The E-Literature position is responsible for assisting the SKYPE meeting by posting the relevant literature in the IM box for those wishing to do service during the meeting. This page has all the documents to make the process quicker to cut and paste instead of going back and forth between the separate pages.
THE CURTASY’S
If you wish to participate in the meeting, you will need a copy of the SLAA 12 steps, the characteristics, the SLAA basic text, the non-conference approved ‘People of Colour in SLAA’ pamphlet and the SLAA Signs of Recovery. All of the documents can be found in our website in the IM box. www.pocinslaa.org
THE TWELVE STEPS OF SLAA.
- We admitted we were powerless over sex and love addiction – that our lives had become unmanageable.
- Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
- Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God.
- Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
- Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
- Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
- Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings.
- Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
- Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
- Continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
- Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with a Power greater than ourselves, praying only for knowledge of God’s will for us and the power to carry that out.
- Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to sex and love addicts, and to practice these principles in all areas of our lives.
CLOSED GROUP
Our common welfare must come first and in order to protect the safety of the group, this meeting is only open to members who identify as a Person of Colour. We explore race issues just like men’s or women’s groups would explore gender. If you do not identify as a Person of Colour, we respectfully ask that you leave this space and check the SLAA website at www.slaafws.org for alternative meetings. We hope that you find an appropriate meeting and keep coming back to the programme.
SLAA Safety Statement
SLAA is a fellowship of men and women who come together to heal from their addiction through the 12 step programme of recovery. It is designed to be a safe and loving community where individuals are able to heal from their illness. Fellowship as part of this community is strongly encouraged, and for many of us, it has been instrumental in tackling the isolation that so often accompanies this illness.
It is important to note that individuals, whose patterns manifest in various ways, attend these meetings. Some will have been victims of abuse, others will have engaged in abusive conduct as part of their acting out patterns, for which they are seeking recovery. A number of individuals will fall within both categories. For some of us, our boundaries have been so violated that we don’t know how to keep ourselves safe. This is one of the tasks that we learn in recovery.
As a guide, the following is suggested:
- As with sponsorship, that individuals create their safe outreach network with fellows who are not of the gender or sexual orientation of their acting out /acting in patterns. Exchange telephone numbers only with individuals that do not fall within this category.
- Limit your engagement with individuals that are the same gender or sexual orientation of your acting out/acting in patterns in meetings whilst you are in early recovery.
- If you at all concerned about an individual, speak up. Do not ignore your instincts. Share with people in the rooms that you trust and your sponsor as to how best to proceed.
- If you are uncomfortable about someone’s behaviour, set a boundary. Use your safe outreach network for support
- Attend fellowship events with others present.
- Do not give out any information other than mobile numbers (i.e. full names, addresses) until you know someone well and are confident that they are safe.
- Sometimes we develop close relationships within the group, but as this is an anonymous fellowship we do not know anything of a person’s background, for example, whether or not they have committed criminal offences. It is advisable therefore, that if developing close friendships or relationships outside the group, that you bear this in mind.
- Regardless of parental consent, no children or individual under the age of 18 years old is to be admitted into a SLAA meeting.
HOW CONCEPT AND TOOLS
The Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous H.O.W. Concept has been formed to offer the Sex and Love Addict (who accepts the twelve steps and twelve traditions as a program of recovery) a disciplined and structured approach. The SLAA H.O.W. groups have been formed in the belief that our disease is absolute and therefore only absolute acceptance of the H.O.W. program will offer any sustained sobriety to those of us whose compulsion has reached a critical level. Therefore the H.O.W. defined bottom-line sobriety, the steps, traditions and tools of recovery are not suggested. Rather, we accept them as requirements for our recovery. You must commit to a black and white sobriety so you may deal with the grey areas of living.In H.O.W. we have found that, if we commit to using the Tools of Recovery on a daily basis, our disease of Sex and Love Addiction can be arrested one day at a time. Here are the tools as we work them according to the H.O.W. Concept.
1. Bottom-Line Sobriety
We have the willingness to stop acting out in our own bottom-line addictive behavior on a daily basis. There are no absolutes for sobriety in SLAA, as individual patterns of Sex and Love Addiction vary. In H.O.W. each Sex and Love Addict works with a sponsor to identify his or her personal bottom-lines. We become sober by abstaining from these bottom-line behaviours on a daily basis. We also believe that negative thinking is a large part of our disease, so we are learning, one day at a time, to abstain from negative thinking.
2. Literature and Writing
We use the AA Big Book and the 12 Steps and 12 Traditions as tools of examination and release. When we substitute the words ‘Sex and Love Addict’ for ‘Alcoholic’ and ‘Sex and Love’ for ‘Alcohol’ we feel that we identify absolutely. Our writing assignments in H.O.W are taken from these. In addition, we refer to SLAA related literature. The HOW Concept and Tools
3.Telephone Calls
We make 4 calls a day: one to our sponsor and three outreach calls to other SLAA members. The phone is like a lifeline – we need the contact. It can be like a mini-meeting. Phone lists are available from Sponsors.
4. Meetings
We recommend that you attend a minimum of three meetings a week. Meetings are dedicated to the concept of remaining honest, open-minded and willing to listen – this is the H.O.W. of the program.
5. Prayer and Meditation
We practice daily prayer and meditation to develop a relationship with a Power greater than ourselves that can guide and sustain us in recovery. We insure our continued and sustained abstinence from Sex and Love Addiction by being forever aware that God is doing for us what we have never been able to do for ourselves.
6. Service
Service is freedom from the bondage of self. It is working the tools of the program to the best of our ability – giving back what we have been given – by helping out at meetings – setting up chairs, making coffee, welcoming& newcomers. Sobriety is a service to ourselves and the group.
