A Suggested Approach to SA Self-Responsibility by Roy K.

Background

There’s a program saying that goes, “The road narrows, but the vistas get more beautiful.” This is true not only in personal recovery but in the life of our fellowship. There have always been tough roads to travel in SA, but they’ve led to new and more sublime vistas. We are at another such juncture in the road today. Some hard choices will be made, but we can, in faith of how we’ve been led from above before, be assured that what lies beyond is not only what we need but leads to greater fulfillment and joy.

I believe that everything that has happened in SA has been leading us to the point we are at today. Sobriety-wise and recovery-wise, we have learned in the school of hard knocks what works and what doesn’t work for us. Hundreds of men and women, otherwise trapped in a “seemingly hopeless state of mind and body,” are set free one day at a time from the tyranny of lust and sexual obsession. Thousands of others know there is hope and freedom. And, recently forced to stand and be counted on its most basic issue, the fellowship has come through with a clear majority supporting its traditional stand on what sexual sobriety is for us in SA.

Organization-wise, we have learned much and are still learning. I personally believe every bit of experience we’ve had with the Central Office, the Advisory Committee, and the IGC has been leading us, though we may not have realized it at the time. When I asked for the IGC to be formed in June of 1987, all I thought the fellowship needed was a means of taking an international group conscience. But things have changed, and we know more now. Taking fellowship-wide group consciences is perhaps the least of what constitutes our calling and task. There is much much more.

What is our calling and task? I don’t know about you, but experience has proven to me that our task is not to have greater numbers of members and groups throughout the world. It is not to compete with any other fellowship for the best organizational system, for numbers, recognition, or acclaim. Our calling is to sobriety and true recovery in our own personal lives, issuing in our task of being a channel of God’s grace to others still captive in the prison house of lust, sexual obsession, and misconnection.

I believe that our collective experience in the last ten years has demonstrated that our primary purpose is to carry our message to the sexaholic who still suffers, but that as a fellowship, we have fallen short of that. I thus offer the following suggested approach and plan, which is simply implementing the Twelve Traditions to serve what I hope will become that primary purpose.

Rather than provide an exact blueprint, I offer the following as a concept, which I hope the fellowship will now seek ways of implementing.

Concepts Underlying this Approach

1. The principle upon which this approach is based is that SA at heart is a spiritual organism with God as its source of life and leader. This is my personal conviction, and this is the kind of recovery fellowship I must have for myself. Some would say SA is merely an organization, an association of those seeking relief from sex addiction. It is that, of course, but at heart, it is becoming more and more apparent to me that for us to enjoy true sobriety and recovery from this impossible malady, SA must first be a spiritual, rather than an organizational entity. That is one reason why we must first be one in our concept of what sobriety and recovery are for us. That is also why without such sobriety and recovery, SA is nothing. This is why I believe we need what I will propose as a Spiritual Foundation Service. SA must not be built merely upon an organizational foundation or be driven by an organizational force or agenda. Such a danger is all too present.

2. The plan’s basic aim is to implement the Twelve Traditions of SA in our collective experience by having groups of members working together in Tradition-related Services. Thus, the various Services should cover the requirements of all twelve of our Traditions, which are the blueprint from which this approach is fashioned.

3. Members, instead of being elected to office, volunteer and are confirmed for service, thereby facilitating the humility of anonymity. This has been the approach taken in Germany. (See “How SA Service Is Done in Germany,” written by Ruth P.) This plan eliminates the need for Roy’s oversight of the CO, the Central Office Advisory Committee, and the IGC and would do more than all these combined. We are grateful for the selfless work of many who served.

4. Instead of SA having any top decision-making body, groups of members serve together in common tasks, yet are also answerable to the fellowship as a whole.

5. Thus, there is no “organization” as such, fulfilling the spirit and intent of our Ninth Tradition. Members who meet the requirements volunteer, are confirmed, serve, and answer to the whole fellowship through delegates.

Today we stand at a crossroads: Looking at our increasing world services opportunities, we can on the one hand create an organizational system, a political apparatus, or, on the other hand, we can band together as a spiritual entity in the joyous upward calling of carrying our own personal message to those still suffering. It is my hope and prayer that members of the rank and file, those unequivocally committed to SA’s revalidated sobriety interpretation, men and women who are living it in their lives, will become this spiritual entity and discover the life-giving joy of service.

As you will see below, however, what I am proposing leaves no room for personalities above principle.

