Newly restored 1991 recording now available on the StepTwelveSAA YouTube channel
We’re grateful to share something special with the fellowship: a newly restored recording of Dale S., co-founder of the Los Angeles SAA group, speaking on the subject of boundaries.
The talk was recorded in 1991 — Dale sharing, in his own words, on the framework of inner, middle, and outer circles, the messy reality of relationships in recovery, and the role forgiveness plays in actually being able to set and hold a boundary. Dale passed away in early 2026, and this recording is shared in his memory, and in the spirit of Step Twelve: carrying the message to those who still suffer.
Watch “Dale S. — On Boundaries” on YouTube →
What’s in the Talk
Dale doesn’t lecture so much as think out loud with the room — practical, a little self-deprecating, and unmistakably shaped by years of hard-won program experience. Some of what he covers:
- The inner, middle, and outer circle — a way of mapping our own boundaries that goes well beyond a simple bottom-line list
- Why our usual ways of “defining” a boundary don’t work — slamming doors, silent treatment, and the other reflexive moves most of us learned long before we found the program
- Forgiveness as the real mechanism — not as a nice idea, but as the thing that actually makes a boundary possible to hold
- A story about a bank teller that ties the whole talk together in a way that’s worth waiting for
The full talk runs about 57 minutes and is broken into chapters so you can jump to a specific topic or come back to a section later.
Preserving a Voice
This recording almost didn’t make it to us in a listenable form. It survived on aging cassette tape, and it’s only because Steve L. took care to preserve the original recording — and because Jim W. made sure the tape didn’t get lost to time — that we’re able to share it today. We’re thankful to them both.
Watch the full talk: Dale S. — On Boundaries on the StepTwelveSAA YouTube channel.
Have a recording, talk, or piece of SAA history you think should be preserved? Reach out — we’d love to hear about it.