Dear Fellow SA Members:
The General Delegate Assembly (GDA) held its annual face-to-face meeting on July 24-25 in Chicago. Although the GDA meets quarterly, this is our only face-to-face meeting. Two full days of meetings resulted in action being taken on a multitude of agenda items.

I’m Barbara, a sexaholic, sober since December 12, 2001 and ESSAY Editor newsletter since March 2007. I’m grateful to the fellowship for allowing me to be of service all these years; this has been one of the biggest blessings of my recovery. Thus it is with much sadness that I must inform the fellowship that—because of ongoing health issues—I will be resigning as Editor after we publish the December 2015 issue.

Our path of recovery is illuminated when we reflect on our past, celebrate our progress, and share our experience, strength, and hope with others. We invite you to join members from all over the world as we gather in San Diego, CA for the SA International Convention, a spiritual weekend of Twelve Step reflection, celebration, and hope.

The third SA Colombia Congress, held in the city of Cali, was a wonderful event—a source of great joy! We enjoyed meeting many new members in person, and reconnecting with others. For several months beforehand, we met via Skype, and we held a preparation meeting in the city of Pereira in order to share ideas and plan for the Congress.

Wouldn’t it be great to attend a convention without leaving home? That’s exactly what some SA members around the world discovered when the EMER Convention in Birmingham, UK, was live-streamed on the Internet. More than 20 people are believed to have listened online, and numerous expressions of thanks and even delight were received.

In the personal story near the front of the White Book, the writer says, “Masturbation again” (SA 14). So here I am, with two years of SA sobriety, doing my Step One again, at my sponsor’s suggestion. The process was similar to the first time I did Step One, but this time it was more fruitful because I was not acting alone.

My name is Pablo and I’m a sexaholic. I attend the SA fellowship here in San Antonio—and it’s a great fellowship! I first came into SA two years ago, in November 2013, and I just turned 24 this week. Recovery has been a long journey for me since then. I’ve struggled with working the Steps and staying sober.

I have been a member of SA, and by the grace of God sexually sober, for the past seven years. My sobriety is not the product of my best thinking or willpower, because for 28 years I searched for sobriety but could not get one full day lust-free.

In May 2012, I found SA and became very curious about how the program worked. I got a sponsor right away, and she told me that one way to get myself out of my head—to stop thinking of myself—was to become involved and be of service.

I just left an SA meeting, where a young member’s share struck fear into my heart. He reminded me of my own past, and I was so profoundly moved that I felt compelled to share a bit of my story with him in the parking lot after the meeting.

Today I’m tired. My body aches from a long week, and I feel physically and emotionally exhausted. In many ways, I am experiencing the “HALT” (Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired) symptoms described in the White Book (34). Although I’ve been fasting as part of my religious practice, I’m not just hungry for food.

I’m grateful to have celebrated five years of sexual sobriety this past August. I don’t believe I would be sober (or three years married!) without help from my Higher Power, Who has helped me find progressive victory over lust. Through the fellowship of SA, my Higher Power has given me the tools that others have used to surrender lust, one day at a time.

Some of us come into these rooms crawling on our hands and knees because we know we have no option other than to stop our destructive way of life. Others, like myself, are pushed into these rooms and—if we are fortunate—we too discover that we had no other options, that our lives are unmanageable, and that we are insane.

I’m a lust drunk from England, sober for 20 years—since April 12, 1995—by the grace of God and the fellowship of SA. But my road to SA was a long one.

I’m Bernd, a sexaholic from Munich, and I’m grateful to have been a part of the Munich team that organized (with God’s help) the German-Speaking convention this year. The convention was held in Zavelstein near Stuttgart. The theme for the weekend was “Honesty.”

At EMER’s first Regional Convention in Warsaw in 2013, five women met from five countries (Luxembourg, Ireland, Holland, Spain, Poland). We had never met before, and most of us were the only women in our home meetings. This was a wonderful experience, and we started two projects: a Women’s Skype meeting and an EMER Support for Women Committee.

On May 15-17, SA’s Europe and Middle East Region (EMER) held its third annual Regional SA Convention, with S-Anon participation, in Birmingham, UK. After our first convention in Warsaw in 2013 and our second in Jerusalem last year, our UK fellows took the initiative to host this annual event.

My name is Chuck, and I’m a recovering sexaholic. I’ve been sexually sober since June 3, 2013. When I was 12, I began looking at various magazines, seeking out pictures of women in them, and I would sneak them home to act out. At 13, while babysitting, I found pornographic magazines and began looking at women as sex objects.

He would tell anyone who would listen that SA saved his life.
On March 10, 2015, Fenner U., one of SA’s longest-standing and staunchest members, went home to be with God.

My name is Jim B., and I’m a sexaholic in recovery. For the past three months, I’ve been working on my Fourth Step with the guidance of my sponsor. The journey has led me through the gamut of emotions, and it has given me a significant amount of insight into how my past characteristics have manifested themselves and impacted others.