The Services

Each of the following Services has its own discrete band of SA members. The question of whether any one member would serve on more than one Service is an important one. There may be isolated cases where this might be useful, but caution is urged here due to temptations to power and prestige. The aim would be that over time, with the principle of rotating service in place, opportunities would thus be given for many members to participate. Of course, the Central Office would still be the communications link between the rest of the world and the fellowship and, as necessary, within the fellowship itself.

A Spiritual Foundation Service The idea, taken from the words in our Twelfth Tradition, is for SA members themselves to safeguard, perpetuate, and enhance the spiritual principles of our program.

This Service, as SA itself, rests on three imperatives: 1) the newly revalidated interpretation of SA’s sobriety definition—SA’s sobriety imperative, 2) the recovery imperative—this sobriety actually realized in lives, and 3) the Twelfth Step outreach imperative—changed lives reproducing other lives. Here again, I cannot emphasize strongly enough: Unity in real recovery is the foundation of recovery outreach.

What is the Twelfth Step imperative? It is the spiritual principle that we receive life by sharing our life with others. “Carrying the message” is a personal, individual transaction between one sexaholic and another, between one group and the outside world, where sober recovering sexaholics reach out to those who still suffer. The Twelfth seems increasingly to be the “lost Step” in the Twelve-Step movement today. But without it, there is no truly recovering individual or fellowship.

I appeal to the fellowship itself to fulfill this service. It may seem hard to get a handle on what this Service would be about because it deals with abstractions, yet this service is crucially important to SA.

The task of this Service would thus be to help the fellowship implement the above three imperatives—Sobriety, Recovery, and Service (Traditions Three, One, and Five). This Service would help SA implement and maintain its vision and primacy of purpose, safeguarding its unity.

Why not have such a Service assess SA meeting quality and effectiveness to discover what isn’t working and what is? The aim would be to tackle problems created by such things as “Supporting the Illness,” “The Slipper Syndrome,” large influx of newcomers, no influx of newcomers, too much “drunk-talk,” not enough sobriety or sponsorship, non-SA approaches that weaken our program and recovery, etc. Perhaps this Service should consider testing the Philadelphia model.*

*The Philadelphia slipper syndrome model: When the group feels a member’s continued slipping is obviously no longer contributing to his or her recovery, the group confronts the slipping member, letting him or her know how they feel. If the situation continues, the group makes another decision on whether to invite the member to leave. The principle-before-personality issue here is that under certain conditions, we find ourselves supporting the illness in the individual and thus weakening the group’s recovery power and spiritual unity. This kind of situation is becoming increasingly felt in SA. There should be a way the problem can be addressed and solutions suggested by one or more of our Services.

An important contribution of such a Service would be finding ways the fellowship can become closer, more intimate at the group level, such as: making connections with rest of the fellowship; inter-group speaker/sharing swaps in adjoining regions; joint Twelfth Step work; looking into home circles, retreats, Step Studies, Step Study families; praying together for the fellowship, groups, slippers, sexaholics who still suffer, and how to reach them; etc.

I hope such a Service would come to depend on working the Eleventh Step together on these most important issues.

Central Office Oversight Service (Traditions Five, Seven, Eight, and Nine) This need was apparent in 1987 in Bozeman, where I asked for a committee of like name. We need it now more than ever to:

• Serve as liaison or interface between CO and the fellowship. (The Central Office Advisory Committee has been doing some of this.)
• Make day-to-day decisions affecting CO operation that should not be made by the CO staff and need not be fellowship-wide decisions. This includes decisions concerning CO staff.
• Oversee the financial affairs of SA.
• Make sure CO is fully accountable for SA moneys, services, archives, and records.
• Make sure that the CO is maintained in a businesslike manner and that staff is functioning appropriately. Makes sure CO is operating efficiently. Supervise audits and work of CPAs.
• See that work goes out to the appropriate Services.
• Safeguard integrity of SA literature and logo (trademark).
• Make sure the CO represents the “voice and spirit of SA” to the world.
• Make sure every newcomer gets on the Essay mailing list.
• The Essay newsletter editorship has been held by myself and passed on to various individuals in the past. The last edition was done by Lawrence M. of Virginia, who has agreed to handle it if a direct line of communication with CO, such as FAX, can be set up.

A New Group Service (Tradition Five) SA itself should “carry its message to the sexaholic who still suffers.” The Central Office should only be an instrument (and definitely not the only one) through which this is done. The recovering Fellowship—not the CO—should represent and transmit the essence and spirit of our program to new members and groups.

