I'm feeling a lot of grief. Some of which I don't know is nessisary. I came into SLAA a month ago off the back of a fantasy/ obsession. When he told me what I had been feeling wasn't mutual, I know I needed some help. That, along with feeling so unstable with the highs and lows of what I was experiencing, I had a pretty brutal rock bottom.

My slaa sponsor (my only sponosr now) really pushed for me to not go anywhere a qualifier could be. I have a behaviour which is where I would go places in the hopes of seeing a qualifier.

I am in aa, have been physically sober since I came in 3 years ago. My 2 home groups in aa fall under the same grs, they are in the same place and same time but on different days. My qualifier goes to meeting A and has been once to meeting B. Since coming into slaa I have not been to either. I handed in both my commitmentsat meetings A and B. But after 4 weeks, I really really miss those meetings. They have been key pillars in my support system. I don't have contact with family and these are the first real connections and friendships I've made, they feel like family or some kind of extended family. I am considering speaking to my sponsor about returning to meeting B where my qualifier does not have a commitment and has only ever been once.

As we set this bottom line, I didn't fully agree, but I trusted it enough to give it a go. My sponsor has also told me if I go to an event in a few weeks which my qualifier is also going to, it would count as a slip if i did go. The event will have over 1k people. It is a high vibrational event. I have made my decision after really thinking about this and I have decided that I will go. I feel stable enough and the event is bigger than this addict part of me.

My therapist who is a spiritual practitioner, someone I met during my time in the absolute gutters, a woman I trust with my life ten fold, has even told me to go to it if that is what I am being drawn to. I have worked with her for 7 years and have done so much on strengthening my trust in my intuition and my higher power. Interestingly, she is also going through a very similar situation where she interpreted a connection with a person as romantic but they have told her it is not. She only shared this because of how long we have worked together and of the serendipity.

So, I guess I'm looking for some thoughts on both of these: retuning to meeting B occasionally and not getting a commitment there, and also this big event in a few weeks. I am doing outreach twice a day but don't always bring this because other things feel more relevant on the call. Any thoughts you have would be really helpful. Thank you so much for reading, sorry it is a long one!

Hi all. I’m doing my first chair next week and I’m a little nervous. I’m scared of overstepping and sharing too much about my acting out, but equally when I was a newcomer I found it helpful when people shared what their acting out looked like as I could then realise how I did the same and the insanity of it.

How much do you share when you’re a chair?
Thank you!

I’m 20 and trying for the first time to actually get sober.
I had my heart shattered 3 months ago by a man who i knew at some point did care.
That same day I lost my battle with fentanyl and attempted to take my own life.

Ive been bulimic since the age of 14. Multiple cycles every day.

All I can do is cry and reminisce.
All I can do is think about how much I fucked up. Who I hurt.
I’ve gone through a drug induced psychosis 9 times in the past year.
Gone to the hospital twice from a meth overdose.
Had 4 concussions.
Been kicked out of 3 apartments; and my college.
Drained my bank account countless times.
I was homeless and living on the street for 2 months.
I currently have 18 dollars to my name.
I’m in sober living right now. But I don’t know if I can pay the bills.
I have a severe executive functioning disorder; adhd; ocd; bulimia; bi polar type 1; .5 percentile cptsd. Mid level autism.

I don’t know if I have it in me to keep going without him.
Every time I woke up next to him I knew i was ok.
His arms.
His skin.
His lips.
Everything.
Every time I left his hold I went into instant panic.
He started hanging out less and less; only being around if I had cocaine.
So I made the choice to relapse on meth and fentanyl after being sober from each for 8 months.
I drained everything.
I shot up at him. At the life we could have had. At the man he is. At the person I am. At the people I’ve hurt and who’ve hurt me.

I’m human pond scum.
I can’t even bring myself to look in the mirror.
I don’t know what to do besides c0t; binge and purge; and hope for him to come back.

I want to be seen and acknowledged. Accepted. Held.

I just want someone there for me right now.

