I first joined SA 28 years ago, when SA UK was a very small fellowship with very few meetings. My main form of contact with other members was through the phone. I did, however, meet other SA members face to face, including quite a few female members at the only regular UK Convention held in those days.
For somebody who related to the reading "The Invisible Monster" in our book Recovery Continues, it is a miracle that I can share something on “Practicing Healthy Interactions in SA” today. I think the key word for me is “practice” as I will never be perfect and it is progress not perfection.
My first meeting was on October 11, 2011 and by the grace of God I’ve stayed sober since. In the beginning I found joy in my home group in Barcelona. I was the only woman with about five or six men. They were very nice to me and helped me to stay sober.
When I was three, I had to stay at the hospital due to pneumonia while my parents couldn’t be there with me, which was quite a traumatic experience. I knew the “touching game” from the nursery and knew it was a nice feeling.
The brochure Beginnings: Notes on the Origin and Early Growth of SA has become one of my favorite pieces of SA literature. Roy’s account of SA’s early history stresses that men and women together have been centrally involved in our fellowship’s development from the very start.
It was hard to have fun because I was so sensitive. When I came in, I didn’t know I was sensitive. I thought everyone else had problems and they were bothering me. I also thought everyone else should figure out in advance what would bother me (in order to avoid doing so). I was like a crab without shell, or an animal without skin ... just “walking sensitivity.”
I started in SA as a young, widowed, single mom in June 2005. At that time there were three other women in my homegroup. Within a year, they were gone. My sponsor was one of them. She decided to go back out and try some more controlled lusting, my grand-sponsor moved, and the other woman quit coming because of health reasons.
Practicing healthy interactions in SA has been a passion of mine. I have known near my entire life that I am not good at relationships. My longing to find how to be relationally “normal” has been a lifelong seeking.
I am a female lust addict, my home group is in Munich, and I am grateful for 11 years and 4 month sobriety. I am grateful for the pioneers of the 12 step groups and proud to be part of it. I am especially grateful for Roy and his wife Iris, who recently passed away.
I am a gratefully recovering sexaholic living in California. My sobriety date is November 26, 2009. At my first SA meeting, there was one other woman in the room who had joined SA four months before. She became my first SA sponsor.
