P2Har - From Shame to Grace

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SAA - Sex Addicts Anonymous

P2Har - the Path to Healing and Recovery

Waterloo, Wellington, Dufferin County- Tri-County Recovery Chapter of P2HAR

7th Tradition

We have now setup the ability to send a e-transfer as a donation to the group as part of the 7th tradition.

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The money is used to pay for the room for the in person meetings, literature, internet and communications services as well as domain registrations and email addresses plus the telephone line. As a group we also donate to the International Service Organization which co-ordinates and makes available the resources, assists fledgling groups financially as well as make sure those who are seeking help are able to find the groups. Most of us in the fellowship found the local group through the work of the ISO.


In person meeting

Guelph Men's Group - Thursdays at 7:00 pm

7pm-8pm

*Men only (in person)

All Saint's Lutheran Anglican Church

Address: 210 Silvercreek Pkwy N, Guelph, ON N1H 7P8

- entrance is at the rear of the church

 the contact information is the same as Tuesday


Virtual Meeting

Meeting

When: Every Tuesday Night at 7:00 pm

Link to Main Meeting

Step Study Meeting
Every Tuesday night at 7:00 pm

The Tuesday night Step Study meeting will be a video/teleconference meeting.

You will be able to connect virtually using the information below. 

Details can be found >>> here <<<

35 University Avenue Waterloo

Meetings - Miscellaneous

Contact

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

1 844-523-8676, ext 10827

Enter the extension anytime during the introduction greeting. The Introduction greeting is vague to prevent people from discerning the nature of the call by phoning the number.

This is a toll free line that will pick up incoming messages only. The message will be forwarded to the group contact person to enable them to reach out to you so please leave contact information including your name but your first name only. Contact information can be a phone number or a email address.

Membership is open to all who have a desire to stop addictive/compulsive, uncontrollable sexual behavior. There is no other requirement. Our fellowship is open to women and men, regardless of age, race, religion, ethnic background, marital status, or occupation. We welcome members of any sexual identity or orientation, whether they are gay, lesbian, straight, bisexual, or transgender.

Our goal when entering the SAA program is abstinence from one or more specific sexual behaviors. But unlike programs for recovering alcoholics or drug addicts, Sex Addicts Anonymous (SAA) does not have a universal definition of abstinence. Most of us have no desire to stop being sexual altogether. It is not sex in and of itself that causes us problems, but the addiction to certain sexual behaviors. In SAA we will be better able to determine what behavior is addictive and what is healthy. However, the fellowship does not dictate to its members what is and isn’t addictive sexual behavior. Instead we have found that it is necessary for each member to define his or her own abstinence. 

"With this step, we recognize that we have a disease, not a mere weakness or character flaw, and that we are powerless to change this fact"

Shame tells me that I have the power to control my addiction, but that I don't use that power because I'm a bad person, guaranteeing the cycle will continue.

Step One is the beginning of the end for my shame. Admitting powerlessness undoes the lie that I could control my sexual urges if only I were a better person.

Powerlessness allows me to see the truth - my addiction is a progressive disease, affecting my mind, body and spirit. I cannot control this disease with willpower any more than a person with cancer of Parkinson's.

No one judges them for not succeeding. My disease takes away my power of choice when it comes to sexual thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.

Powerlessness allows a paradigm shift from me being a bad person who needs to be good, to being a sick person who is getting well through the Twelve Steps of Sex Addicts Anonymous. The disease is never removed, but, one day at a time, the symptoms - harmful sexual behaviors - are lifted and I can begin to live a life with meaning, a life where I am no longer alone.

I am not a bad, unworthy, or weak person; I am just a human being with an illness. SAA offers a remedy for that illness if I'm willing to use it.

Stick around, The medicine is right here.

from Voices of Recovery
Daily meditation Book - Page 1 55 June 3

Compulsive Sexual Behaviour Disorder (CSBD)

Compulsive Sexual Behaviour Disorder (CSBD), also known as sexual addiction is a much misunderstood problem. 

