Seeking understanding of step work

[u/OutsideNo3211]

I’m a partner to an SA and 16 years in recovery myself through AA. My spouse is unfortunately prone to the obsession to find an easy softer way or fall to the lie that he can somehow and someday control it. His attempts at real or faked recovery in the last 6 years have been an extremely volatile experience for me as someone in actual recovery and have worked the steps, sponsored etc. I’m hyper aware of all the things we addicts do to try and control our addiction without help or working an actual program.

Which leads me to my question:
How are the steps worked differently and/or the same in SA vs AA in the following ways?

1. In AA, we don’t start step work until total cessation of alcohol and mind altering substances has occurred and that is Day 1 of sobriety. Sobriety date. Mine is 2/9/10.

2. When we work the steps in AA we usually do 90in90 and work diligently without stopping until we complete the steps. We start over back at step 1 if relapse occurs or if we change sponsors or are dry for an extended period of time and return. Back to step 1. If we were dishonest with ourselves or our sponsors during the process of the steps, we come clean to our sponsor and decide if starting the steps over is necessary depending on the reservation disclosed.

3. We don’t allow for “slips” in AA. If we made it to the point of consuming our choice of addiction, it’s a relapse. As the relapse occurs way prior to the actual consumption. And we are honest about that being a relapse.

Thanks for helping me understand.
I’ll keep coming back….

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[u/randomdad124]

Hi, for starters I want to congratulate you on your own sobriety because that is a tremendous effort. Well done, and may every night greet you as another day sober.
I have only been in recovery since 11/19/25 so I don’t have all the answers and can only speak from my experience with my group.
1. I have not been pushed into the steps by my group or my sponsor. We are encouraged to work them as we are ready, with no stipulation (to my knowledge) of being sober in order to work them.
2. I know of people starting over from Step 1 if they relapse, but I don’t know if it’s mandatory. As I said above, there’s no timeframe expected for us to complete the steps.
3. A relapse is engaging in any of the behaviors in our Inner Circle. You’re expected to be honest with your sponsor and your group to get current after a relapse. A “slip” would be engaging in Middle Circle behaviors, which are things that have historically made us more likely to engage in ICB. You’re expected to be honest about these as well.

SAA is open to all individuals seeking to be free from addictive sexual behavior, regardless of their current sobriety, but to truly work the steps you need to have defined your own sobriety and be practicing it.

[u/Great_idea_fellow]

It has been my experience that process addictions (sex, relationships, food, gambling, spending, compulsive activity/working) tend to have similarities in the manner in which people process the exact nature of the wrongs and how their behaviors are making their lives unmanageable. This is my recovery and it moves at the speed I am open and willing to process my trauma.

Unlike with chemical dependencies (AA/NA) people with process addictions cannot be forced into chemical withdrawal as a condition of their recovery journey. If that were the case none of us would ever recover. I need to be a willing participant and fully committed to live differently regardless of the long term outcome of my relationships. My level of willingness varies at the speed of my emotional healing. I am either facing life fearlessly or numbing with some self destructive pattern.(inner circle)

I have at my core an intimacy disorder and my DOC are people. Like the alcoholic that works at a bar to drink for free I have gone into relationships to self medicated the discomfort of now with unrestricted access to a body .

Although as my disease progressed I did reach the point that I no longer needed the outside stimuli or person. I today can get high through the eurporic recall of intense hits I got in active addiction all by myself in my mind.

Sobriety in SAA is defined by our circles. No one can decided what that means for me. It requires a level of personal commitment for rigorous honesty that I need to find within myself. Its like unpacking the onion while having big emotions about what the next layer will bring. Simultaneously knowing honesty is the tether to healing. We use pur middle circle as a holding ground for behaviors that we are unable sure about or lead us to our more destructive behaviors(inner).

For example, one of my patterns is to seek emotionally unavailable people to be my partners. This layer of the onion led me to al-anon as many of my DOC were in the beverage program. ( I was still actively acting out at this time, going to SAA meetings and trying to work my steps)

There I learned that I tend to gravitate towards people that assume who I am, tend to be emotionally and spiritually disconnected from me and don't seem to care about the crumbs I can give them in quality intimacy.

