Coupls Retreat June 10-12

There will be a retreat for couples in Santa Brbara, CA June 10-12, 2016.
For information or to register contact : Couplesretreat@sanonsocal.org

Couples Group Weekend RetreatJune 10-12, 2016Santa Barbara, CA

$530.00 per couplePrice includes two nights lodging, 4 meals and retreat supplies$175.00 deposit due now
For information or to register contact : Couplesretreat@sanonsocal.org

 

Proposed Fellowship-wide Group Conscience

The following was forwarded to one of our members. Once again, it appears that there is a challenge to the validity of S-Anon Couples in Recovery groups. Our readers are encouraged to participate in the proposed steering committee.

 

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All:

As you know, the proposed plan to prepare for a fellowship-wide group conscience (FGC) on the couples’ meeting issue includes the development of a motion to the WSC and six supporting documents. The approved plan is attached for your reference.  

We need volunteers to work on this project. Any member of S-Anon can participate. Please forward this email to anyone you think might be interested in participating.

We are forming a Steering Committee for the project. Writing teams (see below) will submit their work to this committee by February 1, 2016. The Steering Committee will then work to make sure that all documentation is concise, easily understandable and ready for submission to the WSCC before the April 1, 2016 deadline for motions. If you want to be a part of the Steering Committee, contact Gayla at executivedirector@sanon.org by Friday, October 30, 2015.  

Seven writing teams will be formed. Each team will be dedicated to working on one of the following topics. If you or someone you know is interested in participating on one or more of the writing teams, please indicate your interest by emailing executivedirector@sanon.com by Friday, October 30. Those who indicate interest will be assembled into writing teams. Each team will decide for itself how the document is going to be produced. The deadline for producing the documents is February 1, 2016.  All documents must be concise and easily understandable.

Below are the seven documents that the writing teams will be developing:

1.       The Motion: This team will prepare the motion that will be submitted to the 2016 WSC. This document will include the exact wording for the questions that will be posed in the FGC, explain why this issue warrants the time and expense of a FGC, outline the case for and against conducting a FCG, and explain how the FGC will be conducted in order to insure integrity in the process. This section will include voting methods, how votes will be submitted, approximate timeframes and the vote tally/reporting process.

2.       Argument for Couples’ Meetings: A white paper written in motion form making the case for allowing couples’ meetings to exist as a part of in S-Anon. Maximum length: 2 pages.

3.       Argument Against Couples’ Meeting: A white paper written in motion form making the case against allowing couples meetings to exist as a part of S-Anon. Maximum length: 2 pages.

4.       History: A white paper tracing the history of couples’ meetings in S-Anon. This document will provide a narrative and timeline explaining how couples’ meetings got their start, what (if any) involvement SA had in the process, and how the group conscience on the status of couples’ meetings has evolved over time.

5.       Position paper on the implications of Traditions Four and Six on this question. This position paper will answer the following questions:

a.       Is a change in the status of couples’ meetings an issue that affects Sexaholics Anonymous as a whole, and as such, requires their involvement or buy-in?

b.       What, if any, role should Sexaholics Anonymous have in the decision to change the status of couples meetings and/or remove couples’ meetings from S-Anon?

 

6.       Scenario Document 1: A scenario document outlining all the feasible courses of action regarding the status of couples’ meetings if the group conscience reveals that couples’ meetings should be allowed to exist in S-Anon. This document will touch upon the following points:

a.       A description of the various status options for couples meetings if they are permitted in S-Anon, including no change to the current “open meeting/non-registered status,” making couples’ meetings registered meetings with rights and privileges identical to registered meetings, or something else.

7.       Scenario Document 2: A scenario document outlining several possible courses of action that might play out if the FGC reveals that couples’ meetings should not be allowed to exist as a part of S-Anon. This document will touch upon the following points:

a.       Implications for couples meetings at International Conventions
b.       How couples’ meetings might continue to exist outside of S-Anon
c.        Implications for the reprinting of literature that mentions couples’ meetings, including costs

If you have any questions, please contact Gayla at executivedirector@sanon.org.

