RufusACanal

Sponsors and sponsorship.

There is an official AA pamphlet on sponsorship that is usually available in the literature collection of most AA meetings. It may also be requested from the local AA Central Office.

Virtually all AA meetings and members recommend that newcomers obtain an AA sponsor relatively early in their recovery. As with everything else in AA, there are no official rules or regulations about sponsors and sponsorship. The basic idea is to acquire a mentor or "Big Brother" or Sister who is willing and able to guide the neophyte as his recovery progresses. Same-sex sponsors are generally encouraged except under unusual circumstances. The suggestion that newcomers have a sponsor is, like everything else in AA, just that, a suggestion. There is no requirement that anyone have a sponsor, and no one checks to see whether anyone else does.

The usual advice is to look for a sponsor "who has what you want," i.e. who appears to be sober and emotionally balanced and who displays the kinds of beliefs and behaviors that one wishes to emulate and from whom one hopes to learn something of value not only about recovery, but even about life itself. Because of the agitated and anxious emotional state of many AA newcomers, it may not be easy to make such determinations until a number of meetings have gone by and the emotional dust has begun to settle a bit. There is no real requirement to "get a sponsor at any cost," so it is permissible and probably better to take one's time and look around a bit before actually selecting someone to ask. This selection is usually done on the basis of observing and listening to the potential sponsor speak during meetings and perhaps noting their interactions with others before and after as well as during the meetings.

Some meetings include in their "readings"(the formalized way in which the meeting is opened or closed) the invitation for anyone desiring a temporary sponsor to contact a particular individual immediately after the meeting. The suggestion is often made to newcomers to seek a temporary rather than a long term sponsor just to get started in the program. Like so-called temporary employment, many but not all of these relationships will mature into lasting ones. Calling them "temporary" merely makes it easier for both parties to retire from them if for any reason they desire to do so.

Sponsorship is a highly individual matter with no fixed rules or regulations. The style and content of the "mentoring" vary tremendously from sponsor to sponsor. Some sponsors have a fairly structured approach with specific suggestions and even "assignments" for those who ask them to sponsor them. They may ask their "sponsees" to call them every day for a while just to get in the habit of using the telephone, or they may assign specific parts of the Big Book or other official AA literature to be read and discussed with them. Sponsors and sponsees often meet before or after the meeting for coffee or meals in order to get to know each other and discuss recovery. Whatever the individual style of a particular sponsor, it is always understood that the sponsee is free and in fact morally obliged to call his sponsor any time he is in trouble or about to drink.

Sponsors and sponsees are absolutely free at any time to terminate their relationship if it is not satisfactory to either of them.

Principles Before Personalities

AA is an exceedingly diverse and usually colorful collection of people with all kinds of personalities and problems in addition to that of alcoholism. Individual meetings also tend to acquire a special flavor and "personality" of their own. All in all, AA represents a vast cross-section of the general population. Along with the many good people who attend and who are sober are always some who are not so good and who may or may not be sober. An AA saying wryly but accurately notes that "If you like everyone you meet in AA, you haven't been to enough meetings."

Although the natural fear and anxiety of many newcomers usually serves to protect them from premature and unwise involvement with those who may not be good for them, occasionally the newcomer is so desperate for real human contact and even affection that he or she may be vulnerable to exploitation for money, sex or other favors by unscrupulous individuals. "Thirteenth Stepping" –there are actually only twelve steps in the Twelve Step program- is the common term for sexual exploitation of female newcomers by males in the program. The reasons to avoid premature emotional and physical intimacy in early recovery are obvious and really come down to just one principal concern: such involvements frequently become unmanageably complex or turn sour, and the risk of alcoholic relapse for the newcomer is extremely high. It is always best to keep one's life as simple and non-stressful as possible in the beginning of recovery.

Sometimes newcomers plunge right into the after-meeting socializing and personal relationships among members at a pace that is too fast for their own good. Non-program related issues and concerns may sometimes dominate these friendships and work to the detriment of the individual's recovery by blurring their focus on the AA program itself. Conflicts and complications in personal friendships with other AA members may even serve to disillusion the newcomer and undermine his trust in the program itself. It is therefore always wise to remember the advice, "Principles before personalities." Individual human beings are always fallible and hence apt to disappoint, but the principles of recovery and of right conduct remain and are untouched by individual failings.

