I am a true “loner” living in a remote area in northern Maine. The closest SA meeting to me is about a five-hour drive away. Yet for the past four years, I have attended an SA meeting almost every day. I have been sober for more than two-and-a-half years and I have sponsored several people. How?
We are happy to announce the emergence of a new SA Region, the first to be formed with the support of the SA International Committee. The “Europe and Middle-East Region” (EMER) is fully operational and will hold its first face-to-face Regional Assembly and Convention at Ammerdown, UK from 30 August through 1 September 2012.
Writing and journaling have helped me process the emotions of the end of my 30-year relationship with my wife. I am powerless over what happens to me and I’m powerless over the resulting emotions, but I am not powerless over how I deal with my feelings.
We needed to ask ourselves but one short question. “Do I now believe, or am I even willing to believe, that there is a Power greater than myself?” (AA 47). Only one question? Too simple. Or so I think when I’m trying too hard to solve all my problems at once.
I know all about doing a quick “1-2-3” when I am confronted with an obvious threat to my sobriety. For example: Should I go to the party when I know “she” will be there? In those moments, I mentally go through Steps One, Two, and Three, which I summarize as: “I can’t, He can, so let Him!”
In my addiction, I harmed many people whose names I don’t even remember. As I was considering how to make amends to these people, my sponsor pointed me to a passage in the White Book: “There is always some way to make an amends, even when the injured person is dead, lost, or nameless. …
Recently, while sitting in an SA business meeting, I began feeling uncomfortable. It seemed that others were not sufficiently valuing my opinion! I began feeling hostile, but I was unwilling to admit it to myself. In that moment, a lust image I thought I had given up came to the forefront of my mind.
As a sexaholic, I have a hard time dealing with life. I look at other people who seem to have it all together and wish somehow that my insides could look the way they look on the outside. Of course, I’m just kidding myself because I know that most people do not always look on the outside as they feel on the inside.
I am a convicted felon and a registered sex offender, and I’m very grateful to have passed through my second anniversary of SA sobriety this past December. I am thankful that there is such a fellowship and that I am able to attend two meetings a week, with a group of wonderful people who I can call my friends.
About ten years ago (three years before I came to SA), I was looking for a card to give my wife on Mother’s Day—more out of obligation than anything else. I hated Mother’s Day. As I began to read the different cards, I was filled with a mixture of pain, sadness, and rage.
