The Sponsorship brochure again . . . "Sponsorship is for helping a newcomer. It provides the bridge enabling the new person to meet other alcoholics - in a home group and other groups visited. It's only reasonable to seek a sharing of experience with a member who seems to be using the A.A. program successfully in everyday life. There are no specific rules, but a good sponsor probably should be a year or more away from the last drink - and should seem to be enjoying sobriety."
There's so much good stuff here I hardly know where to start. Alcoholics Anonymous is where I learned the simple spiritual fact that makes my humanity tolerable which is that being of service to another person is just about the most satisfying thing I can do. I also like the emphasis on the responsibility of the sponsor to help a newcomer meet other people and to attend other groups. My biggest frustration with sponsorship in my home town is that the sponsor seems to have a ridiculous amount of control over the person he's working with. One of my points of emphasis in recovery is that I have no idea what another person should be doing. I can share what I've done; I encourage people to read the literature because there's a lot of solution-based stuff in there; and, above all, I suggest that getting advice from a wide range of people is invaluable. After all, what works for me may very well not work for you.
Finally, let's not forget that the idea is to use the A.A. program successfully in everyday life and, moreover, to be enjoying that everyday life. We all know members who seem to consider recovery to be a grim and joyless death march. I, for one, got sober so that I can enjoy all of the blessings of this world, not to sit in the same meeting day after day after day, pointing a judgmental finger at the efforts of someone else.
Well, I do enjoy the judging other people thing but that's another matter altogether.
No comments:
Post a Comment