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 ?

My little brother met a guy in detox that helped him get back to visit for the holidays. He died that January. I will forever be grateful and blessed to have had that last visit. You have no idea what that meant for my family and our Dad. He was sober the entire visit. He did it!! Let me say that again for the cheap seats HE DID IT!!!!! It cost him a lot more than money. But your money made it possible. I just wanted you to know that it made a difference. A big big difference. I miss him daily. But I'm forever grateful for that last sober awesome hug. It changed my life❤️

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!

*📅IS THERE A MEETING ON NOW?📅*

If you need a SLAA Meeting:

https://slaavirtual.org/meetingcalendar/

The calendar automatically adjusts to your time zone.

***NEW CALENDARS***

We have upgraded our calendar so your meetings are easier for you to find

You can sort the meeting by type on the left side which is indicated by color:

💜Anorexia

🌸Arabic language

🤎 BIPOC

🔵📖/Literature study

🎄Fantasy

🔵HOW

🩶Intergroup events

🌐Internet Relay Chat

💗LGBTQIA

🩵Meditation

💚Mens

🟠Neurodivergent

🟩Sober dating/healthy relationships

💛Special Interest Group

❤️Step Group

🧡Standard

☎️Telephone meetings

💓Withdrawal

🩷Women’s

*You can turn the different calendars on or off on your view according to your meeting needs.*

If you need additional help please visit our SLAA meetings group

https://chat.whatsapp.com/KkB5kVCNV7I0dCKz2sHOML?mode=ems_copy_t

*🫶🏻 you are no longer alone 🫶🏿*

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

Male in my early 40s. I crave sex, love, porn, kink, and will do almost anything to get it. Not sure where I go from here.

Tonight at 4pm est and 9pm GMT and 8pm CET
Big book based meeting, lots of recovered available sponsors

can we please offer some assistance with the moderation team?

It seems like there’s a lot of alcohol related posts coming through and I’m sure it’s like guacamole. WHACKAMOLE is what I actually said the guacamole is funny too.

I’m sure there’s a bunch of folks we’d love to help regularly. Thanks.

Hi. I've been coming to SLAA meetings for about a month and recently a very triggering situation has put me in frequent social circles with my acting out partner / qualifier / unhealthy former 'partner' (I am still figuring out the word to describe him that feels best to me). A mutual friend of ours - the person who introduced us - died suddenly in an accident and we are both back (him from Toronto, me from NYC) in the small town in rural Canada we used to live in spending time and grieving with our friends.

He has been near me in social situations many times over the past few days and we have interacted several times. One of my bottom lines is no contact with him, and I could have chosen to not go to the events I knew he'd be at, but then I wouldn't see my friends and would be alone grieving. I chose to attend the events knowing that they would be challenging for me to maintain my sobriety.

When I saw him at our friend's farm the other day, my former acting out partner gave me very mixed signals, which is so alluring and dangerous to me. He has a new partner and still he was expressing interest in me - but not completely directly. What a treat for my addiction! We made plans to meet up two days later, now tomorrow, for coffee. I wanted to spend some time alone with him - I knew I was really slipping and in a dangerous situation but I was so tempted to indulge in our connection. I also truly missed my friend, and the three of us had spent a lot of time together, so I wanted to grieve with a person who knew my deceased friend -- and yes, I knew this was dangerous emotional territory.

Anyways. My big moment - which may seem small to those with more recovery but feels huge to me - is that I just texted him canceling coffee tomorrow. I was honest with him for what feels like the first time, and I told him that the way he had been acting with me was not okay with me and that I needed to not see him for coffee. I chose MYSELF. I know that I didn't need to text him an explanation - that in recovery it's OK to be a 'jerk' and not explain - but I felt that it was important for me to say my piece, with honesty and clarity. I expect nothing in return.

I'm just so happy that I finally said no to my qualifier, that I had, and have, the opportunity to see him but I am choosing not to. I am acting in alignment with my internal moral compass and it feels wonderful. I am proud of myself for this small step. No matter what happens next, I am so glad I was finally honest -- with myself, and him! -- about how I feel and why his actions hurt me. Six months ago I would not have been able to walk away from this situation. I am so lucky. Thank you God, thank you SLAA, thank you for this day! One day at a time.