Gayla Z.
Executive Director
S-Anon International Family Groups, Inc.
P.O. Box 17294
Nashville, TN 37217

Office: 615.833.3152
Toll-Free: 800.210.8141
Mobile: 615.400.1333
Email: executivedirector@sanon.org
On the web: www.sanon.org

Tradition 10 - No Opinion on Outside Issues

Tradition 10: The S-Anon Family Groups have no opinion on outside issues; hence our name ought never be drawn into public controversy.

The 10^th Tradition was the topic at a recent S-Anon Couples in Recovery meeting. The participants had several ideas about applying this Tradition to their relationships. This is not a comprehensive list of all ways that it could be applied, just some of the ideas that were presented. They are listed here in no particular order of importance.

We each have our own opinions on political issues. Sometimes we agree and sometimes we don’t. We accept that the other has the right to his or her own beliefs and we don’t try to convince each other to agree.

We avoid heated controversy. These can easily produce anger and resentment.

We don’t speak ill of each other with friends or in public. Being kind and courteous is a priority.

We don’t interfere in each other’s family business. We refrain from criticizing the others parents, siblings and children.

We keep each other’s confidences. We don’t divulge opinions expressed in private. The partner is free to discuss his or her own opinions.

We don’t ask our partners to make hasty decisions. We give each other time to think about and formulate our own ideas.

S-Anon Tradition 9 - Never Organized

The S-Anon Ninth Tradition reads: Our groups, as such, ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve. This Tradition, like all the others was adopted from Alcoholics Anonymous. AA provides a wealth of information about the traditions in the book Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions. The article on Tradition Nine is reprinted, in full:

Tradition Nine

“A.A., as such, ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve.” 

When Tradition Nine was first written, it said that “Alcoholics Anonymous needs the least possible organization.” In years since then, we have changed our minds about that. Today, we are able to say with assurance that Alcoholics Anonymous—A.A. as a whole—should never be organized at all. Then, in seeming contradiction, we proceed to create special service boards and committees which in themselves are organized. How, then, can we have an unorganized movement which can and does create a service organization for itself? Scanning this puzzler, people say, “What do they mean, no organization?”

Well, let's see. Did anyone ever hear of a nation, a church, a political party, even a benevolent association that had no membership rules? Did anyone ever hear of a society which couldn't somehow discipline its members and enforce obedience to necessary rules and regulations?

Doesn't nearly every society on earth give authority to some of its members to impose obedience upon the rest and to punish or expel offenders? Therefore, every nation, in fact every form of society, has to be a government administered by human beings. Power to direct or govern is the essence of organization everywhere.

Yet Alcoholics Anonymous is an exception. It does not conform to this pattern. Neither its General Service Conference, its Foundation Board, nor the humblest group committee can issue a single directive to an A.A. member and make it stick, let alone mete out any punishment. We've tried it lots of times, but utter failure is always the result. Groups have tried to expel members, but the banished have come back to sit in the meeting place, saying, “This is life for us; you can't keep us out.” Committees have instructed many an A.A. to stop working on a chronic backslider, only to be told: “How I do my Twelfth Step work is my business. Who are you to judge?” This doesn't mean an A.A. won't take advice or suggestions from more experienced members, but he surely won't take orders. Who is more unpopular than the oldtime A.A., full of wisdom, who moves to another area and tries to tell the group there how to run its business? He and all like him who “view with alarm for the good of A.A.” meet the most stubborn resistance or, worse still, laughter.

You might think A.A.'s headquarters in New York would be an exception. Surely, the people there would have to have some authority. But long ago, trustees and staff members alike found they could do no more than make suggestions, and very mild ones at that. They even had to coin a couple of sentences which still go into half the letters they write: “Of course, you are at perfect liberty to handle this matter any way you please. But the majority experience in A.A. does seem to suggest . . .” Now, that attitude is far removed from central government, isn't it? We recognize that alcoholics can't be dictated to—individually or collectively.

At this juncture, we can hear a churchman exclaim, “They are making disobedience a virtue!” He is joined by a psychiatrist who says, “Defiant brats! They won't grow up and conform to social usage!” The man in the street says, “I don't understand it. They must be nuts!” But all these observers have overlooked something unique in Alcoholics Anonymous. Unless each A.A. member follows to the best of his ability our suggested Twelve Steps to recovery, he almost certainly signs his own death warrant. His drunkenness and dissolution are not penalties inflicted by people in authority; they result from his personal disobedience to spiritual principles.