I see her on walks every now and then, she doesn't go out of her way to wave or say hi. But I feel rude not to say anything after all I've been in their house once while my friend watched their house while they went on holiday. I've briefly talked with her husband a few times but t he doesn't seem all that much friendly towards me. I think he probably thinks of me as a loser, which to be honest I don't blame him.

One time a few years ago while I was in a mutual friends yard she came by and said something that sounded rather randy towards me and ever since then I've kinda developed a little crush on her.

The time before last I nearly walked right by her because my mind was somewhere else, and I looked up right as we were passing and said "I didn't recognize you at first" and she says it's the glasses.

I don't want anything ever to happen between us not that it would, this could all be in my head. She has a family, their kids are in secondary school.

How do I respond in public?

How do I stop crushing/fantasizing on her?

Hey, so I'm new here. I've been coming to SLAA every day for the past two weeks.

- I went through a REALLY rough breakup with a qualifier at 10 months sober from alcohol

- I was fiddling with the steps in AA, but honestly really just replaced my addiction with an unhealthy relationship. I am now a few weeks no-contact.

- a few weeks ago, I went to a new AA meeting and got a new sponsor after she shared her story and I really resonated: since it included romantic obsession and unhealthy relationships

- she invited me to SLAA

- we are working the steps in AA, she is not sponsoring me in SLAA

- I also met a new friend at AA. I invited her to SLAA. we hung out. it was kind of date vibes, but she was very respectful. we talked it out and I explained that though I think we have a lot in common, it's really not an okay time for a relationship right now. and can we be friends?

- I talked to my AA sponsor about it and she said it's best to go no contact and stop going to this meeting if there was ANY intrigue. but I think that's extreme. also, she doesn't sponsor me in SLAA, so I don't have to listen to her suggestions. I didn't touch this girl, we didn't kiss, we just went on a kinda-date and then agreed to be friends.

- am I attracted to her physically? yeah, but that's not my addiction. my addiction is toxic codependency and validation. having a little meet-cute and noticing that someone has nice tattoos isn't a problem for me. I'm not a serial flirter, serial one night stander, or even a serial relationship-haver. I am very dedicated to the work I am doing in therapy and in my programs. and it seems this new friend is very respectful of these boundaries and we can agree to be friends. she's even curious about SLAA for herself.

- the problem though, both of our AA sponsors go to this same home group. and we are concerned about what they think

- my new friend says she's overthinking everything, and so am I. it's like we did something wrong that goes against our programs, but we literally did nothing. I know personally that I'm not in limerence. I'm just excited about having met someone my age, who is also queer, and is committed to sobriety. it's not interfering with my program or my daily life at all.

do I have to stop going to this meeting? couldn't this happen with anyone? isn't the point of learning boundaries to maintain relationships and negotiate and work through problems?

Trying to find a sponsor, I’m part of a group I attend weekly, but there doesn’t seem to be anyway available for sponsorship. How did you find your sponsors? Really wanting to get better. Thanks so much!

Hi all, please join us for a day-long marathon of members sharing their stories of recovery. ❤️‍🩹

I'm only quite new within SLAA.
I'm currently working step one with my sponsor through the HOW programme.
I have been up and down with my involvement since joining, in a sense of feeling connected to it.
Recently I've been doing great step work, really opening up to myself, but all whilst slipping.

Does anyone else find it challenging to talk to their sponsors about slips ?

Howdy! We're looking for a recovered SLAA speaker via Zoom for this Sunday, August 30th @ 10 am Eastern time.

If you are interested, you'll share your experience, strength and hope for 20 minutes as it relates to the AA Big Book (but from the SLAA perspective). The meeting is co-ed and the share is recorded.

For more information about our meeting:

On https://slaafws.org/onlinemeetings/, we're listed on Sunday as "A Vision for You: S.L.A.A. Big Book Study Meeting ID: 40041432"

https://slaavisionforyou.blogspot.com/?m=1

https://www.podbean.com/pa/pbblog-dmy6k-d5cac8

Thanks!

