“Institutions remain cumbersome, easily seduced by their own self-interest, preoccupied with their own survival. It’s a melancholy and ubiquitous fact of life that once an ideal, any ideal, becomes institutionalized, confusion sets in between the accomplishment of the ideal and the aggrandizement of the institution.”
Dear Fellow SAs, I thought it might be helpful to let you know what our group from West L.A. is doing in response to the financial challenge facing our Central Office. We know that SA as a whole is working on ways to meet this challenge, and whatever recommendations are adopted, we here will seek to support them. However, we feel that whatever we can do in the meantime will be helpful.
We may be experiencing something significant in SA. The Maryland Marathon and Mid-Western Regional reports (elsewhere in this issue) state that the most powerful session of the day (October 18th and 4th) was when, under example of the leader, those members who chose, “gave away their top plate.” As far as we know, this first took place in the Warm Beach, Washington convention last year. In each of these three cases, it was reported by several to have been the most potent or meaningful experience of the get-together.
The largest expense in the SA Central Office is our non-sexaholic secretary’s salary (without whose very efficient help Roy would be totally lost). No SA members are paid for their volunteer work.
This is how a sexaholic in prison feels. For many of them there, prison time is spent in lockup for fear that they will be killed by the other inmates. If a sexaholic is found out in prison, he is in big trouble, for the most hated crime in prison is the child abuser or wife abuser.
…I have recently finished my 4th and 5th Steps, which is a wonderful feeling, and my lust seems to have lessened for now considerably. I am now trying to work on getting to know my wife again and repair the damage there.
The SA group in Grand Junction meets twice a week.… Our group is studying the book and Steps on Thursday and discussion meeting on Monday.…
Miracles are certainly happening here in Nashville. Last night we had 16 people at our SA meeting. We broke into two groups and then after an hour we met altogether for ½ hour beginners meeting.…
…Another SA group has begun to meet in Lincroft, NJ, on Friday evenings at 8:30. It is held in a parish center.
Forty-seven attended, mostly from the Chicago and Milwaukee areas, but also including members from as far away as Minnesota, Indiana, Iowa, and California. St. Luke’s Lutheran Church was an ideal setting. (Mt. Prospect is the only city we know of where church names are added to city street signs. Wish we knew the history behind that.) Several SAA members attended, and we had marvelous rapport and unity with them.
