[The following suggested guidelines are used by SA members returning calls to inquirers in a large U.S. metropolitan area. These guidelines reflect over six years’ experience in dealing with SA calls in this area. Your comments and/or experience is invited. Does your intergroup support a hot-line? How do you deal with inquirers? Reprinting these guidelines here does not constitute endorsement by the Essay or the Central Office.]
I wish to say thanks for the referrals SA has sent my way from callers to the Central Office. I have contacted them and we just interviewed one yesterday. He will be coming to his first meeting either tomorrow or on Monday. He lives about 50 minutes from Rochester and has children so he will have to plan his time to come here.
Distorted reality, that’s one of my main problems when it comes to dealing with my sexual addiction and life in general. My mind is full of unreality, thus causing me to view the things going on around me in a distorted manner. I then respond in an inappropriate manner since my whole basis is out of line.
I served as treasurer/literature person for my home group for 17 months — too long.
I’ve been in the Pittsburgh area groups for nearly 7 years now. Unfortunately, I recently lost an extended period of sobriety. In doing an examination of what happened leading up to this loss, I’ve realized that one unresolved issue for me is my unwillingness to admit to my innermost self that I am not like other “normal” people and never will be.
Last May 24 I celebrated my first year of sobriety in SA right here in the peaceful and beautiful hidden valley of my mountain home. In the morning I said a sincere prayer of thanksgiving to God for every day of progressive victory over lust in the year that has passed so swiftly and gently. Then, I thought of the kindness and love I received from SA through the year.
Life is so very full and it’s just a matter of showing up and being a part of and being of service. Lust is cunning, baffling and powerful and tricky, too, but if I just do as I think the Higher Power would have me do and thoroughly rely on him, everything turns out OK.
It is a deep sense of joy and gratitude that accompanies this letter. I have been part of the Regina SA group for over three years and my life has been so changed and enriched. I have my sobriety, I have found friends and I have a safe place to go when I am afraid. The group is doing quite well.
I mentioned in my letter two weeks ago that I would like to approach the Seattle Friday night SA fellowship about acting as a liaison between our group and Central Office. Well I submitted the idea to them at last night’s meeting and asked that they consider it for a week, discuss it at a brief business meeting and then decide the matter by group conscience.
In May, we cut the percentage of what we send to the Central Office in order to free up money for some outreach. Our projects, however, are already increasing our returns. The increase enclosed reflects the increase in attendance on the last week in June. This is because that meeting was the first of the “All Groups SA Unity Speakers Meetings” we’ve begun for the last Saturday of the month.