Whether it’s compulsive use of pornography, visiting sex workers, cruising, using adult hook-up apps, multiple affairs or any other kind of sexual behaviour, if the behaviour is compulsive, creating negative consequences in your life and unable to quit on your own despite numerous attempts to stop on  your own - you are welcome and encouraged to join us.  

What is Addiction 

Addiction, properly understood, is neither a disease to be cured—though it has aspects of a disease—nor a problem to be eliminated. On the contrary, addiction is the individual’s attempt to solve a quandary. Before we can address addiction, this simple fact must be understood.

What is the problem that addiction is meant to resolve? As the Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards wrote about his own heroin habit, it can be a search for oblivion. He writes of “the contortions we go through just not to be ourselves for a few hours.”

Why would a person long to escape themselves? Because, as a result of their life experiences, they are intensely distressed and may feel trapped within their situation.

To put it another way, all the addictive substances (and addictive behaviors) soothe pain or at least distract from pain. Specifically, abusive substances like opiates are powerful painkillers, both physical and emotional; as is cocaine; as is alcohol.

Hence, the question is not why the addiction, but why the pain? And, again, the answer resides neither in genes nor in “choices,” but in the lives and experiences of the addicts

Are you a sex addict

Sex addiction is possibly one of the most controversial problems to have entered the public arena in the past 50 years and one that has generated a huge amount of media attention. While a growing number of public figures and celebrities battle their condition in the face of public scorn and criticism, others claim it’s nothing more than a made-up condition invented to excuse high-flying men who can’t control their sex drives. And others skeptically say it’s a problem created by sex-hating prudes who moralise sexual diversity and freedom.

One argument that is proffered against sex addiction’s existence is that it seems to have appeared on the social scene so recently, but sex has obviously been available since the dawn of time. “If sex was ‘addictive’ and real, how come sex addiction only happened so recently?” ask some. The answer to this is simple: the internet. The world wide web has made sex available and accessible to all, and accessible within relative anonymity, hence bypassing the usual social inhibitors. If crack cocaine was privately and freely available on every street corner, I’m sure the growth in coke addiction would soon hit the headlines. At no other time in history has it been so easy to become sexually addicted.

The simplest and broadest definition of sex addiction would be that it’s a term that describes any pattern of out-of-control sexual behaviour that causes problems in someone’s life. Furthermore, it is a pattern of behaviour that cannot be stopped, or does not reliably stay stopped. The type of behaviour does not define addiction. The following is a list of common behaviours but it is by no means exhaustive.

Pornography 

Sex cinemas 

Fetish practices 

Chat lines 

voyeurism

Bestiality 

Phone lines 

Child pornography 

Prostitution 

Rape

Partner sex 

Web sex 

Multiple affairs 

Exhibitionism

BDSM (bondage, discipline,
sadism, masochism)

About Us - a safe place

“An SAA group consists of two or more individuals who, using the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of SAA, meet regularly for the purpose of recovering from their addictive sexual behavior. At our meetings, we read SAA literature and share our experience, strength and hope with each other, focusing on how the SAA program of recovery works in our lives.”

— Sex Addicts Anonymous p. 10
Attending SAA meetings starts us on a new way of life. But while the SAA fellowship supports our recovery, the actual work of recovery is described in the Twelve Steps. Meetings are forums for learning how to integrate the steps into our lives. Working the Twelve Steps leads to a spiritual transformation that results in sustainable relief from our addiction.

We are based on the program of SAA - Sex Addicts Anonymous with a emphasis on recovery and fellowship. We encourage sharing and discussion based on readings and relevant quotations. Not all of our material is taken from recognized SAA resources but the group conscience has determined there are many relevant resources that assist in recovery and these are used as well.

We encourage informal time after the meeting where conversation and concerns can be discussed in openly. As part of the culture and group conscience, do not be surprised if there is coffee and/or other non alcoholic beverages available during the meeting and everyone is invited to help themselves.

