Opinions on SLAA?

I went to one meeting, more out of curiosity than anything........it was bleak man. It seemed to be pointless. It was all men aswell and the energy in the room was dead. No other way to describe it, just dead, lifeless. To be honest it scared me. Those guys seemed to be hopeless, talking about their mothers and people they hated who were dead and gone. I dunno, it just seemed like emotional vomit, there was no structure to the meeting, just men talking randomly about stuff. I was so glad to be out of there by the end of that meeting.
Maybe others have been to meetings that werent like this but for me it wasnt constructive, those guys apparently had been going to these meetings for years and from what I could see, they werent getting anywhere in terms of recovery.
Groups are good, I think its healthy and necessary to come out of the shadows and reveal your true self to safe people. But I think you gotta select your groups very carefully and make sure its something thats healthy and has good energy.

 

I sent to SLAA for a few years and got quite a lot out of it, but then stepped away for some of the reasons you describe (but I was able to recover quite a bit from many of my addictive behaviors). Of course some groups are better than others, and it's all about the people. It's also about how far you are willing to go to get better. I'm an atheist, and was totally comfortable in the group (I did not find it religious, and was comfortable with the higher power concept even as an atheist).

I recommend you check out a few different meetings, also check out SAA, and SA (if applicable).

A lot of the things that happen on this site are similar to what's done in the meetings. And generally, the most important thing in getting better is interacting with other like-minded folks. This can happen in lots of ways.

 

There are lots of 12 step fellowships, including for sex related addictions. My experiences were very positive. I stopped going to meetings because I moved where it was hard to go.