Church Told Me I Needed Sex Addicts Anonymous. Here's What Happened When I Went.

Angela, a woman writing about her time at Sex Addicts Anonymous (SAA), describes attending her first meeting at age 23 and the fear of disappointing God that drove her confessions. In a circle of 12 women, she recounts hearing others admit struggling with pornography and related behaviors, then sharing her own struggle while feeling intense anxiety and nausea. The piece places the experience in the context of her evangelical Christian upbringing, where sexual acts and desires outside heterosexual marriage were framed as grave sins. After being encouraged by a church mentor in 2014, she attended SAA for just under a year, later concluding she wasn’t a “sex addict,” but a product of a purity-focused culture within certain religious settings.