The fellowship again fell short of budget projections for revenue from contributions—not surprising in light of the current economy. Catching this trend early in 2009, the Finance Committee, Trustees, and SAICO discussed reducing staff hours and cancelling salary increases.

The CFC is planning to print a newsletter composed mostly of writings by SA members who are incarcerated. Usually prisoners in different facilities are forbidden to communicate with each other. The idea is for the CFC to act as a central receiving location for prisoner-produced articles.

Dear Fellow SA Members,
SA’s Common Welfare should come first; personal recovery depends on SA unity. Unity is the most cherished quality of our fellowship.

Although we knew he was sick—stricken with an aggressive cancer—the death of SA founder Roy K. in September 2009 was a shock to us all in SA. The Editors sent a message through the Delegates: Would a grieving Fellowship care to comment?

I’ve been a member of an SA group in Albuquerque for the last two years. I have also been in therapy for three years. I have had my addiction since I was a teenager, manifesting itself in several types of pornography, then moving into prostitution and more recently adult theatres and Internet pornography.

An important person in my religious tradition who lived at the turn of the 20th century was known to pray a “Litany of Humility” each day. I learned of this prayer long before I entered the program. Like many formal prayers I’ve known and prayed through the years, this one has gained deeper meaning for me since I received a new primary purpose.

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.