I just came back from a retreat hosted by our local SA groups. It was open to members of another sexual recovery fellowship. Here are some observations.

I heard lots of “dumping on the Catholic Church.” Interestingly, this came from the other fellowship. I am a practicing Catholic; I see lots of things in the Catholic Church which I consider blameworthy, yet I do not blame. SA asks me to keep the focus on myself and my defects and that keeps me sober. In my earlier quest for sobriety I was a member of various 12-Step groups and frequently encountered this phenomenon of certain whole meetings being little more than “dump on the Catholic Church” meetings.

We had a speaker who bent over backward to be fair to all religious beliefs, including secular humanism. Afterwards, we counted off into groups of six, with the option of “passing,” i.e., not joining any group. Again, it was interesting that the group of “passers” was chiefly comprised of the other fellowship. This had a kind of downer effect on me. I’d have liked to see everyone join in enthusiastically. Also, I happened to sit for a meal at a table around which all were from the other fellowship. They did nothing but blame the speaker as “too Catholic, too much into his head” which I perceive as letting their anti-Catholic bias color their objectivity.

Some of us carry teddy-bears to get in touch with our inner child (at retreats, that is). On one occasion, as I was entering my room for what was supposed to be a period of solitude suggested by the speaker, a large group of this other fellowship was loitering in the hall, laughing at us and our teddy-bears. I felt like never coming back out of my room again for the duration of the weekend.

So in conclusion I’d like to say it seems counter-productive for SA to open a retreat to any other sexual recovery fellowship. We wind up doing the compromising on the bottom-line issue. I wish the other fellowships, the ones with the floating bottom-line, well. I really do. There is a place for them—but I need a tough bottom line.

This is not to criticize our leadership in any way. They put all their hearts into that retreat and I did get a lot out of it.

…Sober every day since February 20, 1989, and it keeps getting different! Relationship with wife is vastly different—we communicate now! Sharing fears, hopes, and dreams instead of misunderstanding and preoccupations. Wow! “We’re not the same…”