The Double Life and Redemption of a Sexual Addict w/ Steven Croshaw

Narrator: This is Pathway to Recovery, an SA Lifeline Foundation podcast featuring hosts Tara McCausland, who is the SA Lifeline Executive Director, and Justin B., a sex addict living in long-term recovery. We have conversations with experts and individuals who understand the pathway to healing from sexual addiction and betrayal trauma because we believe that recovering individuals leads to the healing of families. Welcome to the Pathway to Recovery podcast.

Justin B.: This is our initial episode where I, Justin B., who, by the way, I am a sex addict and grateful to my higher power, grateful to the SA Lifeline Foundation and SAL 12-step program. I'm living in recovery, sober one day at a time since June 19th, 2015, and that is a miracle. Today we are going to be speaking with one of the founders of SA Lifeline and SAL 12-Step, who shares a little bit of my story, and we'll be getting to know him a little bit.

This is Stephen Croshaw. The topic on hand will be, is sexual addiction or sexual misbehaviors, is it really an addiction? So let's get into this. Stephen, why don't you introduce yourself a little bit and, and tell us a little bit of your background so we can start off this conversation?

Steven Croshaw: Justin, I am grateful to be part of the podcast today. It's an opportunity that I've been looking forward to. I am also a person that deals with unwanted sexual behavior, and in fact, I identify as a sexual addict. I am also a husband and father of 7 incredible children. I have 28 grandchildren, and so I'm not a young guy anymore. I'm grateful to be living in recovery. My sobriety date is August 25th, 2005. That's an important date in my life.

That date actually was the last time that I acted out. It's not the date that I became truthful about my behavior, but it is the last day that I've acted out in any way. On that date, I was arrested for picking up a prostitute, and that was a life-changing experience and one that I'm grateful for now. At the time, obviously, I was shattered emotionally as a result of being caught in my behavior. But today I look back on that event as one that God's hand was in my life.

So I participate in the work of recovery because I know that my story is important to be told, to give hope for recovery, because I lived with the addiction in my life since I was young, very young. In fact, I think I would recognize that I became addicted as a young teenager. I had participated in the behavior on and off from the time that I was just really young, in fact, preteen. So I've dealt with the behaviors of pornography, masturbation, adult establishments, prostitution for a considerable period of my life.

And I made multiple attempts to stop the behavior. I did stop the behavior from time to time, but I started again, not understanding that I was dealing with an addiction or unwilling to accept that I was dealing with an addiction. So I stopped many times but started again. And I relate that to the fact that I'm dealing with an addiction. I didn't know what to do to not just be free of the behavior but live in recovery.

So Anyway, I'm here to share a bit of my own story and my understanding based upon my own experience, and I'm grateful to be able to do that.

Justin B.: Thank you for that introduction. I really appreciate that, Stephen. I want to start off with a straightforward question based on what we've got here and then ask you to answer it by your own personal experience. Is pornography— is sexual misbehaviors— does that qualify as an addiction in your own experience? And if so, why?

Steven Croshaw: Well, I think the best way to really describe an addiction and the simplest way to describe the continual behavior of oftentimes unwanted sexual behavior as an addiction is when I made multiple attempts to stop the behavior because I felt it was wrong. It was wrong in terms of what I understood a moral man would be participating in. I tried to stop multiple times, but yet I continued in the behavior or went back to the behavior in spite of the negative consequences, I believe is the simplest way to describe that, that this in fact is an addiction.

And certainly that was my experience.

Justin B.: Thank you for sharing that. Is pornography one of the roots, one of the main causes of sexual addiction, or one of the main fruits of sexual addiction? What is your experience with that, Stephen?

Steven Croshaw: The answer, the short answer to that is yes. The deeper answer is pornography is a form of participating in the pursuit of lust. And so pornography is a very, very strong stimuli. In fact, it becomes a powerful learning experience. And it involves a lot of attention. I have to recognize that when I was involved in pornography, I would become so focused on it that I would lose perspective on everything else. I would no longer be present in my environment, and then I would be essentially in the pursuit of lust, which would then give me a strong chemical hit.

That chemical hit, and the majority of the chemical that we talk about, and the majority of the time we talk about the dopamine involved in in the sexual experience, and then it creates all this chemical release in my body. I want to then physically participate into that behavior of viewing pornography, and most generally that is a desire to have sex with self. And so suddenly I'm involved in this lustful pursuit, and most generally sex with self is part of that pursuit.

Not always, but certainly that stimulus is there and that desire is there. So pornography, I— what, in all of my experience, in the thousands of men that I have spoken to about this issue and their own stories, my own story, most generally the pathway of sexual addiction is paved with the pursuit of pornography. So the big challenge with sexual addiction is that it doesn't just want more, it wants different. And so in my case, it started with pornography, it led to masturbation.

