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.…

The other day I learned a crucial lesson. I was feeling in a confrontative mood and was inappropriately (for meeting time anyway) challenging one after another for their lack of sobriety and recovery. A good friend of mine went last and had a slip and sounded confused in his sharing. Being disappointed, I also let him have it.

I’m so grateful for SA for putting me on a spiritual path!

SA in Ft. Worth continues to grow in numbers as well as in sobriety. We have averaged around ten people per meeting all summer. Last Thursday, we had fifteen in attendance. This is an all-time high for us and hopefully an indication of things to come.

The Gooding SA Group is growing in numbers and sobriety. We have two meetings a week, and have also started one in Twin Falls, which will no doubt soon become independent of us, as there are increasing numbers in recovery in Twin Falls. It is exciting to see the changes in our lives as we surrender our lust and share together.

The SA Convention in July in Rochester, New York, was a beautiful experience for those of us able to attend. Feedback still being received indicates that nearly everyone who was there felt that we had achieved a spirit of unity and recovery that many of us had never seen before.

One of the workshops at the recent SA convention in Rochester was on the topic of meeting quality. Those workshop comments are listed below, without evaluation. It was not always possible to neatly separate the comments into those things that detract from good meeting quality and things that help, but this was the general scheme followed in the workshop.

In the May Essay “Food For Thought” column, an elaboration of SA’s sobriety statement was presented for member reaction. So far, only some eight groups and individuals have responded. This small sampling, inconclusive as it is, has created quite a furor. Apparently, people are either very much for it or very much against it.

The Riverside fellowship celebrated its first birthday as a group on March 7th. We also have had two individual sobriety birthdays and another coming up next week. God has blessed us with recovery and it’s catching! We have doubled our regular membership in the past few months and we have a new meeting in Redlands.…

…I’m only ten months in the program with half that many months of sobriety and I give thanks to God for steering me back towards life. The phone list, the literature, the meetings, most importantly the Twelve Steps and those that have gone ahead of us, give us hope.

I think this program is really good for me. I think SA when I get up and when I go to bed. To me SA is like the…song, You Light Up My Life. Thank you all very much. May God bless you all.

…I am a high-bottom alcoholic and a low-bottom sex drunk…sexually sober for 14 months. I am eternally grateful…to SA, and to God for my new lease on life. I have received many blessings throughout my life, but my sexual sobriety is the most precious.…

I was totally enthralled with how Higher Power brought it all together. It happened in spite of us. It flowed in a way no one could have made happen. I really felt the Presence. It moved me greatly.

Included with this issue is the report of the Group Conscience Committee on their proposal for a procedure for taking an SA-wide group conscience. This report summarizes feedback coming into Central Office from responding SA groups since the proposal was issued last December.

Since it was announced at the Los Angeles convention last December, Roy and the Central Office have been using the International Group Conscience Committee in an ad hoc temporary advisory capacity in day-to-day matters involving Central Office or SA as a whole. This is the only active representative body SA has at present, and it has been working extremely well. Following are some recent decisions made: