Tuesday Mixed Anorexia 9am PST Readings and Friday Anorexia 9am PST Readings
SEXUAL ANOREXIC MEETING PREAMBLE
Sex Addicts Anonymous is a spiritual program based on the principles and traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous. Our primary purpose is to stop our addictive sexual behavior, and to help others recover from sexual addiction. We find a new way of living through the SAA program, and carry our message to others seeking recovery.
OUR ADDICTION:
Before coming to Sex Addicts Anonymous, many of us never knew that our problem had a name. All we knew was that we couldn’t control our sexual behavior. For us, sex was a consuming way of life. Although the details of our stories were different, our problem was the same. We were addicted to sexual behaviors that we returned to over and over, despite the consequences. Sex addiction is a disease affecting the mind, body, and spirit. It is progressive, with the behavior and its consequences usually becoming more severe over time. We experience it as compulsion, which is an urge that is stronger than our will to resist, and as obsession, which is a mental preoccupation with sexual behavior and fantasies. In SAA, we have come to call our addictive sexual behavior “acting out.”
SEXUAL ANOREXIA:
For some of us, the compulsive avoidance of sex and intimacy became a destructive pattern, dominating our thoughts and actions. We may always have felt unable or unwilling to be sexual . Or we may have experienced periods of feeling “shut down” alternating with other periods of sexual acting out. We have come to realize that both extremes represent symptoms of the same disease. Whether we were acting out or not being sexual at all, our addiction involved being emotionally unavailable.
Symptoms of Sexual Anorexia some of us have experienced include but are not limited to:
Finding fault or starting fight with significant other to avoid sexual relations.
A pattern of addictive sexual acting out, followed by compulsive avoidance of sex.
Extreme fear of combining intimacy with sexuality.
Practicing avoidance of sexual thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
Avoiding one on one relationships by socializing with a great number of people.
The core belief that people would hate us if they knew the real us.
Being emotionally unavailable - in non-sexual and sexual relationships.
A feeling that our sexuality is inherently bad and something we should feel ashamed and guilty about.
Only being sexual with non-intimate partners.
A pattern of sex and relationships with unavailable people.
A pattern of sex and relationships with active sex addicts.
An inability to accept nurturing and care from ourselves, our HP and others.
Obsession about sex (about having it and avoiding it).
An inability to form and maintain non-sexual relationships.
An inability to trust and rely on others, believing that other people will always let us down and it is safer if we just do things on our own.
Pretending that flirtation / sexual advances aren't really happening and acting uninterested purely based on fear.
Hiding the joys and pains of our life from people we know, trust, respect, and admire, due to self-pity, false pride and fear.
This list is not meant to be diagnostic. Each anorexic must determine their own pattern of sexually anorexic behavior, with the help of a sponsor or others in the program. If you need a sponsor, please talk to someone after the meeting.
The Twelve Steps of Sex Addicts Anonymous
[From Sex Addicts Anonymous pages 20-21]
1. We admitted we were powerless over addictive sexual behavior—that our lives
had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we
understood God.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our
wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to
them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so
would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly
admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God
as we understood God, praying only for knowledge of God’s will for us and the
power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this
message to other sex addicts and to practice these principles in our lives.
Twelve Traditions of SAA
1. Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon S.A.A.
unity.
2. For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority—a loving God as
expressed in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do
not govern.
3. The only requirement for S.A.A. membership is a desire to stop addictive sexual
behavior.
4. Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or
S.A.A. as a whole.
5. Each group has but one primary purpose—to carry its message to the sex addict
who still suffers.
6. An S.A.A. group ought never endorse, finance, or lend the S.A.A. name to any
related facility or outside enterprise lest problems of money, property, and
prestige divert us from our primary purpose.
7. Every S.A.A. group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside
contributions.
8. S.A.A. should remain forever nonprofessional, but our service centers may
employ special workers.
9. S.A.A., as such, ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or
committees directly responsible to those they serve.
10. S.A.A. has no opinion on outside issues; hence the S.A.A. name ought never be
drawn into public controversy.
11. Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need
always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, TV, and films.
12. Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to
place principles before personalities.
ABSTINENCE STATEMENT
Our goal when entering the SAA Program is abstinence from one or more specific sexual behaviors. But unlike programs for recovering alcoholics or drug addicts, Sex Addicts Anonymous does not have a universal definition of abstinence. Most of us have no desire to stop being sexual altogether. It is not sex in and of itself that causes us problems, but the addiction to certain sexual behaviors. In SAA we will be better able to determine what behavior is addictive and what is healthy. However, the fellowship does not dictate to its members what is and isn’t addictive sexual behavior. Instead we have found that it is necessary for each member to define his or her own abstinence.
Since different addicts suffer from different behaviors, and since our sexuality is experienced in so many different ways, it is necessary that SAA members define for themselves, with the help of their sponsors or others in recovery, which of their sexual behaviors they consider to be “acting out”.
This can be a difficult challenge. If we are too lenient with ourselves, we might not get sober. If we are too strict, we might restrict ourselves from healthy behaviors that we have no need to give up, and an inability to meet our high standards could set us up for relapse. We need the help of other recovering sex addicts, and the reliance on a Power greater than ourselves, to find the right balance between these two extremes.
Our program acknowledges each individual’s dignity and right to choose his or her own concept of healthy sexuality. We have learned that our ideas of what is healthy and what is addictive evolve with experience. In time, we are able to define our individual abstinence with honesty, fairness and gentleness. This process is a valuable exercise in our recovery. It requires us to carefully examine all of our sexual behaviors, decide which ones are healthy or addictive, and note those cases where we’re not sure. It is a way of taking stock of our sexuality that teaches us a lot about ourselves and our behavior.
THE PROMISES
If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through.
We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness.
We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.
We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace.
No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others.
That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear.
We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows.
Self-seeking will slip away.
Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change.
Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us.
We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us.
We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.
Are these extravagant promises? We think not.
They are being fulfilled among us - sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly.
They will always materialize if we work for them.
THE UNITY PRAYER
I put my hand in yours and together we can do
what we could never do alone.
No longer is there a sense of hopelessness.
No longer must we each depend upon
our own unsteady willpower.
We are all together now, reaching out our hands
for a power and strength greater than ours,
and as we join hands,
we find love and understanding
beyond our wildest dreams.