Those combined in my early teenage, teenage years, I was then actively pursuing acting out with girls my age when I was in high school. And all of those combined together represented my behaviors and my teens, my early teens and my mid-teens. But as my own experience progressed, it didn't just stay with pornography. So it started with that, and I don't know anyone's story of the thousands of guys that I have spoken to about this where pornography was not part of the behavior initially.

Justin B.: Yeah, so in alcoholism or in drug addiction We often use terms like gateway drug, you know, maybe nicotine or marijuana is a gateway drug that leads to harder things. Maybe beer is a gateway to more alcohol. And as you just shared with lust, with this sexual addiction, the gateway, well, one of the gateways is pornography and it just progresses. Do you mind sharing a little bit of your own experience of the progression and the insanity of that progression in your life?

Steven Croshaw: Yes, I, I will do that with this introduction. The majority of guys that I work with recognize pornography was the gateway. The initial exposure to pornography is a very vivid memory in most persons' minds. It certainly was in my own. And so, as I mentioned, at age 6, early in my life, I innocently discovered a magazine in my brother's chest of drawers. That was a long time ago. You can do the arithmetic to see how old I am, but that was in 1958, so that makes me 71 years old.

So in 1958, my age, 6, found a magazine in my brother's drawer. First time I'd ever been exposed or had any notion that pornography existed. And I found the magazine, looked at it, Actually took it to my room and looked at the whole thing, knew that it was not what I should be doing. I had a guilty conscience doing it, so I had this natural instinct that this is not right, but I had euphoria. So I can remember it today vividly.

So after I looked at the magazine, knew it was wrong, took it to my mother, gave it to her, and that's the last I remember of that experience. I don't remember her talking to me about it. I don't remember her doing anything other than probably just taking the magazine and sending me on my way. Had she said something to me about it, I think I would have remembered that. But that was my first experience. At probably age 11 or 12, and I don't remember exactly, but I remember where I was.

I was with a friend and we were both on our bicycles at a street corner, and he specifically asked me, if I masturbated. He didn't use those terms, he used the slang term. I didn't know what that was, and I don't recall having participated in it. And I said, I don't even know what that is. And he said, well, you ought to figure it out and try it because it's great. So that was my introduction, and I was curious.

Of course, I figured it out and tried it, and from that point forward, I was combining pornography and masturbation. My progression then, as I mentioned before, in high school was sexually active, where I wasn't just acting out with myself and with pornography, but I was acting out with other people. And the challenge that that presented was I became disconnected from my friends. I was acting out with girls. I was focusing my attention on girls and that opportunity to act out with them.

And my, my friends that were boys, who were great friends, we did sports together and a lot of other activities together. I began to distance myself from them because I was so focused on pursuing relationships with girls. That is a sad part of my high school experience because I, I went into high school as a sophomore with a lot of promise, actively involved in sports and in music and in theater. Lots of friends. I limped out of high school because I had basically turned away from really focusing in on the things that were important, like my schoolwork and association with lots of great people, both boys and girls.

So I knew what I was doing was wrong. I actually confessed the behavior more than once to ecclesiastical leaders, and I thought that I could stop. I'd stop from time to time. But then I would start again. I chose not to serve a service mission for my church because I didn't feel worthy. So I was going to school. I was then offered a position with a company I was working for. Now I'm at age 20. They wanted to move me to another location, actually to Montana.

And so I chose to leave school and go to work for them. And I did that with not knowing exactly where I was going. But this was a period of time in my life when I thought that I'd stopped the behavior. At least I tried and certainly stopped the behavior of acting out with other girls. Confessed that and thought that I was in a pretty good place. Anyway, when I was living in Montana, working there, I met a girl that was just an incredible girl.

And I instantly felt like she was the type of girl that I would like to marry. So I pursued the relationship vigorously and I wanted to do it worthily. And so I was not acting out at the time and I thought I'd confessed and that I was in a good place, and I chose not to tell her anything about my behavior. I became engaged. I didn't tell her anything about my behavior. Then we were married. I didn't tell her anything about my behavior.

I frankly thought that I was good to go, that I wouldn't necessarily have that desire to go back to the behavior because I was going to be married, and that, that opportunity to have a sexual relationship with the woman that I loved would solve all my problems of wanting to act out with porn or masturbation or anything else. Well, as it turns out, that was not the case. I traveled a lot in my business responsibilities and soon was back into behavior— pornography, masturbation— hiding it, never telling anyone about it.

And sometime into that, while I was traveling, I discovered adult establishments. So That progressed all the way over a period of years. By the time I was in my early 30s, to acting out with prostitutes. So that progression occurred all in secret. Never was I talking with anyone about it. And my life was now a very double life. I was living the life of a husband and father with a growing family, a businessman with successful business interests.

