r/SEXAA

5.8K archived posts · Dec 2015 – Sep 2026

Sex Addicts Anonymous®: from shame to grace.

r/SEXAA

As sex addicts who have found a solution, we offer a message of hope to all who suffer from sex addiction. This subreddit is a daily forum-style meeting of SAA and is for those who are 18+. Hope and a solution is offered to all, but if you are under 18 and are looking for help, please email info@saa-recovery.org. /r/SEXAA seeks recovery from sexual addiction through the Twelve Steps and Traditions of SAA. Comments are the opinions of those who gave them. Take what you like and leave the rest.

Created Dec 17, 2015

6.4KMembers (last snapshot)

5.8KArchived posts

Welcome!

r/SEXAA seeks recovery from sexual addiction through the Twelve Steps and Traditions of SAA. Comments are the opinions of those who gave them. Take what you like and leave the rest.

You might want to start out by posting or commenting here. Alternatively, you might want to read some of the personal stories in the second half of the 'green book'. You can read the whole book online for free on the SAA website.

This subreddit is a daily forum-style meeting of SAA and is for those who are 18+. Hope and a solution is offered to all, but if you are under 18 and are looking for help, please email info@saa-recovery.org.

SAA and r/SEXAA does not endorse or condemn any outside resource or take a position on outside resources (such as politics). Opinions on these things are from the person who gave them. Suggestions on the sidebar or by moderators are just that: suggestions, and not an endorsement.

For newcomers

You can begin your journey to sobriety today, by claiming a "desire chip".

If you have 30 days or more of sobriety, you may claim a medallion. Please try to claim your medallion within seven days or less of reaching a milestone. You can mark your calendar.

Getting Started in SAA

This subreddit is an open group of SAA, which means that visitors may read, post, and comment, as long as comments are respectful and are mindful that our purpose is to reach out to the sex addict who still suffers.

If you've been affected by someone else's compulsive sexual behavior, you may post here, or visit a Nar-Anon or Emotions Anonymous meeting, or try a COSA conference call.

###We Are Inclusive

Our fellowship is open to all people, regardless of age, race, religion, ethnic background, marital status, gender identity or occupation. We welcome members of any sexual identity, orientation and gender, whether they are gay, lesbian, straight, bisexual, transgendered, Questioning or of any other identity.

Many of us first come to Sex Addicts Anonymous feeling deeply isolated and ashamed of our behaviors and past actions. We may believe that no one can understand us or relate to the things we had done or been through. Discovering that we are not alone is a liberating experience for us. It is a great comfort and relief to know that a fellowship of recovering sex addicts exists and that we have somewhere to turn to help us recover. Our diversity is governed by the notion that we meet as equals: sex addicts helping one another achieve sexual sobriety and to practice a new way of life. For more information on diversity in SAA, please visit https://www.saa-recovery.org/diversity

###The tenth-Step promises

Experience has shown us that the following Promises will come true for the men and women who work Steps One through Ten and continue to practice these principles in all of their lives.

"And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone—even [acting-out]. For by this time sanity will have returned. We will seldom be interested in [selfish sexual pursuits]. If tempted, we recoil from it as from a hot flame. We react sanely and normally, and we will find that this has happened automatically. We will see that our new attitude has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes! That is the miracle of it. We are not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation. We feel as though we had been placed in a position of neutrality—safe and protected. We have not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us. We are neither cocky nor are we afraid. That is how we react so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition."

Adapted from Alcoholics Anonymous, pp. 84-85

###How is S.A.A. different from other recovery methods?

The approach of other online support communities could be summarized as the "resocialization" method. This type of recovery promotes social interaction and involves the use of informal community resources that provide a sobriety-based framework in which one can stop their addictive sexual behaviors and maintain sobriety. (White, 2003)

As SAA members, connection and support with others is a vital part of our recovery. But there is more to our program than just meetings, phone calls, or forum posts. The program of SAA is called the 12 Steps and it is by working or taking these steps that we have recovered from sex addiction.

We are not doing this as some kind of "self-improvement challenge." We came to SAA because we could not bear to act out anymore. Yet no matter what we did, we could not stop acting out. We lost the power of choice when it when it came to our addiction.

Just as an alcoholic can never drink alcohol again, our only option was to abstain from unwanted sexual behaviors for the rest of our lives... though we recover just one day at a time. How could we possibly do that if we lost the power of choice in our addiction? Through working the 12 Steps we have experienced a profound alteration in the way we react to life. This change has allowed us to have power where before we were powerless.

If you are interested in doing a temporary 90-day reset via the resocialization approach, perhaps r/nofap or r/pornfree would be more useful to you.

More...

###To agnostics and atheists

"Despite the living example of my friend there remained in me the vestiges of my old prejudice. The word God still aroused a certain antipathy. When the thought was expressed that there might be a God personal to me this feeling was intensified. I didn’t like the idea. I could go for such conceptions as Creative Intelligence, Universal Mind or Spirit of Nature but I resisted the thought of a Czar of the Heavens, however loving His sway might be. I have since talked with scores of men who felt the same way.

"My friend suggested what then seemed a novel idea. He said, 'Why don’t you choose your own conception of God?' "

From Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 12

Related sub-Reddits*

For a list of related sub-Reddits, see here.

* r/SEXAA does not have opinions on other subreddits or outside resources. Opinions are of those who give them, and should not be construed as endorsement or condemnation by r/SEXAA or Sex Addicts Anonymous®.

The content of this website has not been approved by and may not reflect the opinions or policies of the ISO of SAA, Inc.”

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