Implementation of the Newark Motions
As the Essay goes to press, groups around the country are voting for the second time in the history of Sexaholics Anonymous on matters concerning the Fellowship’s sobriety definition and the interpretation of the words “marriage” and “spouse.”
Some members who joined the Fellowship since 1991 report they are finding the process to be painful, but ultimately rewarding; many members who voted in 1991, on the other hand, said they felt frustrated, but were willing to see it through.
The process is proving to be less simple than anticipated when the SA leadership decided in July to poll the groups to see if clarification to the SA sobriety definition was needed. According to delegates and groups who reported their progress to the Essay, all members are not “reading from the same page,” and the current vote is therefore unlikely to definitively resolve the dilemma.
“No one could agree on how to implement the motion in a uniform way,” said the national delegate for the Southwest Region. “It was decided that each delegate would poll their region in the way they saw fit. If it’s not being done in a coherent way, it’s because we couldn’t agree on the method.”
The Secretary of a group in Oregon said it found the clarification process to be “confusing and divisive.” A simple “yes” or “no” vote on clarification is itself open to interpretation, the group noted. To some, “yes” could mean a vote to make the definition explicitly conservative, they said, while to others the same vote could be intended to liberalize or broaden the definition. A vote in the current survey, the group decided, could be interpreted to mean the opposite than that which it was intended. The group therefore “unanimously voted to table any voting on the sobriety definition.”
A Virginia group, which voted in favor of clarifying the words “spouse” and “marriage,” rejected both options for clarification offered on the ballot and voted “other.” Some who voted “other” favored recognizing same-sex marriages as sober in SA, while a majority favored a stricter, more defined version of marriage between a “man and a woman in a vowed state of matrimony.” Although the vote was inconclusive, members said they found the discussion to be welcome and cathartic. Many members, including some with over two years of sobriety, said the discussion was the first opportunity they had since joining the Fellowship to express themselves at a group level on the sobriety definition.
Some national delegates said the ballot overstepped its bounds.
“If you put the second question on the ballot [How would your group express clarification?], then you’re expecting the answer to the first question [Does your group feel the meaning of the words ‘spouse’ and ‘marriage’ need to be clarified?] to be ‘yes,’” the national delegate for the North Midwest said. “This put the ballot in technical violation of the motion, which asked only if clarification of the sobriety definition was needed,” he said.
After the delegates failed to reach agreement on the method of the survey, the delegate from the Southwest discarded the disputed ballot and instead sent a mailing to some 90 groups in the region asking that they reaffirm the sobriety statement as clarified by the 1990 – 1991 “Sense of Fellowship” statement. This reads: “Regarding SA’s definition of sobriety, ‘married’ means traditional, legal, heterosexual marriage, and ‘spouse’ does not include ‘committed relationships’ with either the same or opposite sex.”
This statement stems from the sobriety survey of 1990 – 1991, which was conducted after some groups unilaterally altered SA literature to reflect broader definitions of “marriage” and “spouse.” The 1990 – 1991 survey was not taken as a group conscience, but carried out on the recommendation of SA’s legal counsel to assess where the Fellowship stood on sobriety in the face of the copyright threat posed by the breakaway groups.
Seventy-five percent of responding groups in 1990 – 1991 affirmed the statement; 19 percent did not, and 6 percent chose “not to respond.” Some dissenting groups left SA to join Sexual Recovery Anonymous, which allowed committed relationships in its sobriety definition.
The SA sobriety definition was first approved by group conscience in 1981. It reads: “In defining sobriety, we do not speak for those outside Sexaholics Anonymous. We can only speak for ourselves. Thus, for the married sexaholic, sexual sobriety means having no form of sex with self or with persons other than the spouse. For the unmarried sexaholic, sexual sobriety means freedom from sex of any kind. And for all of us, single and married alike, sexual sobriety also includes progressive victory over lust” (Sexaholics Anonymous, pages 191-192).
The SA sobriety definition was discussed most recently at the International Conference in Newark, NJ. The SA delegates voted to reaffirm the sobriety definition as stated in Sexaholics Anonymous (see above). The delegates also voted to ask the Fellowship if the definition needed to be clarified. (The delegates stressed that the sobriety definition would not be changed. The motion followed a discussion on whether the words “spouse” and “marriage” needed to be clarified.)
The motion states: “Moved to accept the recommendation of the Board of Trustees to seek input from the fellowship, as defined as regions, Intergroups and groups, as to whether any clarification is needed of the SA sobriety definition. Delegates will communicate with each other about results in two months and one month before the next International Conference.”
Implementation of the motion later became a subject of lengthy discussion among the delegates. While the delegates reported their discussion was constructive and respectful, they said they failed to find common ground on how to implement the motion.