• This Service would be advised by the CO of every new group or potential group that is formed, even if it be but one individual trying to start a group. The Service would provide immediate interim sponsorship, clarify SA’s interpretation of sobriety, give help in meeting structure and format and use of literature, provide ideas for Twelfth Step work, tell of our no-interview-with-the-media policy, get the group involved with conventions and retreats, and be helpful all-around. Historically, this job has been done by the CO, but it belongs to the fellowship. We are not a professional outfit; we are responsible. And this work is part of our recovery program and the source of our joy!
• This Service would also see to it that member correspondence the CO cannot or should not handle is responded to. For example, a member writes or calls in asking for advice on how to stay sober or how to run a meeting or how to work the Steps, special problems, etc. This Service would also take the place of any loner member resource, which is too much for any one individual to handle.
• This Service might want to consider the Pittsburgh principle of expansion for suggested trial: When new groups are formed in an area, the trusted servant leading that new group is an experienced member from the parent group, until such time as sobriety and leadership have sufficiently grown in the new group. This procedure helps the new group avoid many pitfalls and difficulties and provides unity, shared experience, and support. Travel expenses can be shared.

A Prison Service The prison work has proven to be too vast for any one individual and too Twelve-Step oriented for the present Central Office. It needs a dedicated group of concerned SA members to handle inquiries and correspondence from the numerous prisons and hundreds of inmates. The magnitude of the prison work amounts to a “Central Office” within the Central Office. The need is for such a group to respond to inquiries from sexaholics in prison or newly released, and serves the same function for them as the New Group Service does for other groups and individuals. (See the Prison Packet Pat has prepared in the CO.) Perhaps this Service would also coordinate work on sexual abuse policies. My personal feeling is that this Service should have members who have had encounters with the law and also those who have not, in judicious proportion. It is conceivable that the Prison Service might well be a subunit of the New Group Service.

A Conference Service (Ninth Tradition) We need to develop a set of guidelines that the SA International Conferences (and perhaps other conferences as well) would follow regarding matters relating to the conferences. This Service partially exists in very loose form, but has become cumbersome due to the fact that its membership is continually changing. With the new emphasis on self-responsibility and the delegate structure I am proposing in this plan, such a conference service takes on a whole new meaning and challenge.

A Tradition Six, Ten, and Eleven Service We need the Fellowship itself to watch over these very crucial Traditions Six, Ten, and Eleven today—SA misconnections, public controversy, and public relations. As but one example, this Service would help guard and protect SA from the pressure of forces trying to affiliate with and/or speak for SA or for SA itself moving toward other such forces. This is increasingly important, given the forceful and pervasive movement to integrate the Twelve Step Program, including SA, with therapy, other fellowships, and other institutions.

It is not uncommon for therapists, for example, to want to start an SA group, even though they themselves are not members. We’ve also had problems with groups affiliating with treatment centers or religious organizations. Many related requests and situations arise requiring individual attention and consistent policy. Close liaison of this Service with the CO is required, since the CO usually is first to learn of such situations.

This service could also see how we might be being diverted from our primary purpose through money, property, prestige, and anything else (Tradition Six).

* * *

I hope I have communicated something of the feel I have for this new approach. I believe the above services are what SA needs today to become self-supporting according to the spirit of our Seventh Tradition and manage its own affairs. The exact number or form these Services take is unimportant. These could be modified as experience dictates, and other Services can be added as needs become apparent.

General Responsibilities of the Services

The Services should have such a union of spirit and purpose that they pray and work together for the fellowship’s needs and concerns and ask for discernment and guidance in their special tasks, per Tradition Two. Let’s allow and ask God into the work of our fellowship! Without God we can’t…

Services select their own chairperson and other positions, as applicable. Rotating leadership should be implemented.

Every service is responsible to and reports to the conference of delegates (described below) at the annual (or semiannual) conferences.

No one Service has authority over any of the other Services or over the fellowship as a whole.

Service members have one- or two-year tenure (or longer), as appropriate, subject to ratification by the conference of delegates. Service members can be replaced by group-conscience decision of that Service.

Each Service will develop its own outline of policy and procedures, subject to ratification by the conference delegates. This would include specifying Service tasks, means of implementing them, documenting and reporting their activities, etc. These outlines should also be made available to the delegates and to the fellowship.

Services periodically evaluate their own membership and performance. Services are responsible within themselves as well as to the fellowship.

Groups/intergroups help finance sending Service members to conferences.

Groups, intergroups, and possibly the CO, can help defray extraordinary expenses of the work of the Services.

The fellowship can go to the appropriate Service and/or delegates to present issues.

