It has been a long time since having written to you.
The Loners Group has gone from a high of 30 back down to a current low of 14. It might help if you re-installed the notice in the ESSAY. Since the omission of the notice, inquiries have dropped off. Thanks.

Our group has become quite solid with our attendance ranging 20-25. We are pleased to be able to contribute to your good works.

Howdy from Oklahoma City, OK.
We are growing and getting stronger down here. Groups seem to regularly exceed ten people in a meeting. We have also started an intergroup for our three groups. There is also talk of a fourth group being started.

Greetings from Erie, PA. We’re struggling with people persevering in the program. We do have a committed core group of three or four but we hang in there for ourselves and hopefully can help the “newcomers.”

…Things are going well with our Monday night meeting here in Grand Junction. We fluctuate in size as people try us out. Not everyone is ready for the work and honesty required for healing. We pray God will lead them there eventually.

…I am writing because the SA group here in Wichita is sponsoring an SA Retreat in October.…

[The following is a note pinned to the wall behind Roy’s desk. It was sent in by an SA member.—Ed.]
Institutions remain cumbersome, easily seduced by their own self-interest, preoccupied with their own survival.

The International Group Conscience Committee selections are now complete. We are happy to announce the results to the Fellowship at this time.

I just wanted to drop you a note sharing with you our excitement at the wonderful Conference we just experienced here in Nashville. We were so pleased at the turnout at the Conference. Instead of the 180-200 we were anticipating, over 300 people arrived in Nashville to attend the Conference. It was a wonderful few days.

Two women members ask: “We are very interested in knowing the experiences of other groups and members on the matter of hugging between members.”

Every November, the AA Grapevine has what is called its “Classic Issue,” reprinting articles from AA’s past that are relevant to today. The November 1989 issue of the Grapevine has two articles that may be of interest to us in SA.

This is the story of a Lust-aholic leading two incompatible lives and at the same time almost cracking up while doing so. I grew up in a Christian family. My father died when I was three, and as a result my mother stayed depressed for many years. In a way we children grew up alone.

I can’t do recovery by myself. That’s for sure. I have tried it often enough and failed. At the same time for me to be in recovery, and stay in recovery, I must do my own inventory. No one else can do it for me.

On October 7, 1989, at the Southern California Regional Convention (held in Orange County October 6, 7, and 8), the Women’s Willingness Group was born. This was a joint meeting of SA and S-Anon women.

…I haven’t written you for a considerable time. I had joined SA when a prison chapter was begun at the Medium facility of the Kansas State Penitentiary in May 1986, and I was a loyal participant there, got to know Matt well, until I was transferred to Wichita, KS, in 1988.

We are up and struggling again. Two, maybe three members.

The LORD is good. We have gotten a meeting place… Two, sometimes three, and yes, there are times I meet alone, but those are rare…

SA is alive and well in Casper. Two of us have been meeting each Monday night for several months now, and we have just had the first response to our notice in the newspaper.…

…Our attendance has fallen somewhat in the past two months, but our spirits are growing and recovery is still spreading in the West Suburban area.…

…We are just about to add one more women’s stag meeting and another Friday meeting, too. Our “original” Thursday meeting just moved its site to accommodate the steady 30+ attendance plus an S-Anon running between 10-15 each time. This program is a miracle.