Meetings are the core of our fellowship, something we all contribute to and share. Starting an SRA meeting in your area may take effort and persistence, but doing so is a great service to others and can be a very rewarding experience for you. What follows are some tips and resources to help you get underway.
Process
Take these steps, and slowly your meeting will start to grow:
- Get the literature listed below.
- Find a meeting place.
- Show up and keep the lights on.
- Let people know you are there to help. Contact counselors, religious leaders, the court system, and other 12-step groups in your area such as AA, NA, GA, DA, etc.
- Contact GSB at info@sexualrecovery.org for additional information, help, suggestions, or with any other questions about starting and/or maintaining a meeting in your area.
Meeting format
Meetings are usually an hour to 90-minutes long with a special effort to make sure all present get a chance to share.
Suggested meeting types
- Tools meeting: based on the tools pamphlet which is a beginners meeting and one tool is the topic.
- Qualification (or Speaker) meeting: a 20-minute share by someone with at least 30 days of sobriety. A discussion or sharing time can follow the speaker.
- Topic meeting: where topics are either suggested by the chairperson or leader or the topic is picked from literature such as As Bill Sees It from AA, or Answers from the Heart, a sexual recovery daily reader published by Hazelden.
- Step meeting: one of the Steps is read followed by a discussion time. An alternate format is for someone shares on his or her experience regarding the Step followed by discussion time. One Step is covered every week or every two weeks.
- Step Lab meeting: One step is covered each month with each week having a different format i.e. week 1: read Step followed by sharing; week 2: write on the Step followed by sharing; week 3: speaker shares on Step followed by discussion; week 4: writing session followed by sharing.
SRA Suggested Meeting Format: this pamphlet provides a detailed format for your meeting. You may want to adjust the format based on your group conscience.
For a complete list of SRA literature and downloadable copies of our pamphlets, please click here.