Anorexia -Sexual, Social, Emotional

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What is Anorexia

In Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous, we suffer from addiction to sex, love, relationship, fantasy, romance and co-dependency. However, there is still another addiction some of us suffer from: anorexia. 

As an eating disorder, anorexia is defined as the compulsive avoidance of food. In the area of sex and love, anorexia has a similar definition: Anorexia is the compulsive avoidance of giving or receiving social, sexual or emotional nourishment. ​

Some Varieties of Anorexia

Some of us may not have had sex or been in a close personal relationship in years. Or we may be in partnerships but find it difficult to be emotionally close. We may be the members in SLAA who seldom speak in meetings, disappearing the instant the meeting is over. Or we may be those who, outside meetings, are barely social. Or we may be the kind who do not have intimate friendships. We may have many acquaintances but no one we’re really close to. Or we may have close relations with only certain people, our children, say, but keep our distance from anyone else. There are many other varieties of anorectics as well. But whichever kind we are, all of us in some important way have distanced ourselves from experiencing love. 

Anorexia may be difficult to recognise

​Anorexia is a form of sex and love addiction, but it is often hard to detect. Other forms of sex and love addiction themselves can mask anorexia. Indeed, anorexia may be masked so completely that the individual doesn’t recognize that anorexia is present at all. Sexual promiscuity, for instance, may actually hide an avoidance of intimacy. Co-dependency, while producing the “appearance” of relationship, may actually hide a resistance to real relationship. Often, when SLAA members stop acting out their most obvious addiction they discover to their surprise that anorexia lies beneath their addiction after all.

​Excerpts from Anorexia: Sexual, Social, Emotional, excerpts © 1992 The Augustine Fellowship, S.L.A.A., Fellowship-Wide Services, Inc. All Rights Reserved Hardcopy PDF

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Anorexia Recovery Tools– Summary

​Emotions
We give great attention to our emotions and we take time and space to process and elaborate on them. 

Tenderness
We learn to recognize and lovingly provide for our needs, as if we are the person that we love most on the Earth.

Go at Our Own Pace
This helps us decide for ourselves if our behavior in a situation is healthy, and when we need to go slowly, to run, or to stop.

Self Care
We take tender care of our body, our food, our possessions and clothes, our desires and dreams, our fun, our vacations, and our emotional and sexual needs. 

Balance
We know that our anorexia pushes us toward extremes, therefore we look for balance in our recovery and in every part of our lives.

​Authenticity
Being true to our heart, provides our special path to recovery. We dare to be healthy in our own way.

​Spirituality 
We develop, day by day, our own way of staying in touch with a Power greater than ourselves, which can lead us and gently support us in our recovery.

​Gratitude
We thank life and our Higher Power; whenever we can.

​Service
Through balanced service, we experience freedom from the anorexic self by giving back to the S.L.A.A. community what we continue to freely and lovingly receive.

​Friendship
We enjoy the closeness and the affection of our friends, and we nourish our
relationships with them, one day at a time. 

​Sponsorship
Our sponsor is an SLAA. member who has worked the Program, may be anorexic, has some recovery, and wants to share it with us. 

​Recovery Plan
We write a plan for our recovery; we follow it and adjust it as we grow.

​Steps
We follow the spiritual Program of the 12 Steps with confidence and openness. 

Excerpts from Anorexia Recovery Tools, © 2015, The Augustine Fellowship, Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous, Fellowship-Wide Services, Inc. Hardcopy

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Resources

SLAA Anorexia Literature​

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