12 Step Sex Addiction Recovery Groups – What are the differences?
There is no end to the groups available for sexual addicts. The five major groups based on the “12 Step” method are SA, SAA, SLAA, SCA, and SRA. All of these sexual addiction recovery groups have adapted the famous 12 Steps to their purposes, but there are some underlying differences among them.
After some correspondence with a few volunteers from these groups, this is the best understanding I have about their distinctives . . .
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SA: Sexaholics Anonymous
This group is for people who feel powerless over lust. SA’s standard of sexual sobriety is total celibacy except with a marriage partner. According to the SA website, for the sexaholic, “any form of sex with one’s self or with partners other than the spouse is progressively addictive and destructive. We also see that lust is the driving force behind our sexual acting out, and true sobriety includes progressive victory over lust.”
SA was the first sexual recovery fellowship to emerge in the 1970s. It was founded by an AA member in southern California who was cheating on his wife and worked to adapt the 12 Steps for a sexual recovery setting.
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SAA: Sex Addicts Anonymous
This group is for people who feel powerless over addictive sexual behavior, focusing more on acting out sexually. The SAA website states that a sex addict realizes “we were powerless over our sexual thoughts and behaviors and that our preoccupation with sex was causing progressively severe adverse consequences for us, our families, and our friends.”
SAA was founded by therapist Patrick Carnes as a place to refer his patients after their stay at Golden Valley. Carnes drafted the original “green book” for SAA. The group tends to his philosophy that sex addiction is a behavioral disease as opposed to a moral failing. Their members define their own sexual boundaries with the guidance of their sponsors and other group members. They encourage members to discover and explore what healthy sexuality means to them.
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SCA: Sexual Compulsives Anonymous
This group is for people who feel powerless over having compulsive sex. According to the SCA website, “Our primary purpose is to stay sexually sober and to help others to achieve sexual sobriety.” Further it states, “We believe we are not meant to repress our God-given sexuality, but to learn how to express it in ways that will not make unreasonable demands on our time and energy, place us in legal jeopardy, or endanger our mental, physical or spiritual health.”
SCA was founded by homosexual men in LA and New York who want a place to share openly about their sexual behaviors. In many places, SCA attracts mostly gay men. It advertises being “inclusive of all sexual orientations, open to anyone with a desire to recover from sexual compulsion.”
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SLAA: Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous
This group is for people who feel powerless over sex and love addiction. According to the SLAA website, this includes “love addiction, relationship, and sexual anorexia.” They tend to look at both the physical and emotional components of addiction.
SLAA was founded by a man in Boston whose own story reflected a considerable amount of relationship obsession. This fellowship, by and large, attracts more of those whose addictive life reflects this same pattern.
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SRA: Sexual Recovery Anonymous
This group is for people who feel powerless over sexual obsessions. For SRA “sobriety includes freedom from masturbation and from sex outside a mutually committed relationship.”
SRA was founded in New York and LA by singles who like SA’s philosophy but disagree with the idea that one needs to be married before one had sex.
You should also include Celebrate Recovery. Many (most?) of the CR programs have small groups for pornography and sexual addiction and deal with it from a Christian perspective both with the Christ-centered Twelve Steps and the Eight Principles of Recovery. Our church’s group has been thriving for over six years.
With all due respect to the good that these groups do in the community at large, I believe that for Christians, the church should interact more fully with people struggling with sexual addiction. I would cite 3 reasons for this:
1. It moves confession outside the realm of the Body of Christ. Men (and women) who have issues with pornography might never confess to their brothers, and miss out on receiving grace and help from those in their church.
2. 12-step groups are not God-centered, Christ-centered, gospel-centered groups. For all the good these groups may do, there is no real change apart from the gospel working in the life of the believer.
3. The church needs to address all of the life of the believer, including sexual brokenness.
I would be interested in any feedback on these points.
Brian, I totally agree with you: Christians should be interacting with those who struggle with sex addiction. Unfortunately #1 is true. Men and women don’t feel free to confess sin in the church, especially when it comes to this area. You’re right on #2 as well. I remember Nate Larkin writing about this in his book, Samson and the Pirate Monks. He went to 12-step groups amidst his recovery for years, and yet he struggled with the non-Christian nature of the groups. You are also right on #3 – if the church doesn’t address the social issues of our time, how sin is manifesting itself all around us, we cease to show how Christ is a full and sufficient Savior from all kinds of sin.
Luke,
On your response to #1 – I think it’s critical to create a climate where sin can be talked about, and the best way to do that is for church leaders to talk about their own struggles, temptations, and even failures. It has to start with the leadership. I have noticed that many respected church leaders have been quite open with the fact that it’s a temptation for them, like John Piper, George Verwer, and Mark Driscoll. This paves the way for openness.
