On May 15-17, SA’s Europe and Middle East Region (EMER) held its third annual Regional SA Convention, with S-Anon participation, in Birmingham, UK. After our first convention in Warsaw in 2013 and our second in Jerusalem last year, our UK fellows took the initiative to host this annual event.
How is your program going? Are you enjoying all of the sobriety, serenity, and sanity that your Higher Power has for you? Are you looking for opportunities to be of service to God and others? Do you want to foster new friendships with those who are seeking a shared solution to a shared problem?
In countries where there are no SA groups, SAICO depends on member volunteers to carry the SA message to those who seek help. SA’s International Committee (IC) is attempting to organize those volunteers to focus on specific areas where help is needed. We are currently looking for volunteers to answer inquiries from several countries.
On January 1, 2014, a new SA group was started in Zwolle, the Netherlands. We meet on Wednesday in a room that was kindly rented to us by an organization that deals with all kinds of addictions. The members of this meeting, however, felt that we needed another meeting in Zwolle, on another night.
SA’s French-speaking Intergroup was founded March 2, 2013, and in December 2013 we joined EMER. Currently, there are three French-speaking meetings in Europe: one in Lille, France; one in Brussels, Belgium; and one in Luxembourg. Our meetings are still quite small (five to nine members) so we always appreciate getting input from long-term SA members from other countries.
Last May I attended the Europe and Middle East Region (EMER) Convention and Regional Assembly meeting in Israel. From the time I left my home in Ireland until I returned, I was in fellowship almost the entire time. This was the trip of a lifetime!
The city of Detroit has a rich and varied heritage. It was the birthplace of the American auto industry and brought on the age of assembly line manufacturing, which led to unprecedented growth of the US economy. Detroit became known as the Motor City.
On February 15, 2014 the English-speaking Taichung group held its first SA retreat, entitled “It Works If You Work It.” Five of us active members were present. This was a great milestone for us, to have our first gathering outside of regular meetings since our group began in January 2010.
May 2014 was an unforgettable month in the history of SA Israel and SA’s EMER Region. In only 10 years, SA Israel has grown from a few loners to more than 300 active members; more than 50 meetings in English, French, and Hebrew (with five new meetings opened this month alone); a fully paid-up and redecorated “SA Meeting House;” the hosting of EMER’s 2014 Regional Assembly and SA/S-Anon Convention with nearly 300 participants in attendance from all over Europe and even a handful of members from the US and Canada—and all of this followed by a remarkable International Recovery Camp on the shore of Lake Galilee!
In the early years of establishing SA in Iran we did not know how to stop our problem and recover from sexaholism. Members of other Twelve Step programs who had long-term sobriety joined SA and gave us recommendations from their own fellowships to help us to recover from our sexual behavior.
