The recent 2016 SA International Convention in San Diego, California was my first experience of such a gathering. My first years of SA consisted mostly of phone meetings, working with a phone sponsor and attending lots of other recovery group meetings face to face.
Recently I had the great good fortune to speak at a joint women’s shelter / District Attorney’s program for men arrested in prostitution stings. They don’t want to be there.
The year 2015 has been an eventful one for me, for my home group, and for the French-speaking Intergroup. I came to SA in March 2012, at a group located in Lille, France. My home group in Lille opened in 2009 and has grown steadily. This is the only SA group in France.
Early this year, I was invited by the EMER Regional Assembly to travel and give some talks to the fellowship, at the Poland Congress of SA/S-Anon (October 23-25), in Poznan, Poland; The First Annual SA/S-Anon Retreat in Lille, France (October 30-November 1); and the Fifth annual Russian-speaking SA Convention (November 6-8) in Moscow.
While attending the International Convention in Portland in January, I found myself saying to God that I was ready to be of service again. Shortly thereafter, I ran into an SA member living in Russia.
Our path of recovery is illuminated when we reflect on our past, celebrate our progress, and share our experience, strength, and hope with others. We invite you to join members from all over the world as we gather in San Diego, CA for the SA International Convention, a spiritual weekend of Twelve Step reflection, celebration, and hope.
The third SA Colombia Congress, held in the city of Cali, was a wonderful event—a source of great joy! We enjoyed meeting many new members in person, and reconnecting with others. For several months beforehand, we met via Skype, and we held a preparation meeting in the city of Pereira in order to share ideas and plan for the Congress.
Wouldn’t it be great to attend a convention without leaving home? That’s exactly what some SA members around the world discovered when the EMER Convention in Birmingham, UK, was live-streamed on the Internet. More than 20 people are believed to have listened online, and numerous expressions of thanks and even delight were received.
I’m Bernd, a sexaholic from Munich, and I’m grateful to have been a part of the Munich team that organized (with God’s help) the German-Speaking convention this year. The convention was held in Zavelstein near Stuttgart. The theme for the weekend was “Honesty.”
At EMER’s first Regional Convention in Warsaw in 2013, five women met from five countries (Luxembourg, Ireland, Holland, Spain, Poland). We had never met before, and most of us were the only women in our home meetings. This was a wonderful experience, and we started two projects: a Women’s Skype meeting and an EMER Support for Women Committee.
