Before I could truly work Step Eleven, I had to first find the God of my understanding. This was not easy for me. Even though I had worked the previous ten Steps with my sponsor, I realized that I still was not able to have conscious contact with God in any meaningful way.

In completing my Third Step, I followed a suggestion to write a letter to my Higher Power. I thought the suggestion a bit unusual until I realized that by taking Step Three, I would be in effect entering into a covenant of sorts with my Higher Power, and that a letter would be an effective way to document my side of the agreement.

In the Big Book story “Acceptance Was the Answer” (407), the author notes that his own home is the most difficult place to work his program (419), and that he eventually had to work the Steps a second time, focusing exclusively on his marriage. Following are two examples that show how specific Steps have helped me become the kind of spouse I want to be.

Our 2nd Annual Dublin Convention will take place at our beautiful and relaxing Emmaus Centre, located just 10 minutes from the Dublin Airport. We are especially grateful to be able to hold our convention at such a beautiful setting.

I’m David, a grateful recovering sexaholic from Toronto. My wife and I wrote the following song after the Denver SA/S-Anon International convention in July 2009, with the idea of singing it at the January convention in Nashville.

I get very uncomfortable when I hear: “These are my boundaries. I focus on my boundaries. If I don’t do a, b, c, x, y, and z—then I will be OK.”

It is important for me to understand the spiritual nature of my disease for several reasons. First, if it is truly spiritual, then it doesn’t matter what the drug is, and everything in the AA literature is also true for me.

When I first came to SA in December 1999, I had 15 years of AA sobriety, had sponsored many men, and had spoken at meetings and conferences. I felt arrogant in SA meetings.

The ancient Hebrews used a bag of rocks to cast lots and determine the will of God. Each rock was inscribed with Hebrew letters. Every time the lot was cast, one rock always had the correct answer. The priest did not have the power to pull out the correct rock every time. Only God had the power to bring the rock with the correct answer for that moment to the place where the priest’s hand could grab it.

Next week I will have surgery to remove some pre-cancerous cells from my nose. I was okay until I got a little pamphlet entitled “You’ve Been Diagnosed with Skin Cancer—What Now?”

A member with one year of sobriety recently wrote to me, asking me to describe the meaning of progressive victory over lust. He said, “I know the sobriety definition, but how can I define whether or not I’m sober with progressive victory over lust?”

Now that Roy has passed, it is incumbent on all of us to carry on his primary emphasis on recovery from Lust. Unlike other “S” fellowships, where the emphasis is on the powerlessness over acting out, we in SA emphasize our powerlessness over lust.

I cringe with self-centered fear each time I hear a sexaholic attempting to assuage the pain and shame of a relapse by subtly downplaying the value of his or her lost sobriety.

In Tasmania, we have a meeting location at Deloraine, midway between Ulverstone and Launceston. However, this is a round trip of 140 km for me and 100 km for a second member. A third member lives in Hobart, 300 km from Ulverstone and 200 km from Launceston. Thus, the three of us usually meet by conference call.

When I started my journey of recovery, I was not prepared to call myself a sexaholic. Even though my life was unmanageable, I knew I had a problem with sex, and I was attracted to men, I did not believe I was powerless over lust.

Dear Fellow SA Members:
This quarter I would like to share my deep gratitude for Roy K.’s impact on my life, as I have expressed in my following letter to him.

The Middle Tennessee Fellowships will once again host the winter International Conventions. Our theme describes the result of following the journey of Twelve Step Recovery: when we thoroughly follow this path, we will have a spiritual awakening and enter into the “Fellowship of the Spirit.”

The Reno, Nevada group has two meetings a week and four regular members. We have a website and are working on other ways to pass the message about our meetings, in a manner that is attractive and not promotive.

Following are the last three paragraphs from Roy’s final letter to the fellowship.
I love this fellowship—with the whole history of its problems and adversity. God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.

Writing from your heart the vision splendid,
Endowing SAs hence to know God’s power,
Let love for fellow members be unended,
Let the healing Twelve flourish and flower.