As a member of the SA’s International Committee, I serve as the contact person for the SA community in Russia. I grew up in Moscow and moved to the USA over a decade ago. I found sobriety here after hitting bottom in 2004.

I first went to SA about two years ago, after several years of membership in another S-fellowship. “Knowledge and pride were our chief obstacles here” (SA 91). There was hardly any sobriety in the few young SA groups in my country and no group recovery—and the sobriety definition was being neglected.

The start of SA Belgium is quite a funny story. In July 2008, a Belgian member from another S-fellowship traveled to Akron, OH, to participate in the SA International Convention there. A couple of years before, he had sought help in another fellowship because he wanted to stop… smoking!!

I’m Dave, a happy recovering sexaholic, sober since November 23, 1990. Today, because of SA, I have a better life than I could ever have imagined. But my life hasn’t always been so happy.

The CFC met during the convention in Chicago in July to discuss our committee’s purpose, goals, and methods. Our primary purpose is to support prisoners, staff, and their families. Approximately 20 meetings are held in prisons in 10 states.

Dear Fellow SA Members:
The General Delegate Assembly met on Thursday and Friday July 8-9 prior to the July convention in Chicago. Attendees included 15 Delegates, seven Alternates, seven Trustees, four Trustee nominees, one representative from SAICO, and several observers.

Several of us drove to Ottawa on August 23rd to support a new Ottawa SA meeting. Ottawa (the capital of Canada) has not had an SA meeting since 2003—so we are very grateful to one of our members for taking the initiative to start this meeting.

A member of our group (I’ll call him Billy) has been incarcerated for several years due to his sexaholism. He has developed a beautiful spirit while in prison, and shares with us regularly by mail. In a recent letter he said, “Doing time is not that bad if you focus on building a relationship with God and not get caught up in the junk that goes on here. It’s only by God’s grace that I’ve been able to get through this.”

Sometime back I read a short article that was published in ESSAY (2007, Issue One, p. 9). The article caught my attention. In it, Ed R. shared his practice of setting his phone alarm for 12:12 each day. When the alarm goes off, he says a short prayer of thanks for the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions.

I had been triggered. I was stressed out. I was working my program, but I was in an ugly place. I wanted to vent and complain. I felt justified and was going to let the world know about it. I made a program call.

Like many others, I came to SA for what I thought were good reasons: to get something back, to find something better in my life, or to satisfy some requirement. Yet I really didn’t believe that I was a sexaholic. I knew that my sexual acting out was causing me some problems, but a sex addict? Never!

In previous visits to see my family, my wife and I have established a boundary of staying in a hotel. We learned to set this boundary through experience: it gives us space, privacy, and comfort that we would not have if we stayed at a family member’s house.

In recovery, I’ve learned to make prompt amends. In the past, when I wronged someone but did not make amends right away, the wrong would haunt me for days. A quick amends, however, can erase the toxicity of what I’ve done, and often creates a new connection with the other person (as well as with myself).

I like to look up definitions of words that seem important to me in the Twelve Steps. I use a 1934 Webster’s Dictionary that was current when the Big Book was being written. My love of studying these old definitions somehow turned into a love of making drawings based on them.

For me, the Steps and Traditions have been an education in humility. My first lesson came in Step One, when I recognized and admitted my powerlessness over lust. This humility developed further in Step Two, when I came to believe in a Power greater than myself, and Step Three, when I decided to place that Power in charge of my life.

I came into SA when I was 23. In meetings, I would sometimes hear other members share about the tactics they had used in their sickness to isolate themselves from other sexaholics. I related to their tactics—thus making it easier for me to justify acting out.

I started attending SA meetings regularly in October 2006, when I was 21. I didn’t know very much about recovery or the Twelve Steps, but I knew I needed help for my sexual thinking and behavior.

Seven years ago, when I was 29, I came into SA after crossing one of my boundaries: I had an affair with a married coworker. It wasn’t the affair that made me realize I had a problem, however, but the fact that my affair partner wanted to become emotionally attached and I wasn’t interested.

My struggles with sexual fantasy began when I was five years old. I began masturbating when I was ten. But in the summer of 2009, when I was 27, I walked into SA and have been sober ever since, by the grace of God alone.

I had a great experience at the Chicago Convention. I usually attend non-taped meetings at conventions, so that when I get home and listen to CDs of the taped meetings, I feel like I’m attending a second convention!