dbarnes180

Hello everyone, my question is a simple one.
How to approach a sponsor (or should I) who is sharing information about a sponsee in a gossiping manner after a meeting. This seems to be very common in meetings in Central Arkansas. Trust seems to be used to gain conversational material.

Rowan

Is this your own sponsor who is gossiping about a sponsee? If so, get a new one!

If not, I just walk away from it. To even stand there listening condones it.

Peter

The best suggestion I can give you is to stay out of the discussion if you feel they are gossiping.

Talk with your own sponsor and see if he/she can help you to determine when "genuine concern" for a fellow addict becomes gossiping.

.

leviathon

depending on you, you may want to raise it as an issue at a meeting. If the problem is that pervasive, then it is something that needs to be addressed IMO.

Levi

2ala2

"Spreading gossip feeds a dark hunger in us. Sometimes we think the only way we can feel good about ourselves is to make someone else look bad by comparison. But the kind of self-esteem that can be purchased at another's expense is hollow and not worth the price.

How, then, do we deal with our negative sense of self? Simple. We replace it with a positive concern for others. Rather than dwell on our low self-esteem, we turn to those around us and seek to be of service to them. This may seem to be a way of avoiding the issue, but it's not. There's nothing we can do by dwelling on our low sense of self except work ourselves into a stew of self-pity. But by replacing our self-pity with active, loving concern for others, we become the kind of people we can respect.

The way to build our self-esteem is not to tear others down, but to build them up through love and positive concern. To help us with this, we can ask ourselves if we are contributing to the problem or to the solution. Today, we can choose to build instead of destroy." NA Basic Text

soberinnyc

Sounds like some folks should re-read the Traditions.

GrouchoTheCat

Pick the phamphlet on sponsorship. They should have them at the meetings.

Ted

barb dwyer

**AA Sponsor storytime**


... this guy was sitting around the club after a meeting one day. He overhears two people talking about his sponsor. Really cutting him down, taking all kinds of inventory.

So he grabs his phone and calls his sponsor real quick.
'Hey!', he says,
"There's these two guys down here and they're talking
sh** about you, man!"
"About me??" The sponsor says.
"Yeah!"
"You sure theyre talking about me??"
"Yeah, man, what do you want me to do?" Says the guy.
"Sit right there! Don't Move! I'm on my way down!"
Says the sponsor, and hangs up.

The guy waits on his sponsor, thinking,
'Oh man, NOW we're gonna see some AA kickA**
... heh, heh. These guys are gonna get it!'

Less than five minutes later, the guy's sponsor comes roarin' through the door and goes straight for his sponsee.

"Where's the guys talking about me?" he says, all out of breath.
"Right over there - those guys at the other table, man."
"Those guys right there?"
Yeah, man - those two!"

The sponsor looks over at the guys, sizing them up.
He turns back to his sponsee.
"Ok, here's what you do," says the sponsor.

The guy's all kinds of charged up now,
hot dang, he's going to be part of this!
*right ON*
he thinks.
"What? What do you want me to do?"
the guy says, on the edge of his seat.

"I want you to get up, go over there, now I mean it when I say I want you to go right up to them ... and
make your damn amends to those guys for listening in on their private conversation,
THAT'S what you're going to do!
Don't ever call me and bother me with this stuff again!!!"



hope that helps.