“He can go anywhere on this earth where other free men may go without disaster, provided he remains willing to maintain a certain simple attitude.” – BB. p. 27

Hey everybody!

I’m Michoel and I’m a sexaholic. Over the last year I’ve had to travel extensively away from my home meetings, and experience the challenges of working a program and staying sober on the go. I thought I’d take a few minutes to share some of the things I’ve learned. Things like don’t buy the whisky from the drinks cart, it’s a total rip-off – whoops, wrong program ?.

Traveling is a dangerous time for me, as a sexaholic. My lifeblood is my daily program – my regular schedule of meetings, phone calls, step work, sponsorship, and fellowship. This can also include other routines like seeing my therapist, exercise, mental health professionals, religious activities, etc. When I’m solidly embedded in these recovery routines I can feel relatively safe and stable.

Travel, especially to foreign countries, completely upsets this balance. Travel means being away from my fellowship, my program friends, my meetings, and my sponsor (if I’m lucky enough to have a local sponsor). It’s really easy to forget to take my daily actions of recovery. And if I neglect them – I’m in trouble.

The significant stress that accompanies long-distance travel, and the tendency for my self-care to degrade while abroad only makes the problem worse. (HALT – hungry, angry, lonely, tired – sounds like a worn traveler to me!)

I nearly lost my sobriety on three different occasions during these trips, due to neglecting my program. I say this from bitter experience, and cannot emphasize this enough – if I’d like to stay sober – I need a plan, and I need to work it. With some sober action, and my Higher Power’s help, I can go in peace, be of service, and return to my home group safely.

Planning beforehand

Seeing as my daily recovery program is key to my continued sobriety, it helps to take my Higher Power’s hand, and plan in advance. How can I work my program while abroad? And how can I be of service?

Travel is also an opportunity to meet new people in recovery and get a fresh perspective. And maybe I can carry the message of my recovery to them as well!

Meeting locations: If you’re looking for meetings in a new area, just Google them! Every major city I visited had a local SA presence with their own website. Or check out the official list on SA.org, which lists meetings in 65 countries.
Get local contacts. Reach out to the websites of local fellowships in advance, asking for info about their fellowship and for contacts in their area. Some of the people in your home group might also know members there.
Ask for their local event calendar. With a little luck, they might have a fellowship event planned that you can attend! (I was fortunate to be able to attend a large recovery convention that was happening in an area I was visiting)
Prepare for connections Make sure you have a way to stay in regular touch with members of your own fellowship. When purchasing a travel phone plan, make sure to find out if international calling is available. While I was away, I used WhatsApp calls, and international dialing for the few program friends I have who do not have WhatsApp.
Plan a new recovery routine – Something like: “I’ll go to the Tuesday morning and Friday local meetings, and 1 meeting on Zoom. I’ll do my calls every night (which is morning back home), and I’ll text my sponsor a daily update. My daily reading is the Real Connection, and I’ll keep up my night routine”

Be equipped

Some items are especially good to have while traveling sober:

A small notebook & pen – useful for doing quick inventories, fear & gratitude lists, or letters to God on the go. (You can use your phone, but I prefer writing by hand)
Micro literature – The Big Book, 12 & 12, and White Book are all available in pocket additions. If really short on space, you can get the E-book versions on the Amazon Kindle store.

Nice to have:

I highly recommend getting a small tripod or kickstand for your phone. This way you won’t need to hold your phone in Zoom meetings, or awkwardly prop it up on something else. Your wrist (and neck!) will thank you!
Get a good portable power bank for your phone. You’ll need it. (Pro tip: If you get one that supports USB Power Delivery or “PD” you’ll get much faster charging speeds)
If being constantly in touch with other program members is important to you, the in-flight WiFi can be a worthwhile investment.

Make an entertainment plan

If you’ll be on a long flight, plan your entertainment ahead of time. As I can’t safely watch most movies or TV shows, it helps to bring my own device and download safe content that I can enjoy, risk free.
Get a good audio app. Any podcast app can play recovery podcasts (special shout outs to SA Fireside, the Daily Reprieve, Reco12, and SoberCast!). Make sure to download them before your flight.
You can read literature or interesting books in the Kindle app.
There are several apps that will let you download and play files from the amazing Recovery Drive, which is a gold mine of recovery talks.
Bookmark the SA NextMeeting minisite. It lists over 370+ weekly SA Zoom meetings, at almost all hours of the day. This can be helpful if local meetings are not available (contact us to get the link!)

Make sure you’re stable

I’ve found that the better my spiritual state, the better I’ll handle whatever stress travel sends my way. If I have outstanding Step work, it helps to get it done before I leave. For example, two years ago I gave my Step 1 inventory over to my home group right before flying out of the country for a few weeks.

