My acting out includes masturbation with pornography, affairs, voyeurism, and anonymous sex with prostitutes. I’ve been attending SA meetings for six years, and only two weeks ago fully worked my “first” First Step. Based on my experience I’d have to say that meetings work. Period! I mean any 12-Step meetings.

Having said that I also have to say that, for me, right now, it’s very important to remember that it was the problem that finally drove me to see my powerlessness, to see the unmanageability of my life, to believe that a Power greater than me could restore me to sanity, and to decide to turn my will and my life over to that Power.

I ask God every morning to help me to think clearly, to remain sober, to ask Him and a fellow SA member for help when I need it, to be there to help another SA member when they need it, and to never ever forget what it feels like to be ashamed of, remorseful over, disgusted with, and terrified about the consequences of my acting out behavior.

I have to agree that I need to make every meeting I can. Sure, it will be good for me, but when I don’t think I need it I need to remember that I don’t go only for me. I go for the other SA members too. I read in my spiritual readings today that God made us in His own image. Well, it occurred to me that the incredible sense of peace, love and serenity I’ve been feeling over the past two weeks while attending meetings once or twice a day might be the collective effect of all of us in those meetings being the image of God for one another.

What a gift SA is to me! Two weeks ago I was wondering why I even bothered to go to meetings, and today I’m struggling to go to enough and still tend to the other things in my life that deserve my attention, like my family and my job. When I’m in a meeting with you, I’m face-to-face with God. I need that. I also need to be alone with God in prayer and meditation in the morning and evening. God has given me a gift called SA, and I don’t intend to ignore it.

 
Meetings are a lifeline for me, so I am committed to four each week. For a long time I went to meetings nearly every day. All the people I admire in recovery participate in several meetings a week. I have no earthly idea how anyone can flourish on less. You see, I am no longer interested in merely surviving the ravages of this disease. That’s what I was like in my addiction. I worked my addiction hard. I gave it huge gobs of my time, my energy, and my money. I went to any lengths to stay inebriated. I am going to any lengths to pursue the happy, joyous, and free life which is the fruit of recovery as I understand it.

We have seven meetings a week in Oklahoma City, and each of them focuses on the SA White Book. Each member reads a paragraph and is free to comment, after which other members are free to comment before we move on in the reading. There is beginning to be a restlessness about this “routine.” Some of us would like to make one of the meetings an AA Big Book study and another of the meetings a Step study from the AA Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions.

Our meetings focus pretty much on the solution. Occasionally newer members do some dumping or whining, but usually a more sober member shares something that tends to cut that off, while avoiding crosstalk, of course.

All our meetings are followed by fellowship at a local restaurant. On Monday nights, for instance, as many as 20 or more of us go to a nearby eatery where we have supper or coffee or just water. This practice really helps build the fellowship. I thank God for wonderful meetings here in OKC.

 
Having experienced hundreds of meetings in other 12-Step fellowships, one of the things I have noticed is that “good” meetings come in all shapes, sizes and colors, which is a very good thing given the fact that one size surely doesn’t fit all.

Some meetings are good because they are so well organized and contain all of the elements one could want in a good meeting. Others are good because there is a small core group of very committed and focused veterans who invest in other people’s recovery. Others are good because newcomers are drawn in numbers, for whatever reasons.

Some meetings are especially good for me. It seems to me that some constants are (1) I get out as much as I put into it; (2) “recovery” meetings and “enabling” meetings are not the same; (3) I am better off focusing on my inventory than focusing on the meeting’s inventory; (4) if I want to add something from my experience, strength and hope to a meeting, I usually can, and (5) any meeting is better than no meeting.