dSober

I like your byline "Know thy self, know thy enemy" DoubleBarrel. If you mean they're one and the same, I agree.

DoubleBarrel

I am the problem, the good news is that I am also the solution.

dSober

There I have to respectfully disagree. I found that I was powerless over alcohol.

DoubleBarrel

Can you explain further?

miamifella

I had problems with these practices as well. I needed someone to talk to, not someone to chores for or to run my life. My sponsors told me to make career choices that would have been disastrous...if I had done what they told me to do.

Looking back, I think what I needed was more a friend rather than a sponsor. I felt so alone and cleaning someone's garage or being told what jobs to apply for did not alleviate that situation.

In the end, I just stuck to the Big Book and kept my ears open.

jdooner

Some sponsors can be dangerous - no doubt. They can make messes out of other people's lives. I agree Miami and once again I am sorry your experience was tainted. You persevered though and should be proud.

Gargery

Speaking only from my own experience, I found that I simply couldn't control where that first drink takes me. Drinking would start out congenial and end up in debauchery. I also had problems managing other areas of my life because I was drunk so much: money, sex, philanthropy, work etc. Admitting these things to myself was the first bit of rational thinking about drinking I ever did.

MattM316

So what i'm getting is to be a bit careful with sponsors?

I'm generally a good judge of people, the only problem I get is that people I don't want to talk to always seem to veer towards me, I don't know if it's my face or what, but i'm too polite to cut the conversation.

For example, if there is a...let's say 'not all there' individual on a bus, I guarentee he or she will start chatting to me :/

Just a few months ago I was in a bar with a friend and a woman who i'd never met before came up to me and said "Hitler was a good man, he really was".
So instead of saying "what the hell are you on about and why are you telling me this??" I said something like "hmmm, well he did create the autobahn and he liked animals". So the painful conversation dragged on for ages, I think she even came and sat by us in the end.

grtgrandpa

Thank You Dee74 for all that you do on Sr, and especially for keeping us on topic.

dSober

I finally found that alcohol wasn't the problem. Alcohol was a solution. I was the problem.

Alcohol was the wrong solution. I was using it to cover up my life long issues which finally caught up with me and came to a head. That head was on top of a beer... actually a bottle of vodka in my case but who's counting, lol.

As I've heard many say, I was never quite comfortable in my own skin. Thinking about the steps for years, and looking deeply into what was really bothering me, finally allowed me to uncover my buried issues which caused me to resent and blame others for my faults. Finding my Higher Power, after much searching, allowed me to deal with the real culprit, me. Working the steps, thoroughly, just like the BB says, with a good step sponsor, allowed me to seal the deal. As my old friends and I use to jokingly say the day after a night of partying, "I feel much, much better than new." Now I mean it.

grtgrandpa

That is an excellent post dSober, so welcome to the group of thousands of drunks, including my 2 dead daughters who have sponsored me.

It is not possible for me to get enough of the love of one drunk for another, and God is a (group of drunks), and what better sponsor than God.

And to love one another is why we are all here.

desypete

yes be very careful with a sponsor choice
dont whatever you do let anyone come up to you and let them tell you they will sponsor you. they will have an agenda of some sort

take your time choosing a sponsor by going to many different types of meeting and window shopping for someone who seems to have what you like.

you choose your own sponsor and even if you get it wrong there is no harm done by choosing another sponsor and another until you get what your happy with

dSober

Yep, that's the way I see it too.

dSober

I went through a few. There are some whose agenda is simply to help, without letting their ego get in the way.

Patriciae

I too am so sorry that you had this kind of experience with Sponsorship. In all the years that I have been sober, I have only heard of this stuff on very rare occasions. The AA Group members here in my area, wouldn't put up with such BS..... they would take that newcomer under their wing, and share with them that joining an AA home group nearest their home, sticking with the Winners and getting a Sponsor from that Home Group would more than likely put an end to that issue.
And the AA members here would share with the newcomer and that so called Sponsor..... that cleaning a someones garage or mowing their lawn is NOT what we do here in the halls of AA.

How do we know who the Winners are? They will be the AA members who are sober and have a peace about them, they will belong to a Home Group and be attending AA meetings. They will have a Sponsor of their own who they have been through the 12 Steps with and they will be reaching out to newcomers with a smile and the willingness to be there for newcomers...... When you find an AA member like that...ask them to Sponsor you through the simple solution of Alcoholics Anonymous

Boleo

OP has not been back since 7-29-14. Who are we now talking to?

anattaboy

god

Patriciae

Sharing from my own experience, there are two parts to Step One.

Step One... "We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable."

Those wonderful AA'ers kept it real simple for me, because I needed it kept really simple. They just asked me to be honest with myself, and to ask myself one question.

The question they asked me was this:

"Patricia, can you consistently predict, with any certainty, on any given occasion, how much you will drink or what will happen to you after you take the first drink of "alcohol"?

That question is a very important one. It doesn't ask me if I am an "alcoholic". It doesn't ask me if I am "weak". It simply asks me if I can consistently predict, with any certainty, on any given occasion, how much I will drink and what will happen to me after I take even one drink of alcohol?

Those AA'ers simply asked me to be honest with myself. I did get honest with myself, the answer was NO!

I couldn't drink and I couldn't not drink = Powerless over alcohol.

This illness centers in the mind. The mental obsession (a thought that overcomes all other thoughts) insured that I would take that first drink. Once I took that first drink, it set up a physical compulsion for MORE ( one drink, and I couldn't predict how much I would drink or what would happen to me), so therefore I could not drink one drink in safety, because I never ever knew where that one drink was going to take me.

My life had become unmanageable by ME.

Patriciae

Its one alcoholic helping another.... so if the OP hasn't been back, well there are certainly many more posters who just might want to hear from those who have been there and done this and who are willing to pass on, what was passed to them.

SmilingLight

A hit-and-run thread on an important topic -- too bad. I was going to chime in to try and help the OP but I think he/she helped me more by pointing out that "science" can be just as dogmatic as religion.

AA works for a lot of people and there is no denying that. It doesn't work for a lot of people, too. One of AA's many dogmas is that it's the only thing that works. It's the only thing that works for some people. I happen to be one of those who just can't stomach it.

The problem of alcoholism is a Gordian knot, daunting in its complexity. The way to solve it is with the sword, not by trying to untangle it. You just don't drink. Period. For a lot of people, that sword is AA. For others, it's not.

The thing that keeps me, personally, from picking up is simply the thought that drinking causes harm physically, socially and financially. In my humble opinion, if someone in or out of AA relapses, it's not that God let them down; they had a moment of weakness. If someone in or out of AA maintains a long period of sobriety, they should take some credit for their willpower and for the hard work they've done to address the causes of their drinking. For me, personally, a "higher power" has nothing to do with it. It's just a constant practice of mindfulness that I have this physical condition that makes alcohol especially bad for me.

But that's not for everyone.

If you want to look at it scientifically, you could say that there is no one set of genes that makes someone an alcoholic, or if there is, it hasn't been identified. There are different types of alcoholics with different "reasons" for drinking and different drinking patterns. The one thing we all have in common is that drinking will kill us eventually, and not drinking is the only "cure" for our disease. AA does work for a certain type of person. Other types of people benefit from other strategies and tools.

Unfortunately for the OP, he seems to have let his scientific dogma deter him from approaching AA with an open mind. You can't know if it will work until you've tried it. The worst thing that can happen is that you spend some time in church basements drinking bad coffee and some uncomfortable moments appealing to a higher power that you don't believe in. So why not give it a try?