Essay Service (Lawrence M., USA)
Lust addiction and sexual acting-out brought me into SA, but it was the spirituality of the SA literature and deeper spiritual fellowship I found in SA meetings that called me to perform service in SA. With a background in writing and editing, I served on the SA Literature Committee that edited the White Book and Recovery Continues as well as other SA literature. I became the Essay editor after Roy K. turned over administrative functions he performed for the Central Office to the Fellowship at the Chicago conference in July 1991. I had been...
read morePlease send letter to our friends in prison (Jim D., Wisconsin, USA)
Dear Essay, I am an incarcerated SA member due to my lust/pornography addiction. By the grace of God and SA I have been sober since Dec 11, 2019. I have been very blessed to remain in contact with my SA sponsor allowing me to complete the Steps and start working on the Traditions. I know many sexaholics in prison are not as blessed as I am. First of all, I want to thank you so much for providing meetings in print via the Essay magazine which is a wonderful resource! Congratulations with your 40th Anniversary. Second, I want to make a...
read more“Give Myself a Chance for Another Day” (Joanna M., Warsaw, Poland)
What was the fellowship like in my early days of recovery? According to what I remember and knew, it was: certainly not ideal! We had no published literature but used pdfs and printouts. We didn’t have SA materials to work on the Steps but used materials from other communities. Multiple years sobriety was something unusual. We were learning to use the Steps and didn’t know much about the mysterious traditions. There were no women at the meetings. It took two years before other women came and stayed. There were five meetings...
read moreComing From AA, He Worked the Steps All Over Again in SA (Lawrence M., Virginia, USA)
I came to my first SA meeting in Karlsruhe, Germany, on Sunday, May 26, 1985. I was one of three newcomers at a meeting of 20 men and women. As newcomers we were required to give a brief First Step in the form of answering set questions. Before I came to the meeting, I threw out my pornography. I also threw out phone numbers and addresses of women I knew from other 12-Step fellowships. I stopped acting out sexually. I date my sexual sobriety to two years after I stopped acting out because of lust in dreams. I was three years sober in...
read moreThe Emphasis of My Recovery Is on My Spiritual Condition (Masoud, Shiraz, Iran)
Masoud: Hello, I’m Masoud, a grateful recovering sexaholic. I have been sober for 17 years and 11 months. I am not a member of any other twelve-step fellowship. I have chosen, for this session, to share my experience of Step 11, how to improve my conscious contact with my Higher Power. Conscious contact with my Higher Power helps so much to stabilise my recovery, to deepen my recovery. My work, in the context of a Twelve-Step programme, to achieve a mature relationship with my Higher Power began at Step 2. I remember the initial work, taking...
read moreGrief Forced Her to Practice SA As a Lifestyle (Kawy, Nairobi, Kenya)
Grief was foreign to me. I had not experienced it as close as I did until my Dad passed away in June 2021. We were planning for a Father’s Day lunch just two days before he had an accident that caused some head injuries. Three days later, we were now planning for his funeral. At the time of his death, I had just finished my steps 4 & 5 and was working on steps 6&7 with my sponsor. My experience throughout the time of his death is engulfed by gratitude. Grief made me grateful to be an addict because I had tools to help me through the...
read moreThe Greatest Amends You Can Make Is a Changed Life (Steve P., Melbourne, Australia)
This Aussie Old-timer …… I came into the SA movement in 1999 and by the Grace of God and numerous miracles have stayed physically sexually sober since that day. Whilst Alcoholics Anonymous was founded in Akron, USA in 1935 by two hopeless alcoholics, Sexaholics Anonymous did not come into existence until 1979 by Roy K (1927- 2009). Sexaholics Anonymous did not emerge in Australia until about 1988 in Wentworthville, Sydney and a group in Melbourne who initially met on a Park Bench and later rented a room at Kew Vic. All of the...
read moreIn SA, He Has Found a Loving God (Harvey A., Florida, USA)
I am Harvey A, a sexaholic from Nashville Tennessee. My sobriety date is March 8, 1984. I can hardly believe that I am now 80 years old and have been sexually sober for more than 36 years. When I began the SA recovery program, I had a full head of hair that had not yet turned gray. At 80, what hair I have is completely gray. My outward appearance has changed over the past 36 years. But it is the change in my inner self that I want to share with the fellowship today. My recovery story began when I was 44 years old. I had been married for 23...
read moreHow Did I Overcome/Survive Being the Only Woman in My SA Home Group (Tencha S., Texas, USA)
The long and short of it is, I just kept coming back. I started in SA as a young, widowed, single mom in June 2005. At that time there were 3 other women in my homegroup. Within a year, they were gone. My sponsor was one of them. She decided to go back out and try some more controlled lusting, my grand-sponsor moved, and the other woman quit coming because of health reasons. Thankfully, by this time, I had worked the steps and knew beyond a doubt that SA was where I needed to be if I wanted to continue living and be a healthy mom to raise my...
read morePracticing healthy interactions in SA (Kathy R., Oregon, USA)
Practicing healthy interactions in SA has been a passion of mine. Possibly since the beginning of my recovery. I have known near my entire life that I am not good at relationships. My longing to find how to be relationally “normal” has been a lifelong seeking. Coming to SA, although not immediately, I started finding answers. I saw others with more recovery acting normal, even men with women. I knew if I kept coming back, I too would grow relationally. How did I learn and grow? I kept coming back. I kept coming back not just to meetings, but...
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