Weekly Recovery Meeting (Dec. 19-25) The Importance of Sponsorship

[BTGOG]

Please share with us your experience, strength and hope on any or all of the following topics (or others) related to sponsorship:

1. Why do I need a sponsor?
2. How do I choose a sponsor?
3. Why should I be a sponsor?

My experience shows me that I definitely need a sponsor. I got my first sponsor after about 30 days sober. She helped me through the Steps, and eventually became like a second mother to me. When I was about two years sober, she passed away. I got another sponsor a few months later, and she led me through the Steps as well, but then moved away after about a year. I realize now that I stuffed feelings of abandonment and hurt from the loss of my first two sponsors, and I was unwilling to take the plunge again and get a third sponsor. So, for from 3 years sober through 17 years sober, I "sponsored" myself. Not a good plan. I was basically unaccountable to anyone, so when I stopped going to meetings after 16 years or so -- even though I had friends and sponsees in the Program -- there was no one to really tell me the truth: that I had begun to rest on my laurels and was setting myself up for a huge fall. So, after my return from the inevitable fall, I knew I had to immediately get a sponsor. At about 5 days dry -- still in the fog -- I heard my current sponsor speak at a meeting. I can't really put my finger on it, but I knew she was "the one." I approached her after the meeting -- scared and shaking -- and asked her. That was the beginning of a wonderful new journey. She has been there for me through it all: the early cravings for a drink, pulling me out of my self-pity at relapsing, etc. I still call her each morning for a 10 minute "check in," and that absolutely makes my day brighter. Now, I am sponsoring a new woman, and that too has tremendous rewards: the most important being that when I tell her: "you really should go to a meeting," I have to follow my own advice. : )

[anniemac]

Thanks, BTGOG, for starting the topic and for your share.

I, too, sought a sponsor early on ~ probably at around the 3-week mark. There were 2 women I was considering asking, and the first one I asked, wasn't available for regular phone calls at the times that I was, so I asked the second one, who said yes, and I think it was meant to work out that way. This woman is still my sponsor 5 years later, and she's helped me so much.

I think having a sponsor is important for several reasons. First off, as a guide through the Steps. Secondly, to provide 'reality checks'. When I talk to the same person day in and day out, they really get to know me, where I'm at, etc. That person, my sponsor, is well equipped to help me remain centered and grounded, and not believing every thought or feeling that enters my head. An objective insight is very helpful for me.

Also, when I was a newcomer, I needed someone to help me weed through all of the things I heard in meetings. Back then, I thought that anything that anyone else said, who had more sober time than me, was the official way of AA. I didn't realize that many were simply spouting opinions. To have someone sort the program of AA from someone's opinion was invaluable.

And now that I sponsor others, my sponsor is a great resource when I'm uncertain in my role as a sponsor.

My thoughts on choosing a sponsor are that I should want what they have (not materially, but emotionally and spiritually) and that they have worked all 12 Steps in order and continue to implement them in all of their affairs, and that they themselves have a sponsor.

I love sponsoring other people. Working with someone else continually brings me back to the basics of the program, because we talk about the Steps, we read the literature, etc. To be of service is a wonderful thing.

[admin]

1. Why do I need a sponsor?
At the suggestions of others who had come before me I got a sponsor and I am glad I did because I had no idea how to live life sober. She helped to guide me through the 12 steps. She also helped tremendously with my building a relationship with God as I understand Him. She had what I wanted and gave me what I needed. Eventually with God's help, her help, the steps and the fellowship I have the tools to help me live life sober - one day at a time.


2. How do I choose a sponsor?
Well, how I got the sponsor I have now is I called this one lady but she couldn't sponsor me but she had someone in mind that might could. After hanging up on the phone with her, I said, "God it's in your hands now. I done my part." The lady she had in mind did become my sponsor and she was a God send to me. As I said above - she had what I wanted.


3. Why should I be a sponsor?
I don't sponsor anyone permanently right now because of how my life is. I do temporarily sponsor others until they can find someone. I do reach out to help others. It helps to keep it green for me - to remind me of where I have been, what happened and what it is like now and fills me with gratitude. Besides I have always heard the only way to keep it is to give it away. So I try to give away what has been given me - a new life with God. Amen. :195:

[craig]

Craig/alcoholic I did not know I needed a sponsor. I do not think I really knew what a sponsor was. I certainly did not pick a sponsor. The sponsor just started coming over and through osmosis he became my sponsor. I had no idea idea how little I knew in life. I was afforded answers from my sponsor to the many questions I did have. After 8 years with my sponsor I fired him. Later, I had come to find out that I had not worked on hardly any of the twelve steps with my first sponsor. It was not my sponsor's fault. However,when I got a second sponsor,he told me I would work the dreaded 4th and 5th steps along with all the others. Also,I would do them in order as they were written. I choose this man as he had the kind of sobriety that I wanted. He passed on his wisdom of working the 12 steps so I could pass on the tools in my toolbox of recovery to the four guys IO sponsor. I can not keep what was freely given to me.

