Wednesday, June 24th

My co-dependency shifted its focus from relationships to the entire fellowship.

SCA members can “burn out” by taking on too many service commitments or working with more sponsees than we can handle. We may begin to feel unappreciated, or perhaps we resent other members who are doing little or no service work. Some might even make a clean break with the fellowship rather than cut back their service work to a more reasonable level.

“I identified with the saying Service keeps us sober. But I made so many commitments that I soon felt responsible for everything. The stress made me want to channel my resentments by leaving SCA.”

We keep in mind the slogan: Easy does it. We can review our current service work and decide to reduce it gradually. We recall the “Rotation of service” principle and apply it to our commitments.

If a meeting is in danger of closing due to a lack of members doing service, it is not our personal responsibility to preserve it by doing more service. We can reread Step Three and reclaim the willingness to let go of our control — just as we did in working our recovery from sexual compulsion. Meetings will survive or fail based on a group commitment, not the commitment of an individual. The same holds true for intergroup and ISO service.

SCA is a “we,” not a “me” program. 

Tuesday, June 23rd

Slow scares me: there’s no rush to thrill me then.
There’s no heady release to ease the pain of uncertainty.

Many of us used sex to escape such feelings as insecurity, pain, and fear. Our desire to avoid reality could spark a surge of anxiety that drove us into compulsively acting out as a form of escape.

“The more I tried to numb out my feelings of anxiety and despair, the more edgy and risky my acting out became.”

The intensity of our fixation on sex as a quick fix often added to our anxiety. We feared that we would never get what we wanted from our behaviors. Many of us self-isolated, fearing discovery, exposure, and humiliation. Our acting out prevented us from being in touch with our deeper feelings, so we repressed them.

Recovery can reintroduce us to our repressed feelings, and this process requires trust — that our feelings are neither facts nor permanent. Working the first three Steps can help us to develop trust — first in a Higher Power, then in ourselves, and finally in others. This trust can serve as a foundation when we are overwhelmed by our feelings.

As recovery proceeds, we begin to feel safe experiencing new levels of emotion. Slowly, we learn to recognize, trust, and express genuine feelings.

We will lose our fear of other people and fear of our sexuality.