Services solicit SA member input and feedback in the process of doing their work.

It is suggested that each Service be thoroughly conversant with appropriate sections (if not the whole) of AA’s Big Book and Twelve and Twelve and the long form of the Traditions (back of the AA book).

Delegates and the National Conferences

The above Services are answerable to the national conference of delegates representing SA at large. A scheme for electing delegates—even a temporary one to get things started—should be devised and implemented. For starters, say one delegate for every five or so SA groups, regardless of group size, would serve a specified term. Delegates would ratify or suggest changes to the Service policy and procedures outline of each Service and review the work of each Service at the conferences. Delegates represent their areas to the conference and represent the conference to their areas.

Groups/intergroups help finance sending their delegates to conferences.

Such a delegate structure will take time to implement, but I’m hoping we can get started on a plan and on our Service commitments at Chicago, even if it means a small beginning. New beginnings should probably be small and grow from the inside out, anyway.

Conferences would be held annually or semiannually. How do we make sure our Higher Power runs the conferences? Consider having a standard conference Business Meeting format that would be followed. Consider rotating conference business meeting chairperson, or other alternatives. Each Service gives its report to the delegates at the conference. Matters requiring vote are voted on by the delegates or by delegates and Services, as the fellowship would decide.

All delegates and service members hear all the Service reports and participate in the conference. Thought should be given to possibly having separate Service conferences and SA fellowship get-togethers. The two-conventions-per-year idea might be retained in this way.

Matters Requiring Fellowship-wide Group Conscience

What if an “IGC” type issue comes before the fellowship? We could set up a mechanism to handle that matter at the time; we don’t need a top “governing body” just to take a fellowship-wide vote. That’s what I’ve learned from recent IGC experience. There’s so much more to SA self-responsibility than just taking fellowship-wide group consciences. It’s the day-to-day meat-and-potatoes work the fellowship must become self-responsible for and what we need set into place immediately.

If SA has an issue needing attention that can’t be handled by one or more of the Services, or can’t wait for the next conference of delegates, the chair of each of the services could be called together on conference call, and they could make a group conscience decision. But such a decision would be accountable to the next conference of delegates. Each chair would represent the decision of their respective Service members. Such a procedure eliminates the need for any authoritative body at the top.

Requirements for Services and Delegates

Please read my paper entitled, “Reasons Why I Believe Those in National Service Should Be of One Mind and Heart on SA Sobriety.”

I strongly suggest that the following requirements apply equally to those being considered for delegates as well as those on the Services. Applicants would provide a written response to the following items: (One of the other sex-addiction fellowships requires that the entire fellowship review the “credentials” of those seeking office.) An interim group of qualified members gathered in Chicago could be a review group for such applications as I hope will be made in Chicago.

1. Your full name, address, phone number, and home SA group.

2. List your length of continuous uninterrupted sexual sobriety as SA defines it, as interpreted in our 12 December 1990 sobriety survey (see March 1991 Essay). (Length of sobriety required in any given Service will be as appropriate to each Service, with minimums established at Chicago.)

3. Do you have any reservations concerning SA’s interpretation of our sobriety definition (item 2, above)? If so, what are they?

4. Is SA your primary sex addiction fellowship? Are you affiliated with any other fellowship or enterprise that might compromise your work on the Service?

5. In accordance with Tradition Two, would you accept “a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience,” as working in your Service?

6. Are you able and willing to put principles before personalities, including your own ego, and be part of the spiritual oneness of the Service. (In the past, the Advisory Committee has always set aside time at the beginning of each conference call for those who wish to share and pray together for guidance and help.) Are you willing to render service without desire for power or control? Are you willing to put SA work first and be available to that Service?

7. Give a very brief version (a paragraph or two) of your story, including what you are sober (or not sober) from and how long.

8. Tell why you would like the job and what you feel you can bring to the Service?

Implementation of the Plan

One problem with this, as with any plan, is that of communication. How do Service members get together, and how does the CO and other work get out to the Services? I feel each Service, once a skeleton crew is in place, can solve the problem. I assume the CO would have a FAX and that the Services would also each have FAX access. Groups, intergroups, and areas could finance conference calls and other expenses. The CO could also help with finances. The fellowship would also thus support sending Service members to the conference.

What we need immediately are the Services, not the delegate structure. Chicago could set in motion a procedure for eventually getting a slate of delegates, but Service work should begin immediately on an interim basis, even with skeleton crews. As this whole plan is set in motion and announced, applications from the fellowship at large would then add to the Services as required.