What led to the new solution-oriented program: “We got tired of the tidal wave of slipping.”

I personally had been to meetings in Minnesota, Kentucky, Tennessee, and California and I was struck by the pervasive tendency to gear the meetings to being “nice” to the newcomer in fear that they wouldn’t come back. The lack of stating the sobriety date is a point in fact. It is essential to establish in the newcomer right away the idea that there is something to shoot for, and that the newcomer is not where the sober members are, that newcomers must work for sobriety.

This is the truth, because if they don’t work, there is no sobriety. If no one is deciding to go beyond being “nice” to each other and insist that the meeting focus on what it takes to not only overcome lust but be happy and strong in sobriety, then the meeting will languish in this malaise forever.

Upon arriving in Southern California, the decision was made between another member and myself to build the type of meetings that would surround us with sober people. We were also reacting against the idea of promoting SA too heavily when the sobriety of individual members wasn’t strong enough to cope with a lot of new recruits. Our aim was to establish a haven for “attraction rather than promotion,” and we were determined to achieve the kind of personal sobriety through strong meetings that it would take. This required that we decide what we valued in the meeting format.

This led to the decision that the solution had to replace the perpetual problem that was prevalent in the Participation Meeting format. We knew that we had to choose reading the book and studying the elements of recovery over telling what was going on inside us. This led to “check” meetings and more bold sponsorship. We were dedicated to the newcomer, but the newcomer had to do it our way, not his/her way. We reasoned that we were sober and had to give the newcomer solid, specific direction as to how to get out of their feelings and into the security and safety of sober support. We encouraged members to meet for lunch often, to go out after meetings for fellowship often, and to call all the time.

This “after-meeting fellowship” was where most of the growth took place because we began to take the risk of giving advice on how to get out of the self-pity that is gripping the newcomer or anyone else. The problem with coddling the newcomer’s feelings is that most of their feelings are of the self-pitying type and are therefore extremely dangerous. What we found was most effective was to ask “What Step are you on?” And after the newcomer had calmed down, ask it again. We kept insisting that the newcomer embrace the solution rather than meditate on his/her own mind or feelings. The result was anger in many cases on the part of the newcomer, but we stood fast and stayed together and kept laughing during the after-meeting fellowship to keep things light and easy. And slowly we began to see the numbers of sober people grow.

People who had been trying for up to five years to get more than 60 days were getting five months and then a year. The numbers swelled. What started as a group of three or four members on the floor of one member’s living room progressed to a church meeting room with nearly thirty steady members in less than seven months. The experiment had worked for us. The added payoff came when members who had come from surrounding areas went back to their respective meetings and suggested that the meeting format be changed and that they become committed to the solution. Also, new meetings were started as a result of members coming to our book-study meeting. The final victory is in seeing people that I sponsor or that other members who started this experiment sponsor go out and start their own meetings.

We now have a noon lunch meeting that uses a topic-discussion format, and there are some members working on starting a breakfast meeting at 7:00 AM. The result for me is that I have the wellspring of support that I needed and had to have when I arrived in California, unemployed and with a pregnant wife. I have had one of the best sober years that I have ever had. God does indeed work miracles.

1. Establish the right priority—Solution over Problem … forceful, positive application of the basic 12-Step Program. This is very important. It keeps personalities from interfering with the principles which must be embraced by the newcomer in order to get sober.

2. Replace slipping thinking with specific Step-oriented tools. “There’s a Step to solve each problem.” Ask the question “What Step are you on?” This prevents getting wrapped up in the newcomer’s problems which they may want to go on and on about. We can’t solve problems; we can only suggest a way to attack our spiritual hunger. That means forgetting the problem and working on ourselves spiritually and letting God reveal the answer to the problem in His time. It is also important to teach the newcomer right away that the reiteration of their daily troubles, called whining in some circles, simply perpetuates their attraction to those anxieties. The task is to replace the diseased thinking with sober thinking—“Dear God, I am powerless” 4000 times a day—as quickly as possible.

When people are about to be drawn into debating program issues, we say, “Don’t debate; go work with the newcomer!”

