In Memory of Roy K.

It has been way over a decade since our founder died. Roy K. died on September 15, 2009 at the age of 82. He died with approximately 33 years of sexual sobriety. 

Why am I sharing about it now? I just don’t want the Fellowship to forget the gift this man brought us. 

He was a very modest person. Although he was known for many accomplishments, including being a playwright, he always remained humble and unassuming. He would never let us take a photo of him. He did not even want to write a book for the program. After much cajoling, we persuaded him to write and publish the SA White Book. He followed that with a second book called Recovery Continues. Many people do not realize that the stories in the SA White Book are Roy’s own experiences, especially concerning his marriage. He supported SA financially from his own finances for many years. Central Office was in his home in Simi Valley. He was never too busy to help us one-on-one. He never seemed to stop trying to improve the Fellowship.

He was also the recipient of much of the tensions we placed on him in our early years of our recovery. In my opinion, he was given a gift to bring to the world the concept of sexual addiction and powerlessness over lust, rather than putting the emphasis on acting out. 

My conversations with him by phone always ended with him saying, “Let us pray now.” 

I was so privileged to have had him in my life, and yet, while he was alive, my rebelliousness blocked me from experiencing how great a gift this man had given me. 

May he always be remembered as a vessel that was used to help save our physical, spiritual, and emotional lives. 

ESSAY Is a Wonderful Resource

Dear ESSAY team,

Thank you for bringing us together from around the world through ESSAY. Recently, I felt prompted to have a one-time SA meeting for two reasons: first, for members to talk about their relationship with their father, father figure, and sexaholism; second, to let everyone know that ESSAY is a wonderful resource for us. For this “SA Father’s Day” meeting, we used an October 2019 ESSAY article, and had a wonderful meeting. I counted 50 people from around the world at the meeting. Thank you to our members for joining together in harmony, with less than one week’s notice, it all worked out in the spirit of Tradition Five. We came from Canada, the United States, Ghana, Egypt, Iran, Ireland, Iraq, Israel, Germany, Georgia, India, Romania, the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, and I probably missed one or two nations. It was an emotional, safe space for many to shed tears, grieve a little bit, laugh, and share the joys of SA recovery. SA is not for everybody, but for us, it works! 

“We absolutely insist on enjoying life. We try not to indulge in cynicism over the state of the nations, nor do we carry the world’s troubles on our shoulders” (AA 132).

Much love, family.