Eddie Rickenbacker was a pilot whose plane was lost over the South Pacific during WWII. The surviving members of his crew floated for 21 days in a life raft before they were eventually rescued. He had this to say: "The biggest lesson I learned was that if you have all the fresh water you want to drink and all the food you want to eat, you ought never to complain about anything."
I might add a warm, dry place to sleep at night and then your needs are met. Everything else is a want. To answer my complaining about some insignificant problem a sponsor once told me: "Seaweed, all your problems are problems of prosperity." Shut me up, that one did.
More general suggestions about sponsorship that also apply to all of our interpersonal interactions in The Fellowship: "Good A.A.s appreciate that alcoholics have been able to achieve and maintain sobriety without any belief in a personal Higher Power. Perhaps we might point out the distinction between the words 'spiritual' and 'religious.' "
Spiritual: Relating to or affecting the human spirit or soul as opposed to material or physical things.
Religious: Having a strong belief in God or Gods; devoted to God or to the powers or forces believed to govern life.
And if someone you know drinks again (as many of us do, unfortunately): "It order to make the return truly a new beginning, it may be wise at this point to avoid postmortems on the reasons for the slip." I try to tell the relapser that I'm glad they came back - because many people don't - and that I appreciate that they were courageous enough to tell someone they had a drink - because many people are embarrassed enough about their actions that they keep this secret.
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