What do I understand by “the joy of service?” When I began attending meetings in 2008, I did not want to do any SA service. But on Saturday, August 5, 2018, my current sobriety date, I began to feel different. On Sunday, the very next day, a local group voted me in as its Intergroup Rep. Before that, I had only done things like putting out chairs, filling in as a back-up meeting secretary, making coffee, serving as a temporary sponsor etc.

And recently, I joined with other SAs in helping a member move house. Ironically all of the SA members that helped with the move are in the same sponsorship lineage. I’m reminded of the line by AA co-founder, Bill W., in the Big Book where it says, “For if an alcoholic failed to perfect and enlarge his spiritual life through work and self-sacrifice for others, he could not survive the certain trials and low spots ahead.” How do I know this is true? My very own experience has borne it out!

I look at my past—all those years of coming to SA meetings, taking half-measures, avoiding service for fear it would take away “me time.” Now, having had a spiritual awakening as the result of working the 12 steps of SA, I routinely get to enjoy the principle of self-sacrifice. I know that if I give two hours of my time helping someone move or ride along with an SA friend to visit an SA in prison, that I get to stay sober for those two hours. Once those hours in service add up to 24, that’s a whole day! And that’s not “sexaholic math”! (That’s a whole ‘nother topic!) The Big Book says on p. xxvi: “We work out our solution on the spiritual as well as an altruistic plane.”

Again: How can there be joy in service? Joy and service sound so oxymoronic! Am I not entitled to get what is mine? Who will give me j-u-s-t-i-c-e for the long term abuse and traumatic experiences that I endured? Do I not have a right to hold on to “justified resentments”? I don’t know about you, but when I think that way, I find that it leads me to feeling shut off from my Higher Power and my SA community. That’s dangerous for this man! So I need to keep it simple. Trust God, clean house, and help others. Thanks for letting me share. With that, I’ll pass.