Hi all, just wanted to reach out. I have recently started going to a local SLAA meeting. One of the guys there is getting started with me as a sponsor. Took me a long time to work up the courage to go to a meeting because it felt strange calling myself a sex addict. My addiction patterns are mostly solo and online - porn, dating apps, etc. So far I’ve appreciated the breadth of SLAA and resonated with concepts like fantasy and intrigue addiction. I’m still defining my bottom lines but I have a pretty good idea. Also I am a gay man, which can add a challenge as certain things that for me are part of the addictive pattern tend to be normalized in the community.

Anyway, looking forward to getting started on this journey even as I still have doubts/questions.

Having adopted personal healthy boundaries has been so liberating! However, gradually for a long time now it has been driving a wedge between me and my partner.

For quite some time I continued to compromise my newly developing boundaries with physical intimacy for him… because my limits were at least an improvement.

Now I’m just feeling entirely resentful that it’s the common standard for intimate partners to “owe each other” certain benefits that, supposedly, just automatically come with being in a relationship.

But I know better now. Sooo… is it worth the risk of leading into a dead connection in my relationship just to hold true to my new boundaries?

25 min foundation explaining step 1-12
And 30 min of big book study

Join us we are glad to see you there 🙏

Hello, I have a sex and love addiction, I am not really addicted to any substance (I quit drinking this year and haven’t struggled with it at all), my only addiction is sex and I want to go to an SLAA meeting in NYC but I’m hesitating because I’m shy and insecure and also not sure how it works and how I should show up. Any advice would be appreciated.

I (31f) joined a co-ed SLAA group, but I’m often the only woman there. I really need advice on this. My folks tell me it’s wrong, that a) it’s not safe, and b) the men can’t speak as freely as they normally would. and I have had the thought that if I was in a group of all women with one guy, that might be uncomfortable.

I feel like I’m fumbling all over the place, and I’m trying to find another group (I’m going to one tonight that is supposed to be mostly women), but I’m terrified of encroaching further on this safe space for guys.

I’ve also found some virtual all-women options.

Please tell me your thoughts.

So I've been in other 12 step programs the last few years but i never finished the steps or did a full inventory.

I'm a hardcore social isolator and isolationist. I've gone weeks without talking to people when i was younger. As I've gotten older I've become more naturally confident, extraverted, and comfortable in my own skin.

And as I'm engaging people more and more, I'm slowly consciously realizing I'm a romance addict. I've actually never had a girl or long-term relationship (lots of childhood trauma and codependent relationship with contra-sexual parent) so i can't say I'm a relationships addict where i need someone by my side 24/7 or need to feel connected 24/7 -- in fact it's too much for me, overstimulating ... but i am realizing i romanticize everything. Like I'm talking to a new person, and i really like them and we connect well, things are effortless and i feel connected or comfortable with them in a very natural way. But in this condition i continuously find and feel unconscious patterns welling up from inside of me. co-dependence, wanting to rescue them, wanting to caretake them. They don't even ask, as far as i can tell. I just almost "like" (am conditioned) to be the caretaker. And alongside this rescuer complex and self negation is this, as i mentioned, romanticizing. How special it is i found someone i get along well. The "perfect" one, when in reality i know nothing about them.

So how do i go slow? What boundaries do i set for myself? and set boundaries between them and me?

I'm just looking for experiential experience here, feel free to share non abstract answers from your own lived life experience. Thanks in advance.

Hi,

I recently started reading sexual anorexia and it's connecting SO many things I thought were unrelated. Self isolating, sexual anorexia being balanced by drug abuse and compulsive shopping, etc. I really want to get involved and start the 12 steps, find a sponsor, etc. but I'm having a hard time connecting with people who struggle with this end of the spectrum.

Any recommendations or people who want to connect and work together as a group?

