Experience Please

[LaurenOHIO]

If someone could psease share some AA expeience with me it would be greatly appreciated. I am currently sponsoring somenone who just had 60 days last week. I am finding it very challenging. She is the first person that I have sponsored, and I am finding it very difficult keeping an open-mind with her. Every tiem we meet to go over step work she seems to have no problems with anything. I really can't relate to her. I have talked to my sponsor and she tells me that it's ok as long as she can relate to me. I am just so frustrated, I really don't feel like she is an alcoholic. (I know it's not place to play God, and to diagonose people) Her story is just so inconsistent and it changes daily. I realize that the only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking, and that she does have. I just don' t know how to approach her anymore. She is on her 3rd step and she has no struggles turning anything over. Maybe I am getting a resentment because I am challenged with that on a daily basis and I have a little more sobriety than her, 14 mos. I also know that we all have differnet stories and that no ones story will be exactly the same, I just am just confused. I will read workingwith others again, again. Sorry for babbling I just can't bring it up in a meeting because she is at every meeting that I go to. Thanks for letting me share.
Lauren

[Justme57]

hi Lauren, and welcome to SR

I am not really able to advise you , but I only have 88 days sober, and my Sponser , who has 12 years, tells me , i am too impatient, and that it will take me a long time to actually work the steps. She says , I now have 1 and 2 organised , and even tho I have had a relationship with my HP for many years , ( tho I had moved away) that I must still work on step 3 , I dont feel in myself that i could work the steps any faster than i am , and get the full, and lasting benifit .


have you got to know her , outside of the Steps? Do you go for coffee, or meals together ? or a movie , just hang out , I find, from a Sponsees point of view , that that helps a lot , in forming a bond . my Sponser is a very wise and spiritual woman, and I am Blessed to have her .

HUGX
Lee

[CarolD]

Hi Lauren...

please read... "Questuons and Answers On Sponsorship"

Keep woeking with her...it is helping you both.

I often learn more from spomsees than they do from me!!!

It is super you are willing to pass it on!!

[LaurenOHIO]

I just wanted to thank you both for replying to me. I will reread the pamphlet on sponsorship. And I do fellowship with her. We are both young, I will be 23 next month and she is only 19. I will continue to work with her and show her I work the steps in my life. I am very big on attraction not promotion. I feel much better just posting that issue on here. Again thank you very much for your encouragement.

[padawan]

just thought I would throw in my 1 1/2 cents, I agree with Carol - I often learn just as much from my sponsee's as they do from me, and forces me to look closer at myself.

There are a few that come in and stay in, and not have too much trouble turning things over, as was my case. My problem though in early sobriety was thinking I had a clue - luckily my ego didn't get too bruised when that got corrected (quietly) by my sponsor. Today, I don't take myself seriously, and just keep doing what I do. When someone asks for my help, I keep my focus on my higher power and let Him guide me in the process and watch what happens.

I've had great experiences, and a few hearbreaks, but each one kept me sober one more day at a time.

Good luck!

Pad

[Chy]

Hi Lauren!

I think it's great that you have embraced another as a sponsee. I know I was clueless my first 90 day's. I know I didn't feel like I was giving my sponsor what she wanted to hear. I had no idea how to work the steps, what I was supposed to share, how to please my sponsor. Remember she is very new and with time her shell will crack with you. Some have a harder time settling in with their sponsors as it takes a while to build that trust between each other.

I'm sure in time she will really begin to open up to you and share with you what needs to be shared, and have questions and issues you will need to answer and help her with. Give it time.

[lavendae]

lauren,

thank you for sharing this.... i've been there with a couple of my sposees as well. I too am 23 years old, and while I don't often find that an issue, I have noticed that alot of the teenagers I find in meetings are atracted to me as a sponsor because of that. I remember getting sober 3 1/2 years ago, and not being able to keep my story straight, and thinking that I had to embellish in order to "fit in". It took me awhile.

I have to echo what your sponsor said... as long as she can identify with you, thats the important part. You job as a sponsor is to introduce her to the program and the steps... if she wants to half-ass it, she's the one who will go out, not you. In fact, seeing one or two of my sponsees go out BECAUSE they half-assed it strenghted my program, because I started to see what the danger signals were.

One of my girls did what it sounds like yours is doing--- taking everything too easily. Its not that she doesnt have trouble with accepting-- its that she may only be addressing the easy issues. My girl used to tell me she had no problems with the steps, no questions about the book, and loved her HP, and she told me this almost every day, right up till the day she went out. Even after she relapsed, she couldn't seem to become willing to work the program to the depth that is required.

I'm not trying to judge whats going on with your sponsee, cause I don't know, and its none of my business, but that's been my experience. I find that alot of the time I sponsor, once they see what my program is like, and what lengths I had to go too, the ones that stick around want it, and want it bad, and the ones who arent willing to go through it, wondt get it.

Hang in there, and remember to work on your own program, and let her work on hers. Feel free to PM me anytime, if you want.

Hugs in Sobriety,

Laven

:tri

[Music]

Hi Lauren,
I've sponsored a lot of guys. I never say no. If things work out, that great! If not, that ok too.
There's story about Bill W. that tells how he came home one night and was sharing with his wife Lois, how frustrated he was that people weren't getting the message he was trying to put out. Some were drinking again and others just didn't want to hear what he had to say. Lois turned to him and just said, "Well, you're sober aren't you?" Sponsorship sometimes just takes the form of being a buddy. Just kind of hanging out together. If the relationship moves to another level, that fine but it has to start somewhere. Just remember that the purpose of a sponsor is to carry the message, not the mess. God is in charge and will guide the relationship wherever it's suppose to go. Be patient.
Personally, I have a 100% success rate as a sponsor. I don't know where some of the guys I've sponsored are now, they may be drinking again for all I know but I'm sober. That's the name of the game.