Coming Next
What is Lust? NEXT EDITION—The August issue will try to deepen our understanding of the concept of lust, which is the indispensable key to sobriety and lasting recovery.
What is Lust? NEXT EDITION—The August issue will try to deepen our understanding of the concept of lust, which is the indispensable key to sobriety and lasting recovery.
Dear ESSAY, we’d love to share the story of our Loving Chair with you all. Jaime Daniel is one of the founders of our group. 12 years ago, he celebrated his 24th anniversary of sobriety in another fellowship where he received a small plastic chair as a gift. He donated that chair to our “La Liberación” group.
In my Step work I spent quite some time on my negative attitude towards women. There seemed to be very little trust. How could there be when there was no trust in me? I had always been switching from Mr. Know-It-All to Mr. Pitiful. In the one role being blind to the mess I made of my life and to how I hurt others, minors and women included, and if the pressure was too high, I became the victim that needed everybody’s help and understanding.
I came into Sexaholics Anonymous at age 31. I am 55 today. I've seen a lot of women come and go. Based on behaviors I’ve experienced during those 25 years, I’d like to share some practical recovery tools how I treat the opposite sex at our mixed meetings:
“What can we do so that more women attend our meetings? What can we do to support women in SA? What can we give women when they come into our meetings? What are we doing wrong that women leave our meetings? How can we encourage more women in service?”
About a year ago, I was asked to invite members to write articles for another ESSAY edition about women in SA. A few months later, talking about it during breakfast at the International Convention in Krakow, Poland, someone suggested that it would be more interesting to make an issue about women and men finding sobriety together. We are all equal in the Fellowship, and we need each other’s fellowship to achieve recovery as the White Book states in its chapter on “Mixed Meetings” (SA 178-179).
The 2-day online event, “By Faith and By Works” on March 9 & 10, 2024 was a first-time collaboration effort between the Good Neighbors Committees from both regions.
I started coming to Sexaholics Anonymous at the beginning of 2019. I had experience in other recovery fellowships, so I already trusted the 12-Step approach. Thanks to AA, my father got sober for the first time in his life in 1995, and even though he had relapsed before he passed away, I already knew for sure that the Program worked.
“Keep it simple”—how profound and how difficult. When I came to SA I looked for that special something that would knock my socks off and catapult me into sobriety. How disappointed I was when my sponsor said, “I’m not keeping any secret tools from you; the experience I have I have shared with you; there are no bunnies in the hat.”
Last October, the Seventh Convention of SA Mexico was held in the city of Tuxtla Gutierrez. The convention was attended by 47 SA members and 13 S-Anon members; for several participants this was their first convention and their comments are below. We, the organizers, thank the Higher Power (God as each one conceives Him) for this experience that was so important in our recovery.