Recently a motion at my local Intergroup almost failed to win approval. Had it failed, two members with less than 30 days’ sobriety would have provided the margin for defeat. By comparison with AA, on whose experience the Traditions are based, the sobriety of AA representatives to Intergroup is generally measured in years. At the group level, many SA groups require members to have 30 days’ sobriety to vote at business meetings. Intergroup reps should have at least the same length of sobriety to vote.

Most SA meetings adhere to the suggestion in the White Book that speakers in the first half of the meeting have 30 days or more of sobriety to share. This is done to help set the tone of the meeting on program and recovery, and to carry the message that lust in all its forms is unacceptable, and that there is a solution. Should not this also be carried over to the service structure, whose purpose also is to carry the message to the sexaholic who still suffers?

I am not advocating that members with less than 30 days’ sobriety be barred from speaking at Intergroup, just as members with less than 30 days are not prevented from speaking at meetings. But to protect groups, Intergroup should count only the votes of those with 30 days’ sobriety.

Intergroups should also set appropriate sobriety requirements for service positions and hold regular lust inventories, just as groups do. While the quality of the individual member’s sobriety can be between him and his sponsor—but should be shared with the group for the member’s own sobriety—the nature of the trusted servant’s sobriety is also the Fellowship’s concern. And Intergroup members should be as familiar with each other’s struggles and recovery as they are with the struggles and recovery of members of their home groups.

Intergroups should ensure that the message they carry through the group conscience is one of program and recovery. As the White Book states, “without sobriety, we have nothing.”

P.S. Since I and others voiced our concern, Intergroup voted overwhelmingly to limit voting to members with over 30 days’ sobriety.