Surrender is the giving up of something specific - a specific temptation to lust for instance. The temptation is real and it is there in this moment. I can surrender it. That is a choice I can still make. But once I take the drink of lust, I'm already getting drunk, and probably on my way to acting out. An inevitable sequence of events is already set in motion. Lust must be surrendered, or the bondage returns.

But it must go beyond that if there is to be any true freedom. Lust is both a problem in and of itself, and also the cause of other problems in my life. But lust was also the "solution" to another whole set of problems in my life, a solution that eventually failed and instead became an even worse problem itself. And if I don't have any significant changes in my life, I'm sure to return to that solution I have learned so well and became addicted to. "Real life" needs a solution. I must find another solution to those problems or all my own efforts will fail, because I am powerless.

The solution for me has been the working of the 12 Steps under the direction of a sponsor. I learned, among other things, how to deal appropriately with the anger and resentment in my life (not that I always do that perfectly, but there definitely has been progress). My last acting out was precisely because I had expectations concerning my wife. For a while I stewed in my anger and resentment toward her and then I turned to my old friend and favorite drug of choice, lust. I went looking for those images that offered immediate relief from the real world in which I can't always have what I want when I want it. I turned to a fantasy world in which I am god and everyone else acts exactly how I want them to act. Today, I recognize that negative process, and that specific resentment, much more quickly. I surrender it before it can drive me on to lusting. I don't fight it; I don't stuff it down; I don't stew in it. I surrender it to God.

If I don't continue to make spiritual progress, I'm sure to slide backward and end up "needing" that lust drug once again. "The lust solution" is always available, always just a thought away. But the SA solution, the real solution that keeps on working for me and keep getting better rather than worse, is the path of the 12 Steps of Sexaholics Anonymous as a way of life. And that path leads to connecting rightly with God (the source of life) and others.