them from sexually acting out.
In fact one of the founders of EA (my late great grand sponsor (cuz i love the yichus ) was not 'at home' until he came to SA. He then had the privilege of disseminating  SA across the States and more.
So he dealt with his emotional powerlessness but couldn't stop acting out sexually until he joined SA and got intimately involved.
There is no one right answer.
For me since i have dealt with my top plate of lust, codependency has come rushing to the forefront. I even plan on working the steps on it.
But I feel at home in the fellowship of SA because thats how and where I acted out my dis-ease for 30+ years.
And yes I am also completely powerless over my emotions. And completely powerless over other people.
But if i don't work a daily program surrendering lust then the whole thing will fall to sh*t.
Surrendering my feelings won't stop me from lusting, only surrendering my rights/desires to lust will do that.

Thanks for all the replies.

Its been fascinating to hear different view points on this topic.

Just a few quick points.

For me, lust was not the problem, it was the SOLUTION! (Something I learned from R' Shais Taub). Even if I would somehow be able eliminate lusting so that I would lust no longer - I would just as quickly turn to something else to sooth my feelings. So for me getting rid of lust is not the (complete) solution. I apply the 12 steps to my emotions so that I can live a life of Serenity and thereby not feel the need so sooth/distract/squash my emotions by turning to lust.

Furthermore, in my experience lust is an emotion just like any other, I can feel angry, I can feel sad, I can feel delighted and I can feel lustful. i.e. lust is just one of the difficult/unwanted emotions that I have to contend with. And just like I would apply the 12 steps to any emotion by surrendering it to my Higher Power I need to surrender the feeling of lust to my Higher Power. The problem is that by treating my lust as something separate, I was ignoring what was actually causing the lust to come in the first place (and missing out on finding more serenity in my life as a whole).

That being said, I can definitely hear that there will be people to whom lusting has become the bigger issue in their life to the extent that they would first have to deal with the lusting and only then deal with whatever caused them to turn to it, if there was something that caused them to turn to lusting.

But like its been pointed out in the forum many times, it is not necessary recommended to join SA unless no other solution can be found. Perhaps a safer solution for many people would be to join EA (Emotions Anonymous)?

Feel free to contact me on acceptance613@gmail.com.

I am not sure that lust as its defined in SA is an emotion.
And i am not sure how much EA can really fix people dependency as a top plate (codependency)
But I am positive the steps work, and fix everything with correct application.
But the best part of fellowship is to be with likeminded buddies!
SO whatever works, work it cos you are worth it.

I wrote a whole long post and it must have not gotten through. But you are right, GS. The white book does not define lust as an emotion. Lust is always an action.

Shlomo24 wrote on 05 Sep 2017 23:07:

I do hope that it comes through!

You could well be right and I guess that different people experience different levels of lust and perhaps in different ways as well, it seems that there is no one size fits all but rather everyone has to find the way that works for them.

What I am therefore suggesting that perhaps we can have on GYE other 12 step groups (for example EA) that would be helpful for people who perhaps don't need SA or perhaps have been tremendously helped by SA but subsequently found that now that the lust has receded they have other (emotional) issues that they need to deal with.

I want to start working the steps on codependence

GrowStrong wrote on 06 Sep 2017 15:57:

Considering the same. There is an individual on the site called tzaddik who seems to have lots of experience with that. He has been quite helpful to me.

acceptance wrote on 06 Sep 2017 14:57:

Ok, I can hear that logic much more. In my own experience, I joined Al-Anon because I realized SA wasn't dealing with everything.
I would like to point out that what you are saying now is much different than what you were saying in the beginning. It's much different from the title also. Is this what you were referring to all along? Also, how long have you been in EA for?

Someone on the site explained to me that there is a similar group called codependence anonymous which helps those of us (which probably includes me) who acted out due to that issue. Its incredible how 12 steps is adaptable to so many issues.

First things first.

I am not sure what you mean by "I would like to point out that what you are saying now is much different than what you were saying in the beginning."

In the beginning I was saying that I act out because of my inability to handle my emotions, I still stick to that.

Could be that other people when they feel fine and dandy they still feel a urge to act out, I personally don't relate to that because when I am feeling good, when I have serenity, I don't feel any inclination to drink poison, in the same way I don't feel any inclination to act out when I have serenity because I am enjoying life without it (acting out)!

I also don't understand in what way lust is different to any emotion, for example, anger.
here's an example as to how I see/experience it.

1)I don't feel good, 2)I try to change how I feel by willing myself to feel differently, does not work , 3)I start to feel angry, why I do I feel this way, 4)I get even more angry that about the fact that I feel angry, 5)I lash out, 6)I get more upset, 7)I break something - hurt someones feelings etc. Bottom line, my original negative feelings are still there and my attempts to change the way I feel lead to disaster. I need to give up trying to control how I feel. I need to let my HP do what ever He wants to do with out me getting in the way with my ego and self will.

now I will apply the above scenario lust:

1)I don't feel good, 2)I start to feel lust (as a means to feel better), why I do I feel this way, 3)I get even upset about the fact that I feel lust, 4)I act out, 5)I get more upset, 6)I act out more - feel more lustful etc. Bottom line, my original negative feelings are still there and my attempts to change the way I feel lead to disaster. I need to give up trying to control how I feel. I need to let my HP do what ever He wants to do with out me getting in the way with my ego and self will.

For me lust is an emotion like any negative emotion, yes, lust causes me to take action (act out) but so does any any negative emotion, think anger, jealousy, sadness etc. each in its own way. You might say that lust causes worse damage but I'm not convinced, I think sadness/depression can be just as damaging and devastating.

Lastly, I don't know much about Codependence Anonymous, but what I did see it seems that codependence anonymous deals with with unhealthy relationships with other people.

Emotions Anonymous deals with unhealthy emotions in ourselves and our inability to use just our will to change them.

There probably is a lot of similarities between CoDA & EA and I'm sure that a lot of the issues overlap but what I'm not clear about is, If you are having trouble with your own feelings and that they are causing you all sorts of problems, why would Codependence Anonymous be the answer? I would have thought that Emotions Anonymous would be a better match. 

Please feel free to set me straight about anything I've said, I'm not looking to be right, I'm only looking for emotional sobriety.

The truth is that just talking (typing) to you guys is tremendously helpful!