SAA saved my life!
SAA has saved many lives, perhaps yours. My best efforts to deal with my sexual addiction led me to be beaten, robbed and to having my car stolen. My addiction led me to near-arrest and loss of my career. It was not until I found a group of similarly afflicted persons who had adopted and adapted the AA 12-Step approach to recovery from addiction that I found hope for a return to normalcy.
Why do I continue to attend meetings 17 years after finding SAA? Why do I contribute my time, talent, and treasure to support this organization and thereby my fellow addicts? Because I do not want to die! Continuing in my addictive patterns would have led me to insanity, incarceration, or death.
One thing I have learned from attending numerous meetings, workshops, retreats, and inter-national conventions is that my experience is not unique. The particulars of my story vary from other members of the fellowship but the underlying pathologies are the same.
The gratitude that I have for this program is similar to how a person whose life has been saved by the heroic actions of a stranger must feel. There is no way such a person can ever repay such a hero. There is no way that I can every repay SAA. But, I feel compelled to try.
I am bothered greatly whenever I hear that a group, Intergroup, or the ISO of SAA is struggling due to a lack of financial and/or volunteer support. How can so many who have received so much care so little about the organization that saved their lives? Why do addicts who spent thousands of dollars and thousands of hours acting out fail to provide the support needed to assure that the next sex addict who seeks a port in the storm of addiction will find a safe harbor? How can members of the local fellowship sit at home when addicts from great distances, eager for recovery, sacrifice to attend our workshops and retreats? How can addicts who have been blessed with the opportunity for recovery not extend that same life saving experience to “the addict who still suffers”?
Sexual addiction recovery is not a science. The splintered efforts of the many “S-groups” that exist dilute the message we all seek to carry. Our petty disagreements hinder our effectiveness. Our trusted servants, individually and as service structures, are flawed. Nonetheless, these “S-groups” offer the last, best hope for my recovery and that of my fellow sex addicts.
I cannot, I will not, allow a single addict to die from this addiction when I can avoid that death by being active and involved in furthering the growth and advancement of sexual addiction recovery.
Mike C.
Tags: carrying the message, gratitude, SAA