And on the side, when I was traveling, I would essentially be acting out and living this double life that included all of those behaviors: pornography, masturbation at adult establishments, prostitution. And so it progressed to that point when I was in my early 30s, and it hit the wall in my mid-30s at age 36 when I was so overwhelmed with shame that I, in this double life situation, because I was serving in multiple positions in my church, I was a father of 5 children, and it became really problematic to be living this double life.

So I chose to come forward, and that was my, my first time of getting truly honest with those around me. Justin.

Justin B.: So let's pause there for a minute. So let's put ourselves in the shoes of somebody who's listening to this who may struggle a little bit with pornography, with masturbation, may not have progressed like what you're talking about here? Is this something like, hey, if it's just a small problem, you're okay. Don't worry too much about it. You know, you don't need to be honest with these things. Or what is your advice to somebody who's just kind of questioning, hey, do I need to do something more about my little problem?

Steven Croshaw: There are many who say my behaviors are just pornography. or my behaviors are only pornography and masturbation. And then they'll come back with the next point sometimes and say, I'm thankful or I'm grateful that my behaviors haven't progressed to the point that yours did. And there certainly is reason to be grateful that the behavior hasn't progressed to that point. The challenge is, as I said earlier, there's a couple of things. One is The behavior doesn't want just more, it wants different.

And the progression is relentless. And most people, when opportunity presents itself and they're involved in the behavior, are in a very precarious and dangerous space, not knowing where it will take them, even though they may say to themselves, I will never cross this boundary. And most generally, what I see with people that are involved in just pornography is the next step are chat rooms and online affairs where they're not actually physically with a person, but they're engaged in a personal relationship of some kind.

And that becomes the next step, which I see a lot of people going to, and that leads into very dangerous waters. But backing up a bit and saying, where— what is the next step? And am I in the— am I in the danger zone if I'm justifying my behavior by saying I'm I'm really not that bad. I'm just doing pornography or masturbation. I would suggest that this idea of minimizing the behavior leads to also minimizing the impact that it's having on my life.

How is my relationship with those around me? If I'm married, how is my relationship with my spouse? Am I 100% honest with her about what's going on? Does she know who I am completely? And is she able to make her judgments about what she needs to do in her life in relationship to really knowing me for what I am? And so then what about me as a father? How am I willing to interact with my children in this extraordinarily highly sexualized environment where I want to teach my children to be safe in the environment that they live in?

and want to explain to them that there's danger out there, there's danger that you're carrying in your pocket with your phone. Can I speak to my children honestly and openly about these issues and be living my life with them, present with them, if I'm involved in the behavior? And the answer to that almost universally is, if I'm involved in the behavior, I'm on the sidelines as being a father as being a husband with the responsibility of providing and protecting my family.

So this idea of justifying the behavior as it's only affecting me, and the idea that it's really not that bad, everybody's doing it, is a very dangerous mindset from my perspective. Again, going back to what I said earlier, we just don't know where it will take us in our lives as we continue down this pathway of denying the reality that pornography will absolutely kill you. It'll kill your relationships. It'll kill your desire to live a motivated, powerful life and be effective in the lives of others that you're responsible for in a positive way.

Justin B.: I appreciate you going there, Stephen. I know that for years I thought, hey, this is just affecting me. I'm not hurting anybody else. I'm not affecting anybody else. It's just me. But as you mentioned, I became a spectator in my family and in my work and in my community rather than a participant. I became a spectator and even often I was a spectator with my nose in the corner and not even paying attention to what was going on there.

In the SA Lifeline Foundation, one of the principles that we hold fast to is not just that sexual addiction is an addiction, But that the effects are greater than just the person who suffers from addiction. We use the phrase betrayal trauma and, and really dig into that. Can you tell us a little bit more about what that betrayal trauma looks like from your perspective? Tell me how that has manifested in your own life and in your own family.

Steven Croshaw: Thank you for that question. I'm speaking from the perspective of my association with the Foundation and also my own experience. First, I'm going to read a quote. It's a quote that we use in several places of our materials, and it's a quote by Jill Manning. She's a PhD, actually a therapist who we have great respect for her work. She works a lot with, primarily with women who have experienced trauma as a result of betrayal in their marriage relationships.

She has a quote that is extremely precise, and I think that it kind of leads into this concept of really what does pornography do for those who participate in using pornography. So her quote is, pornography is neither harmless nor helpful. It is a mind-altering, belief-changing, relationship-damaging, addiction-forming, socially harmful, spiritually deadening, life-crippling practice through which one practices the ways of the adversary. So there is her description of what happens to those who are using pornography, what happens in their life.

Part of that quote is, pornography is relationship damaging. So I look at the relationship that I have with my wife specifically and what happened in our relationship when I was hiding my behavior, living the double life, and kind of merrily going along thinking that I can hide this, it's only hurting me. Well, on occasion my wife would say to me something like this, I feel like I don't know you. Wow, what a powerful statement that is from a spouse, someone that— who should know me both inside and out.

