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Has anyone visited addiction support groups like SLAA or SAA? I've visited both but I don't feel like they help. There's a very heavy religious angle to the meetings, we're made to feel very guilty about our compulsions and cross talk (i.e. giving people advice) is actually discouraged. It feels very much, from the meetings I've been to, that people there don't want to change or overcome their problems. I was wondering if people had experienced similar situations.

Edited by PatBatemanBlog
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  • 2 months later...

Hi Pat - I go to an SAA meeting on a regular basis.  All 12 step meetings have a 'divine' basis.  Mine starts and begins with the serenity prayer.  And like the ones you have been to, we aren't allowed to offer advice during the session although it is fine outside the session.  The guys who are particularly hot about this feel it is less safe when this value isn't respected and over time I have come to appreciate their strictness on this.  I would encourage you to keep going for some weeks, perhaps even months and see how it feels when you have got used to it.  It took me some while.

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Hi PJ, thanks for responding. I kept going for a couple of months but I felt patronised by the insistance of having a religious angle and how addictions were described as a 'disease'. I stopped because I was looking for genuine help and noone seemed particularly bothered about giving that. I'd love to set up my own group but I've no idea how I'd go about that.

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  • 2 months later...

I guess they work for some and not for others. Like Marmite!

Sex-Aholics Anonymous didn't work for me, but appears to work for others (like PJ). Couldn't get my head around being absolved of accountability for my own actions... and my own recovery. Everything bad or good that happened was the work of my Higher Power. That said, after 4 years of "sobriety", I've suffered a slip, so I won't sit in my glass house and start throwing any stones :$. I might have a crack at one of the others that I'd understood were a little less religious.

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  • 1 month later...

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