The Aug Essay Is a Roadmap
to Recovery for Women

Dear ESSAY,

I was so grateful when I saw the August magazine titled “Supporting Women in SA.” Topics such as getting a sponsor, working the Steps, mixed meetings, boundaries, service, and participating in the fellowship reminded me of my journey to recovery.

Unfortunately, this was not my initial experience in SA. I didn’t know anything. My women’s SA meeting and my sponsor never mentioned the Sobriety Definition. It was explained that I didn’t have to read the White Book. I took the Steps from a workbook from another 12-Step fellowship.

Later, I came to know that my sponsor had never worked the SA Steps, had never had a SA sponsor, and wasn’t sober according to the Sobriety Definition while in a service position for the group. I was never given The Message.

One day, when two men were speaking at our meeting, I heard The Message of Recovery. We were invited to attend their meeting, and after months of prayer and dragging my feet, I attended a mixed meeting.

This group introduced me to the SA program and told me that even though I needed to work with ladies at all stages of this program, I absolutely needed support from women with good recovery or I would not make it.

One of them gave me the number of a woman with 30-plus years of sobriety and she became my sponsor. She put me in contact with ladies in recovery and my life has never been the same since. I value women’s SA meetings. I started one for an intergroup. Yet, my recovery began meeting with women and men carrying The Message.

The August Essay Magazine carries The Message and is my message too. This is what I want to carry to the female newcomer who might be scared and feeling alone. My hope is to have a roadmap to recovery for women who have to face so many challenges coming into SA.

For me, the August Magazine is that roadmap and I want to share that with newcomers. One of the ways I’ve found is to attach the link of the August edition at the bottom of every welcome letter I send to newcomers. That way they have something that can show them the way to go, something to hold on to, something that they can read, people they can hear The Message from, that will carry them from the first welcome letter to their first meeting.

I want to invite local SA websites to put a button on their homepage called “Welcome Packet for Newcomer Women.” This would direct them to a page with the link to the magazine; strong audios of sober female speakers; and women-related pamphlets.