HOW Concept & Tools

BOTTOM-LINE SOBRIETY 1

This is our willingness to stop acting out in our own bottom-line addictive behaviour daily. There are no absolutes for sobriety in SLAA, as individual patterns of sex and love addiction vary. In HOW each sex & love addict works with a sponsor to identify his or her. personal bottom lines. We become sober by daily abstaining from these bottom-line behaviours. We also believe that negative thinking is a large part of our disease, so we’re learning one day at a time to abstain from negative thinking.

LITERATURE AND WRITING 2

We use SLAA literature as well as the AA Big Book and the 12 Steps and 12 Traditions as tools of examination and release. When we substitute the words “sex and love addict” for “alcoholic” and “sex and love” for “alcohol” we feel we identify absolutely. Our writing assignments in HOW are taken from these.

Attend a minimum of three meetings per week. With so many meetings online, this is much easier now! Meetings are dedicated to the concept of remaining H onest, O pen-minded and W illing to listen… this is the HOW of the programme.

Make or take four calls a day - one to our sponsor and three outreach calls to other SLAA members. The phone is like a lifeline: we need the contact. It can be like a mini-meeting. We suggest using chat online or taking a photo of the list to get numbers.

PRAYER AND MEDITATION 5

Our practice of daily prayer and meditation is to develop a relationship with a power greater than ourselves which can guide and sustain us in recovery. We ensure our continued and sustained abstinence from sex and love addiction by being forever aware that God is doing for us what we have never been able to do for ourselves.

This is freedom from the bondage of self. Service is working the tools of the programme to the best of our ability, giving back what we've been given. Service is being available for outreach calls or sponsoring. It's helping out at meetings - for example, setting up chairs, making coffee - and welcoming newcomers. Sobriety is a service to ourselves and the group.

A SLAA HOW sponsor is a sex and love addict who, thank God, has 30 days of continuous sobriety working the SLAA HOW concept and has taken the first three steps. In keeping with our second tradition, our leaders are but trusted servants - they do not govern.