Help Is Not Always What I Want To Give

At the conclusion of my morning meeting the secretary asks for anyone willing to be a sponsor to raise their hand.  Which I do not do.  The ostensible and actually quite plausible excuse I make is that I'm traveling so often I wouldn't be a good fit.  The real reason, more or less, is that I don't want to do it.  This isn't outrageous in its egregiousness but it's pretty self-absorbed.  Be that as it may I do it anyhow and regret it nohow.

Several months ago a guy who clearly wanted to ask me to be his sponsor commented on this and I told him I'd be happy to step in while reminding him I was going to be gone quite a bit.  He brushed this off while continuing to drink, the only reason he could find for stopping was getting arrested for driving while intoxicated.  He has been sober since but I don't think he really works a . . . you know . . . Program of any kind.  If he does it's news to me and I supposed to be his fucking sponsor.  In my estimation some of us are hands-off as we work with new people, preferring to let our actions be the  message and some of us are hands-on, setting up tasks and schedules and the like.  Both are fine and both work with the right messenger and the right message-receiver.

I spoke with this dude this morning.  It went as it always does.  He talked a good deal about himself and his difficulties while implying that his difficulties were mostly illogical and unfair.  If he had expressed even the most remote interest in what I might have to say I might have said something but he clearly wanted to talk and that was that.  I knew this was coming so I made sure I had something productive to take up my time while he was droning on and on, his voice a tinny afterthought in my severely muted earbuds.  My point is that he wanted someone sympathetic to listen to his spiel.  He did want my advice.