I think it has been a while but I am glad to be back. The title says what I want to write about that step eight has uncovered a part of my addiction which I didn't know about. Relationships have always ben a problem for me but I guess I saw them as what other people did to me. While looking for the people I have hurt I have realised that it was not just in my sexual behaviour that I have hurt people but in the ways that I related to people. I knew that I had a tendency to gossip and to run down people who hurt me to others but I never saw that as a part of my addiction. Not at least until I realised that I couldn't stop when I wanted to, this was a way of acting out and a very destructive one at that.

This is not new, I know the Big Book talks about slander as a way of harming others.

So what could I do? I admitted I was powerless against my negative opinions of others and the tendency to pass them on and that it made my life unmanageable, I believed that a power greater than myself can restore me to sanity in this area and I turned my will and this tendency over to God. And oh boy did that feel better.

I can't believe how long I have been trying to sort this out in my own strength and failing miserably because I didn't realise that it was as much a symptom of my addiction as any of my sexual acting out. I am hoping that God will do for me what I could not do for myself.