Greetings from Iran
Dear SA Fellowship: I am an SA woman living in Iran. The typical Iranian, it seems, has great difficulty understanding lust addiction and believing in SA’s program of recovery, and this can be even more difficult for women.
Russian Collection
Last year I discovered just how generous our members can be when they see a real need. At the tender age of 50—for the first time in my life—I decided to try to raise money for a cause. As a Russian speaker, I was excited to attend the first-ever Russian-speaking SA Convention in Moscow in 2011.
English-Speaking SA Returns to Tokyo
I came to my first SA meeting while living in Tokyo back in 2002. Soon after, I moved back to the US, where I was in and out of SA for a few years. When I was relocated back to Tokyo in 2008, I was out of control again. I returned to the space where we used to meet, but no one was there. I was told the meeting had died off a few years earlier.
From Fear to Acceptance
My self-centered fear is invisible to me. What may be obvious to others as my ego disease often looks to me like the “real world” or the facts of my life. Add to that my irrational conviction that “what I’m feeling right now will last forever,” and it’s no wonder I go crazy with fear! Feeling hopeless, I retreat into a convenient character defect: lusting, anger, judging, or isolation.
Finding My Higher Power
A friend and I were working on a Step Two exercise that my sponsor taught me. My friend was answering the question, “Why don’t you choose your own conception of God?” (AA 12). The exercise is to write down new ideas about a Higher Power.
Dealing With Resentment
Recently, an incident that occurred in a therapy group I attend that left me feeling resentful toward one of the group members. He had called me a “dry drunk.” I needed to work my program in order to address my resentment.
Just the Way It Is Supposed to Be
A couple of months ago, it became apparent that I would need to rotate out of the SA service structure due to other obligations in my life. I found myself struggling with grandiosity in the form of fear for the future of SA, and grief for the loss of my GDA friends, whom I would no longer be seeing on a regular basis.
Where Money and Spirituality Mix
Do you have a problem with money? I did. I had too much!
Dealing with Death in Recovery
I’m Ken, a sexaholic. With the grace of my Higher Power, the Twelve Step program of recovery, the fellowship of SA, a caring and loving sponsor, and a loving and supportive wife, I’ve been sexually sober since December 1, 2007.
In Training
I had been in SA for about a year and was working on my Third Step when I was scheduled to be sent to the other side of the country for a year of training with my religious community. Because this training year is very structured, I did not want to go (my disease hates structure). I spent five or six months wishing the training would be cancelled.
