The Terms of Sex and Love Addiction

Abstinance
A change in our behavior that involves stopping the addictive pattern one day, sometimes one minute, at a time. Abstinence is a beginning point in sobriety.

Acting Out
The compulsiveTo engage in addictive behavior.  Engaging in a behavior which is one’s bottom line, is often referred to as having a slip.

Anorexia
The compulsive avoidance of giving or receiving social, sexual, or emotional nourishment.

Bottom-Line Behaviors
Generally, self-defined activities that we refrain from in order to experience our physical, mental, emotional, sexual, and spiritual wholeness.

Boundaries  
Self-defined, self-protective limits we use for interaction with persons, places, things, or activities.

Cross-talk
Sometimes known as “feedback”. To respond directly or indirectly to what someone has shared in a meeting; for example, to offer someone answers to his or her problems, or to engage in dialogue during the meeting.

Group Conscience
A process of decision-making by the group.  S.L.A.A. encourages all members to express their views.

Inventory or “Moral” Inventory
A list of qualities within a person, both positive and negative, discovered through self-examination. Also to take someone else’s
inventory: to judge another person’s life or sobriety.

Isolation
To withdraw from the help and healing process of others, program support, or our Higher Power.  Isolation often leads to or accompanies a slip. Isolation may also be a form of acting out for anorectic members.

S.L.A.A. Member
Any S.L.A.A. participant who has a desire to stop living out a pattern of sex and love addiction.
Sobriety. Initially, a state of abstinence from addictive bottom-line behaviors; is often accompanied by the return of sanity, choice, and personal dignity that comes from  abstaining from bottom-line behaviors.

Sobriety Date
Generally, the date we stop engaging in our bottom-line behaviors.

Sponsor
A person who works closely with another member to provide individual support and guidance in applying the S.L.A.A. Twelve Step/Twelve Tradition program.  A sponsor should be a person we are not in danger of acting out with, nor are likely to find intrigue with.

Trigger 
A person, place, thing, or environment that sets off an urge to act out.

Withdrawal 
The physical, mental, emotional, and often spiritual upheaval that generally accompanies the break in our addictive pattern.

13th-Stepping 
Manipulating another person in recovery, especially a newcomer, into a sexual, emotional, or romantic relationship.

Open or Closed Meeting? 
S.L.A.A. members highly value our tradition of anonymity. Group conscience determines whether a meeting shall be open or closed. In general, the following guidelines are used:

Open Meeting       A meeting open to anyone who wants to find out more about recovery from sex and love addiction.

Closed Meeting     A meeting open only to those having a desire to stop living out a pattern of sex and love addiction.

Excerpt from the SLAA Welcome Pamphlet

Many different terms are used during S.L.A.A. meetings.  While many terms are used differently in various S.L.A.A. Groups, we will attempt to define a few of these terms as commonly used in S.L.A.A.