7. Sponsorship
A SLAA / H.O.W Sponsor is a Sex and Love Addict who, thank God, has 30 days of continuous sobriety working the SLAA / H.O.W. Concept and has taken the First Three Steps. In keeping with our Second Tradition, our leaders are but trusted servants – they do not govern. A sponsor should be a person we are not in danger of acting out with, or are likely to find intrigue with. A potential sexual partner as sponsor would interfere with the primary purpose& of the sponsor relationship, which is recovery through the program of SLAA. Sometimes this means a sponsor should be of the same sex; sometimes of the opposite sex. Discretion, common sense, and our Higher Power can guide us in our selection.
12 CHARACTERISTICS OF SLAA
Characteristics of Sex and Love Addiction © 1990 The Augustine Fellowship, S.L.A.A., Fellowship-Wide Services, Inc. All Rights Reserved
1. Having few healthy boundaries, we become sexually involved with and/or emotionally attached to people without knowing them.
2. Fearing abandonment and loneliness, we stay in and return to painful, destructive relationships, concealing our dependency needs from ourselves and others, growing more isolated and alienated from friends and loved ones, ourselves, and God.
3. Fearing emotional and/or sexual deprivation, we compulsively pursue and involve ourselves in one relationship after another, sometimes having more than one sexual or emotional liaison at a time.
4. We confuse love with neediness, physical and sexual attraction, pity and/or the need to rescue or be rescued.
5. We feel empty and incomplete when we are alone. Even though we fear intimacy and commitment, we continually search for relationships and sexual contacts.
6. We sexualise stress, guilt, loneliness, anger, shame, fear and envy. We use sex or emotional dependence as substitutes for nurturing care, and support.
7. We use sex and emotional involvement to manipulate and control others.
8. We become immobilized or seriously distracted by romantic or sexual obsessions or fantasies.
9. We avoid responsibility for ourselves by attaching ourselves to people who are emotionally unavailable.
10. We stay enslaved to emotional dependency, romantic intrigue, or compulsive sexual activities.
11. To avoid feeling vulnerable, we may retreat from all intimate involvement, mistaking sexual and emotional anorexia for recovery.
12. We assign magical qualities to others. We idealize and pursue them, then blame them for not fulfilling our fantasies and expectations.
POC IN SLAA PAMPHLET
CROSSTALK AND PROFANITY STATEMENT
Please avoid cross talk which means interrupting others when they are sharing, directing your comments toward someone else, making comments on other peoples’ shares, using people’s names during your share; and please refrain from using words like “we” or “you” during your share. No one can think or speak for anyone of us. Remember, we are all working to achieve our realities, not those of others. Two of the reasons we do not cross talk are:
1. When we were growing up, no one listened to us, they told us our feelings were wrong; and
2. As adults, we are accustomed to “feeding” our addiction by taking care of others and not taking responsibility in our own lives. In this meeting, we speak about our own experience, strength, hope and feelings. We accept without comment what others say because it is true for them, and we work toward taking more responsibility in our own lives, rather than giving advice to others. The only exception to cross talk is during a speaker meeting where people can comment on the speakers’ share.
CROSSTALK AND PROFANITY STATEMENT
This meeting is a space to promote healing, respect and spiritual growth and we honour these principles by not using racial slurs or racially abusive language, regardless of the context. Please keep profanity to a minimum. The secretary will repost this statement if necessary, in order to maintain the safety of the group. Thanks
SUGGESTED TOP LINES FOR PEOPLE OF COLOUR
Do affirmations in front of a mirror about my skin colour.
Study regularly about historical and current cultural issues.
Read about my cultural hero’s and shero’s
Display cultural s/hero pictures and quotes at home.
Join some cultural social groups.
Outreach with other POC about race.
Read about black psychology.
Do some racial anger work.
Do step 10 on race issue.
Learn about the science and spirituality of melanin.
Watch some videos to try new natural hair styles.
Wear clothing which celebrates my culture.
Attend a black history course.
Sponsor another person of colour
See a therapist from your cultural background.
Regularly celebrate cultural calendar events.
Learn and practice my culture’s spirituality.
Attend and get involved with a community event.
Learn / speak my native language regularly.
Share honestly on race issues where it is safe.
Learn to cook a tradition cultural meal.
Buy your children some ethnic books, toys or dolls.
Create new cultural family celebrations and rituals.
SLAA SIGNS OF RECOVERY
1. We seek to develop a daily relationship with a Higher Power, knowing that we are not alone in our efforts to heal ourselves from our addiction.
2. We are willing to be vulnerable because the capacity to trust has been restored to us by our faith in a Higher Power.
3. We surrender, one day at a time, our whole life strategy of, and our obsession with the pursuit of romantic and sexual intrigue and emotional dependency.
4. We learn to avoid situations that may put us at risk physically, morally, psychologically or spiritually.
5. We learn to accept and love ourselves, to take responsibility for our own lives, and to take care of our own needs before involving ourselves with others.
6. We become willing to ask for help, allowing ourselves to be vulnerable and learning to trust and accept others.
7. We allow ourselves to work through the pain of our low self-esteem and our fears of abandonment and responsibility. We learn to feel comfortable in solitude.
8. We begin to accept our imperfections and mistakes as part of being human, healing our shame and perfectionism while working on our character defects.
9. We begin to substitute honesty for self-destructive ways of expressing emotions and feelings.
10. We become honest in expressing who we are, developing true intimacy in our relationships with ourselves and others.
11. We learn to value sex as a by-product of sharing, commitment, trust and cooperation in a partnership.
12. We are restored to sanity, on a daily basis, by participating in the process of recovery.
People of Colour in SLAA 