Core Literature

1. We admitted we were powerless over the abuse, and the effects of the abuse, and that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a loving Higher Power greater than ourselves could restore hope, healing, and sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of a loving Higher Power as we understood Higher Power.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves, the abuse, and its effects on our lives. We have no more secrets.
5. Admitted to a loving Higher Power, to ourselves, and to another human being our strengths and weaknesses.
6. Were entirely ready to have a loving Higher Power help us remove all the debilitating consequences of the abuse, and became willing to treat ourselves with respect, compassion, and acceptance.
7. Humbly and honestly asked a loving Higher Power to remove the unhealthy and self-defeating consequences stemming from the abuse.
8. Made a list of all the people we had harmed (of our own free will), especially ourselves and our Inner Child(ren), and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would result in physical, mental, or emotional harm to ourselves or others.
10. Continued to take responsibility for our own recovery, and when we found ourselves behaving in patterns still dictated by the abuse, promptly admitted it. When we succeed, we promptly enjoy it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with ourselves and a loving Higher Power, as we understood Higher Power, asking only for knowledge of Higher Power’s will for us and the power and courage to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other Survivors and to practice these principles in all our endeavors.

1. We will finally know freedom, happiness and serenity.
2. We will remember the past at last and walk freely away from it with our child intact.
3. We will comprehend the word “safety.”
4. We will know sleep without fear.
5. No matter how terrible the incest, nor how devastating its effects, we will recover and become whole again.
6. That feeling of hopelessness and self-condemnation will disappear.
7. We will lose our sense of toxic shame and gain self-respect.
8. Revulsion will slip away.
9. Our perpetrators will no longer have any power over us.
10. Fear of love and sexuality will leave us.
11. We will intuitively know how to handle intimacy.
12. We will suddenly realize that we are alive, lovely, whole, sane and safe.

1. Our common welfare should come first; personal progress for the greatest number depends upon unity.
2. For our group purpose there is but one authority: a loving Higher Power, as this one may express her/himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.
3. The only requirement for membership is that you be a victim of childhood sexual abuse, that you desire to recover from it, and that you, as an adult, have not sexually abused any child.
4. Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting another group or SlA as a whole.
5. Each SIA group has but one primary purpose: to carry its message to the survivor of childhood sexual abuse who still suffers.
6. An SIA group ought never to endorse, finance, or lend the SIA name to any outside enterprise lest problems of money, property and prestige divert us from our primary objective.
7. SIA strives to be fully self-supporting and will not accept contributions that compromise SIA’s autonomy or mission. *)
8. Survivors of Incest Anonymous Twelve Step work should remain forever non-professional, but our service centers may employ special workers.
9. Survivors of Incest Anonymous groups, as such, ought never be organized, but they may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve.
10. Survivors of Incest Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence, the SIA name ought never be drawn into public controversy.
11. SIA public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, films and television.
12. Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our Traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.

*) SIA considers any donation initiated by, or in memory or support of an individual survivor member, such as one from a friend or relative, a place of employment, proceeds from a publication or other entity, or in support of SIA as a whole, to be within the self-supporting part of the SIA Seventh Tradition. SIA considers donations made as a result of a survivor’s involvement with SIA to be directly related to that survivor; these donations are therefore considered part of the SIA self-supporting tradition. The Board of Trustees reiterates that all donations, including those from survivors themselves, cannot interfere with the mission, program or independence of SIA. The Board of Trustees is responsible for overseeing adherence to this Seventh Tradition and will decline any donation that does not meet this standard.

Loving Higher Power, grant us the serenity
to accept the things we cannot change,
the courage to change the things we can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.