(Editor’s note: The following is a report on an Inter-Fellowship Forum held November 8 – 9, 1997, in Ann Arbor, Mich. The purpose of the forum was to promote a spirit of cooperation among 12-Step fellowships that offer recovery from sex and lust addiction — so-called S-fellowships — with a primary purpose of reaching out to the addict who is still suffering. The report is submitted by Gary W., who took part in the two-day event on behalf of Sexaholics Anonymous.)

Discussion of the Internet Web Site

The S-fellowships agreed to link all of their web sites on the net. SA, however, needs to include a disclaimer beside any links to the web pages of other fellowships, such as, “This link is not an endorsement, it is merely an attempt to provide access to information about other programs of recovery. SA neither endorses or opposes any other fellowship.”

One delegate pointed out that if a fellowship does not define itself, it will be defined or portrayed, accurately or not, by others. The delegate asked, “How can I tell you how I am different from you if I don’t know you?” SA needs to communicate to the other S-fellowships how we see ourselves and then try to see clearly and accurately what role each fellowship can play.

Carrying the Message on Hotlines

Among the questions raised was, How does SA respond to a request for help from a sex addict? Do we give out the numbers of other S-fellowships? What statements about or descriptions of other fellowships will SA give? If SA has no members or contacts in an inquirer’s region, will the Central Office give the inquirer the phone numbers of other fellowships on the chance that one of them will have meetings or contacts in the inquirer’s area?

The spirit of the recommendation from the 1996 Forum was to give information about other S-fellowships to an addict who wants help and who is in an area where the fellowship receiving his or her call has no members. In other words, when a fellowship receives a request for a meeting referral in an area where that fellowship has no meetings, we suggest that we acknowledge the possibility of meetings of other S-fellowships in that area.

SA submitted a statement of purpose, but it was found to be too long. A one-paragraph description to read over the phone to those requesting help was preferred. To conserve time and other resources, SA as well as other S-fellowships need a cursory understanding about the differences between the fellowships. That would enable the fellowship receiving the call to give the caller enough information for them to make a preliminary decision about which fellowship to choose or where to start to find help. Also, a collection of the descriptions could be published and distributed to all the S-fellowships for distribution to Intergroups or meetings.

For SA’s part, it was decided that SA would not supply an international meeting directory or regional contact phone numbers to the other fellowships. It was also decided that SA would not supply directories of meeting information to the other fellowships’ central offices. SA would, on the other hand, supply central office phone numbers to the other fellowships as well as a brief statement that the other fellowships could use in referring people to SA.

SA’s Sobriety Definition

Having attended meetings of other S-fellowships in other cities and spending a weekend with delegates from the other fellowships, I developed some strong convictions about our distinctions. I don’t believe SA is the “straight” fellowship or the “fellowship of one religion.” SA’s distinction is that we have a sobriety definition that leads us away from lust and sex outside of marriage between a man and a woman. SA is a place where a gay man who wants encouragement to live without a gay relationship can receive that support.

We need to continue to provide a unique place for the sexaholic who wants to live without lust and compulsive sex. I have met other gay men who, after visiting other S-fellowships, decided SA was the best place for them to receive the help they want. The sobriety definition was what persuaded them to join SA.

Changing or blurring our sobriety definition would eliminate a unique option. SA is the fellowship that allows a gay person to consider his or her sexuality in a setting where there is the chance to make choices free from the tyranny of lust.

I have heard many rationales for modifying the sobriety definition. One rationale, I believe, is that straight people want to give permission to or encourage gay people to pursue same-sex relationships that would be analogous to the ones straight people enjoy. Whether some gay people do enjoy long-term, monogamous relationships is not the issue here. My experience has been in the realm of the gay experience where promiscuity dominates the culture. I never experienced or observed relationships that were analogous to heterosexual relationships. I believe that by encouraging gay men to pursue a sexual relationship, straight people are in some cases assigning the gay person to a hell that the straight person usually does not comprehend. Eliminating the SA distinctive would rob gay people who experience hellish sexual addiction of a chance for freedom.

Another way to look at it would be opening the door to a hell that only the rare straight person understands. Besides, if a person is in a long-term or monogamous relationship, he or she can participate in any of the other S-fellowships and design a sex or abstinence plan that allows them to enjoy their relationships.

