Once I was in the parking lot of a shopping center, when I was approached by a pretty young woman who had worked as a waitress in a restaurant that I used to go to. Nothing unusual about that. Any time I was in the restaurant she simply took my order. But now, she told me she had lost her job and, stuck for money, said she would supply “whatever I wanted.”
Sobriety began for me in Nashville in May 1986. We were a small band of six or seven persons meeting once per week trying to avoid the terrible consequences of our acting out.
I am a female member in Iran. When I came to SA in 2010, there were no other female members in my city, no meeting space, no Intergroup and no White Book or Step Into Action book. Apart from the AA Big Book and 12&12, we had only a few SA pamphlets translated into Persian.
My sponsor kept repeating “It’s a simple Program, you just need to work on it,” when I complained to him that I could not stay sober. I came to my first SA meeting on my birthday in 2009. Since November 14, 2011, I have remained sober thanks to my Higher Power and SA.
What was the fellowship like in my early days of recovery? According to what I remember and knew, it was: certainly not ideal! We had no published literature but used PDFs and printouts. We didn’t have SA materials to work on the Steps but used materials from other fellowships. Multiple-year sobriety was something unusual.
In January 2009 I went to my first SA meeting. On the literature table I found a copy of the Essay magazine. It contained a funny recovery joke. I truly had to laugh! It was the first time I found out recovery can be fun. Until then, my experience with trying to recover in another S-fellowship was mainly depressing and gave little hope.
I came to SA at the beginning of 2008. At that time SA in Poland was very small. There were only four meetings (three in Warsaw and one in Krakow) and about fifteen participants. We only had some excerpts of the White Book and Step into Action (70 pages in all). Nor did we use AA literature at that time.
I am a member of SA Iran and have been sober for 17 years and 11 months. I want to share with you my experience of Step Eleven. Conscious contact with my Higher Power has helped me so much to stabilize and deepen my recovery.
When I joined SLAA in October 1994, there was no SA in Ireland. In February 1995, an SA member who was a friend of one of our members, came over from the USA and attended our SLAA meeting. I had not heard of SA yet. He told us about sponsoring, working the Steps, phone calls, check-ins, and fellowship after the meetings.
I heard this story recently at one of the many meetings I go to and I wanted to share it with the Essay readers: A sexaholic is cruising the pavement, looking at triggers everywhere, and falls into a hole. He tries and tries to get out but can’t. He starts shouting. “Help me! Help me!”
