The SLAA HOW way of working the SLAA program was inspired by the Overeaters Anonymous (OA)  HOW approach.  OA HOW still exists within OA as well as a separate fellowship called CEA (Compulsive Eaters Anonymous) which works the steps the HOW way. The HOW approach is also used by the Debtors Anonymous (DA) Fellowship.

SLAA HOW originated in Australia around 1996, when a group of authors from SLAA changed the wording from, “compulsive eating and food”, to the words used in SLAA for sex and love addiction, thereby creating from OA a similar H.O.W approach and documents for SLAA. The authors felt that SLAA needed a structured and disciplined approach to help members define and maintain sobriety in SLAA. They felt that sobriety was essential to achieving freedom from the debilitating disease of sex and love addiction and that long lasting recovery was possible through working the Twelve Steps.

The founding members took the entire OA HOW program, including the format, tools and writing assignments for Steps One to Twelve. Where OA HOW used a specific food plan to define abstinence, the SLAA HOW authors created the first seven-day questions to define Bottom Lines so that, in consultation with their sponsor, members could define the addictive behaviors that they chose to abstain from in order to begin recovering from sex and love addiction. 

The SLAA HOW way of working the Steps has spread across the world and become a successful approach in many countries. In particular, SLAA HOW meetings can be found in Australia, Asia and the Pacific, the UK, in English speaking meetings in Europe and also in the US. 

This widespread use speaks for itself in terms of the success of working the program the HOW way. Although HOW is not for all, it is not intended to be. It is there for those who need it and for whom it works.