Well, she could see outwardly who I was, and I thought that that's all that she could see, but her feelings were she wasn't able to connect with me. And so I was really unable to connect with her because I wouldn't make myself available in the relationship. If I did make myself available in the relationship, it heightened my feelings of hypocrisy. And so I was essentially unavailable to her emotionally, and in many cases, not just emotionally, but spiritually and physically, which is tragic.

And so The result of within that relationship, before she knew of my— of who I was in relationship to participating in this unwanted sexual behavior and hiding it from her as a sex addict, before she even knew anything of that, she would say to me, I feel like I don't know you. And that is— That, as I even speak that right now, it kind of cuts to my heart. Because she felt alone and even afraid, not feeling like I was protecting her from whatever it might be.

And there were instances that would actually justify a lot of those feelings where she said she didn't feel like she didn't know me. So when Rill became aware of my behavior, I actually determined that I would be completely honest with her in my mid-thirties, and I essentially told her everything without any preparation or without any professional help. I just felt like I had to get honest because I had progressed down this pathway of living the double life and the hypocrisy to the point where I couldn't carry the burden anymore.

So I decided I was just going to have to tell her, which I did, and it shattered her. It absolutely shattered her. But this was in 1987. And when we think about what was known about trauma and betrayal trauma in 1987, there was nothing known about it. And so my wife essentially received no help with the trauma that she was experiencing, either professionally or from church leaders or from friends or from family. She was on her own. The focus was on me because now I am a person who needs to repent of my behavior, who needs to change my life, who needs to not just stop the behavior but be a capable providing protector in my family.

Well, so she was left on her own, and she's a person of very strong and high character, and she essentially had to grit through. But she felt feelings of isolation, feelings of, of being angry and resentful. But I think more than that, she was confused and felt hopeless and numb. She didn't really know how to deal with this except that she was hurt deeply and had all these feelings that she didn't understand. And her focus was on trying to help me.

And she was getting almost no help at all. God's hand was in what was going on in our lives at that time. And there was a neighbor who lived some distance away from us, but our close neighbor, because we lived in a very rural area, who happened to be, I believe, inspired by God to go to my wife, to go to our home, knock on the door, speak to my wife, and say, something is wrong. What can I do to help?

And frankly, this person, I believe, helped save my wife emotionally and spiritually in a moment where she was getting no other help. So that trauma that she experienced that was of no fault of hers— she was a great wife, a wonderful mother, dedicated to all of those responsibilities that she had. She was sexually available, and we had what I thought was a positive sexual relationship in spite of all this. So she had a very strong trauma response but didn't understand what that was.

I think that that experience in her life changed her. It changed her from this idea that of trust now. someone that— who is there to provide for me and to protect me. How can I now trust this person who has betrayed me sexually, who's lied to me over many years, and essentially in living this double life has been neglectful of our— not just our relationship, but our family? And not just neglectful, I shouldn't just say that, but also abusive of that relationship.

So the impact on the spouse is dramatic. And I think the challenges associated with my wife in her own recovery have been equal to or greater than the challenges that I have in working to recover from sexual addiction. So there we were, we were both in this situation. I'm dealing with sexual addiction. She's dealing with betrayal trauma. We're both in our mid-30s. And the really challenging part of our story at that point is neither of us understood what was going on.

I had no concept of sexual addiction, nor did anyone else around us. And my wife, nor I or anyone else, understood anything about trauma and the betrayal that was fueling that trauma. So there we were. I'm an addict. She's traumatized.

Justin B.: Wow. There's a lot there to experience, and I just can't even imagine the, the feelings of people for many, well, for centuries, for millennia, who had no idea about, you know, hey, what is addiction? What is trauma? What does this all mean? Who just had to live through that. One thing that you said was the abuse that, that the addiction brought into the relationship. It wasn't just dishonesty. It wasn't just mistrust. It was abuse. And I've got to say that for many years when that word was thrown out for me in, in my relationship, I recoiled from it big time.

No, I'm not abusive. I'm very loving. I'm not abusive. More recently, it's become more of an acceptance. These things that I've done, whether through active action words, behaviors, or neglect of those actually is abuse. Can you tell me a little bit more about your understanding and your take on that abusive nature of, of sexual addiction?

Steven Croshaw: My story is somewhat similar to yours in that regard. I was not ever physically abusive with my wife. So when we— when oftentimes when people talk about abuse, they just go to physical abuse concept of what that word means. When in fact, the abuse associated with manipulation, the abuse that is part of my addictive behavior, which was often to become angry or to go to a victim mentality and withdraw. The term gaslighting comes to mind where I would essentially not take responsibility for something that was my responsibility, that was a problem, that I would blame on my wife, that she was the cause of the problem, not me, or that something's the matter with her.

