- Abstinence (partial or total): We get support and growth by abstaining from people, places or things that we consider harmful.
- Acceptance: Accept that you are a sex and love addict.
- Affirmations: Retraining "old thoughts" of low self-esteem.
- Anonymity and Confidentiality: Guard others' safety by not repeating what is heard in a meeting or other confidential setting
- Balance: Each day remember to develop personal relationships with people other than your partner. Engage in pleasure, education, rest, creativity, spiritual involvement, and play.
- Carry Recovery with You: Keep reminders, cues, instructions, or anything else that will help in your purse or wallet.
- Conferences, conventions, retreats, and workshops: Spend time focused on recovery.
- Deep breathing: If you feel a panic attack coming on, try taking slow deep breaths.
- Honesty: Work to eliminate denial, half truths, white lies, fibs, partial truths and overt dishonesty with ourselves and others.
- Humor: "Laughter is the best medicine" is true. Never take yourself too seriously.
- Journaling: Writing provides a way to be honest with ourselves and our Higher Power.
- Literature: Read some recovery (AA, SLAA, or any relevant recovery books and literature) literature, everyday.
- Live in the moment: "One Day At a Time" as we often say.
- Meetings: Where we share our experience, strength and hope with each other to better understand our common problem and work together towards the solution.
- Open-mindedness: Be vigilant to listen for similarities and not differences.
- People, Places and Things: Choose to avoid all triggering situations, or make them safe if you can't avoid them.
- Physical Activity: Spend time doing fun activities, and get involved in sports, exercise, and other physical activities.
- Prayer and Meditation: A means of establishing a conscious contact with a Power greater than ourselves, for spiritual healing.
- Prioritize: Make recovery your number one priority.
- Professional Help: Your addiction may have been a subconscious way of self-medicating yourself for wounds you carry from your earlier life.
- Recovery Partners: Being accountable to someone is an important anchor for sobriety.
- Recovery Plan: A recovery plan is a predetermined way of expressing our sexuality consistent with our values, so that even when confused, we have a written guide to help us.
- Relationships: Dating is a way of changing the instant gratification habit and getting to know more about ourselves and another person, before committing to any sexual decisions.
- Reminders: Posting small signs or post-its with affirmations or healthy reminders near your computer, your bathroom mirror, your car's interior, or wherever you want to be "reminded".
- S.A.F.E.: If it’s Secret; Abusive; Feelings; Empty, then it’s likely our addiction.
- Service: Service is helping ourselves by helping others.
- Sharing: Being honest and vulnerable in front of fellow recovering addicts is frightening but worth it.
- Slogans: Simple statements that can be used in crisis situations
- Socializing: Breaking down our isolation and getting to know people in a nonsexual context.
- Sponsorship: Sponsorship is two people with the same problem helping each other to work the program.
- Need a Meeting? Start a Meeting: SLAA Fellowship Wide Services provides help in creating new groups.
- Support Network: Meeting with other people to discuss your journey helps you to know you are not alone and allows you to get another perspective on your struggles.
- Surrender: "Surrender to Win" is a slogan.
- Take the First Step: Repeat the words "We admitted we were powerless over our sex and love addiction — that our lives had become unmanageable," until the meaning sinks in.
- Telephone: The telephone is your lifeline between meetings.
- Think It Through: "Interrupt the acting out" by developing and memorizing a set of strategies to help you to avoid acting out (back to a well-written recovery plan). Postpone the slip, reminding yourself you can have it later but you'll talk to someone first.
- Top Lines: Replace Behaviors with Healthy Ones: Break the habit pattern. We can't get sober in a vacuum.
- Twelve Steps: Working the steps is the foundation of recovery; they are a set of spiritual practices for personal growth and recovery.
- Willingness: Become willing. Open your mind to the possibility of giving up the slip, rather than giving in to it.
- Withdrawal: Withdrawal — Gateway to Freedom, Hope, and Joy
Taken from http://www.slaaonline.org/tools/, which also has links to –
• A list of positive and negative behaviors in recovery
• “Best Advice: A compendium of advice for overcoming sexual dependency ... as related by the addicts themselves.” ©1990 Patrick J Carnes, Ph.D.
• A list of 36 Stress Reducers
• A list of 47 Qualities of a Relationship
This is not S.L.A.A. Conference Approved Literature