Every ten years, the SA Board of Trustees initiates a census of SA meetings. The primary purpose of this census is to ensure the fair representation of meetings in the General Delegate Assembly (GDA) across the various Regions in our fellowship. It also highlights how the Fellowship has changed and grown since the prior census.
Reading “What makes meetings strong?“ in Essay May 2021 got me thinking. For me strong meetings are welcoming places, offering full participation to all members; they provide opportunities for service and they encourage fellowship after meetings.
These past few months, we’ve been able to welcome two new members from Iraq. Although I wasn’t involved in carrying the message to them, I’m part of their solution.
The AA Big Book says, “If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are halfway through.” (AA 83) Of course I see how many promises came true during the online inter-regional convention hosted by the Europe and Middle East Region (EMER) and the Persian-Speaking Region (PSR) on April 8 and 9, 2022.
The first SA Group in Italy began five years ago when two people from different paths met. Motivated by a common desire to share their Twelve Step recovery experiences, they went about trying to help others recover from lust addiction.
If you haven’t seen the brand-new video that just came out about the 12 Steps, be sure to check it out! “Why Working the Steps is Important” is the multimedia story of how a member worked the Steps of SA and came to understand the Solution to his Problem.
The thought rings in my mind, “Stop writing someone else’s story.” For so many years my addict controlled the story of my life. He told me to be afraid; that I was going to fail, so don’t even try. I so deeply believed my addict’s lies, that I wouldn’t dare to dream of who I am and what I wanted. I resorted to living a life for everyone else but me.
This January, our fellows in SA Exeter in the UK organized a Winter Convention held in their beautiful ancient city in the Southwest of England; it was a 3-day weekend of fellowship with sexaholics who came from all over the UK and Europe.
In Belgium, some fellows were attending meetings from another S fellowship since 1997, but after more than 10 years no one was able to stay sober for longer periods of time, even while trying to stay sober according to their own sobriety definitions. In July 2008, one very desperate member decided to go to an international convention in the States and the first one he found on the internet happened to be an SA IC.
The very first SA meeting in Egypt was held over Zoom in 2014 by a few members. Later on, in 2015, the first face-to-face meeting was held in Cairo. Today, there are seven weekly face-to-face meetings all over Egypt and six weekly online meetings including two women-only meetings.
