Group Guide

“An SAA group consists of two or more individuals who, using the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of SAA, meet regularly for the purpose of recovering from their addictive sexual behavior.”

— Sex Addicts Anonymous, p. 10
Group Guide
(click to download)

The SAA Group Guide is designed to give the basic information and materials needed to start and nurture an SAA group. It includes suggested meeting formats and a selection of readings that may be used as deemed appropriate by an autonomous local group. It also contains general information about the SAA Fellowship, including services offered by the International Services Organization (ISO) of SAA and guidelines for participation in regional intergroups.

A draft version of the new 5th edition of the Group Guide has been released by the Literature Committee for publication for a period of continuing review before consideration for final approval.

You can download the SAA Group Guide in PDF format in English or Spanish. Hard copies of the Guide can be purchased from the ISO office shown in the Contact Us box.

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Contact Us

Phone

USA / Canada:
1-800-477-8191
elsewhere:
+1-713-869-4902

Postal mail

ISO of SAA
PO Box 70949
Houston, TX 77270 USA

Email

info@saa-recovery.org

Confidentiality Statement “Be advised that under Texas State law, disclosures of abuse or neglect of minors must be reported to the authorities. SAA staff can provide more information on reporting and disclosure issues.”

The 12 Steps

  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.

The 12 Traditions

  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. Sex Addicts Anonymous 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. Sex Addicts Anonymous 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.