The same stern threat applies to the group itself. Unless there is approximate conformity to A.A.'s Twelve Traditions, the group, too, can deteriorate and die. So we of A.A. do obey spiritual principles, first because we must, and ultimately because we love the kind of life such obedience brings. Great suffering and great love are A.A.'s disciplinarians; we need no others.

It is clear now that we ought never to name boards to govern us, but it is equally clear that we shall always need to authorize workers to serve us. It is the difference between the spirit of vested authority and the spirit of service, two concepts which are sometimes poles apart. It is in this spirit of service that we elect the A.A. group's informal rotating committee, the intergroup association for the area, and the General Service Conferences of Alcoholics Anonymous for A.A. as a whole. Even our Foundation, once an independent board, is today directly accountable to our Fellowship. Its trustees are the caretakers and expediters of our world services.

Just as the aim of each A.A. member is personal sobriety, the aim of our services is to bring sobriety within reach of all who want it. If nobody does the group's chores, if the area's telephone rings unanswered, if we do not reply to our mail, then A.A. as we know it would stop. Our communications lines with those who need our help would be broken.

A.A. has to function, but at the same time it must avoid those dangers of great wealth, prestige, and entrenched power which necessarily tempt other societies. Though Tradition Nine at first sight seems to deal with a purely practical matter, in its actual operation it discloses a society without organization, animated only by the spirit of service —a true fellowship.

 

 

 

Applying Tradition 8 to the Coupleship

We are continuing our study of the 12 Traditions of S-Anon and how they can be applied in our Coupleships. We don't claim to have the answers for everyone or the only interpretation of the Steps, Traditions and Concepts.

Tradition 8: "S-Anon Twelfth-Step work should remain forever non-professional, but our service centers may employ special workers."

We are not professional dishwashers, landscapers, maids, computer repair technicians, cooks, accountants etc. Sometimes our chores seem to become intertwined with our identities. Sometimes we find it hard to believe that what we do is not who we are. Is our sense of self worth dependent on what we do?
Did our role models successfully manage this aspect of their lives? It's incredibly easy to fall into so-called gender roles. How can we avoid them? Do we give freely to our relationship? Do we grudgingly participate in home tasks?
Do we risk the health or safety of our families by not consulting experts when needed? Do we try to do things that we are not capable of or do we hire doctors, nurses, plumbers, and electricians when we need them?

"Recovering Together: Issues Faced By Couples"

"What seemed at first a flimsy reed, has proved to be the loving and powerful hand of God." Alcoholics Anonymous  pg 28.

S-Anon Couples in Recovery meetings have one official piece of S-Anon Conference Approved Literature (CAL). It is named "Recovering Together: Issues Faced By Couples".
The www.sanon.org  website describes this book as "Couples share their experience, strength, and hope on the topics of communication, trust, forgiveness, honesty, commitment, and healthy sexuality. The booklet also includes an S-Anon meeting format to be used during S-Anon couples meetings."


Many of our groups use this booklet at their meetings and give copies to newcomers.
One of our couples said "Before we came to our first meeting, we thought that our partnership was broken, that it was over for good. At the first meeting, our emotions were still clouding our ability to see and hear the truth of reality. Reading this booklet together, we started to realize that we had more common ground to rebuild from than we had realized. This book gave us a glimmer of hope, it was our "flimsy reed". We realized that we each had to work on our own programs, individually but we also came to believe that we had to have this program too. The "flimsy reed" of S-Anon Couples in Recovery meetings and this booklet have become the "loving and powerful hand of God" in our marriage."

Applying S-Anon Tradition 6 to a coupleship

Tradition 6: Our S-Anon Family Groups ought never endorse, finance, or lend our name to any outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property and prestige divert us from our primary spiritual aim. Although a separate entity, we should always cooperate with Sexaholics Anonymous.

How can we members of S-Anon Couples in Recovery apply the sixth tradition to our coupleship?

One couple has replied: "We each have our own funds, schedules and commitments. In the past, problems with money, property and egos interfered with our relationships.
Applying this Tradition, neither of us will make a commitment of our joint funds, time or responsibility without consulting the other. We do not try to fill all of our partners needs. We do not expect all of our needs to be met by our partner. We support each other. We strive to be healthy equals. We are mutually dependent. We support and encourage each other."