B.S. of Stuart, Florida writes, “Thank you. Everything I get from you keeps me going. We have 2 meetings per week, 3 members. I am the old timer (6 mos. sobriety) so I need help from others.”

P.C. of St. Louis reports, “Four weeks ago I was introduced to SA. I frankly have found the program very beneficial and a source of strength. Although I am also a recovering alcoholic 5 1/2 years now since my last (hopefully) drink, I did not realize that SA was a disease like the alcoholic addiction.

SA Office Telephone. The SA office phone is now being answered during working hours. Nan, our non-sexaholic secretary, will be picking up the calls, unless she’s out getting the mail, etc. You can leave any messages with her without fear of jeopardizing your anonymity.

Jesse L. has made the suggestion that the writing and revision effort on the SA booklet should be frozen where it is, with the exception of going back to the original wording of the statement on sobriety and including the First Step Inventory.

Jesse L. has raised the question of going back to the previous wording of our sobriety statement on page 4 of the SA booklet. The revised statement currently reads:

We need stories from regular SA members with uninterrupted sobriety of one year or more according to our SA concept of sexual sobriety. This means no sexual experience with the self or others other than the spouse and progressive victory over lust for at least one year.

Seven pieces have been included with this newsletter for your perusal. Make whatever use of them you can, and if you care to, please comment.

The next Western Regional Convention—open to the whole fellowship, of course—is being hosted by the Seattle, Portland, Eugene, Vancouver, and Victoria groups and is slated for June 7, 8, and 9.

First off, Rick and Jeannette want to “thank everybody for making it possible.” And we want to thank you, Rick and Jeannette, and all the anonymous ones we don’t have names for who helped put it together and made it work. And we thank God for helping us all!

To Everyone in SA,
Hi! And welcome to all the newcomers.

1. We need above all, right now, to be honest with ourselves as to where we really are today and where SA really is today. The same kind of honesty we need sharing in meetings, only at the group and national level. Let us not think more highly of ourselves than we ought to think.

Regarding the work here at Central, I’m not the one who started calling this operation the General Service Office. Other members and groups began referring to it in that way, apparently because it was serving that function, since most of our members are from other Twelve Step programs, such as AA, and know about AA’s GSO in NYC.

From the beginning, I have followed the principle of “least possible organization” (Ninth Tradition long form) when it comes to organizational structure at the national level, which is the principle most groups follow at the group level. That’s the principle that worked so well in AA. As AA developed in Akron and NYC, then started to spread, it had no organizational structure whatever. It was a spiritual entity that grew from the inside out.

After SA first went national in June of 1981, another member and I spent a month visiting groups trying to get started around the country. (What a marvelous time we had! And we both got unlimited air mileage for $398, another of those small “coincidences” that we have been party to since we launched out on “a wing and a prayer.”)

Like just about everything else in SA, it seems the book “wasn’t supposed to happen that way.” Here’s how what we now are calling our SA booklet came about and is still coming about. It was written piece by piece over time, each piece responding to or arising from some need in the fellowship.

To All SA Members,
Hi everybody! And welcome to all the new members!

We were just about to get this letter out when we got a call from J.A. in Brunswick, Georgia, telling us about the new SA group there, which we didn’t even know existed. She was sharing a recent experience with me and then read what she’d written during it. I asked her if she’d share it with all of us in this letter.

1. Leaders lead and sharers share. Leaders of meetings are servants of that meeting; they don’t “carry” the meeting; they merely facilitate it.

Here are some principles thrown out for suggestion/feedback:
SA members commit themselves to SA Meetings. They attend every SA meeting they can. On time. Meetings; on time. Why this emphasis?

Under Traditions One and Three, each SA group has the right and responsibility to bring up issues that bear on membership, group unity, and meeting quality. The following are merely suggested for debate and feedback, supporting the idea that if we don’t look out for our unity — both group and SA as a whole — who will?