Did You Know

July 6, 2026 marks the thirtieth anniversary of the inauguration of the SCA online meetings and, stemming from them, the Online Intergroup.

In fact, this month sees Online Intergroup celebrating all of:

30 years of online meetings.
15 years of telephone meetings.
5 plus years of their own, independent website.

The Online Intergroup is the original provider of electronic meetings to the SCA Fellowship, they provide online and telephone meetings, and do not hold any in-person or hybrid meetings.

The Online Intergroup’s online meetings are traditional message board meetings, also known as discussion forums, where members post shares and other members can reply later, where allowed. They are not chat rooms, with real time interactions between participants, but asynchronous platforms.

The Topic Meeting, our oldest meeting, began on July 6, 1996. Organized by John F. of New York and later Paris, the online meetings grew out of the establishment of the main SCA website, SCA-Recovery.org. The first poster was SCA Co-founder Frank H. of New York. He suggested that the new online meeting should have a topic, and the meeting became the Online Topic Meeting. Typically, the meeting has had two topics per month over the years, but we currently have a monthly topic. This month’s topic is a golden oldie, Step One. We are now posting an extract from recovery literature on the topic for members to reflect on as well. Members share on the topic for themselves, and are asked not to comment on what others have said.

The Feedback Meeting, for more general sharing on SCA-related subjects, soon followed the start of the Topic Meeting, and allows feedback from other members. Its formal name is the “Feedback for Recovery Meeting.” It quickly became and remains the most visited online meeting. Feedback is not advice or criticism. It can simply mean identifying with the poster, sharing words of encouragement, or relaying program slogans or tools that have helped the responder. Through these discussions, we deepen our understanding of the subjects raised in order to further our recovery.

The Acting In Meeting is our newest meeting, some 5 years old, and is where members can share experience, strength and hope on subjects relating to acting-in behaviors connected with sexual compulsion as they choose. Again, feedback is not advice or criticism. Broad expressions of acting in can be things like the compulsive avoidance of sex or sexual anorexia, fear and avoidance of intimacy, romantic obsession, love addiction, obsessive preoccupation with sexual or romantic fantasy, over-exercising, social anxiety, social anorexia and similar issues. For some, this might involve sexual codependency, such as a person not paying attention to what they want, or do not want, sexually.

There are other areas of our site separate from the online meetings, such as the Recovery Lounge for socializing and fellowship, and the Chips & Medallions Area where members celebrating a recovery anniversary can request and be awarded a chip or medallion.

Online Intergroup also hosted some very popular daily IRC (Internet Relay Chat) meetings for a number of years, starting in 1999, but those closed down in around 2008.

In July, 2011, Online Intergroup began putting on weekly telephone meetings, beginning on Sundays but soon expanding to Wednesdays and Fridays as well by April, 2014. All three phone meetings are still being held weekly. These are voice calls offered through a telephone and internet conferencing service that is free to members, barring exceptional cases where charges may apply depending on the dial-in number called by the member, if they are not participating via the app online. July 17, 2026 marks the fifteenth anniversary of the telephone meetings.

Online Intergroup hosted its meetings on the main SCA website for 24 years, until June, 2020, when we moved to a separate website. We maintained our original site format for several months, then inaugurated our brand new, independent, modern, custom-designed and custom-built website on September 30, 2020. This hosts all of the above online meetings and the sign-up information and mechanism for the telephone meetings, together with copious recovery resources.

All of our meetings can be reached via our website:

https://onlinesca.org/

Online Intergroup experienced some challenging years during and after the pandemic with the transition from our previous telephone conferencing service to our current, newer-generation one, and persistent technical difficulties with the registration system for the online meetings, but we have now put those behind us and are up-to-date on member registrations and general site functioning. Next on the agenda is to update some texts and restore some degraded content on the site, for which work is getting underway. We are also aiming to add content and return to some planned parts of the website that did not get completed previously.

All SCA members and all those with a desire to recover from sexual compulsion worldwide are welcome to join our meetings. Online Intergroup has had its ups and down over the years, and our meetings are generally smaller and quieter than they have been historically, but we are set on maintaining, restoring and growing our recovery community. We are happy to have reached these milestones in carrying the SCA message of recovery, and look forward to arriving at many more in the coming years!

Happy anniversary to all online and telephone meeting members, past and present!

Attraction rather than Promotion

SCA’s primary purpose and tradition is to carry it’s message to the sexual compulsive who still suffers. We are looking for help from anyone that may have internet experience with ways to ATTRACT those that may be interested or affected by CSBD (Compulsive Sexual Behavior Disorder) to our websites: SCAnneronline.org, https://www.youtube.com/@SCA-Recovery, SCA-recovery.org and our various Intergroups and WhatsApp meetings.

Please feel free to contact the SCAnner’s editor with any thoughts, ideas and suggestions.

The Problem of Porn Addiction

To take the test, simply answer yes or no to each of the following questions.

Do you ever feel overly distracted by, preoccupied with, or obsessed with pornography?
When you start to use pornography, do you sometimes have trouble stopping, consistently looking at it for longer periods than intended?
Do you ever use porn as a way to avoid stress, anxiety, loneliness, boredom, or other forms of emotional discomfort?
After you use porn, do you sometimes regret it or feel depressed?
Have you ever promised yourself or another person that you would stop using porn, only to break that promise later?
Do you ever look forward to events with family/friends ending so you can look at porn?
Have you ever kept secrets about or lied about your porn use?
Have you ever experienced negative consequences related to your porn use, such as relationship trouble, social/emotional isolation, issues at work/school, etc.?
Does your porn use potentially offend others, violate community standards, or place you in danger of arrest?
Do you feel restless, irritable, or discontent when you are unable to use porn?

