Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous, or S.L.A.A., is a program for anyone who suffers from an addictive compulsion to engage in or avoid sex, love, or emotional attachment. We use the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions adapted from Alcoholics Anonymous to recover from these compulsions. We are united in a common focus: dealing with our addictive sexual and emotional behavior. We find a common denominator in our obsessive/compulsive patterns, which transcends any personal differences of sexual orientation or gender identity. The following behaviors have been experienced by members.
- Having few healthy boundaries, we become sexually involved with and/or emotionally attached to people without knowing them.
- Fearing abandonment and loneliness, we stay in and return to painful, destructive relationships, concealing our dependency needs from ourselves and others, growing more isolated and alienated from friends and loved ones, ourselves, and God.
- Fearing emotional and/or sexual deprivation, we compulsively pursue and involve ourselves in one relationship after another, sometimes having more than one sexual or emotional liaison at a time.
- We confuse love with neediness, physical and sexual attraction, pity and/or the need to rescue or be rescued.
- We feel empty and incomplete when we are alone. Even though we fear intimacy and commitment, we continually search for relationships and sexual contacts.
- We sexualize stress, guilt, loneliness, anger, shame, fear and envy. We use sex or emotional dependence as substitutes for nurturing care, and support.
- We use sex and emotional involvement to manipulate and control others.
- We become immobilized or seriously distracted by romantic or sexual obsessions or fantasies.
- We avoid responsibility for ourselves by attaching ourselves to people who are emotionally unavailable.
- We stay enslaved to emotional dependency, romantic intrigue, or compulsive sexual activities.
- To avoid feeling vulnerable, we may retreat from all intimate involvement, mistaking sexual and emotional anorexia for recovery.
- We assign magical qualities to others. We idealize and pursue them, then blame them for not fulfilling our fantasies and expectations.
- From the Twelve Characteristics of Sex and Love Addiction ©1985
You may be experiencing one or all of these characteristics, but only you can decide for sure if S.L.A.A. is right for you. To help you make this decision, it is suggested that you complete the 40 Questions for Self-Diagnosis. If you answer yes to any combination of these questions and think you may be struggling with sex and love addiction, you are welcome in S.L.A.A.
40 Questions for Self-Diagnosis
The 40 Questions for Self-Diagnosis are designed to be used as guidelines to identifying possible signposts of sex and love addiction. They are not intended to provide a sure-fire method of diagnosis, nor can negative answers to these questions provide absolute assurance that the illness is not present.
What's Next?
If you believe this program may be for you, the next thing to do is find out if there is a meeting in your area or find an online meeting. Gathering with other sex and love addicts at an S.L.A.A. meeting is the primary way we learn how to get sober and maintain recovery. There are no dues, fees, or registration process to attend a meeting, only voluntary contributions. By giving and receiving support from others like us, we not only have a better chance of recovering, but we also begin to learn how to engage with people in a non-addictive way.
An essential piece of literature to help you start and stay with the program is the S.L.A.A. Basic Text. This book contains information about discovering the illness, beginning recovery, defining sobriety, the Twelve Steps of S.L.A.A., and personal stories of others who have gone from addiction to recovery. There are also pamphlets that can be very helpful. These include the Welcome pamphlet, An Introduction to Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous, Suggestions for Newcomers, Questions Beginners Ask, and Addiction and Recovery.
The Twelve Step program of S.L.A.A. has helped many of us break free from the grip of sex and love addiction. You Are Not Alone.