#2 – one of the things that always bothered me when I went to SA and SAA was the self-identification as a sex addict (Hi, I’m Brian, and I’m a sex addict). That’s not what Scripture says. The Bible teaches that I am redeemed and have Christ’s righteousness, in spite of presenting sin. Theology leads to thinking and thinking leads to practice. If I believe what God says about me, I can live what God says about me. This is lacking in those groups.
#3 – In some churches when somebody confesses a porn problem, they are immediately sent to a 12-step group, or a counselor. The latter may be warranted in some cases, but for most having accountability and confession, and a focus on relationships and growth in Christ is all they really need. Churches need to facilitate this.
I have to confess that I posted the previous response because I’m speaking on this topic at the Xenos Summer Institute next week, and was fishing for feedback on that position. Of course, I will be recommending Covenant Eyes as part of the solution, and I’m grateful to God for your software.
On #1 – Absolutely! Leadership must take the reigns on this.
On #2 – I see what you mean about that, and you are right that right theology must always take precedence over ritualistic/traditional jargon. (On the other hand I was at the CCEF “The Addict in Us All” conference last year. It was interesting when Tim Lane opened the whole thing with “Hi, I’m Tim, and I’m an addict.” His point was to show that all of us are in fact still self-addicts, that all sin is driven by this fleshly, fallen preoccupation with self and not God. It’s one thing to assert our oneness to Christ as the primary thing that defines us, its another thing to stress our new identity to a point where we ignore our fleshly tendencies. Still, I agree with you. Paul said it was no longer him that was doing that which he hated but “the sin in me.”)
On #3 – Amen to that.
In general my point for this post is that there are a lot of 12-step sex addiction groups out there and I thought that very curious. The point was to merely point out the differences.
PS: Do you want me to mail you some CE fliers for your presentation? I’d be happy to do send you free stuff to give out if you are interested.
I feel I must respectfully disagree with you some on point #2. Being at the CCEF conference, I felt one of the major themes of the entire conference was the point that as counselors/people helpers that we need to realize we are also fallen sinful individuals. This allows us to find a point of similarity between ourselves and those individuals we are counseling.
Furthermore, from both a Biblical standpoint and a counseling standpoint I do not think it’s healthy for a person who struggles with lust /pornography /illicit sex to continue to associate their identity with being an “addict.” Just as it is not good for a person who struggles with anorexia to self identify as an “anorexic.” I think the better terminology and self descriptors for a Christian would be: I am a redeemed individual who struggles with X sin.
We in Courage utilize the 12-steps approach together with our goals.
I’d like to comment on Brian’s three points.
Point #1 – The fact is, people in recovery from sexual/pornography addiction NEED a support group. Just confessing to a pastor is not enough. Even getting counseling is not enough, although it may be necessary. A central component of sex addiction is secrecy and the fear of being known by our peers. The only way to deal with that is to have a safe place to talk about it openly, and a support group is the only place to find others who have been where you’ve been. So, if a church doesn’t want to send people to a 12-step group, they had better be ready to start their own support group or find other local churches who have them to send people to.
Point #2 – I am a recovering sex addict with 13 years of sobriety. I found recovery in a Christian support group that was not 12-step based. However, a very close friend of mine found recovery in a 12-step group because his church was unwilling to help him. His recovery would rival the very best of men who found recovery in a “Christian” support group. He found Christ in a 12-step group and is very defensive when people say 12-step is not Christ-centered. If there are not GOOD Christian support groups in your area, why would you not send people to a 12-step program?
Point #3 – Yes, the church does need to address sexual purity. From what I see, sexual purity may be the highest “per capita” sin in the church today, yet many churches won’t address it. So, people continue to pretend that they have no problems, adding to the power of secrecy in this addiction.
No, 12-step is not perfect, but neither is any Christian recovery program I’ve seen, and in 13 years I’ve been through most of them, including Celebrate Recovery. In many cases, the local SA group may be the strongest program in your region. We cannot ignore these as Christians, especially until we collectively step up to the plate and start offering quality recovery groups for sex addicts in every region.
Thanks for all the responses to my comment. Trisha, I need to clarify what I said, and thanks so much for keeping me honest. When I said that churches should not send people to 12-step groups, I really meant secular groups. If you have a group that is Christ and gospel-centered, then that is exactly what I’m endorsing.
As John pointed out, we really do need support groups, and the church should be at the forefront of facilitating just that. Glad to see in the disagreements that we’re actually in concert here.
Brian
Surprising there is an emergence of faith base addiction groups, and they are good at providing unparalleled support. However, many are shy about sex addiction. For the few where the program exists, their acceptance of sex addiction is even questionable.
@Champs – I believe sex addiction received widespread acceptance in many faith-based groups. One only needs to look at pioneering Christian organizations in this area. For example, Mark Laaser’s Faithful and True or Heart to Heart Counseling Center.