When a member who attends both SA and another S-fellowship attacked SA as the anti-gay fellowship, I responded that anyone who believes that may contact me because I am gay and have attended SA for 10 years and endorse the sobriety definition. Immediately a delegate asked if I would pursue a gay relationship and if I did, would I stay in SA. I believe they asked these questions because their paradigms require a person to have sex, to be in a relationship, and to have only the options of being gay or straight as a defining and fixed quality of one’s personality.

What is Unique About Each Fellowship?

Sexual Compulsives Anonymous (SCA) does not want to be portrayed as a gay fellowship. They want to be purposely gay friendly. SCA in St. Louis is not a predominantly gay fellowship. In cities other than Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York, SCA attracts more straight members than gay. According to their stated purpose, they want to let members feel free to resolve any issues about their sexuality without any pressure to conform to religious or social dictates. In one of their publications, Fourteen Ways to Avoid a Slip, SCA warns that compulsive staring or compulsive watching of TV or movies are preludes to a slip. Therefore they are, in their own way, identifying lust as a part of the problem.

SA stressed that lust is the issue. We have a prescribed definition of sobriety. For my part, I wish I had said more about sex not being a necessary part of life. It is optional. I believe that sex is only a part of sexuality. My sexuality includes everything I do or experience to be intimate with people in appropriate ways. For me as a single sexaholic, that does not include a physical relationship. Delegates from other S-fellowships seemed to equate sexuality with genital contact. Their programs allow non-married members to include sex in their recovery plans.

To many in other S-fellowships, the experience of human sexuality requires sex. So to those who believe that, to be fully alive means among other things, to experience sex. That conviction leads many to have sex plans or programs that allow sex outside of marriage. SA promotes the belief that sex is optional. I believe I can experience my sexuality by participating in appropriate levels of intimacy with the people who surround me without involving them with me in sex. I am experiencing my sexuality to a satisfying degree without having sex.

Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous (SLAA) members deal with sex or love addiction, or both. They have identified social, emotional and sexual anorexia as avoiding interaction on any of those levels to the point that it damages the individual. Each member of SLAA has a bottom line that identifies what is unacceptable behavior for him or her. Each member also writes a sexual or relational “top line” that constitutes the member’s ideal or how they would like to behave in a relationship (see Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 69). Sexual orientation is not an issue. Sixty percent of their members are men.

Sex Addicts Anonymous (SAA) is a fellowship based on helping people who are addicted to sexual behaviors they feel are destructive. Abstinence for each member is whatever he places in his inner circle as the behavior he wants to stop. Obsessive thinking can be the inner circle. Ten percent of SAA members are women.

Disclosures of Illegal Acts at Meetings

Discussion also focused on what to do when a member confesses to an act that constitutes an illegal act. SCA said that reports of illegal acts are so rare in their fellowship that it is not an issue. SAA raised concerns about disclosures by inmates during meetings in prisons. Some statements by prisoners might have to be repeated to prison officials. A suggestion was offered: tell offending sex addicts who are facing legal proceedings or are in prison not to tell members of the fellowship anything about the illegal act, but to talk about the act with a lawyer alone. In some states, revealing anything in the presence of a third person while talking with a lawyer eliminates attorney-client privilege. Also, tell offenders to talk to a priest.

Some groups confront the person, tell him or her to remove themselves from the possibility of repeating the act, and tell them to turn themselves into the authorities. Some say, “We are going to the police together so you can turn yourself in. You don’t have to do anything alone now that you are in recovery.”

Prison Work

SAA has meetings in eight prisons in Michigan. There are other prison meetings in Texas. Some recommendations for starting meetings in prisons:

• Approach the person in charge of programs or volunteers at the institution.
• Tell your whole story. SAA members tell the prison officials their whole names and stories right from the start.
• Use references. SAA will serve as a reference for any other S-fellowship that wants to begin prison meetings. Just tell the prison staff initially that other S-fellowships have meetings in prisons in other states.
• Make a presentation. The staff of the prison might want to hear about the program. Then they might ask you to make a presentation to the prisoners.

