12 Steps

The Twelve Steps of SLAA* (download PDF)

  1. We admitted we were powerless over sex and love addiction - that our lives had become unmanageable.
  2. Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
  3. Made a decision to turn our wills and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God.
  4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
  5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
  6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
  7. Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings.
  8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
  9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
  10. Continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
  11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with a Power greater then ourselves, praying only for knowledge of God’s will for us and the power to carry that out.
  12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to sex and love addicts, and to practice these principles in all areas of our lives.

The Twelve Traditions of SLAA* (download PDF)

  1. Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends on SLAA unity.
  2. For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority - a loving God as this Power may be expressed through our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.
  3. The only requirement for SLAA membership is a desire to stop living out a pattern of sex and love addiction. Any two or more persons gathering together for mutual aid in recovering from sex and love addiction may call themselves an SLAA group, provided that as a group they have no other affiliation.
  4. Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or SLAA as a whole.
  5. Each group has but one primary purpose - to carry its message to the sex and love addict who still suffers.
  6. An SLAA group or SLAA as a whole ought never endorse, finance, or lend the SLAA name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property, or prestige divert us from our primary purpose.
  7. Every SLAA group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions.
  8. SLAA should remain forever nonprofessional, but our service centers may employ special workers.
  9. SLAA as such ought never to be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve.
  10. SLAA has no opinion on outside issues; hence the SLAA name ought never to be drawn into public controversy.
  11. Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, TV, film and other public media. We need guard with special care the anonymity of all fellow SLAA members.
  12. Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.

* © 1985 The Augustine Fellowship, Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous, Fellowship-Wide Services, Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Twelve Steps are reprinted and adapted with permission of Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. (AA) Permission to reprint and adapt the Twelve Steps does not mean that AA is affiliated with this program. AA is a program of recovery from alcoholism only. Use of the Twelve Steps in connection with programs and activities which are patterned after AA, but which addresses other problems, does not imply otherwise.