Conscious Contact

Winter 2005-2006

The Tools That Help Us Get Better

The Tool of Service Service work keeps me connected to the program even when my addict tells me that I don’t need it anymore. Intergroup It’s that time of year again, the time for all meetings to select Intergroup representatives.  Our annual Intergroup elections will be held on Sunday, February 5th.   Please consider taking part in whatever way you can—as an officer, committee member or meeting representative.  To see what Intergroup has been up to, check out minutes of recent meetings on our website, www.scachicago.org. ISO Meeting March 3-5 Chicago is hosting the 2006 Annual Meeting of the International Service Organization of SCA (“ISO”) March 3-5.  The Chicagoland fellowship of SCA will have a unique opportunity to observe business meetings at the international level and participate in 12-step meetings and social events with SCA members from other parts of the country and the world. There is still much work to be done to make this event happen, so contact either Joe S. or John S. to offer your service.  Talk to Todd R. or Bob E. to help out with the social Saturday night.  Also, let Mitchell or Peter know if you can host out-of-town guests.

Addiction is a disease of denial and isolation.  A fundamental part of the SCA program is a set of “Tools” that we may draw upon to break through these destructive patterns of behavior.  For new members, they provide guidelines and a place to begin.  The Tools also serve to remind us of "the basics" once our recovery has matured. THE SCA TOOLS OF RECOVERY:  THE TELEPHONE, SPONSORSHIP, LITERATURE, THE TWELVE STEPS, PRAYER AND MEDITATION, A SEXUAL RECOVERY PLAN, ABSTENTION (PARTIAL OR TOTAL), SOCIALIZING, DATING, THE SLOGANS, SERVICE, AND WRITING. Our recovery plan is a Tool.  It is also a place to outline how we use the rest of the Tools to support our recovery.  Many members find it helpful to review these Tools periodically to find new ways to address their “cunning, baffling and powerful” addiction.  In this issue many of our members share their experience with the Tools.

Meetings:  The amazing thing about meetings is that, even when I fell like I’d rather be doing something else, I always seem to hear exactly what I need—something that applies directly to my present situation.  When I hear other people speaking openly and honestly it gives me the strength to do the same. The Telephone:  I can’t always get to meetings but I can pick up the phone.  When I talk with someone about what’s going on—someone who knows me and my history—it helps.  A lot.  It’s not just a tool, it’s a gift. Prayer and Meditation:  I keep a sobriety coin in my pocket with the Serenity Prayer written on it.  Often it is all I have and all I need.

The Tool of Sponsorship How do you find the right sponsor? By listening for someone who has the recovery that you want, and by then asking that person to share the journey with you. * * * Practicing honesty with my sponsor has been a major step toward healing my intimacy issues.  It is a good place to experiment and see how I react in a one on one relationship.

The Tool of Socializing:  One Member’s Experience Socializing is a way of breaking down our isolation and getting to know other people in a nonsexual context: at fellowship after meetings; in supportive organizations and groups; and in the community at large.

My first experience with the SCA tool of socializing was at one of my first meetings, sometime in the spring of 1998. A social flyer was passed around at a meeting describing a picnic and flag football, I think. My first and only reaction was yuk! Here I was in a group of sex addicts trying to recover from the serious business of addiction and someone had time on their hands to think of quaint get-togethers like this. I didn’t need any more friends or any more social activities, thank you very much. I was quite satisfied with the friends I had and did not have time to think about adding more. I dropped out of the fellowship several weeks later and, not too surprisingly, my addiction got worse. I was concertedly seeking out risky sexual behaviors and developed an intense physical craving for them. About a year later I drifted back into meetings and at the end of that year, committed to working the program, asked someone to sponsor me. One of the great suggestions this sponsor made was to think of the Tools of the Program as a toolkit. Twelve (at that time) tested actions that could be taken to counter the power of my sex addiction. Being a creative type, I really liked this idea. Here was something solid, gifted to me, that did not come out of my own thinking around fighting my addictive, compulsive, physically dangerous behavior. One of the Tools described in the literature was socializing. Suddenly I remembered that old flyer. When I created my Sexual Recovery Plan, I found myself writing the word “socializing”, unwittingly, into the right hand column of new behaviors by which I wanted to live. SCA in Chicago has a history of scheduling monthly social activities for members who wish to attend. Keeping it simple, I decided to try these. I still didn’t have any hope or trust in this tool. Attending the social events, and later helping to plan them as “social diva”, helped me to see others in the fellowship as everyday people and not just the spiritual, talking heads of the formal meetings. This helped me to let go of some of my own terminal uniqueness as a sex addict. Formerly, I had always felt, because of my secret, addictive life, enough of an outsider at social gatherings to not really belong. Now, I was with peers who had a chronology, like myself, of acting out sexually. And these same people got together to see movies, bowl, go hiking, throw parties and so forth. Not having any need to hide and hold on to something, I could begin to be more present in all my social settings. I have now the chance, with this help from the Program, to discard shame for the moment and view others and myself as estimable and lively folks. Socializing today has become a valuable laboratory for just being myself rather than “presenting” myself. Social events in recent times have often been the groundwork for creating relationships rather than trying to present myself as the perfectly charming, witty center of the party (I never was, anyway.). The literature describes using this tool in the community at large. This is still a challenge for me, to show up in my various chosen communities and be a right-scaled person. The beauty of any of the tools, for me, is that they are practiced for today. They are process oriented, not achievement focused. I need not achieve any result, just practice them if I make that choice. – Joe S.