Old 01-29-2014, 08:25 AM
  # 18 (permalink)  
Threshold
Grateful to be free
 
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Join Date: May 2009
Location: Arizona
Posts: 3,680
One thing that has helped me tremendously in my life is to remind myself not to take things personally.

Most of what any of us do stems from our own beliefs, feelings, situations, and personalities. Even when someone does something that appears to be aimed AT us...it's coming from them. And if we are honest, most of what we do and say comes from US...other people don't make us do it. I can look at my behavior before, during and after a situation and own it. But I dont control the feelings or behavior of any other person.

When you relapsed, did you continue to call your sponsors, or did you drift away? Perhaps the new sponsors are relapsing, on booze, emotionally, or just busy with their lives. Or maybe they are people who have a hard time meeting commitments. Many of us are. Or maybe it's not a good fit for them. It's no harm, no foul that everyone doesn't work well with everyone else. At any rate, the reason isn't what matters. You getting a sponsor that is mutually agreeable is.

Pray for the sponsors' well being, and move on. I would call one of the first two and see if they are willing and open to sponsor you now. If not, find someone with long term sobriety and a calm personality and ask them to sponsor you.

Your statement that your trust is out the window jumped out at me. Trust in who and what? Who chose to go out and drink again? Does a sponsor owe you more allegiance to yourself and your sobriety than you do?

The role of a sponsor is to lead us through the steps. If, for any reason, they cannot, then we simply find a sponsor who can.

Everyone in the rooms is a recovering alcoholic, with their own issues, outside lives etc. I know when I came in I thought that the people in the program were different from me, that they knew a magic secret and were all recovered, noble, selfless etc etc. Then I found out that they are simply people, no more and no less. A sponsor is very simply another recovering alcoholic. Sometimes I flake out, sometimes they do. Some days I am reliable, some days they are. To hold them to a higher standard of behavior than I hold myself to is fruitless.

I got all kinds of crazy over the sponsor issue early on, and all kinds of drama with my first sponsor, and a few "almost" sponsors. I had all sorts of weird notions and expectations. It's a learning process.

There is the option of an online sponsor, at least as a temporary sponsor until we find a face to face sponsor, or for people in remote areas. There is at least one online AA group that provides that service.

I hope you can move past this and not let it distract you. I am glad you came here with this issue. The most important trust relationship we can ever have is with ourselves.

This is one reason why, in the program, we have a HP that is not our sponsor. We need something larger than we can put our trust in. We also need to learn to trust ourselves. If you are ready to live sober and put the program to use in your life, you are well on your way.

big hugs, I know it hurts and is bewildering when folks in the program turn out to be as frustratingly human as we are ourselves, but if THEY can recover...so can we, because we really aren't all that different.
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