Sponsorship

[Freedom1990]

I know for me, in my recovery, it has been vital to have a sponsor/s, and also to sponsor others in recovery.

I was reading through NOMOMERLOTMAMMA's thread on input in regards to her sponsor and I realized that early in my recovery, I tended to put those with more recovery than me up on a pedestal, especially sponsors.

I now have something I hand out to any potential sponsees, and this was passed on to me from a dear friend who participates in another 12 step program, and it was passed on to her, and so on

It's been an excellent guideline to help me stay consistent in my sponsorship, and also lets the sponsee know what I look for the relationship to be between sponsor and sponsee.

I just wanted to share it with all of you.

"As your Sponsor...

I will not help you to stay and wallow in limbo.

I will help you to grow, to become more productive, by your definition.

I will help you become more autonomous, more loving of yourself, more excited, less sensitive, more free to become the authority for your own living.

I cannot give you dreams or "fix you up" simply because I cannot.

I cannot give you growth, or grow for you. You must grow for yourself by facing reality, grim as it may be at times.

I cannot take away your loneliness or your pain.

I cannot sense your world for you, evaluate your goals for you, tell you what is best for your world; because you have your own world in which you must live.

I cannot convince you of the necessity to make the vital decision of choosing the frightening uncertainty of growing over the safe misery of remaining static.

I want to be with you and know you as a rich and growing friend; yet I cannot get close to you when you choose not to grow.

When I begin to care for you out of pity or when I begin to lose faith in you, then I am inhibiting both for you and for me.

You must know and understand my help is conditional. I will be with you and "hang in there" with you so long as I continue to get even the slightest hint that you are still trying to grow.

If you can accept this, then perhaps we can help each other to become what God meant us to be, mature adults, leaving childishness forever to the little children of the world."

[GlassPrisoner]

I usually just take my sponsees through the steps.......

[Freedom1990]

Originally Posted by GlassPrisoner

I usually just take my sponsees through the steps.......

Well, that too!!!

DeVon-getting out her pen and inking that in :rof

[nandm]

Good post, I had not seen that before

[Tazman53]

Being a sponsor I have found is a 2 way street in my experience and I have said that to my sponsee, of course my sponsor told me the same thing, there were many times as he was taking me through the steps that he would mention that what we were doing was gaining him more ESH and that I was helping him just as much, maybe more then he was helping me, this I have found to be true and have shared the same with my sponsee.

Last week my sponsee and I finished up his 12th step...... we sat and looked at each other, I thanked him for all that he had brought to me, we stood and he gave me a HUGE hug!!! He told me thank you for being there, I told him what my sponsor told me.... Pass it on, he looked at me and said "I know, I know." and smiled!

What more could I ask for, I am always amazed that no matter how much I give it away I always feel as if I am getting more in return.

[Emimily]

one of my sponsees' is picking up 9 months on friday (god willing), and i am BUSTIN. she and i have been working together since she was like, 3 days sober. she is a rock star. my other sponsee just nabbed a 30 day chip and is rockin and rollin through a 90 in 90 and we're reading the big book together (just finished doctor's opinion). i am so insanely blessed to have them in my life... it just blows my mind. when cat and i finished the first 164, i just looked at her and said "wow, we finished the whole book." it's such an alcoholic thing to start something and not finish, and there we were, finished with the basic text that we had read together, every step of the way. it's just how i felt with my sponsor when she and i finished the first 164. pretty amazing...

[RufusACanal]

Emimily,

Your example is inspiring; please keep me posted on your Sponsees new lives. A new life is a miracle any way you wrap it. Much love to you and yours!

[dogman325]

I am curious as to whether those statements have any relevant (creditable) source, I happen to like them as my own little reminder for my own sanity...I saw it posted in someones Group email the other day and it was commented that it appeared cult-ish and unrealistic and was particularly offended by the last one about leaving childishness for children and that it sounded like AA was going to tell him what God meant meant for him to be.
I beg to differ, but who am I......

Oh, and yes, I take them through the steps.....

[Tommyh]

hi dogman,glad to have you here at S.R.

[shaun00]

Chapter seven tells me exactly what i need to say and do..

It has helped in the past to also mention what i cant do......right from the very beginning.

The huge benefits is a two way street.......in short i need him as much as he might need me....much as taz mentioned.