And I would try to reinforce that in some way by gaslighting her. Now, that is serious emotional and spiritual and mental abuse. So Even though the physical abuse was not present in our relationship, there definitely was emotional, mental, and spiritual abuse. And then for my children, I never did abuse them either, but I wasn't present or available to them when they needed a dad to be there with them in critical moments of their life, teaching them, helping them, reinforcing the positive things about them.

Because I was then withdrawn and not present. And again, I go back to why would that be? Why would I be withdrawn and not present? And the answer is, is because that would heighten my hypocrisy or feelings of hypocrisy. So I would not be available. But at the time, did I realize that? No, I didn't realize that. In fact, I really couldn't even see myself rightly at all. I felt like I was an honest man. my business dealings, which I was.

I was fulfilling responsibilities in the community and with my church and with my business. And wow, you know, I think people looked at me from the outside and said, here's a high-functioning guy that's taking care of his responsibilities. When all of the time that that's happening and I'm in this double life scenario, I'm neglecting the most critical parts of my responsibility where I'm caring for my wife, Spiritually, emotionally, and mentally. But that's manipulation, and that is also abuse.

Justin B.: Thank you for sharing that. We've spent some good time here on the problem, on issues. Obviously, there's a lot more problem between 1987 when you did a disclosure there that we talked about here, and 2005 when your sobriety date is. There's a lot more of the problem of the mess and the progression of it.

Steven Croshaw: Maybe I can just interject a tiny bit more into my story. At that time, first time that I came forward, I stopped the behavior for 3 years and didn't act out in any way. But then, having had no understanding of where I was related to an addiction or my wife either, I, I slipped back into the behavior gradually about 3 years after I'd come forward. And so 7 years after that point, so 10 years later, I came forward again. And so it was déjà vu all over again.

I need to talk about that part of my story just briefly. And that is that again, I chose to be honest, but I, at that point, just 10 years later, when I'm in my mid-40s, I was unwilling to acknowledge that I was dealing with an addiction, even though the idea or the concept was introduced to me. I actually attended 3 or 4 12-step meetings. Therapist introduced the concept to me. I rejected it thoroughly, thinking that, you know, I'm not going to identify as an addict because that's so shaming.

That's what I felt it to be. So that part of my story, I think, needs to be told. Fast-forwarding now to 2005, the beginning part of my recovery, as I said, was really having the great blessing and God's hand in my life of being arrested, because it really caught my attention to the point that I was willing to say, how out of control am I that I'm willing to put myself into this kind of dangerous, illegal behavior, completely forgetting about all the responsibilities that I have when I'm involved in the behavior, living this double life?

And so my heart just absolutely was pierced, and it was. But yet even at that point, I was fearful of being honest because now here's the third time that I'm essentially caught, and I am afraid to come forward again because at that point my feeling was I will lose everything if I come forward and talk about the fact that I've been arrested. I was able to hide that experience of being arrested. In fact, I went to an attorney and he said to me, based upon the circumstances of your arrest, got a misdemeanor for loitering.

It's it's something that you probably will never be prosecuted for, and it will never really come to a court appearance. Pay me X number of dollars. He said, "I'll take care of this and it'll go away," which it did actually. But I couldn't live with that, and so it was on September 11th, 2005, that I finally had. enough of a painful experience recognizing how out of control my life and the danger that I put myself in, the fear of being caught, that caused me so much pain.

And there was so much weight involved in that experience that I finally chose to get honest. And that was actually a spiritual experience. That night of September 11th, I actually tried to deny that I was a believer. that God existed or that God knew me. I tried to deny that what— if that was the case, I, I said to myself, if, if I'm not a believer, then in fact these things don't really matter, so I'll just continue to hide it.

That even heightened the pain. And so as the pain continued to become more intense during the night, as I thought about this, I finally determined that I had to get honest and that that would be the only solution. And that's the moment that my heart changed. I really became willing To do whatever it would take, so there was a change of heart. That's the first step. I had a change of heart. I became willing. What did I become willing to do?

I became willing to get honest, and that really started me on the pathway. That's the first step: choosing to get completely honest, and then the pathway of recovery could be open to me because I would then be present. I could then be in the open to. Find a qualified therapist, to be willing to go to and get involved in a 12-step program and get into a community of recovery where other people that are in similar situations are, that I can gain from their experience and hope for recovery.

And I can also learn about what's going on with me and understand that I have to have certain boundaries in place. I have to be accountable. My commitment has to be ongoing. I have to be 100% honest. I'll interject SA Lifeline and the work that we do right now is we put together a recovery puzzle that identifies all of these elements. There's 10 elements that I need to be willing to accept and participate in, in order for me to learn how to not just stop the behavior, but learn how to not start again.

And so the great blessings began to flow into my life the moment that my heart changed. and I was willing to get honest. Suddenly, my life changed at that moment. I was able to find a qualified therapist. I was able to find a great 12-step group. I was able to find a very capable sponsor with many years of sobriety who had a story very similar to mine. So, all of a sudden, these resources and support became available to me.