SAA related how they pressed to make a presentation to the inmates in a facility for teenage boys convicted of sex crimes. The people running the home said the boys could not possibly comprehend anything the members of SAA would say. The professionals doubted that the inmates would focus on or stay with the presentation.

The presentation lasted three hours. SAA reported that the boys were respectful, focused, sincere, and interacted genuinely with the SAA members.

Focus on the 12 Steps

SCA and SLAA gave the highest priority to keeping recovery focused on the 12 Steps. This is a reaction to people not having sponsors, using language associated with therapy in meetings, and ignoring the literature by discussing whatever is on the member’s mind even when the participants have been directed to discuss their experience as it relates to the literature.

The SCA delegates asked if the Steps are merely some of the tools or if they are the total program. That led me to ask, what is the program? How do we explain the program to a newcomer? What do we have to offer? When do we present our solution? In what form do we present it? How do we describe the program of action? What should we include in the description of that program? What sources should we draw on for information for the newcomer?

St. Louis has a weekly inter-fellowship meeting that focuses on working the Steps.

This relates to the issue of a fellowship publishing guides to working the Steps. The other S-fellowships publish Step study guides. However, delegates from these groups turn to AA to learn How to work the Steps. The Step study guides that SA has in the works contain material that could be considered outside issues or non SA-related issues. I believe, and the experience of the other S-fellowships seems to prove the point, that adding to the list of Step study guides does not help people work the Steps and can in fact delay or distract someone from the simplicity of the program as laid out in Alcoholics Anonymous.

SA has often missed an underlying tenet of recovery — we believe there is a solution. We are held together by our common problem, but that is not enough to keep us together. We have to hold a solution in common (Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 17). The SA web site, on the page entitled “For More Information,” says only that our common problem unites us. I believe that we have lost our focus on a simple application of the Steps. We are trying to embrace anyone with a sex or lust problem rather than focusing on those who want our solution.

Two members of another S-fellowship reported they were discouraged because the meeting they were attending focused on the problem instead of recovery through the Steps. Rather than push for a political solution, the two determined privately to focus their sharing on the Steps. It has brought the meeting to a stronger focus on the answer rather than the problem. They are satisfied with their contribution to their meeting.

How do you inventory your fellowship? How would you assess recovery as opposed to mere sobriety? Do you differentiate between sobriety or abstinence from recovery? Do you measure objectively or subjectively the impact you are having? Inventorying a fellowship could be done by comparing the group to or measuring it against the promises in Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 83, or using the inventory questions in “What is an AA Group?” How can we encourage people to move on from mere sobriety to a healthy sexuality? We do a better job of helping people set boundaries rather than just stopping behaviors. Some in the other S-fellowships see themselves as more inclined to offer a negative sobriety than a positive recovery. Also, some who do service get over-extended and stop being involved. Those who put on conferences seem especially susceptible to burnout. Rotation of trusted servants is crucial.

Interaction with the Media

Do you use any non-addict representatives to speak about your fellowship? SCA and SAA do not have non-addicts on their boards. SAA grants interviews with the media. They allowed a reporter to interview members at their recent convention in Houston. SLAA has non-addict members on their board, but they do not represent SLAA. SLAA has a pamphlet on dealing with the media. All requests are sent first to the board. If approved by the board, then the Public Information Committee (PIC) receives the request. If the PIC approves the request, they forward it to the Speaker Bureau that assigns a member to the interview. SCA has a public service announcement kit that includes a broadcast quality tape and printed information.

Conclusions

1. SA needs to focus on 12-Step recovery and SA’s sobriety definition. SA needs to deal with lust, sex outside of heterosexual marriage, and masturbation. Having those issues in our sobriety definition makes us different from other S-fellowships and able to help addicts who want recovery in those areas.

2. Other S-fellowships carry their message of sexual recovery more effectively than SA. We need to learn from the other fellowships.

3. SA will benefit from friendly and open relationships with the other S-fellowships. We need them. They are earnest about recovery and working the Steps. Understanding their differences helps us. If we isolate ourselves from the other fellowships, we might feel more of an obligation to be all things to all people. In isolation, SA could become proud and start to believe that SA has a corner on God.