1998

Originally published in ESSAY, March 1998

For years, SA outreach depended to a large extent on occasional visits outside the US by sober members, and regular telephone outreach in response to inquiries, carried out almost entirely by Roy K. The first task of Indrei R. and Jose-Maria R., as co-chairs of the International Committee, was to work out a modus operandi between ourselves as Roy’s successors and to set up a network of international contacts around the world. We used referrals from Central Office; telephone cards; mail, and increasingly, e-mail.

Building on the precedent set by the senior SA fellowship outside the US — SA’s German-speaking Intergroup, which covers some 35 meetings in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, The Netherlands and Luxembourg — we have provisionally divided up our responsibilities on linguistic grounds, Jose Maria covering Spanish and Portuguese-speaking countries, and Indrei covering English and German-speaking countries. We share a concern for French-speaking areas and those parts of Eastern Europe where we currently have loners — Poland and Romania.

Currently there are SA meetings in 14 countries around the world, besides the US and Canada. They are: Austria, Australia, Brazil, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Puerto Rico, El Salvador, Spain, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.

The largest SA communities outside North America are in German-speaking Europe (80 – 100 members); Australia and the UK (around 60 members each); Ireland and Japan (six meetings each); and Austria and Israel (two meetings each). The German-speaking groups, Australia, and the United Kingdom and Ireland also have fully-fledged Intergroups which organize conventions, publish newsletters and run phone lines.

SA literature has long been translated into German and also French (by Canadian members). In 1997, Jose Maria R. put a major effort into producing a full translation of all the SA literature into Spanish. We hope that with the arrival of metropolitan French-speakers, a French translation agreeable to all will be available some time in 1998-9, followed by a Japanese version.

SA’s e-mail meeting, to which newcomers with e-mail access are referred by Kay at the Central Office, now has in excess of 120 members. French and German groups are also said to be in operation on the Internet. SA’s website, which is constantly updated by Deke S., Jose Maria R. and many others, can now be consulted in at least two languages, with more to come, and the volume of inquiries from this source is expanding rapidly. Many of us SAs seem to value the low-threat medium of e-mail communication, particularly when we first come in.