Before and After the Meeting

AA meetings generally begin and end on time. Depending on the particular group, its size and location, some people usually arrive early and socialize before the meeting actually begins. After the meeting officially concludes there is usually a period of time during which people hold individual or small group conversations about various program and non-program related topics. These before-and-after times can be especially anxious times for the newcomer, who usually doesn't know anybody and who may be extremely self-conscious merely as a result of finding himself in a new and unfamiliar situation.

The best way to deal with such anxieties is the usually preferred method of head-on confrontation with the fear, for it is a psychological fact that what we are afraid of and avoid almost always gains more power over us, while that which we face up to and conquer thereby loses its ability to frighten us. The more actual interactions the newcomer to AA has, the more data he acquires with which to refine his understanding of what is actually going on at the meetings. Thus those who can make themselves do so are best advised to arrive early and leave late rather than the common and understandable tendency to reverse this polarity by arriving late and leaving early.

If an individual identifies himself as a newcomer just getting sober he will very often be given names and phone numbers by other members along with an offer to be of help if needed. This is a sort of informal and temporary sponsorship that reflects the AA tradition of service by helping others. More than one newcomer totally unfamiliar with AA has been startled and made temporarily suspicious by such unsolicited friendliness, even to the point of suspecting that those offering him their cards actually desire to sell him something or otherwise take advantage of him.

Brainwashing, Mind Control and Cultism

AA has been accused of all of these, both by disgruntled former participants and also by those who have never set foot in an AA meeting. The newcomer will have to make up his own mind, based upon his own observations and experiences, about such charges, at least some of which seem to stem from negative experiences with the Dogmatists described above. If one simply recalls that all opinions expressed by AA members are just that, opinions; and if he remembers that no one in AA possesses any official rank or authority to dictate to anyone else what to think or how to behave in regard to anything at all, much of the air in such hostile balloons is immediately deflated.

The newcomer who hangs around long enough will usually have the pleasure of getting acquainted with as remarkably diverse, independent, defiant and colorful a collection of personalities as it has ever been his privilege to know. For far from it being the truth that all recovering alcoholics are alike in some stereotyped "programmed" fashion, it is the recovery from alcoholism that releases the actual individuality of each alcoholic. It is in fact the drinking alcoholic or the defiant newly "dry" alcoholic who is much more apt to resemble in thinking and behavior everyone else in the same category as himself. Genuine, as opposed to merely superficial, theatrical or pretend individuality actually only begins with recovery from alcoholism. For there is much more to being an individual than merely claiming to be one.

But not everyone is charmed by AA. Here are some sites with a decidedly different view. Caveat lector! ("Let the reader beware!")

AA Deprogramming

Why it is good to speak out against AA

How AA Steals Your Soul

AA's Role in Society: More Negative Than Positive?


Slogans and Other Superficial Things

Newcomers are sometimes shocked and even repulsed at what they take to be the insultingly simple and superficial nature of many AA sayings and slogans. There is often a good deal of misunderstanding of what the slogans actually mean. "One day at a time," for example, is not infrequently "translated" by the anxious and not always clear-headed newcomer to mean something like "Don't plan and don't take care of important matters" or something equally erroneous and absurd which he quite rightly and often indignantly rejects. Terms like "acceptance" and "powerlessness" are highly vulnerable to such distortions and misunderstandings which time and continued participation in meetings usually correct.

The typical guilt and shame ridden newcomer may interpret talk from other members about their "character defects" and the Fourth Step "fearless and searching moral inventory" as nothing but a demand to pay for one's sins by confessing them publicly in the most abject and humiliating fashion. Individuals who are simply attempting to be candid and honest about their shortcomings and their plans to change them may be viewed by neophytes as "beating up on themselves." It is for this reason that many people suggest that newcomers concentrate on attending meetings and not drinking "one day at a time" rather than immediately launching into the more complex parts of the AA program. Time is required to begin to feel safe and comfortable and to get to know others. Time, considerably more time than alcoholics usually realize or believe, is also required for the physiological effects of alcohol and alcohol withdrawal on the brain to clear up.

Just as children and young people commonly find well-known proverbs irritatingly obvious and ordinary, only to realize gradually as adults the depth of wisdom contained in their simple, compressed format, so do AA newcomers commonly construe the familiar AA sayings and slogans one way in the beginning and another way later on, after they have had time and opportunity to reflect upon them and to discuss them with others. Simplicity is not always equal to superficiality. Novice Zen Buddhist monks have been known to meditate for up to 15 years on koans –sayings- such as "When hungry, eat; when tired, rest" before mastering them.