So, all of those things began to happen in a positive way for me so that I could begin to rebuild my life. But what about my relationship with my wife? And what about my relationship with my children? What about rebuilding trust there? And that was a very tenuous and difficult circumstance at that moment, recognizing my story where I had lied and been deceitful and tried multiple times. and returned to the behavior and hid the behavior. So now trust broken to that degree, could it in fact be rebuilt?

So my wife took a step back, in fact maybe multiple steps back, and said, I don't know that this relationship can survive. Divorce is on the table. And so I was looking at that possibility. My children, Became aware. I made them aware of the extent of my behaviors. They all were included in the circle. And the reason why they were— I had 7 children at that time. 5 of the 7 were adults and married. 2 were teenagers. Anyway, to the extent that it was appropriate, all became aware because I made them aware of what was going on with me and what had gone on in my life.

So that was the beginning of a true recovery journey for me. What was the measurement of that level of commitment? It was my willingness to participate in all of those activities. And then my wife stood back and watched. What is he doing? What is he willing to do? And so she, rather than saying, I'm out of here, and was gone, she just stood back and watched. But one really critical thing happened, and that was I was blessed and led to a very capable therapist.

And that didn't happen by chance. There were things that created that opportunity or led me to that opportunity to find a qualified therapist. In the first meeting that was set up, I asked my wife if she would go with me. She agreed reluctantly, actually. She said kind of curtly, she said, okay, I'll go. So she went, I think maybe out of curiosity, I don't know, but Certainly, she was in deep trauma, didn't understand trauma at that point either, nor did I.

So we go to a therapist. I tell my story. He listens, doesn't interrupt. After I've told my story, he looks at my wife and said, can you stay with him if he's in recovery? And my wife, floored by that question, it was like, I have no idea what recovery looks like, feels like. I don't know anything about what you're asking me about. How would I ever know? Because he has lied to me over and over again.

How can I ever trust him again? And so he listened to her essentially express her feelings of this. I, I could never answer your question like that because I don't even know that that's possible. And he said, you will know. Which was a very interesting response from him. What a powerful first meeting that was. I think we both kind of left there with this unusual feeling of just kind of trying to figure out what that really meant, because neither of us really understood what recovery would take on either side, either from the addiction side, learning how to live in recovery, or from the trauma side, learning how to live in sort thrive with these experiences in our relationship.

So we got me, an addict who's in trauma, she, a traumatized spouse who's in trauma, and our marriage, which is damaged significantly by all of these sexual betrayals and trauma and my lies and deceit that go along with it. That's not a pretty picture. And so here I am and here she is, but we're embarking on this pathway. So, I go to my first 12-step meeting with my heart in it. And the meeting was 50 miles away from my home, but it was a great meeting.

And I met my first sponsor there. He had 6 years of sobriety. His story was just like mine. He had a smile on his face. He shook my hand with strength. He put his arm around me and said, this is possible. And I, I was willing to listen, but I was still concerned that, is it really possible? So the journey and the hope for recovery immediately came when a therapist said recovery is possible, a sponsor said recovery is possible, and there I was.

I was in that situation with, in this predicament early on the pathway of working my recovery. with people encouraging me with all this positive feedback that recovery is possible. And so I embarked on the journey. I became extremely involved in working of the 12 steps with a sponsor, with this qualified therapist. We had regular visits actually together and separately, and also participated in a program, kind of an outpatient program that they had weekly. So I really got engaged in all those things all the time.

My children, as they became aware of the story, were taken aback, but they did not withdraw. And so they became a support, but only as they knew how. And they didn't know a lot of what I meant, but what they did do was express love and concern and not rejection, for which I'm incredibly grateful. I think my in-law children were taken aback more than my children because they were just more distant in their personal relationship with me.

And they were trying to figure the whole thing out. So there we were. We both, my wife and I, embarked on a pathway of recovery. Neither of us really understanding it very well, but willing to put ourselves into it. I was willing to put my heart into it. And I was willing to be brutally honest and I was willing to do the work. And all the work, I grew an understanding of what that work was. So that's a long answer to your question of, is there hope for recovery, Justin?

I— the answer is profoundly yes, unequivocally yes. But it's my responsibility to put myself into a situation where that can be possible, and it starts with a willing heart and rigorous honesty. Now, with that said, the challenge here is I am responsible for my recovery. I was then, I am now. Then I didn't know what to do. And so with a willing heart, I believe God's hand intervened in my life. I was willing, opportunities came up, I partook of them, I participated in them willingly and honestly.

I had to do that. And so now my work of recovery is I really no longer have an excuse. for saying I really don't know how to work recovery, because I do know how to work recovery. I do understand the concept of surrendering my will to God. And so when I am involved in some kind of a dangerous situation that could present a challenge for me, I know what I need to do to stay safe. So whether that dangerous situation is just a triggering moment that happens in everybody's life day by day, or whether it's something that's really serious in that There, there might be a serious interruption.

It may not be involved with sexual addiction, but some kind of an interruption in my life that would cause a lot of emotional distress. I know now how to handle that without resorting to inappropriate behavior that basically takes me out of the game.

Justin B.: Thank you for sharing that, Stephen. And for those in the listening audience, I will be sitting down with Rill, Stephen's wife, here just in this next couple of weeks for the next episode, and we'll be getting her side of the story. And we'll talk about the trauma, we'll talk about pain. We'll talk about the hope that she experiences too. Now, based on this, you and Rill created SA Lifeline Foundation. Give us just a few minutes of what led to the creation of SA Lifeline and what the vision and mission of SA Lifeline is in relationship to your experience.

Steven Croshaw: As I expressed a moment ago, the entire time of working recovery on these multiple attempts of coming forward and getting honest, and I didn't understand what to do. My wife didn't understand what to do. Our leaders in the community or in our church didn't know what to do to help us. So we were kind of trying to find our way. Ultimately, 17 years ago, 2005, when I came forward, there was much, much more information about the issue that I was dealing with and more help available, gratefully.

And so once we began to understand and once we embarked upon that pathway, we recognized that what we were learning was really important to us, but it could be beneficial to others. So the fact that we didn't know what to do, we figured that most other people didn't know what to do who were in similar situations. Not that all of them would have the same experience that we've had, but many, many, many relationships are disrupted by this issue to some degree.

So about 3 years into our work of recovery, actually, Ril was a student working again on getting her degree. She was in school and given a class assignment to come up with some kind of a program that would be a community-based program of some sort that would be of service to others. And based upon our story, she just came up with the idea, well, maybe we could create an entity that would help people that deal with this issue that we deal with.

We didn't know what that was or what it meant, but once she had that assignment and we talked about that, it seemed like a good idea. And so she actually pursued that to fulfill the assignment that she had in class. So that was probably the first seed of SA Lifeline. We had no idea about it at that point, nor did we have a plan or a direction. It just became an assignment. That was the first time within that context of that class that I told my story publicly.

That was the seed that was planted. We then decided, well, this is something that's worthwhile. What do we do? I had previously had experience with a nonprofit, so I was aware of nonprofits and how they worked. So we established a nonprofit for the purpose of primarily educating people about the hope of recovery from sexual addiction. At that time, we didn't relate betrayal trauma to our mission because we didn't really even know at that point what it was.

So we started out with the idea that we will help people understand that there is hope for recovery. And that was the beginning of SA Lifeline, Hope for Recovery. And we then asked people that we knew if they would participate in kind of a kickoff fundraising dinner for this nonprofit. So we had this dinner and we had people come to this dinner, and that was the beginning part of inviting people in to participate in this work.

And even today, some of the people who started right in the very beginning are still participating with us. So the, the foundation started with the idea of helping people understand the challenges associated with sexual addiction and the hope for recovery from sexual addiction. It then began to include hope for recovery from the challenges of betrayal. We still hadn't identified that as what we call betrayal trauma, and that had not been formally identified at that time. either to us through the contacts that we had.

Later it did. So that was 17 years ago that we started the foundation. It has grown exponentially since that time. We've published multiple books on the subject, and our last publication is actually called the SAL book, where we describe the challenges associated with sexual addiction, betrayal trauma, and the work of recovery. Built around the idea of the recovery puzzle. And then we incorporate into that same book information about our 12-step program, which we started 9 years ago. So 9 years ago, there's a story to starting our own 12-step program.

We're supported by SA Lifeline. It became necessary that we do that because previous to that, we had been associated with starting meetings for the community-based program of Sexaholics Anonymous and S&ON, and it became impractical to continue down that same pathway of starting a lot of meetings that were associated with support and supported by SA Lifeline. So, we started our own program that also added dimensions that weren't part of those other 2 programs. And one of them, quite frankly, was to recognize that together the pathway of recovery of sexual addiction and betrayal trauma.

So, we combined the pathways, which are very similar, into one program. And then we added a dimension of being gender-specific in those meetings. And so, we did that specifically for safety. So, here we have a combined program that's a very parallel pathway, but it's gender-specific for sexual addiction, gender-specific for Betrayal trauma. And the program of SAL has grown significantly. We have several thousand people participating in meetings weekly. Then they're available online or in person. We have meetings daily.

So anyone literally throughout the world can attend a meeting online no matter where they are.

Justin B.: Yeah. I really appreciate that you and Ril put together this foundation, brought it together, have developed it and created eventually, like you said, the SAL 12-step program, which I gratefully am a, a grateful member of. And thank you for that and for these materials and for your time here. Before we wrap it up, Stephen, I have 2 questions for you. What would you have to say to the newcomer, the explorer, the investigator of sexual addiction in their own lives, a newcomer coming into the rooms or trying to figure things out?