A ‘yes’ response to three or more of the ten questions listed above indicates that porn addiction may be an issue.

For a long time people with porn-related issues were thought to have a history of early-life trauma. Recently, however there is a new and rapidly growing subcategory of people struggling with pornography. These individuals meet the basic criteria used to identify addiction but lack the underlying early-life trauma that typically drives addictive behavior. Rather than qualifying as traditional trauma-driven porn addicts, it appears these non-trauma-driven individuals have developed a “conditioned” addiction to pornography.

Typically, conditioned porn addicts start viewing porn at a young age, often before puberty hits. And then they fail to move beyond this easily accessed sexual outlet. For these individuals, porn serves as both sex education and sexual fulfillment. The unfortunate result of this is that the user’s emotional and psychological development in terms of sexuality and relationships can be stunted – beginning and ending with what they learn from porn. As such, their ability to form and maintain meaningful real-world romantic and sexual attachments may not develop or may not fully develop in the usual ways.

Initial treatment for conditioned porn addicts mirrors treatment for traditional addicts. In other words, early work is focused on stopping addictive behavior, breaking through denial, managing the crisis or crises that precipitated treatment, and developing tactics to combat triggers and relapse. At that point, because conditioned porn addiction is not driven by trauma, the treatment approach diverges. Rather than working to resolve early-life trauma, treatment transitions toward social development – learning how to develop and maintain real-world romantic and sexual connections. Admittedly, not all conditioned porn addicts are entirely bereft when it comes to real-world relationships. In fact, some are quite adept socially. But the majority need to be walked through the adolescent and early adult stages of social development to some degree, and that, rather than trauma resolution, is the second-level treatment focus for this population.

In SCA we not only learn how to stop the addictive behaviors but also how to grow spiritually to live a more fulfilling life.

The Deadly Subculture of Internet Video Vigilantes by J.L.Flatley (edited for the SCAnner)

Predator catchers are social media influencers conducting amateur sting operations to expose alleged child predators. I first learned of the death of Craig Gertz when an activist in San Diego told me about a YouTube livestream he had witnessed in 2021. In the video the vigilante chased Gertz down the street to his house and waited outside until Gertz killed himself inside the residence. The gunshot could be heard on the livestream. The video was then removed from YouTube. These tragedies highlight the potential consequences and harm to addicts from the actions of predator-catcher vigilantes.

These vigilantes pretend to be minors looking for sex online. Once they’ve made contact with a “suspected “predator, they arrange a meeting, videotape the encounter, and then post the video online to shame them publicly. They think they know more about stopping sexual assaults than law enforcement, public health professionals and the courts. They can become very aggressive, seeking financial incentives for making videos registering over 300,000 views.

Suicide is a real possibility anytime you publicly shame, or threaten to publicly shame, an alleged predator. There have been many other predator catcher suicides around the world. Few of these sting operations lead to arrests; even fewer result in convictions. One issue is that the evidence obtained rarely stands up in court. Another is that many of the targets have serious addiction issues that allow them to be enticed into meeting with the vigilantes. Many police departments will not work with civilians acting as undercover operatives and do not condone such activities.

Alleged predators often face harassment, with some committing suicide, as seen in the case of Craig Gertz. However, a significant portion of those targeted seem to be guilty of nothing more than being catfished. This entrapment is usually initiated on “dating or hook-up” apps. And their anonymous nature makes it easy for real minors to put themselves in harm’s way. There is no real way to keep minors off these platforms. It’s also an ideal place for homophobes to create false profiles to dox, harass and entrap people that have not committed any crimes. Usually when a complaint is filed against these vigilantes their attorneys file an anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) motion to have the charges dismissed to protect their right for free speech, so they can speak out and participate in public discourse without fear of reprisal. Is harassing protected under the First Amendment?

What often happens is the victim may be cruising a “dating” app and may get a message from an anti-pedophile vigilante posing as a minor in order to lure the adult into a real-life confrontation. When finally meeting it is patently obvious he is not a minor and that they are being videoed. The target is then given a choice to help create content (for social media) by appearing in their video, or have all the evidence (texts, calls, pictures, etc.) turned over to the police. Often the police are called anyway while they film the target’s confession or story and possibly their arrest. Once the information is leaked, it becomes the news of the day. The media does not seem to be interested in the problematic nature of the predator catcher community or how it conducts its sting operations.

Whether they are fueled by social media and the drive for viral content or because they believe the justice system isn’t acting quickly or effectively enough, vigilante justice involves individuals or groups taking the law enforcement into their own hands without legal authority. We are not condoning these activities or those targeting under-age adolescence/children. Both have serious problems and my be breaking our laws. We do support the SCA (Sexual Compulsives Anonymous) Program as a means to help those that may be suffering from Compulsive Sexual Behavior Disorder (CSBD).

NEW SCA PAMPHLET NOW AVAILABLE

This pamphlet focuses on Pornography, Software Apps (Computer based and Mobile), and the Internet and their role in addiction and can also be found in the 3rd edition of SCA’s A Program of Recovery, Chapter 17.

Pornography, Apps & Internet Addiction – Available for $3.50 in the SCA Literature Store.

https://sca-recovery.org/WP/literature-and-resources/store/