The following collection of slogans comes from the Humor Anonymous website:

It's hard to be a big shot in an anonymous program.
That's easier said than felt.
Willpower tells me I must, but willingness tells me I can.
We're only as sick as our secrets.
Do what you did and you get what you got.
If it's God's will, I will.
Sometimes the only thing between an alcoholic and a drink is his higher power.
In the beginning I went for my drinking. Today I go for my thinking.
Time takes time.
Patience takes patience.
You can't think your way into a new way of living...you have to live your way into a new way of thinking.
God don't make no junk.
It wasn't my drinking, it was my thinking.
Fake it 'til you make it.
Live for today. Yesterday's history. Tomorrow's a mystery.
Poor me, poor me, pour me another drink.
Use your brain. It's the little things that count.
A closed mouth gathers no foot.
Little by slowly.
I don't want the morning after the night before.
After a year, you can have your cake and eat it too.
How does A.A. work? It works just fine.
Do the next right thing.
Drink till you're convinced.
Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.
Keep coming back, it works if you work it.
Talk does not cook rice.
Sit down, shut up and listen.
Act "as if..."
If you think the program is too simple, go out and drink some more. By the time you get back you'll be simple enough for the program.
It's always easier to take somebody else's inventory.
Pray daily, God is easier to talk to than most people.
If drinking doesn't bring you to your knees, sobriety will.
When you sober up a horse thief, all you have is a sober horse thief.
Gratitude is an attitude.
I've been here a few 24 hours.
EGO: Edging God Out
We came, we came to, we came to believe.
Daniel didn't go back to the lion's den to get his hat.
If you stick with the bunch, you'll get peeled.
We suffer from alcohol-ISM, not alcohol-WASM
Some people drink normally, and I normally drink .
The person with the most sobriety is the one who got up earliest this morning.
A.A. is the easier, softer way.
Go to meetings when you want to, and go to meetings when you don't want to.
There are no elevators in A.A., only steps.
If you don't want to slip, stay away from slippery places.
The mind is like a parachute, it works better when it's open.
The only step we have to do perfectly is step one.
Meeting-makers make it.
You can't save your face and your ass at the same time.
If I don't let go, I lose my grip.
Steps 1, 2, and 3 condensed: I can't, He can, so let Him.
We'll love you until you learn to love yourself.
Don't give up before the miracle happens.
You never have to drink again.
If you don't have a Higher Power, borrow mine.
Progress, not perfection.
Unless I accept my virtues, I will be overwhelmed with my faults.
We are not human beings sharing a spiritual journey, but spiritual beings sharing a human journey.
Let God save your soul...we're here to save your ass!
Practice makes progress.
Sometimes you have to get on your knees to rise.
If you don't talk about it, you'll drink about it.
Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less.
In A.A., for every nut there's a wrench.

Some other common slogans are:

Expectations are like resentments in escrow.
It's OK to look back at the past - just don't stare.
My mind is like a bad neighborhood: it's not safe to go there alone.
It's a WE program.
The only thing I need to know about God is that I ain't Him.
K.I.S.S. = Keep It Simple, Stupid
H.A.L.T. = (Don't let yourself get) Hungry, Angry, Lonely and Tired.
Fear is the opposite of faith.
I don't need to have an opinion about everything.
Easy does it.
Think the drink through.
If you can't remember your last drunk, you haven't had it.
Don't drink, and go to meetings.
Trust God, clean house, help others(Dr. Bob).
AA is a simple program for complex people.
Nobody is too dumb to get sober but plenty of people are too smart.

A New Vocabulary

One of the commonest stumbling blocks for AA newcomers is the AA vocabulary itself. Familiar and everyday terms such as acceptance, powerlessness, and humility are used in AA in ways that are somewhat different from ordinary usage. This causes a good deal of confusion and misunderstanding in some minds, as for example when the term "acceptance" is mistakenly supposed to mean merely rolling over and playing dead, or letting other people walk all over one; or when "humility" is misunderstood to mean self-condemnation, groveling, or putting oneself down. Although most newcomers, after a few meetings, seem to pick up the context and the actual meanings of such terms when used in AA, others have great difficulty understanding the AA usage and continue to misconstrue them in ways that are often antithetical to their intended meaning. The word "powerless" has probably resulted in more confusion than any other single term used by AA.

A brief unofficial lexicon of the actual AA meaning of such terms might go something like this:

Acceptance. Recognizing and admitting the actual facts of the case rather than clinging to what one would prefer to be true. Starting from a reality base. Behaving like an adult in the face of disappointment and frustration. It is acceptance to make other plans when it rains on the day one had planned a picnic. Lack of acceptance would be manifested by self-pity, sulking, and brooding all day on the unfairness of the rain shower. Far from being passive, acceptance in this sense is active and creative.