[CarolD]

dogman325.....
Welcome to SR

[tomvlll]

Originally Posted by Tazman53

Be
Last week my sponsee and I finished up his 12th step...... rn.

How can you finish a 12th step?

[LetsGoJets]

i make it clear when i sponsor someone that all i am there to do is take them through the steps. i am not there for medical advice, legal advice, relationship advice, etc. i am there to share my experience and knowledge, not my opinion. in AA we are given great Power, but we dont have it unless we give it back, that is why taking people through the steps is so important.

what gets annoying is smashing peoples old belief systems (ie- "ill always be recovering, i dont drink a day at a time, i need to do 90 in 90, i CHOOSE not to drink (classic), just dont drink no matter what, call your sponsor, people places things, etc," ad nauseum. its disturbing how the recovery rate in the 1950s was 75% and better in some places, and now its not even close to that. People in a 12 step fellowship, not doing the 12 steps...makes no sense.

[tomvlll]

I can't tell you how many times I hear something like the following at a 90 day celebration:

"I did what you all told me. I reached out for help because I figured out I couldn't do this alone.I went to 90 meetings,I joined a home group, I got a sponsor and I call him/her every day, and I'm feeling great!!..thank you..."

[LetsGoJets]

Originally Posted by tomvlll

I can't tell you how many times I hear something like the following at a 90 day celebration:

"I did what you all told me. I reached out for help because I figured out I couldn't do this alone.I went to 90 meetings,I joined a home group, I got a sponsor and I call him/her every day, and I'm feeling great!!..thank you..."

the problem for the real alcoholic is that everything here doesnt bring you to the Power that will solve your problem. The real alcoholic is beyond human aid and all things mentioned are human.....

these suggestions are all good, and I did them my first tour in AA, however, 4 months after my 90 day celebration i was drunk, continuing to do these same things. the problem is that when was doing this i wasliving in one side of the AA triangle expecting the results of living in all 3 sides. additionally, my sponsor at that time did not encourage me to do the steps; he told me to get involved in service, which i did, with a lot of commitments, and eventually, at 7 months dry, i ran out of steam and drank. i dont blame my sponsor for telling me to do that-- i am sure he loved me as much as he can and gave me everything he did to get better, but what worked for him as a problem drinker won't work for a real alcoholic like me. I need God, and there isnt any way around it.

people make such a fuss over 90 in 90

[RobbyRobot]

As a sponsor my message is all about how the illness of alcoholisim plagued my life with drunkness making it unliviable. I share how essential being rigorously honest with myself and facing that my alcoholism needs to be completely arrested, checked, and left behind me at the entrance gates to my new sober life. And that that life needs to be a spiritual life lived with my acceptance of having my own understanding of my HP. And that although I can be recovering and recovered my alcoholism itself is uncurable even though the problem of drinking has been removed from my daily life.

I tell how my detox went, my rehab experience, and my 12 Step ESH.

I tell how I don't believe simply people get drunk just because they dont do this or that in the proper way or at the proper time. I tell how from my experience I got drunk because of my alcoholism and not because of anything personal about or from me. This is why for me I needed a solution that also was beyond me and so beyond all human resources and responsibilities. I tell it like it was and like it is and like it will be for me.

The Steps are a program of recovery which in my experience do lead to a recovered life in spiritual sobriety. There is only one wrong way to do those Steps and that is by not being rigorously honest with myself by not being true to myself daily in all my affairs.

I think there is much to much holding alcoholics personally responsible for failure to keep sober. Alcoholism gets and keeps alcoholics drunk and not personal failures. There is way to much drama about all the personal reasons why alcoholics get drunk again and again while in the program, imo. Way to often alcoholism the illness itself is ignored and so of course the way forward from there is obviously not sobriety but drunkeness. Alcoholism the illness is not a personal thing or identity. Recovery and being recovered is personal of course but not alcoholism, imo and that of some others, has been our experiences.

Anyways, that's how it works for me when sponsoring others.



Rob

[WakeUp]

Originally Posted by tomvlll

I can't tell you how many times I hear something like the following at a 90 day celebration:

"I did what you all told me. I reached out for help because I figured out I couldn't do this alone.I went to 90 meetings,I joined a home group, I got a sponsor and I call him/her every day, and I'm feeling great!!..thank you..."

I hear that over and over and over every single birthday month.
Part of my one year speech went, "and then I met a wise old timer who showed me how to have a spiritual awakening and the compulsion to drink was removed."