Desperately seeking...

[AngryDan]

Hello All, and some names sound familiar here...
My hard drive crashed, and with it went all my "favorite places".
I have been re-gathering by memory, all my NA history sites, service war sites, tradition war sites, etc....

There is one site , I cannot remember, where, the mention of "sponsorship families" and the possible danger of them with regards to strong personalities and service, is mentioned/discussed. The whole site was not developed around that premise, but a story/writing about service/world/traditions mentioned/contained this well written thought.

Does anybody possibly know to what I am reffering? I have googled, searched etc....in order to find this writing in time for an area service meeting, to no avail....so I am seeking help!

I would be very grateful, as well as some weary service members would be.....

[snugsnug]

when you find it pass it on to me in a pm, I am interested.

[AngryDan]

Thanks Dalin, that gives me more places to look:wink:

[dalin]

Alot of the old hisory stuff keeps disapearing.
Thank God for sights like
http://www.na12.org/
Where they try to keep our history updated.
I post alot of it here to.

[AngryDan]

To begin with, I've never been comfortable with the term "family" to describe relationships among people in NA. "Family" implies a hierarchy with different roles assigned to people -- mother, father, older brother, younger sister. Playing these kinds of roles with surrogate parents and surrogate children is not what recovery is all about.

To complicate matters, most of us come from dysfunctional families and consequently bring dysfunctional family models to our NA "families." If we're not careful, we may find ourselves acting like the heroes, scapegoats, mascots, and lost children we were in our old families.

I've never used the term "family" in an NA context and won't. Instead, I rely on the term in our literature – which is "fellowship" -- or the one I prefer – which is "community."

To me, a "fellowship" speaks to companionship, the companionship of individuals in a congenial atmosphere and on equal terms. When I enter an NA room, I'm not there to pay my respects to my great-grand-sponsor or to treat my sponsor like a surrogate father or his wife like the NA earth mother or to sit and talk only with "family members." I'm there to participate in an association of friends and equals who share my passion for recovery and who have my well-being in mind.

This NA "family" business with all its trappings of special meetings for family members, t-shirts with family trees tracing lineage to the NA royal family, sponsorship retreats, special decoder rings, etc. at best seems silly and at worst seems exclusionary and cult-like. We are all equal in NA. Belonging to a "family" within our fellowship of equals makes for resentments and divided loyalties. These things are counter-productive to the spirit of recovery.

There are other perils as well. Being at the top of a sponsorship family tree does strange things to a person's ego. Even those with the best of intentions. A family patriarch or matriarch can be seduced by the trappings of adulation and control over others that dysfunctional sponsorship offers. And many times the heads of sponsorship families are not the most exemplary persons themselves. They are "trust bandits" – that is, they will garner our trust and affection and then use it for their own ends and needs.

Another trapping of the sponsorship “family” business is the harm it causes within our service structure. The control that one strong willed, strong minded family member exerts upon the decision making of other family members can be disastrous. What better way to manipulate the structure than to plant all your sponsees’ who have been brainwashed that you are NA Royalty into the service structure to vote your supreme conscious? (Refer to what happened to our fellowship in the late 80s, early 90s concerning World Service, change of wording in our book and adoption of the concepts.)

Let's keep NA a community, not a family. I regard the creation of "community" as a spiritual ideal. It's a place where all are welcome, all are treated with dignity and respect, all are loved, and all are given the opportunity to grow and flourish. To me, that's what an "atmosphere of recovery" is all about and I don't see that happening in "sponsorship families."

[paulm]

in 1992 I left NA for a while, about 15 years, going infrequently, like when i visit my parents in FL, They stayed with the NA Family / community. I noticed to the verbiage changing and thought it quirky and silly, refused to buy into it. now I go occaisionally, I have one group in my home town that is a candlelight meeting, has a serene atomospher, it is like I remember it back in 1990. I love the fellowship for what it's done for my family alone, magnify it by the 100's of thousands it's saved. Finding the steps changed my perspectivea and probably saved my life.

[dalin]

I have been on both ends of this deal.
Today I am in a huge sponsorship family,and instead of taking them apart,
I accept them as recovering addicts like me.As long as I am spiritual,and
come from a spiritual place,I can see how wrap-around our disease is,making
me want to honor or resent someone for some past stuff rather than accept
them as another addict.
NA is my family.We may be disfunctional,if disfunctional is what you are shopping
for,or we may be recovering from the disease of addiction in a spiritual way
that amases everyone.Hell we get bigger every year,even with the few disfunctional
ones leaving to find recovery elswhere.Our meetings are worldwide,and it is a
healthy growth.
If I look for disfunction,I find it.If I drop my ego and seek spirituality I find it too.