What would you say to the newcomer to And what would you say to the veteran who has found some recovery, but maybe getting stale in their program or in there and thinking, hey, I've got this, I can just move forward and not really worry about things. What would you say to those 2 parties?

Steven Croshaw: There might be 2 points I would like to make to a new person. And one is that my experience was, early on, I was quite concerned about being found out. There was shame associated with my behavior. I was afraid to put myself into a circumstance where others could potentially know me in a more personal way with things that I had felt a lot of shame about. I know when I went to my 12-step meetings for the first time, I questioned, do I really need to do this?

Do I really need to put myself in that kind of environment? Because I was afraid, there were so many unknowns. So, the first thing, I guess, that I would say is that I'm grateful that I was able to put my fear and my shame aside and commit myself to engagement in the program of recovery. And so that leads me to the concept, if I'm willing to set the fear and the shame aside and engage in the work of recovery, what can be my hope?

What can be the opportunity that I might grab a hold of and say, where is my hope? And I would turn to Alcoholics Anonymous, who I have the greatest respect for, in the beginning sentence in Chapter 5, where it says, rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. What a powerful statement that is. Is that true? But I would say to a person, those who will commit to this program of recovery with their heart and rigorous honesty will be successful.

And so, is that necessarily going to happen overnight? The answer is no. Is the journey easy? Of course not. It's extraordinarily challenging. We live in an environment and mortality that is, that is built with challenges as part of the whole scheme of things. So, I would say, set aside the shame, put the fear aside, Engage, become involved in the community of recovery, apply the principles, be completely honest in the process, humbly approach it with that commitment.

And like the Alcoholics Anonymous say, rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Now, what about the long-term aspect of recovery? Many will come into the program thinking, I'm looking for the solution and the destination so that I can be done with this. Doesn't happen that way. The idea of being done with temptation is not part of mortality. It's always going to be there. And the concept associated with addiction, a lot of people want to essentially say, I don't want to identify this as an addiction because when I do, Then those who are identifying that way say, I'm always going to be an addict.

Once an addict, always an addict. Well, let's put that a little bit differently. Let's say, once I have learned how to escape via lust, lust will always be toxic for me. Meaning that if I choose to entertain lust in any form, it's going to have an impact on me. Right. I then have to learn how to deal with that in a healthy way, and that will always be with me. Doesn't mean that the compulsion is always going to be at a high level that it was when I was in my addictive behavior and hiding.

That compulsion was always with me. It's like, what is the next time I can get a hit? That kind of feeling doesn't exist anymore. I don't have that compulsion. But does that say that temptation subsides? Of course not. There will always be temptation out there. So, the hope for recovery is then the compulsion will subside. How do I stay on this pathway of recovery? Well, I'm going to go back to Alcoholics Anonymous, and it's in Chapter 7.

And Chapter 7 starts out, says, Working with Others. It actually is the— it's Step 12 of the 12 steps. And Step 12 says, Practical experience shows that nothing will so much ensure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics. Wow, what an incredible statement that is. That has been my story. What opportunities have I had in my life to stay safe, to stay sober, to experience the joys of life than being involved in not just my own recovery, but sharing my recovery experience of strength and hope with others.

So I'm going to read it again. Practical experience shows that nothing will so much ensure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics. So that's the journey. Why would a person want to leave God's work when there's millions of people out there that need help? Well, some might say, I need to get on with my life. What is your life? Your life really, as God would have it, is love thy neighbor as thyself. And I tell you, there's a neighbor on your left and there's a neighbor on your right.

There's a neighbor in front of you and there's a neighbor in back of you that needs to hear your experience of hope and that recovery is possible, that living a joyous life is out there and an opportunity for each one who are willing to grasp it. And it all comes through God's grace. That's the bottom line. It all comes through God's grace.

Justin B.: Thank you, Stephen, and thank you for your example of ensuring immunity from lust by working intensively with other addicts. I have found that this is a superpower— not my superpower, but one that comes from the grace of God— that ensures that I can you one more day in this. As you mentioned, my job and my main responsibility is to be of maximum service to my Higher Power, to God, and to my fellows, and that's by giving back.

Thank you for being an example of that, and thank you for being our guest on the Pathway to Recovery Podcast.

Narrator: Thanks for joining us. We invite you to subscribe Subscribe to this podcast so that you don't miss new episodes. And while you're at it, will you please leave us a 5-star rating and review to help us spread the good news that healing from sexual addiction and betrayal trauma is possible? We invite individuals who are struggling to join our virtual or in-person trauma-sensitive 12-step meetings. Meeting times and locations can be found at sal12step.org. You can find quality education at salifeline.org, and we hope that you will follow us on Instagram and Facebook.

SA Lifeline is a 501 nonprofit organization, and we welcome donations. SA Lifeline— come heal with us.