Enclosed is a check for the support of SA and in appreciation for being left on your mailing list. I have been sober for 18 months. My marriage of 28 years is slowly getting better. I like myself more and I am beginning to experience some peace within myself. I believe that God is working his purposes for His creatures through SA in a marvelous way.

Some notices found on the bulletin board of the Klinik at Bad Herrenalb, West Germany, where Roy held the workshops last November:

We are growing weekly in numbers (12-18 average) and sobriety (90+ days average). Sobriety goals reached are 1 1/2 years (1 member), 1 year (1 member), 9 months (2 members), and several coming up on 6 months. This group is 16 months in existence. Through the grace, love, and power of God, we are staying sober and finding a new way of life.

Things are going well for us here in the Eleventh Hour SA Group. Many are growing in their recovery as we meet each week. We average in attendance about seven members. Again, we would like to thank you for all the help you have been to us in the past. Many times we have asked for information, books, and other material, and have been sent everything we asked for and often more. These things have always proved invaluable to us.

Please call the Central Office for meeting information when on travel. (Roy does not have meeting schedules or contacts at his home telephone number.) If you call our standard number, the call still comes through, but it costs the Central Office a little more. Thank you.

In the last issue of Essay, we published requests for feedback from groups that are experiencing problems or have questions about the way in which meetings should be run. R.B. in Wichita Falls wrote asking how other groups address the problem of a high rate of dropouts, and J.B. in Chicago wrote asking how other groups manage to give everyone enough time to speak.

Roy attended the biannual German SA Convention in Schneverdingen November 4, 5, and 6 and other German SA meetings during his three-week trip in Europe. He had not been to Germany for three years and reports being joyously grateful for the quality of meetings and sobriety there. He reports that the sobriety imperative is “alive and well in Germany.”

I came to SA to save my marriage. I was addicted to sex with my wife and she could not tolerate it anymore. The emptiness left inside from the divorce was so great that no amount of sexual acting out could fill it. It was at this bottom that I got my current sexual sobriety. I accepted the fact of my addiction and knew deep in my heart that sexual sobriety was the only solution.

This past August, by the Grace of God, I celebrated my third “birthday” in this life-saving God-inspired program. Ceaseless are the gifts that befall me in recovery. The gifts come in the form of growth (sometimes painful) by learning more about who I am and acceptance of me, defects and all. I made a list of people I thought I had harmed while doing the first four steps and it was quite impressive.

A note of encouragement to you! I have been involved in the program for several months now and at this point I have an incredible 5 weeks sobriety. Praise God for your program, I don’t think I could do it without the meetings and literature.

As a group, we are in the process of determining what kind of group we want to be. Questions such as:
1. Do we want to be strongly newcomer oriented?

I would like to tell you a little about our group that we have here. Child Molesters Anonymous was founded in 1986 at the Wyoming State Penitentiary. Our founding fathers of this organization saw the need for this type of an ongoing support group. There wasn’t any real help for people like me for my type of crime and I wanted something that would keep me from repeating these crimes over.

We send our best. Our meeting is growing strong! We had two members who celebrated anniversaries of 2 years and one of 4 years! Our conference was a success also. We will be sending a donation from the remaining assets as soon as we get the financial situation reconciled (perhaps another 10 years!).

Finding enough sober people is a problem. Loads of unsober people attend here. Things will change. Something for everyone doesn’t work.

As you remember, over the past year the fellowship has been asked to approve or reject a procedure for taking an international group conscience on issues that affect SA as a whole. What follows is a report on that process, prepared by Katherine D., the chair of the committee to determine an IGC procedure:

Memories of the “Real Connection” International Retreat in Salt Lake City will still be fresh for many members as this issue of the Essay appears. For many of us, this retreat felt like recovery often feels: emotional, sometimes tense and uncomfortable, yet open and secure. As we walked together through sharing our struggles and victories, we began to experience the joy of true union with one another.

We have been meeting regularly for two years with mixed results. We began with a core group of two and have had ten different people attend meetings at one time or another. Our longest period of sobriety is two years, and our shortest is five days. Some older group members have recently slipped, and one has stopped coming.

At the heart of our condition is the drive for union with Person. Bonding. This drive, instead of having been diminished by our misconnections in lust and sex, seemed to increase. Never satisfied with the substitutes, our longing for personal union merely deepened and energized the vain pursuit for the real.

In September, SA group donations paid for an express shipment of literature to the new group in Sidney, Australia! Literature was provided free of charge as a gift from the fellowship. The expression of support was warmly and appreciatively received.

I am writing to thank you for putting me on your mailing list for the Essay newsletter. It’s a terrific piece of literature filled with powerful and inspiring information which has helped me and others I have shared it with tremendously.…