Tough Love Changing Lives in Hollywood North
I came into SA in 1987 in Los Angeles. I attended meetings, went to international conferences, had three sponsors in succession, made as many as four phone calls every day and followed directions from those three sponsors. I was never sober for the first six years. People ask what changed. In 1993 there was a confluence of several factors. I was broken, I had no job and drove a car that was so battered that people couldn’t agree on what color it was. I had no hope for change in any area of my life let alone sobriety and I was...
read moreThe Melbourne Experience: Strong Meetings Need Committed Members
There is no doubt that if every SA meeting was conducted along the lines as prescribed in our White Book (185-187), our fellowship would have thousands of strong meetings globally and many, many thousands of members with strong recovery. However, the starting point is to ask, what is the purpose of meetings in 12 Step fellowships? I think there are three answers to this question: (1) Not only to get our secrets into the open – but also ourselves. Ours is mostly an addiction of hiddenness, secretiveness and privacy. In meetings we work in the...
read moreThe Chicago Experience of Building a Culture of Sobriety
Hi Mike, thanks for your time today in sharing your experience, strength and hope. Could we begin by asking your sobriety date and home group? Yes, June 3, 1984 and the Holy Innocent group in Chicago. For a long time previously it was at St Teresa. We have been on Zoom for about a year now; when we were face to face, attendance was around 55-60 and we meet for 90 minutes. Can you briefly describe what life was like before SA ? In my teens I became addicted to porn and masturbation. I was hooked from the very beginning and while I could...
read moreHe Came to Believe and Found a Life of Unlimited Service and Fulfilling Relationships
My name is Bill, and I am a recovered sexaholic. My sobriety date is September 4, 1993, and for that I am never sufficiently grateful. When I arrived in SA, I was hopeless and suicidally depressed from over 35 years of untreated addiction. I had my first drink of beer when I was 4 years old and was drinking for effect by the time I was 7. I recall that during this period I was fantasizing about a different life. I was born into a family riddled with alcoholism, sex addiction, drug addiction, and mental illness. As early as 3 or 4 years old, I...
read moreInmate sponsor B.
Dear New Brother, The first thing I want you to know is that I will honor your anonymity; I will not use your name nor give you mine. At a large Saturday morning meeting of our 12-step program your sponsor read your First Step letter. It resonated with me, and I want to give back to the fellowship by writing my share to you. In early July 2020 I was granted an early release from a low level Federal prison where I spent four years of a six-year sentence for receiving and sending illegal pictures and video clips. I am happy to be home;...
read moreMy Experience As a Young Adult In Recovery
When I stepped into my first SA meeting I was about twenty-five years old. When I think back on what I had experienced up to then and how I was feeling at the time, I am astonished at myself today; at how the program has changed me; the extent to which it has helped me. It’s a miracle, a miracle which is still unfolding. I was less than six years old when I was visited – uninvited! – by lust. He was a rapist, nine years older than me; a relative who purported to be a friend. We were to play a game. And the game? Here, lust showed...
read moreI Joined SA As a 19 Year Old Girl
My first memories are of fear, resentment and separation. Lust first came on the scene when I was four, my mother moved with us to a foreign country without my father. During my first few months in this new place I was sexually abused by kids several years older than myself. I was terrified anybody would find out, I was sure it was my fault and I feel guilty for enjoying the physical aspect and all attention. We moved again and the abuse stopped, I blacked out what happened but it left something behind. When playing with dolls I...
read moreThe Root Was Lust
My name is Matteo and I’m a recovering sexaholic. Throughout my adolescence I was progessively consumed by same-sex behaviours and fantasies. I thought that the problem was being attracted to men. Acting out for 17 years shaped my whole thinking. “I was restless, irritable and discontented”. SA told me that actually the root was lust, and this was music to my ears. I began to detach from the lust one day at a time and stopped carrying around my wound as a trophy. I commenced living on a new clock: 24 hours. It was a totally...
read moreStaying Sober In My 20s Has Its Own Challenges
I was born in 1989 in Kurdistan, Iran, in a family with 3 older brothers and no sisters. The concept of women and girls was always a mystery to me. The only female that I had a real connection with was my mother. That was not my only challenge though. As far as I can remember, I was living a double life. There was a whole world inside my head, and another world outside me. And I was constantly trying not to let the outside world know what is going on inside my head. Fancy or real, I was feeling unloved and unworthy, and to make up for these...
read moreI had just turned 21
I had just turned 21 when I entered the SA fellowship. I immediately knew SA was the program for me but I didn’t feel comfortable in the local fellowship since everyone else was at least twice older than I was. Fortunately for me there was one other young adult at the meeting who was visiting the country. He became my very first SA sponsor and dear friend in the fellowship. Still I considered my age as an obstacle and even an excuse against some suggestions fellows gave to me. For instance, some fellows from my home group suggested...
read moreEssay May 2021
