SAA in a Nutshell

What and Who Is SAA?
SAA’s Goals for YOU
How You Achieve Those Goals
Optional Real-Time Coaching
How SAA Operates
What Has SAA Achieved to Date?

What and Who Is SAA?

SAA is an organization, with offices in Bermuda, that was formed by Lee Lovett and a group of PWS who eliminated virtually all outward signs of stuttering or other speech anxieties (PWSS), who banded together to help others overcome speech anxieties (as manifested by stuttering, blocking, etc., or simply by silence in pressured situations).  See Success Stories for details. SAA is now being administrated by the non-profit World Stop Stuttering Association.

SAA has modeled itself after Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), which was formed in the U.S. in the 1930’s by alcoholics who had trained themselves not to drink alcohol.  No doctor or substance-abuse professional can hope to understand the depths of alcohol as does an alcoholic. So, AA was created for purpose of providing counseling by ex-alcoholics to alcoholics. AA holds DAILY meetings in every country of any size throughout the world, and tens of millions of alcoholics attend those meetings daily, and hear other alcoholics explain how they manage their alcoholism, or their progress in doing so, and these ex-alcoholics counsel others at these meetings and make themselves available (between daily meetings) for phone, Skype and other forms of contact by sufferers. In the process, AA has proven to be an instrument for good of divine proportions.

SAA now seeks to emulate AA’s so admirable example by offering a place where those who have overcome their speech disabilities can provide counseling to those who have not.  SAA supports the work of professional speech therapists, and SAA’s counseling is not necessarily a substitute for therapy by a professional speech therapist, any more than AA is a substitute for the assistance of medical professionals. However, since most speech therapists either never stuttered or still do, those who beat stuttering will better understand the problem and what it takes solve it. As such, we do urge stutterers to seek help from ex-stutterers.  As of this writing, there is only one community or organization that is comprised of ex-stutterers, Speech Anxiety Cures (SAC).

As Confucius said, “The longest journey begins with the first step,” and that is, of course, where SAA and SAC must begin. SAA and SAC will work together a seamlessly as possible.  SAA has no funding other than Lee Lovett, which has limits in dollars and time.  SAC makes very small charges to PWS, and, as such, has “legs”; it has a chance to survive and fund all manner of services for PWS.   As SAC’s website reveals, it has developed a massive program and services that make Lee’s methods much easier to understand and apply.

SAA’s and SAC’s Goals for You

  1. Stop stuttering – eliminate the appearance of a speech disability
  2. Teach yourself to love to speak in all situations
  3. Adopt a life-regimen of daily mind-training
  4. Convert stuttering into a blessing by improving yourself

How You Achieve Those Goals

SAA is now being administrated by WSSA.   Everything that SAA is had hoped to offer PWS is being offered by WSSA

Lee’s “How to Stop Stuttering & Love Speaking”, as released in late 2021 is by far his best treatment of this subject.  It should be read in concert with his “Stuttering Stories with Happy Endings: 101 Real Life Stories”.  Both of these books are available on Amazon and are expected to be available soon to WSSA’s members at no charge.

Coaching

Originally, SAA hoped to create a veritable army of PWSS, who would join Lee in providing free coaching to speech sufferers.  After pursuing this dream for four years (2016-2021), Lee realized that his PWSS were, generally, between the ages of 17 and 40, and the laws of economics did not allow them to spend any significant amount of time coaching for free – although  many of them wanted to do so; they just couldn’t do it, not on a sustained, predictable basis. Lee had to find other ways to create “an army of PWSS coaches” to help PWS. Coaching by PWSS is now being offered by WSSA.

What SAA Has Achieved to Date

By early 2022, Lee had coached over 6,000 sessions with PWS for free.  These had resulted in several hundred PWS stopping stuttering.  Some 200 of these had posted their Stopped Stuttering Stories on SAA and most of those now also appear on WSSA’s website.  In spring of 2022, Lee released the book, “Stuttering Stories with Happy Endings”, which includes 101 of these case histories.

SAA’s existence and what Lee and his fellow ex-stuttering coaches led to the creation of WSSA which offers the services to PWS that Lee had once hoped that SAA could provide.

Lee intends to continue his coaching of PWS and to do all in his power to help WSSA spread the good news: PWS can stop stuttering and learn to love to speak – and they can do so for close to no cost.  Lee estimates  that 90% of those he coaches, who stick with the program, stop stuttering.  WSSA currently provides all of its services (except private coaching) for less than the cost of one hour of the time of most speech language pathologists, and some PWS achieve fluency by reading Lee’s books alone.