I was in Alanon for about four years before I got a sponsor.
I can only tell you my story -- for me, living with an uber-controlling alcoholic, the absolutely last thing I needed was another person
telling me what to do. Did it slow my recovery down to not have a sponsor from the get-go? Maybe. But the point was,
I was able to do it at my pace.
When you're living with an A, there are so many pressures, so many musts. I was so focused on always doing everything correctly and being
perfect. But Alanon was my one place where I could be "f**k it, I'm going to be myself and do the ugly cry when I feel like it and have no filter and say what I think" -- and that carried over to not wanting a sponsor from the beginning.
When I did pick a sponsor, it was one who was very... very much like my experience of Alanon has been in general. She never said "you have to do this" or "I strongly recommend that you do X" -- she would text me and say "When was your last meeting?" or e-mail me and say "When I was working through step four, here's what I found helpful" or even call me and tell me about what
she was struggling with/working on. Our interactions were more that she was available to me when I needed her, with gentle reminders if she hadn't heard from me for a while. That worked very well for me.
I would not judge the whole Alanon program by the experience you had. I would gently recommend -- as others have said -- that you not let other people push your recovery and tell you what you HAVE TO DO... and that includes getting a sponsor immediately. I think it's incredibly important to have a sponsor you click with and can work with. And I think it's part and parcel of hanging out with a group of codies that you will run across many, many people who want to HELP and TELL YOU WHAT TO DO because, let's face it, that's what we thrive on and it's SO much easier to tell someone else what to do than to focus on ourselves...
This is just
my opinion, but I think part of recovery is learning how to trust your own judgment and instincts again, rather than relying on someone else. A sponsor, in my mind, should be
available, not
pushy. They should be
suggesting, not "strongly recommending"... It sounds to me like you just had a really bad match with a sponsor who wanted to work differently than you do. That's OK.
And don't blame yourself. She's not rejecting YOU, she's just finding that you and her together are not a good match. It's a good thing she had the guts to tell you that. Because that means you're free to find a better match for a sponsor when you're ready -- without worrying about hurting her feelings.