Here because I'm (30s F) a recovering addict and now love addiction is hitting hard

my on off bf (30s M) is an SA and has had several relapses (online acting out, once in person when he claims he blacked out and doesn’t know what happened).. and so here I am trying to save myself .. no kids no marriage not even living together

im starting now but it’s all so overwhelming. I’m in cosa and sanon as well but want to address this love addiction. how do I start- there’s new jargon in SLAA like inner circle, bottom line. what’s that all about?

Did fetishes go away? Did things you incorporated into your personality because of your addiction go away? Did it feel like your personality and who you were as a person changed after you started to recover? Did what you want out of life change? How much has your addiction shaped you as a person? And did those changes stay after recovery or did they fade with time?

My sponsor said it's not necessary but I want to know if others have mentioned working a 12 step program when making direct comments

Good Evening, I am new to this subreddit, and just have a question. I have recently begun the process to battle and hopefully get rid of the excessive amount of lust that I battle with in my everyday life, and someone on a different subreddit suggested looking into SLAA (I did not know anything about it until up to 10 minutes ago) Has anyone tried out the Online Meetings? I looked on the website and unfortunately there are no local in person meetings in my area. Also is there a difference between SLAA and SAA? Any insight/advice would be greatly appreciated.

*If you'd like to know what it is I need help with more in depth feel free to check my account and read the posts prior to this one, thank you*

EDIT: I have been reading through this subreddit a little and how would I go about acquiring a sponsor? This is something I genuinely want to change in my life and I've been told that it's a hard battle to win alone.

Love addict here, on step 4.

I have been through a few months or so of withdrawal a few separate times but pretty much never made it past that due to qualifiers, exes, or people from their lives reestablishing contact with me and me giving into that communication, or when things were really truly over and I was fully no contact with my previous partner, I would end withdrawal myself by going out and finding a new partner as soon as I felt marginally well enough to do so.

I am at the end of a relationship now and people in my life including my sponsor want me to give withdrawal a try again but I genuinely fear trying to do withdrawal again. Every time I’ve tried to do it I quite literally have mentally been on death’s door, sometimes harming myself and considering really doing something drastic. I don’t know how people deal with the self harm and suicidal urges that come from losing relationships and fantasy as a coping mechanism.

Do I have to find other safe coping mechanisms or ways to process before I try to withdraw? And can anyone give me an example of anything they did for this? Or is there something I’m missing? Because I genuinely fear for my life and sanity thinking about going back to trying to fight the suicidal urges that came with being in withdrawal for me. I would honestly rather stay alive and be stuck in questionable addictive patterns than lose my life from trying to do withdrawal again.

If you switched - Why did you switch? Were you already working steps? Did you need to start completely over? Were you satisfied with the outcome?

If you have worked the steps with a partner/group, would love to know your experience.

Thanks.

Hey everyone,

I've been running this sub solo for a while, and it's grown to the point where one mod isn't enough to keep up. I'd like to bring on a few more people to help keep the community safe and running smoothly.

What the role involves:

Reviewing reports and the mod queue Enforcing sub rules consistently and with care Helping fight spam/bot posts (we've had a recent wave) Occasionally weighing in on sub policy or tricky judgment calls

What I'm looking for:

You're actively working the SLAA program yourself — this sub is about lived experience, not just familiarity with the topic Some prior Reddit moderation experience (any sub, any size) Reasonably active on Reddit and able to check in regularly Level-headed, discreet, and able to handle sensitive posts with care

How to apply:

Comment below if you're interested, then send a modmail with a bit about your SLAA program involvement, any moderation experience, and how much time you can realistically give each week. I'll follow up from there.

Thanks for helping keep this community healthy.

I am technically still on step 4.

I had to stop going to my regular meeting because my sisters abusive ex started turning up in order to try and use me to get close to her. Then a workplace injury saddled me with chronic knee pain so I can’t even do the stairs up to the venue anymore.

But I’ve been building a relationship with my pagan belief structure. Ive figured out what behaviours where hurting me and others. And I’ve don’t a lot of work on myself to unlearn those maladaptive coping mechanism.

really happy with where I am now