A memoir by Stacy Grace James

Saving
Wild Grace

A Memoir of Sex Addiction, Survival, and Grace

Raw. Funny. Painful. Fiercely hopeful.

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The story of a woman who became very good at surviving—until the same strategies that once protected her began destroying the life she was trying to build.

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About the book

Sometimes survival stops saving you.

Saving Wild Grace is the story of how I tried to construct a life out of childhood trauma and dysfunction without so much as a hammer.

I spent decades trying to outrun myself. I became skilled at surviving—which wasn’t the same as living. The strategies that protected me as a child became the very behaviors that almost destroyed me as an adult.

I was raised in a family full of dysfunction and secrets. I learned early that trust was too expensive. As a child, I created an inner world that helped me survive, but those same strategies backfired as I got older.

I searched for rescue through sexual relationships with men and women, repeating patterns passed down through generations. I walked through multiple marriages, addiction, and a career built around protecting others while hiding the fact that I felt invisible.

Through recovery from alcoholism and sex addiction, I began the painful process of disassembling my belief system and choosing a new path. I discovered that healing requires more than I’d imagined: brutal self-honesty, and a hell of a lot of courage.

For more than twenty years, I have walked beside other women struggling with sex addiction. I have witnessed unimaginable heartbreak—and the miracle of watching lives, families, and lineages transform.

Saving Wild Grace is told with ruthless honesty and humor. It’s about finding grace in unlikely places. It’s about creating hope for every woman who comes behind me.

Addiction & Recovery Childhood Trauma Survival Generational Patterns Recovery Grace Hope Women in Recovery

“My name is Stacy, and I am a serial wife. I collected husbands like stray puppies: some were adorable but peed everywhere, and a couple bit the hell out of me.”

Saving Wild Grace

Inside the memoir

A life that refused to stay ordinary.

A childhood full of contradictions—moments of love and moments of intense fear
Marriage at fifteen, and four more husbands after that
A career in law enforcement as one of the few women on the force
A werewolf attack, a six-mile trek uphill in a blizzard, and a life full of unlikely survival
The question that changed everything: Could I be a sex addict?
More than twenty years helping other women find their way out of the same cycle
A profound encounter with forgiveness that released decades of pain

Why this book

This is a story about what happens when one woman decides the cycle ends with her.

Sometimes all you have is one tiny flame. Sometimes that’s enough to light the way for everyone who comes after you.

If you’ve ever used sex, fantasy, or relationships to numb your pain—or loved someone who has—this book is meant to remind you that you are not alone.

There is hope on the other side of addiction.

About the author

Stacy Grace James

I walked into my first Twelve Step meeting for recovering sex addicts more than twenty years ago. I was the only woman. That wasn’t new to me. As a police officer in the 1980s and 1990s, I was used to being an unwanted distraction.

I fought for my seat in the rooms of recovery alongside some men who didn’t want me there. But the men who believed I’d earned my title as a sex addict helped save my life. Over more than twenty years, I have supported women in recovery and continue to show up for my sponsees, as well as the growing lineage of women helped through a weekly recovery meeting that reaches from Hawaii to New York.

Saving Wild Grace is my first memoir. I now live in Virginia with my fifth husband. We’ve been married for twenty-two years … in a row. That, in and of itself, is a testament to the power of recovery.

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