3. Create a meeting for the aims listed above. The participation meeting format, as it is usually practiced, encourages members to be fascinated by their own experiences and the workings of their own minds, whereas in fact, their stories and minds are a jumbled mess that need ordering and directing. God makes this ordering and directing possible. Instead of processing every lust experience that they have, the newcomer needs to hear the solution often—God in the form of the worked Steps—and be encouraged to focus only on that. It is not necessary to take three to five years to overcome bouts of lust that lead to acting out or near slips.

Overcoming lust can be accomplished by the mature members confronting the newcomer with a persistent query: “Are you sober?” “How long?” If they have been sober for a while, praise them; if not, ask, “Have you got a sponsor?” If they don’t have one, say, “I can arrange a temporary sponsor for you.” If they are serious, they will take you up on it; if not, wish them well and go on to the next newcomer. The Big Book tells us not to waste time on people who don’t want sobriety lest we deprive the member who does want sobriety of the needed attention to accomplish this.

In meetings we must return to the book. The Program is in the White Book, the AA Big Book, and the AA Twelve and Twelve. We have all three available in our literature area at each meeting. Sponsees are told to read all three books. The books need to be read in the meetings and the members encouraged to relate their sharing to some aspect of what they have read. In this way we will constantly be comparing our experiences with the ideas that lead us to sobriety.

The structure of the meeting is central to pulling SA out of the malaise of slipping I have observed across the country. The only way in my experience that discussion meetings work is if they are topic-discussion meetings. This means that a topic is chosen at the beginning of the meeting (Surrender, a particular Step, Powerlessness, God in our Lives, Sponsorship, Lack of Sponsorship, Gratitude…), and the sharing is centered on this recovery topic. In this way we are reaching for what we see as the ideal and not reiterating our fascination with our malady and its various permutations.

At our last Unity Conference here we had a topic-discussion meeting on Gratitude. Many of our group’s members were there, plus many other members. It was amazing to see the number of members who had never been asked what they were grateful for. One woman looked at me and said, “You mean, I just talk about what I’m grateful for?” Another newcomer who was struggling related some very painful things that she was dealing with, and then you could see her being drawn out by the need to reach for the topic. By the end of her sharing, she had completely changed her attitude. And by the end of the meeting, she was rejoicing in others’ gratitude lists.

4. Do First Step Inventories. One of the most powerful aspects of our meetings is the First Step Inventory. Members are directed to write their Sexual Inventory down and give it to their sponsor and then give it to the group. (Giving it to the sponsor first helps keep the inventory concise, from being mere dumping, or getting too explicit.) A word of caution: Sponsors should keep the newcomer moving along as he or she writes this inventory. If they stop and start to think about it too much, it can be dangerous. I tell people, “I want to hear from you in three days. I don’t want you to sit around writing and getting all wound up in it.” The key to this whole thing is speed. You’ve got to get the person on recovery track before the disease can beat them out. Wherever there is strong spiritual energy, there is also a strong negative force waiting to undermine it. I tell them, “As you get into the writing, the moment your mind tells you it’s not good enough, give it to your sponsor. Immediately. Just keep moving!”

In our meeting, we all sit in on the First Step. There is a rite of passage that takes place. The member feels as if they step into the inner circle, that they have no lingering doubt about their sexaholism. The rest of the members get to return to the horror and spiritual death that was their past and relive and relearn about themselves through the newcomer’s experiences. It is incumbent upon the more mature members of the group not only to praise the First Step, but to speak out clearly when they have not heard the deep level of surrender necessary for long-term sobriety.

The sharing of other members in response to the First Step inventory centers on positive support and whether or not the group thinks the member qualifies for the Program. We thus get to know this person in a way that we never would have without hearing their story. I retain images of pain and suffering that were instrumental in the newcomer seeking recovery, and I know the person it happened to. This we have found to be essential. It also gives the newcomer a way to “work” the First Step right away.

5. Call special informal “meetings.” If I’m in trouble, someone has the answer. Plus, there is often a collective wisdom in the group no one individual has. Some call this group sponsorship.

There’s been too much “hands-off” dealing with each other and slippers. “Take a chance.” As one of our members puts it, “Call people on their ‘stuff.’” A small group of members intervening on another in trouble can have great benefit. We call it a “check meeting,” or a “Spiritual Body Check.” The meeting can be called by the member with a problem or recommended by someone else. The core of the meeting is to “Take Advice.” This we have found is essential.

