Only you can answer that question. We have the 40 Questions for Self Diagnosis on the website, and if you answer yes, or feel you can relate, then this may be helpful to you. The best way is to attend a meeting and see if you relate.

We are all Twelve Step programs focusing on sexual addiction. SLAA includes love addiction, relationship, and sexual anorexia. Other “S” programs focus on different aspects, and may also have different membership requirements and bottomline definitions. It is great to check them all out, to see what speaks to you. 

Most SLAA meetings are “closed” meetings, which means the meeting is reserved for those identifying as a Sex and Love Addict.  Guests are asked to attend an “open” meeting, which is open to friends and relatives of the Sex and Love Addict.  Closed meetings offer a sense of safety and stronger identification among those sharing or speaking at the meeting.  Meetings are closed, unless otherwise stated on the meeting list. 

You can find a meeting list by clicking on the Meeting menu at the top of the website, or clicking here.

Our meetings are an opportunity for members to relate their stories about recovery from sex and love addiction. Members identify themselves by first name only and will share their experience, strength, and hope. Our stories disclose what we were like, what happened to change us, and what we are like now. Meetings may have different formats. Meetings may have formats relating to Step Study, Newcomer, Speaker, Getting Current, etc. Meetings may be closed (for members only) or open to all persons.

SLAA is self-help, self-supporting program.  There are no dues or fees for SLAA membership. According to our 7th Tradition, “we are self- supporting through our own contributions.” In-person meetings might pass an “offering basket” around a meeting for each member to make a small contribution to meeting to cover the cost of  expenses like rental of the meeting space. Virtual meetings can take donations through our Venmo account. Typically members give $1-$10.  That said, we like to say, “we need you more than we need your money.”

No, you don’t have to share anything unless you want to. You may be asked your first name, just to identify yourself as a newcomer, but you are never required to say anything.

Yes, there are three groups that have information for people whose lives are affected by sex and love addicts

• S-Anon (615) 833-3152
• COSA (763) 537-6904 Co-Sex Addicts Anonymous
• CO-SLAA (860) 456-0032

There are online meetings available in the meeting list. If you and others see a need for an S.L.A.A. meeting in your area, you can request a Starter Kit and start a meeting in your area.

We suggest you attend at least six S.L.A.A. meetings to see if the Fellowship has anything to offer you. Recovery is a long-term process that takes place “One Day at a Time.”   Over time, most of us have grown to cherish meetings as a means of sharing with and learning from others. Meetings model healthy relationships, help relieve our isolation, and free us from the shame of our addiction by reaffirming we are not alone in our disease or recovery.

The only qualification for S.L.A.A. membership is a desire to stop living out a pattern of sex and love addiction. Addiction can take many forms, including but not limited to, a compulsive need for sex, extreme dependency on one person (or many), and/or a chronic preoccupation with romance, intrigue, and fantasy. Sex and love addiction may also take the form of anorexia, a compulsive avoidance of giving or receiving social, sexual, or emotional nourishment. We are united in a common focus: dealing with our addictive sexual and emotional behavior which renders any personal differences of sexual or gender orientation irrelevant.  Therefore, all sorts of people attend meetings, from all walks of life

The Austin-area Intergroup consists of trusted servants, including representatives from the individual groups in our region, who serve in accordance with the Ninth Tradition: “S.L.A.A. as such ought never to be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve.”
Intergroup may consider issues of conscience and finances as they may affect our region in general.  We may from time to time schedule special events, such as Spring and Fall retreats. We exist to help our member groups carry out the primary purpose of SLAA:  “… to carry its message to the sex and love addict who still suffers.”

You are not required to believe in God to attend meetings. The program is spiritual in nature and includes the belief in a Higher Power, but it is not affiliated with any religion, sect, or denomination. Your concept of a Higher Power can be whatever you want it to be. Some use the group itself as something more powerful than themselves. 

It is recommended that you attend meetings regularly and listen attentively to those members who share and do service at your meetings. If there is someone with whom you share a common story, or you respect their level of recovery, or you think this person can be helpful to you in recovery, you simply approach this person and ask him or her to be your sponsor. It is recommended that you do not choose a person of the gender to which you are attracted.

Signs

• we may not have had sex or been in a close personal relationship in years
• we may be in partnerships but find it difficult to be emotionally close
• we may have many acquaintances but no one we’re really close to
• we may have close relations with only certain people, our children, say, but keep distance from anyone else
• we may feel overwhelmed in social settings
• we may feel incapacitated by shyness in relationships with others
• we may be emotionally invested in a relationship but remain sexually or socially unavailable
• we may have an overwhelming dread of making phone calls
• we may function well in the workplace where intimacy is not usually valued, but find we are distant with
  family or friends

There are many other varieties of anorectics, but whichever kind we are, all of us in some important way have distanced ourselves from experiencing love. Faced with getting our needs met, we are baffled because we can’t even name these needs. However, beneath the surface, anorexia consists of not doing something. Not trusting, not committing, not surrendering. Here, unlike picking up a drink or shooting up a drug, anorexia’s symptoms are obscure, and uneventful. We observe that we are engaged in a policy of dread of others and a strategy to keep them at bay. Whether our anorexia is social, sexual, or emotional, we awaken to the fact that we are not experiencing the giving and receiving of love that is so precious to human life.