When we start attending meetings of Sex Addicts Anonymous, many of us are surprised to meet people who are enjoying life and experiencing freedom from the painful, compulsive behaviors that had brought them to SAA. Listening to other members share about their recovery, we gradually realize that in order to make the same kind of progress, we need to be willing to do whatever it takes to get sexually abstinent, and to stay abstinent. We have learned from hard experience that we cannot achieve and maintain abstinence if we aren’t willing to change our way of life. But if we can honestly face our problems, and are willing to change, the Twelve Steps of SAA will lead to an awakening that allows us to live a new way of life according to spiritual principles. Taking these steps allows fundamental change to occur in our lives. They are the foundation of our recovery.

Meetings are at the heart of the SAA fellowship. At meetings we emerge from our shame, secrecy, and fear, into a community of people who share the common goal of freedom from sex addiction. They give us the opportunity to talk about our lives and our addiction with other sex addicts, people who have had similar experiences and understand the problems we face. Attending our first SAA meeting is a crucial step in moving away from isolation into fellowship, and ultimately into recovery.

For many of us, our first meeting was a freeing experience. We sat among others like us, and heard their stories. It did not seem to matter if we identified with everyone’s behaviors. We were often amazed to find other people honestly sharing their challenges around sex addiction. As we witnessed their honesty and openness, we felt invited to speak candidly about ourselves. Revealing our sex addiction to others gives us a sense of freedom and relief, even if we initially felt some fear or resistance.

An SAA group consists of two or more individuals who, using the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of SAA, meet regularly for the purpose of recovering from their addictive sexual behavior. At our meetings, we read SAA literature and share our experience, strength, and hope with each other, focusing on how the SAA program of recovery works in our lives.

SAA meetings are run by members. There are no professional or outside facilitators. We meet as equals: sex addicts helping one another to achieve sexual sobriety and to practice a new way of life. We all contribute to making our meetings places that foster our recovery and carry the SAA message to the sex addict who still suffers. Our fellow members depend upon us, as we depend on them.

Because of the sensitive nature of sexual addiction, many of our groups are "closed," meaning that only those with a desire to stop addictive sexual behavior may attend. Anyone else interested in finding out about SAA may attend "open" meetings. While we all strive for sexual sobriety, its achievement is not a requirement for attendance or participation. All participation is voluntary. We are not required to speak if we don’t want to. Just by listening we can learn how other members become honest, confront their addiction, find support from fellow addicts, and practice the program. We can learn how others have faced problems that are similar to ours, and how they have used the tools of the program to deal with them. Members can have any religious belief, or no belief at all. All sex addicts recovery are welcome. 

Note All Tri-County Recovery meetings are open to every person who is suffering from compulsive/addictive sexual activities and has a desire to stop their acting out but they are not open to the general public at large, journalists or spectators. If you identify yourself as suffering from Sex Addiction or suffering compulsive sex related habbits you seek to end, you are welcome to attend. There is no other requirement.
 
 If you are seeking general information on our SAA program, please contact us via email at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

We strive to practice anonymity and confidentiality, so that the meeting will be a safe place for each and every sex addict. We generally use only our first names in the group, to help ensure anonymity. Whom we meet or what is said in a meeting is treated as confidential and is not discussed with non-group members.

It takes some courage to show up at our first meeting. We may fear being recognized at a meeting by someone we know. This can be awkward, but it’s helpful to remember that when we acted out, we risked consequences greater than any embarrassment we might experience at a meeting. Eventually, discomfort gives way to a sense of belonging and a feeling of relief that there are others like us.

Email for information and meeting location

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

1 844-523-8676, ext 10827

This Site is not endorsed by SAA®, nor does it represent SAA® as a whole

The views expressed on this website are those of the WWD - Tri-County Recovery Chapter of SAA and may not represent those of Sex Addicts Anonymous as a whole.

The Official Website Of Sex Addicts Anonymous is overseen by the ISO of SAA Inc., through its Board of Trustees who are elected by delegates who represent its member groups.