[clean42day]

1. Why do I need a sponsor?
First and foremost the program is based on one alcoholic/addict helping another - I need someone to tell me the truth, help me to learn to pull my own covers and own up to the truth, get down to causes and conditions, and someone to be a living example of how to live the program into my life. I needed a sponsor to help me work through the steps as they relate to my active disease and then re-work them to address issues that have nothing to do with chemicals. Without a sponsor I am trying to solve a problem with the same mind that created it - the most precious thing my sponsor taught me is how to "trust" just one person - and then how to apply that same concept of "trust and truth" into my relationship with god.

2. How do I choose a sponsor?

I can honeslty say that the first three sponsors I picked - I picked directly from my diseased and dysfunctional thinking and from a place of inauthenticity- I did not have the willingness to be completley honest and unconsciously picked sponsors I could manipulate and continue to hide my behavior and people please them. needless to say - I relapsed due to my own inability to be emotionally honest with them.

They say in the program (whoever "they" are) to pick a sponsor that you can relate to - well that is what I did the first 3 times and I found out that my "picker" was broken. The last time I picked a sponsor I prayed to god to please put someone in my life that "HE" thought was best for me. Then I put my faith into action and asked a gentlemen who knew me and watched me relapse over the years to introduce me to someone he thought would work with me. - He looked over the room of people and called a lady I had never seen before in my life and introduced me - and she was the "best" person for me - She gave me a solid foundation and like others said here - worked me straight out the Book of AA, didn't buy my bull**** or cosign my crap - pulled my covers ever chance she got - ever when it hurt my wittle fweelings....and got right down into the muck with me. Funny thing is - we are as different as night and day and her "story" is nothing like mine - however the disease is "exactly" the same. The most precious thing she ever told me about sponsorship was: "Gail, my job as a sponsor is to share with you how to work the steps as they were given to me by my sponsor through the Book of AA, and the second part of my job is to place your hand in Gods hand and then get out of the way - so you can learn to rely on god and not me". She taught me how to trust God in everything I do - because that is what she was taught - and that is what she lives. and the point is this - "we are beyond human aid" - when I can't get to a meeting, I can't seem to pull into my awareness which step applies to what situation, when my sponsor is not available - or I cannot reach another member of the program - I BETTER HAVE A RELIANCE AND DEPENDENCE ON GOD FOR THE POWER THAT I LACK!

3. Why should I be a sponsor?

Being a sponsor is the most spiritual work I do to pass this new way of life onto another person, be a clear example of service, and the only way I can keep what I have. I cannot tell them how to do it - but I can tell them how I did it and what the book says, and show them how I built, build a relationship with my creator, and continue to live the program into action in my life. I can guide them - but I cannot enable them. I have found that taking a sponsee through the steps makes me re-work my steps just that much harder and deeper on many levels. being a sponsor benefits me too by keeping me "in the work" enough to maintain my own spiritual condition - to be able to pass the program on to the best of my abilty. So many times sponsees have blessed me with a phone call - just exactly when I needed to get out of myself. Sponsees continue to amaze me, suprise me, and God uses my sponsees to teach me to "trust HIM". get to live the spiritual principals into loving actions with my sponsees and that keeps me growing and learning too

Sponsorship is definetly a three way street - I get to work on the relationship with my sponsees, my relationship with myself and the program, and God gets the opportunity to work through me and on both of us at the same time.

I would not give up one single heartaching experience with my sponsees - because I would not have gotten the opportunity to experience the joys of watching this program work in thier lives - even when the process of growth looks painful - there are still bigger "lessons" going on. and I am blessed to be a part of that and of service to another fellow traveler.

in my experience sponsorship is the "core" of this program and without clear cut living examples of How to live by spiritual principals - we are all left with opinions on how to work the program. The program is in the book, not in opinions of the book. How we interpret the book is a personal expereince that we form by watching ourselves in action, passing the message of the program on is written in black and white in the first 164 pages of the BB.

All God expects of me as a sponsor is to put in the effort to pass the program on to the best of my ability and leave the final results of that effort in his hands, and that includes my sponsees and thier choices.

so that's some of my experience.

light and love

Gail