What is SAA?

The SAA Program

Sex Addicts Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength and hope with each other so they may overcome their sexual addiction and help others recover from sexual addiction and dependency.

Membership is open to all who share a desire to stop addictive sexual behavior. There is no other requirement.
Our common goals are to become sexually healthy and to help other sex addicts achieve freedom from compulsive sexual behavior.
SAA is supported through voluntary contributions from members.
We are not affiliated with any other twelve-step programs, nor are we a part of any other organization. We do not support, endorse, or oppose outside causes or issues.

Sex Addicts Anonymous is a spiritual program based on the principles and traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous. We are grateful to A.A. for this gift which makes our recovery possible.

What is Sexual Addiction?

     Sex Addiction can involve a wide variety of practices. Sometimes an addict has trouble with just one unwanted behavior, sometimes with many. A large number of sex addicts say their unhealthy use of sex has been a progressive process. It may have started with an addiction to masturbation, pornography (either printed or electronic), or a relationship, but over the years progressed to increasingly dangerous behaviors.
     The essence of all addiction is the addicts' experience of powerlessness over a compulsive behavior, resulting in their lives becoming unmanageable. The addict is out of control and experiences tremendous shame, pain and self-loathing. The addict may wish to stop --- yet repeatedly fails to do so. The unmanageability of addicts' lives can be seen in the consequences they suffer: losing relationships, difficulties with work, arrests, financial troubles, a loss of interest in things not sexual, low self-esteem and despair.
     Sexual preoccupation takes up tremendous amounts of energy. As this increases for the sex addict, a pattern of behavior (or rituals) follows, which usually leads to acting out (for some it is flirting, searching the net for pornography, or driving to the park.) When the acting out happens, there is a denial of feelings usually followed by despair and shame or a feeling of hopelessness and confusion.

What are SAA Meetings?

A Sex Addicts Anonymous meeting consists of a group of two or more individuals who - using the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of SAA - meet together regularly for the purpose of recovering from their compulsive sexual behavior. A SAA meeting is a safe place. It is a gathering of equals who keep confidences, refrain from judgement, and who support one another through sharing their experience, strength and hope in seeking the common goal of recovering from sexual addiction.

What are the requirements for membership in SAA? Only the desire to recover from their compulsive sexual behavior. There are no other requirements and no members dues or fees other than voluntary contributions.

Click here to find a SAA meetings online

A Useful Tool for Self-Assessment

Answer these twelve questions to assess whether you may have a problem with sexual addiction.

Do you keep secrets about your sexual or romantic activities from those important to you?Do you lead a double life?
Have your needs driven you to have sex in places or situations or with people you would not normally choose?
Do you find yourself looking for sexually arousing articles or scenes in newspapers, magazines, or other media?
Do you find that romantic or sexual fantasies interfere with your relationships or are preventing you from facing problems?
Do you frequently want to get away from a sex partner after having sex? Do you frequently feel remorse, shame, or guilt after a sexual encounter?
Do you feel shame about your body or your sexuality, such that you avoid touching your body or engaging in sexual relationships? Do you fear that you have no sexual feelings, that you are asexual?
Does each new relationship continue to have the same destructive patterns which prompted you to leave the last relationship?
Is it taking more variety and frequency of sexual and romantic activities than previously to bring the same levels of excitement and relief?
Have you ever been arrested or are you in danger of being arrested because of your practices of voyeurism, exhibitionism, prostitution, sex with minors, indecent phone calls, etc.?
Does your pursuit of sex or romantic relationships interfere with your spiritual beliefs or development?
Do your sexual activities include the risk, threat, or reality of disease, pregnancy, coercion, or violence?
Has your sexual or romantic behavior ever left you feeling hopeless, alienated from others, or suicidal?

If you answered yes to more than one of these questions, we would encourage you to seek out additional literature as a resource or to attend an Sex Addicts Anonymous meeting to further assess your needs.

The Twelve Steps of Sex Addicts Anonymous

Sex Addicts Anonymous is a 12-step program similar to Alcoholics Anonymous. Here are the 12 step of SAA:

We admitted we were powerless over addictive sexual behavior - that our lives had become unmanageable.

Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God.

Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings.

Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.

Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

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.

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 Twelve Traditions of SAA

Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon SAA unity.

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.

The only requirement for SAA membership is a desire to stop addictive sexual behavior.

Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or SAA as a whole.

Each group has but one primary purpose - to carry its message to the sex addict who still suffers.

An SAA group ought never endorse, finance, or lend the SAA name to any related facility or outside enterprise lest problems of money, property, and prestige divert us from our primary purpose.

Every SAA group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions.

Sex Addicts Anonymous should remain forever nonprofessional, but our service centers may employ special workers.

SAA, as such, ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve.

Sex Addicts Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the SAA name ought never be drawn into public controversy.

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.

Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.

(Adapted from "Alchoholics Anonymous," Alchoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., Third Edition.)