This past August, by the Grace of God, I celebrated my third “birthday” in this life-saving God-inspired program. Ceaseless are the gifts that befall me in recovery. The gifts come in the form of growth (sometimes painful) by learning more about who I am and acceptance of me, defects and all. I made a list of people I thought I had harmed while doing the first four steps and it was quite impressive.
A note of encouragement to you! I have been involved in the program for several months now and at this point I have an incredible 5 weeks sobriety. Praise God for your program, I don’t think I could do it without the meetings and literature.
As a group, we are in the process of determining what kind of group we want to be. Questions such as: 1. Do we want to be strongly newcomer oriented?
I would like to tell you a little about our group that we have here. Child Molesters Anonymous was founded in 1986 at the Wyoming State Penitentiary. Our founding fathers of this organization saw the need for this type of an ongoing support group. There wasn’t any real help for people like me for my type of crime and I wanted something that would keep me from repeating these crimes over.
We send our best. Our meeting is growing strong! We had two members who celebrated anniversaries of 2 years and one of 4 years! Our conference was a success also. We will be sending a donation from the remaining assets as soon as we get the financial situation reconciled (perhaps another 10 years!).
Finding enough sober people is a problem. Loads of unsober people attend here. Things will change. Something for everyone doesn’t work.
As you remember, over the past year the fellowship has been asked to approve or reject a procedure for taking an international group conscience on issues that affect SA as a whole. What follows is a report on that process, prepared by Katherine D., the chair of the committee to determine an IGC procedure:
Memories of the “Real Connection” International Retreat in Salt Lake City will still be fresh for many members as this issue of the Essay appears. For many of us, this retreat felt like recovery often feels: emotional, sometimes tense and uncomfortable, yet open and secure. As we walked together through sharing our struggles and victories, we began to experience the joy of true union with one another.
We have been meeting regularly for two years with mixed results. We began with a core group of two and have had ten different people attend meetings at one time or another. Our longest period of sobriety is two years, and our shortest is five days. Some older group members have recently slipped, and one has stopped coming.
At the heart of our condition is the drive for union with Person. Bonding. This drive, instead of having been diminished by our misconnections in lust and sex, seemed to increase. Never satisfied with the substitutes, our longing for personal union merely deepened and energized the vain pursuit for the real.