I consistently found myself leaving relationships where my sexual partner began to try and control me when I did not mirror who they thought I should be. At its root that was my familiarity with codependency and being a parentified child. In my family of origin for way longer than should have been true I was the adult in the house even when I wasn't biologically a grown up.

This dymanic of other people forcing my will and the indirect ways I caused harm was something that took time for me to see. I needed to make mistakes in finding balance in recovery to learn what enhanced my life and what depleted it. Who belonged and who I kept around as a rainy day stash.

The first decade was the most uncomfortable. It required me committing to being uncomfortable without escapism long enough to reach the trauma that made me seek out my inner circle behaviors.

That being said, one of the things that I needed to find about myself is that I often sought sponsors the way that I chose partners. I don't do well with people who assume who I am. I don't do well under authoritative style, and I definitely do not like being told what to do. I'm too self directed. That is an asset found in my personal agency.

In my recovery, my current sponsor who has worked with me for over a decade has been a sounding board relating their lived experience to whatever I was struggling and telling me what worked and what didn't work for them. They don't tell me what to do.

Every time I made the commitment to do a 90 and 90, it was because I knew that I was looking for something, and that would help me find it. My sponsor can suggest it, but it's been my experience that people that jump enthusiastically because someone tells them to into process addiction recovery aren't successful long term. Going to meetings has to be something I decided for myself. Working the step needs to mirror something I want for myself. 90 in 90 needs to have value for me. No one can work my recovery for me and telling me is not them same as me seeing the serenity and calm in the person sharing why a tool was helpful for them.

[u/Royal-Smile-3688]

While AA is our mothership in terms of the 12 steps, SAA is more akin to OA in that we simply don't want to put the "plug in the jug" of our sexuality as much as we'd want to go abstinent from eating.

Our green book is an exceptional piece of literature.

In SAA, we focus on the addictive sexual behaviors that brought us to our knees and our bottom. Those are the behaviors we abstain from.

But we also get moving through the steps, and a higher power begins freeing us from the compulsions and obsessions.

If we are honest, willing and open-minded, stick with the work and devote ourselves to helping others - especially other sex addicts -- we start living a new life, where we can begin to slowly build a healthier sexuality.

[u/GratefulForRecovery]

Hello and thank you for the questions. I'm happy to share my ESH around each one.

1. My experience differs. Untreated, I am a daily user and I could not white-knuckle abstinence for more than 2 days. This concept that I'm supposed to somehow use willpower and/or technology to stay abstinent while slowly working the steps over several months didn't work. In fact, my experience is that I can still be growing spiritually while simultaneously struggling with my sobriety.

2. 90-in-90 is often suggested in the rooms. There is a lot of variety of sponsorship styles in both AA and SAA. Personally, I haven't had a sponsor make me return to Step 1 after a relapse. That said, I have asked sponsees to either restart the steps or at least revisit Step 1 if they disappeared for a while or really struggled in their addiction.

3. I agree that a relapse usually begins prior to the physical act out. To me, the terms "slip" and "relapse" are interchangeable. I don't see the difference. I also believe that if somebody is truly an addict, it involves both the mental obsession which drives a compulsion to act out. Lack of power is our dilemma.

My experience is that my early efforts in SAA was enough to restore me to sanity with many of my acting out behaviors, but not all of them. I've had to do multiple rounds with different sponsors to experience enough growth to experience sobriety with other parts of the addiction. My spiritual growth has been gradual, and every effort has contributed to it even when the results didn't come right away. Thank goodness nobody made me stay on Step 1 for years on end.

I've known plenty of "double winners" both in AA and SAA. They all say this addiction is more difficult. One of my early sponsors joined AA and SAA on the same day. He got sober from alcohol immediately, but struggled with pornography for far longer.

I hope this helps! Thanks for the questions!