One of the most exciting service opportunities I’ve found in SA is my participation in Skype meetings. I belong to two groups—one on Monday at 12:30 p.m. and one on Saturday at 7 a.m., both New York time. We have members from the US, Europe, Asia, Guam, and Tasmania!
Dear Friends in SA, Greetings from the new group in Nairobi! Five years ago, we tried to start an SA group in Kenya, but it only lasted two months, with just one regular member. Then in May 2012, an SA meeting started again and we have been alive and well for the past eight months!
SA’s International Committee (IC) supports international loners and fosters the development of SA Groups, Intergroups, and Regions outside of North America. Our committee members are scattered around the globe. Following are some of our activities.
I recently started a new Skype online White Book Study, on Thursday nights Australian time, for those who are looking for a meeting in that time frame. These meeting last for one hour, and members have the opportunity to share on the reading and participate in general sharing if the time permits.
Because of SA, I have opportunities to work with sexaholics from all over the world. I (a Russian who lives in Chicago) am sponsoring Roberto (Mexican), who in turn is sponsoring an Orthodox Jew. Both of those men live in Chicago. I also have a couple of long-distance sponsees; one lives in Israel and the other lives in Russia.
I am a true “loner” living in a remote area in northern Maine. The closest SA meeting to me is about a five-hour drive away. Yet for the past four years, I have attended an SA meeting almost every day. I have been sober for more than two-and-a-half years and I have sponsored several people. How?
We are happy to announce the emergence of a new SA Region, the first to be formed with the support of the SA International Committee. The “Europe and Middle-East Region” (EMER) is fully operational and will hold its first face-to-face Regional Assembly and Convention at Ammerdown, UK from 30 August through 1 September 2012.
As a loner in the southwest of the UK, I had been accustomed to keeping in close touch with other members of the fellowship in the British Isles by phone. However, in the Summer of 2011, I became even more of a loner. I moved to China to work for some months.
We in New York are honored to host the upcoming SA/S-Anon International Convention, to be held just over the river in Newark. We chose the conference theme, “Liberty From Self,” because we believe that “self” is our greatest obstacle to recovery.
The SA message first reached Ireland in 1993 when, for a brief period, there was a lone group in Dublin, our capital. Those meetings were short-lived but the seed had been sown. Meetings started up again in 1995.