Humility. Seeing oneself and one's concerns in correct perspective. Behaving in accordance with such a correct understanding of oneself rather than in accordance with a falsely inflated or deflated idea of oneself. Humility thus understood is merely perspective - sanity - honesty. It is comparable to a scientific investigator doing his best to collect, analyze and report his findings objectively, no matter how he might wish them to turn out. It represents a net gain rather than a loss in the adaptive repertoire of the individual, hence a potential augmentation of his personal power.

Powerlessness. Lack of complete control over events, especially one's intake of alcohol once he has started to drink. Powerlessness is seldom absolute. But even relative or occasional powerlessness is sufficient to do great harm. The valid identification, admission, and acceptance of circumstances in which one is absolutely or relatively powerless actually increases one's actual power. "Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed." Francis Bacon.

The AA subculture differs in many ways from the wider culture in which it is contained. A kind of "culture shock" is thus inevitable for those who have no prior familiarity with AA or 12 Step programs. Wise newcomers adopt a patient, wait-and-see attitude before arriving at definite conclusions about phenomena they may never have encountered before. The predicament of the newcomer is in fact akin to that of an anthropologist living among and wishing to understand the habits and mores of a strange and unfamiliar tribe. Time and open-mindedness are required to gain a correct understanding in such matters.

AA and Psychiatry

Alcoholics Anonymous and its co-founders Bill Wilson and Dr. Robert Smith from the beginning held and sought earnestly to maintain good relations with the medical community, including psychiatry.

"The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous" itself contains a famous introduction called "The Doctor's Opinion" by William D. Silkworth, a psychiatrist. The official AA position has consistently been one of humility and cooperation rather than grandiosity and exclusivity in regard to various ways of helping the alcoholic.

It is well known that individual physicians vary greatly in their understanding of alcoholism and addiction and that those who lack such an understanding may be less than helpful with their alcoholic and addicted patients. However, there are many physicians and psychiatrists who do possess an excellent grasp of the principles of addiction treatment and who are therefore highly skilled in their treatment of their alcoholic and addicted patients.

The individual experiences of AA members at meetings reflect this broad array of professional abilities and range from highly favorable to highly unfavorable. In this and in other instances newcomers should keep in mind that opinions of others are just that: opinions. AA does not claim to have, and individual members are not competent to give -unless they have acquired special training- professional advice regarding mental health disorders other than alcoholism - including advice on the question of appropriate usage of medications for depression, manic-depression(bipolar disorder) and anxiety disorders.

Occasionally individual AA members will express the erroneous opinion that "you can't be sober as long as you are taking any mind-altering medications." Newcomers may even be advised by some people to discontinue medications without discussing this with their physician. Such advice, should it be encountered, should be regarded as simply the private and personal opinion of the person tendering it. There is nothing in the official AA literature that prohibits the alcoholic from taking appropriately prescribed and required psychiatric medications.

Attitudes toward psychiatry and psychiatric medications, while always an individual matter, tend to vary somewhat in relation to specific groups. Up to 50% of alcoholics suffer from an associated "co-morbid" or "dual diagnosis" condition such as depression or severe anxiety. Newcomers in treatment for such conditions will generally feel more at home in meetings whose members respect the stated limitations of AA in regard to their diagnosis and treatment.

The AA Preamble

"ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. There are no dues or fees for A.A. membership; we are self-supporting through our own contributions. A.A. is not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization or institution; does not wish to engage in any controversy; neither endorses nor opposes any causes. Our primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety."

The Serenity Prayer

God, grant me
The serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can, and
The wisdom to know the difference.
The Twelve Steps

We admitted we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable.
Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
The Twelve Traditions of AA

1. Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends on AA unity.

2. For our group purpose there is one ultimate authority - a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.

3. The only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking.

4. Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or AA as a whole.

5. Each group has but one primary purpose - to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers.

6. An AA group ought never endorse, finance, or lend the AA name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property, and prestige divery us from our primary purpose.

7. Every AA group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions.

8. Alcoholics Anonymous should remain forever nonprofessional, but our service centers may employ special workers.

9. AA, as such ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or commmittees directly responsible to those they serve.

10. Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the AA name ought never be drawn into controversy.

11. Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, and films.

12. Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our Traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.

The Promises

"If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.

"Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them."
From Chapter Six of "The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous."