This thread brings me back to when I first started sponsoring. I was barely a year sober and not real sure of myself. I remember telling my sponsor that. He said that I seemed to forget that I just tapped a source of power much greater than myself and with that with the book and the experience I'd just had, I had all I needed to begin.
I haven't kept track of how many I've worked with, but most haven't stayed sober and only a handful have made this a way of living. It is not my business what they do with this once I give it to them.
The first two men I sponsored are still sober. One just celebrated 16 years in August and I see him frequently. In fact he and I are going to a meeting tonight. He is active in AA and has sponsored quite a few men through the steps. The other man I haven't seen in a few years. I think he just had 16 years last month. Initially he worked with others, but his path led him back to the religion of his childhood and that is where he serves God. Last time I spoke with him he was doing well. I usually get a Christmas card from him.
Often I hear people say that they don't feel ready or don't have anything to give or don't feel good enough about themselves to sponsor. I have to remember Bill's story where at a year and half sober he said that wasn't well and plagued by waves of self-pity and resentment. I've been there many times. But then he says that he continued to work with others. Bill gives me a lot of hope here. Here is a man who was made instantly conscious of God and rendered sober, yet at eighteen months he says he wasn't too well at the time.
Thank God that it is my spiritual experience that I'm giving away and not my emotional condition. Otherwise the people I work with would often times be in deep you-know-what.
Jim