The service structure has evolved over the past several years, and has been designed to reflect SA’s unique purpose and requirements.

I wanted to extend to the fellowship my heartfelt appreciation for all the love and support you have shown me upon the death of my husband. The concern you have expressed has only confirmed what I have begun to believe as I work in the Central Office… being part of SA is a wonderful place to be and a rewarding experience.

I used to think that the feelings of emptiness and loneliness I so often experienced in early sobriety were key amongst the triggers so inexorably leading me back to my drug — whether in sex with myself or to yet more of the same old relationships. Nowadays I am coming to see those feelings for what they really are, a sure sign that I have already acted out. Those feelings are not the cause of my acting out, but the result of it.

As I experience recovery, I’m finding that all the work I wanted countless others to do, I have to do myself. “The program is simple … keep the focus on myself … it works if I work it.” How many times have I heard those things! And it’s true! Over and over [I see that] simple works, and when I don’t keep it simple, I isolate and stay in my head and go nuts with resentments and anger, blocking what God is trying to tell me.

I am a 47-year-old sexaholic, lustaholic, alcoholic inmate, serving a sentence of 18-80 years, for a variety of crimes. The majority of my life has been spent behind the walls of one institution after another. This is the only “home” I know. There was a sex crime involved in each one of my adult convictions (but I began acting out at the age of 13).

I went to meetings and tried to live in the Program. I got closer to God, talked “about” the Steps, called people up—and some things changed in my life—but I was still in control. Only after I came back from a four-month residential treatment program, when my current relationship fell apart, when I didn’t have a job anymore—when I was just confronted with myself and without my drug—only then could I finally surrender to the fact that I couldn’t manage my own life.

It has been such a long time since I last sent a letter to our SA Central Office. I thank God today for the willingness and the courage to write.

In a ski-lodge on the side of a snow capped Mt. Kosciusko, Australia’s highest mountain, the first Australian SA Conference was held over the last weekend of April. … Members attended from Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra, and Northern New South Wales. Greetings to the conference were received on tape from a loner in Brisbane and by letter from a member in prison.

The Sunday West SA group of Portland, Oregon is alive and well. Our fellowship has around ten attendees on any given Sunday night.

The working paper has hit the nail on the head. Thank you for naming the problem. When I first came into SA, I came into a very strong group. The group was my sponsor as there were no women sponsors available in SA. I knew I could stay sober going to this group every week. I came into the fellowship in March 1989. I had wanted SA sobriety for a long time before I knew that there was a group with this sobriety.

Here are a few of my own SACC and prison experiences I would like to share with you:

COOC continues to receive advice and consultation on various tax and employment issues concerning employee vs. contractor status for former employees of the Central Office. The new accountant in Nashville has prepared the Annual Report for 1994, pending double checking of some figures. The accountant will file an extension on the 1994 tax return, Federal and California State.

Regarding the article in the December 1994 Essay on raising/creating the Essay consciousness and ideas for offsetting the cost of Essay, in our group conscience, here are thoughts and ideas which came up:

You should have received a new and very important “working paper” from the SA Literature Committee titled “Practical Guidelines for Group Recovery” with the last issue of the Essay newsletter. This material has already proven very helpful in improving meeting quality, sponsorship, and in reversing the tide of slipping most groups experience.

Question: “How can SA as a fellowship work the Steps; I thought only individuals could do that?”
Response: “The idea does sound kind of new and strange, doesn’t it? But let’s see what it might look like.”

Our situation as a people coming out of sexual slavery is not unlike the story of the people coming out of bondage from Egypt. Years of enslavement brought them to utter despair, crying out to God for help. Through an amazing series of events. they were led out—often kicking and screaming in unbelief—only to find themselves wandering in the wilderness. Free at last, on the outside, they soon discovered the harsh reality that theirs was a spiritual malady inside. The severity of withdrawal brought back the craving for the old way of life.

Excerpts from two inquirers’ responses, July 1981:
“Thank you and God bless you in your work. You’ll never know how many lives you have helped.”

This is my story. It is not very pretty and I made some real bad choices in my life. Understand that I do not blame all the things in my early life for the things I did later. I used to use the fact that my own father turned me out when I was 12 as a reason for what I did. This was only a way for me not to accept the responsibility for my own actions.

It does not surprise me to find that the majority of us are too busy working on ourselves to be of much use to others. That’s been my story for years now! Recovery intensifies feelings which consume my time and thoughts and it takes years to reorganize life out of the insanity of my past.

As an active sexaholic, I always wanted to get back to feeling what I referred to as “normal.” I would look at other people and think: “Hey, they’re normal, why can’t I be like them?” Then I’d automatically go after my drug, and soon enough, I’d feel what I fancied was “normal” again. And this worked pretty well for a number of years, except that to continue feeling what I called “normal,” I needed a constant supply, and lost my life in the process.