Originally Posted by
IOAA2 
Hi Mike. Where I'm from a sponsor is as you describe and in addition sort of a supportive guide in living depending on the sponsee. Such as suppose the sponsee in the first few months of sobriety were to say something like " I met this wonderful girl last week and we've decided to get married this week end." I think a sponsor might point out the pitfalls of that endeavor and other lifes practices. I remember when I was 1-3 months sober I told my sponsor I had a problem and he responded right away I had a situation, a problem is a drink in my hand. I always remember that.
BE WELL
Hi to you IOAA2
I appreciate and understand what you are saying, but experience has brought me to a slightly different view which I will try to explain.
When I came into the fellowship the mantra, from the local treatment centre - not AA - was no emotional involvements for two years. For me, a barely functioning human being living on instinct and not much else, this seemed ridiculous and I certainly took no notice.
The AA position is that relationships have no bearing on whether you can recover or not. "Job or no Job, wife or no wife..... Burn the idea into the consciousness of every man that he can get well regardless of anyone. The only condition is that he trust in God and clean house."
Earlier I said that the most dangerous thing a sponsor can to is to get between the newcomer and their spiritual experience. By stepping in and trying to prevent a relationship from happening, the sponsor risks putting up a barrier. If the newcomer, as I would have, ignores the advise, when it all goes wrong he may feel that he cannot go back to his sponsor.
To me the sponsor would be quite arrogant. How does he know whether the newcomer should be in a relationship? How does he know that God didn't set this up? How does he know the newcomer won't learn some valuable lesson? And how does he know that the newcomer will be able to get over the barrier that ignoring his sponsor's advice has created?
I went through this process with the most dreadful serial 13 stepper in the fellowship, not that I knew it at the time, and no one could have told me. My sponsor said nought (just bit his tongue as he later told me) and he was there to catch me wehn it all went wrong.
Through the experience I learned a great deal, well summarised in trust God and clean house. I did not need to drink as the relationship never assumed a priority over the program.
Recently a man I sponsor, came to me to tell me he had decided to form a relationship with an AA lady. He was quite nervous that I would react badly and was surprised when I didn't.
You see, I don't know whether he should be in this relationship or not. That's between him and his God. My job is to help him work the steps and develop this way of living. And I know, from past experience, that his decision to be in this relationship will give him many opportunities to learn and grow. It would be arrogant in the extreme for me to assume I have all the answers and to deny him that opportunity.
Hope that wasn't too far off the thread. Forgive me if it was.