Thoughts On Dealing With Chronic Slippers
[The following ideas resulted from a group inventory done on the problem of continued slipping. These ideas are put forward simply to stimulate discussion and action. Please feed back from your experience.]
For the chronic slipper who wants it: An interim plan to help get you into solid recovery.
For the newcomer who wants it: An interim plan to help you get sober and onto recovery track.
1. Disconnect from any sponsor you may have had; it hasn’t worked. Disconnect from other methods used to achieve sobriety (or keep you from it); they haven’t worked either. Instead, put yourself into the hands of two or three willing SA men (women to women) who are sober and surrendered to God. Call them friends, buddies, nothing, whatever. Titles can get in the way.
2. When it comes to decisions affecting your recovery, turn off your own thinking. Your best thinking is what got you here and is keeping you sick. Let these men do your thinking for you on an interim basis, by group conscience if necessary. Make yourself responsible to them and take direction from them.
3. Meet with one or more of these each day, even if only briefly, such as for breakfast, lunch or on-the-go. Use of the phone is good, but not enough. Personal presence has more effect in getting us out of our isolation. Meet with these members together once a week or so and discuss problems/progress/procedure. Go to a meeting with at least one of them as often as they say — ideally, every day.
4. Call or see one of these men at least once each day — any time you feel liable to slipping, and at every significant lust and resentment temptation you encounter. Later, as you learn to use your own spiritual tools, frequency of such calls can decrease. In the beginning, it’s important to call at each temptation. Describe exactly what you are thinking and feeling — exactly what you are being tempted by and how you feel about it. Talk and pray it through together until you are free from that crisis. Try to keep “dogma” and “religion” out of the prayer. You are simply confessing to God in that man’s presence what you are tempted with and turning your lust (resentment, etc.) and will over to God to break the power of that temptation. The Third Step prayer is good too, praying it together.
5. If married, go into a long and open-ended period of mutually agreed sexual abstinence with your wife to begin to recognize lust and get victory over it. Ideally, your friends should already have gone through this or be in process. As our literature says, increase non-sexual communication, care and contact with your wife during this time for the benefit of your marriage.
6. Put commitment to these men and to your recovery above all else — wife, friends, family, career, religious institution, therapy…
For the SA group and trio of members providing support, either to chronic slippers or newcomers:
1. Become intolerant of insobriety and lust in SA. It’s killing us and others. We can become intolerant of lust while remaining helpful to the person. It’s called “tough love.” This is one real test of putting principles before personalities. Decide not to support the illness in anyone, regardless of who they are, what positions they’ve held, or how long they’ve been in SA. We do not give positions of program responsibility to people who are not sober.
2. Reach out together in a trio of personal support and guidance. Put this work before all else. You must be more committed to this relationship than the slipper or newcomer is! Your commitment makes them sense the urgency of this and helps them commit. Length of sobriety isn’t as important here as your attitude.
3. Assign program literature — study it with them — and work them through the Steps. Male bonding! Find them a service commitment right off the bat, even if it’s just setting up or taking down chairs. Impress responsibility to commitments. Get them into a trio of working with a slipper as soon as they can. Nothing succeeds like working with another sexaholic.
4. These friends helping a slipper or newcomer will have to create their own guidelines. Here are some ideas practiced elsewhere:
- Another sex addiction group has evolved their way of protecting their own unity and recovery by dealing with chronic slippers like this: “If we as a group feel that your continued slipping no longer serves your recovery, we will take a group conscience on whether to ask you to leave this group.”
- The practice in a local AA group: “If you slip three times, find another sponsor.”
5. The SA group may decide to assign the trio of friends, or the group secretary may designate people or call for volunteers.
6. Remember, we don’t want to put the slipper’s or newcomer’s focus on “What can these people do for me?” but “What do I have to do?”
Questions to ask ourselves in discussing this problem in SA groups:
1. What in our experience have proven to be the results of chronic lust/slipping in members and in our group?
2. How have we as sober members reacted to chronic slippers?
3. Are we supporting the illness instead of recovery? If so, how?
4. Are we compromising our own spiritual unity? If so, how?
5. What is the effect of a preponderance of non-sober people in a meeting?