The great stumbling block for most members is that they want to be “listened to” and “heard.” This is the grossest form of self-pity. I led a life of such consummate waste and stupidity that for me to expect to be heard is absurd. The only way I am going to get better is to “shut up and follow directions.” And if I want to get better faster, I will ask for advice faster and faster. Sobriety can be defined by how fast I ask for simple advice and how fast I act on that advice. Many newcomers are very sensitive and touchy about being mirrored too strongly. The quicker we cut through this wall of denial and become resilient about asking and acting upon advice, the less suffering we will have. What we have found here is that we have become much more resilient and less sensitive with practice. It has also made us develop much stronger interdependency and much stronger relationships.

6. Directed Sponsorship. This part of our meeting format is read by the leader in each meeting:

“It is our belief that working the Steps, going to meetings, and giving and receiving sponsorship are key elements to staying sober. If you don’t have a sponsor, see me after the meeting and I’ll arrange a temporary sponsor for you.”

The “temporary” lets both parties off the hook should it not work out, and also encourages the newcomer into the kind of commitment newly sober addicts believe they can handle. It lessens the fear factor.

7. Fellowship. After-meeting get-togethers. Light, and with laughter. Offer to help those in pain. The way we help them is to get them to laugh at something—themselves, us, anything. If it seems to be a problem of confusion on the Steps, then a private talk will be held with one or more members. The point is that we are dramatic people who tend to exaggerate our problems in order to wallow in self-pity. Our approach is to have a good time in spite of problems because the problems will then be easier to bear as well as be seen from a more realistic perspective. The key thing to remember about fellowship is that Bill W. and Doctor Bob started this whole thing as “one drunk talking to another.” Stick to the basics and the source.

8. Contact an SA member each day … preferably in person, but certainly on the phone. We deal with the concept of “Do the Dailies.” Since we have a “daily reprieve contingent upon the maintenance of our spiritual condition,” the things that work to keep us sober must be repeated on a daily basis: praying, calling a sponsor and others, reading the books, and going to meetings and helping others.

Newcomers ask how they can possibly help others. I tell them that every time they work the Steps, they are becoming more attractive to the next new member who comes in. Whenever we are working on ourselves spiritually, we are preparing ourselves to be of genuine service for perhaps the first time in our lives.

9. Write your Fourth Step and give it to your sponsor. Steps Four and Five are the “shame and guilt” Steps. We come into the program filled with shame and guilt, whether we know it or not. It is imperative that we move on through the Steps so that we can begin to realize that our behavior is just behavior and not who we are. When we first get sober, we identify so strongly with our wrongs that we define ourselves by them alone and lose sight of any other qualities that are part of our makeup. We resent others because we can’t stand looking at the devastation wrought by us in honor of our defects. The task is to begin to see ourselves in a more realistic light, and then we can let go of our need to see others through a very narrow lens.

Resentment starts with self-hatred, with seeing ourselves through the eyes of the disease in its most powerful manifestations. With Steps Four and Five, we can begin the lifelong process of self-analysis that will bring us to God and free us from the dependency on the negative that projects us so easily into that self-pity that cripples us and gives the disease the power to direct our behavior. This is the beginning of breaking that dependency, that force that pulls us toward our drug that seems so powerful sometimes. These Steps greatly reduce that power and should be done as often as needed or as directed by your sponsor. Once accomplished, these Steps project us headlong into the healing power of Steps Six and Seven, with the thrust still going into Eight, Nine, Ten, and Eleven. And Twelve puts it all into place by helping others work through the same process.

10. “Stress the spiritual aspect strongly.” This is a quote from the AA Big Book (see AA, 93). It is essential to remember that all we are doing is clearing our way to the Creator. If we don’t work the Steps and accept that change is necessary no matter how painful, then we will continue to need to believe the lies that race through our heads, continuously tempting us to believe that there is a drug that will help. Stick to the Plan of Action outlined by the Book. Work the Steps. Do it faster rather than slower. And pray to God, whether you believe or not. You will be heard.