Travel will wear down my recovery a little, so “topping up” my recovery bank account with extra sober actions can go a long way.

Finally, it’s normal to feel nervous before traveling in sobriety, especially if I’ve never done it before. I personally had to surrender a number of fantasies about traveling (such as obsessing about who I’ll sit next to on the plane) in the weeks leading up to my trip.

While traveling

Airports are a good place to practice my tools for street lust. I can pray for everyone I meet that they have pleasant, smooth, and uneventful travels. I can pray to my HP to protect me from advertising images, and remembering that the models are God’s precious children too. I can pray for the flight attendants and focus on the fact that they’re just trying to do their jobs. I find that praying to God to help me trust that things will go according to his plan also reduces my stress level. Taking a pause to do a breathing or grounding exercise can be of use.

Some other attitudes:

Some members “bookend” their flights with a call before and after.
My Higher Power is with me everywhere, even at 36,000 feet above the Atlantic Ocean.
Remembering that nothing happens in God’s world by mistake.
Remembering that my HP can help me stay sober “regardless of what anyone says or does” – “Burn the idea into the consciousness of every man that he can get well regardless of anyone.” (BB p. 98) No matter what anyone else wears, says, or acts, my HP can help me stay sober.
I pray for anyone who’s watching a movie that my lust is interested in (If I’m not busy, my eye will somehow glance over to figure out what everyone else is watching, and I need to surrender that)
Finally, I can have gratitude for the marvels of travel nowadays. When my great-grandparents emigrated to the United States in 1931, they spent three weeks on a leaky boat. I’ve made the same trip many times while flying through the sky at 700 miles per hour, while watching a movie and attempting to dine on a possibly edible meal.

While abroad

Once I’m away, it’s important to get used to my new surroundings and begin applying my new recovery routine immediately. It might make sense to immediately touch base with the local fellowship and attend the first local meeting I can, to get things started. Meeting new people can be scary, but the longer I put it off, the less likely I am to do it.

I’ve only had good results when visiting new meetings. The program members I’ve encountered have been happy to see someone new, and are glad to share their local program with me.

It’s super useful to collect phone numbers from the members I meet in different time zones. If I need a 4:00 AM phone call sometime in the future, I’ll be glad I saved their number!

If I can’t get to local meetings, the armada of SA Zoom meetings can also be useful. After several near-relapses, I made a specific Zoom meeting my home group, and made sure to attend every week on time. I have been fully free of all my MOs since then (so far, please God).

It’s also important not to neglect my morning and night routines.

Staying connected

It’s important not to neglect my connection to the program back home. As I won’t have my usual schedule, it helps to set regular times for calling people. I had two sets of times when I could make my program calls – when I got home at night, and during some short walks I took during the day. I cannot afford to lose my accountability with others in my program, with my sponsor, and with sponsees (if I have any).

If I can avoid it, it’s best to avoid places and events that could be risky for my sobriety. Of course, if there is a legitimate need to be somewhere, I can pray, share with someone, and my God will protect me (See BB. p. 101)

Being away can also mean spending a lot of time with difficult family members. Taking the time to step away, pray, breath, and make a phone call can work wonders.

Our program prayers work anywhere!

Extended visits

I’ve found that If I stay somewhere long enough, I sort of get used to it, and it becomes the new normal. If I’m diligently working my new recovery routine, my recovery will be peaceful and stable, and I’ll be able to be useful for as long as God needs me to be there.

Conclusion

Travel can be challenging. I was once on a flight in sobriety, where the couple sitting right next to me didn’t stop kissing for practically the entire 10-hour flight! (They occasionally fell asleep, but on awakening went right back to it) I was rather uncomfortable, and over the course of the flight filled out several Step 10s about it, and prayed for them. Due to some sort of issue at the destination airport, our flight was diverted to an old Air Force base. We were grounded inside the plane for several hours on the tarmac while the officials decided what to do with us. And during that time, I was able to help translate the announcements for this couple, who didn’t really speak the language. Instead of boiling over in resentment, I could instead be of service. And even though they had been expressing physical affection literally right next to me only a little while earlier, I still didn’t need to act out.

When I think back to those moments, I don’t feel resentment. To be honest, it still makes me a little uncomfortable, but it’s not for me to judge. I’m grateful that they taught me that no matter what anyone else says or does, I don’t need to act out or obsess over it.

As always, I neglect my program at my peril.

But if I work it, with my Higher Power’s constant help and presence, I can be sober. Literally anywhere. No matter what anyone else says – or does.

May you have sober travels, my friends!