What Sponsorship Means to Me
Sponsorship is not about two people. It’s about you, your sponsor and God. It’s a trinity. It is comradery in which you both share your experience, strength and hope as a sponsor and make suggestions. As a sponsee,, you either take the suggestion and usually grow from it, or, you refuse, rebel and resist and this usually leads to stagnation and sometimes a journey back through the hell of active addiction.
At first sponsoring someone is like riding a bike for the first time: wobbly and about to fall this way or that. You feel excitement, exhilaration and some fear and worry mixed in. You don’t quite know what you’re doing yet—there is an intuitive grace to it. If you overthink it, this could often lead to falling onto the pavement. Then there’s the confidence factor—you don’t really know if you’re qualified as you wobble in the beginning. It’s okay. You just pick yourself up again and suit up and show up.
Thank God for Sponsors. You can always consult with them too. You rely heavily on your experience, strength and hope when sponsoring someone. As a matter of fact, that’s what it’s all about: Experience. Strengh. Hope.
I had tremendous sponsors before I became one myself. They took my through the AA Big Book, challenged me to work the steps, were patient when I had a slip. They showed me high regard, loving kindness and at times tough love. Calling me out on my shit was huge. All active addicts are liars. The ideal sponsor is a role model for honesty, tolerance, acceptance, tolerance and candidness. Telling the truth.
Sponsors are agents of God: my Higher Power working through them; divine guidance given to me through this vessel of knowledge and hope, this sacred sponsor. My sponsors have all been humble. Of course they were human too—not to be put on a throne. Only God belongs there. Not any of us humans. We are all perfectly imperfect.
One day I went to a Saturday morning meeting and this creative artist-looking woman came up to me and point blank asked me if I’d be her sponsor. She liked something in my shares and said that I have what she wanted.
We went out for lunch at a Thai joint down the street and she immediately began telling me her story. I thought, “Geez, I am not alone. Not at all. Really, not at all.”
I shared some of my story. We were both open and honest with each other. We were going to do some good work together.
Sharing her story, she sounded both determined and scared in doing the work. She wanted freedom from this sex and love addiction. I felt her bravery, her sorrow, her thirst for change. I immediately cared about the well-being of this person.
My last sponsor had been an AA-er with an old-timer sponsor in the Alcoholics Anonymous program. Although my drug of choice was sex and “love",” he guided me through the Steps in the AA Big Book, as was intended by the original members, as his old-timer Sponsor had brought him through the steps. We read the whole book out loud and talked about it too. AA was the grandfather of all 12 step programs, and I was honored to go through all the steps “The AA Way.”
In that tradition, I took my sponsee through the Steps. I made sure not to tell her what to do, but instead made suggestions and encouraged her to take a look at something. I watched this hurt and fear-filled woman, who had been through so much and had clung to the very thing that was destroying her—grow into a new faith-filled empowered woman who took responsibility for herself and eventually met her future husband and parent to their beautiful son.
She gained the courage to feel and express emotions instead of numb; to take positive risks. She stretched herself all the way into upper management at her work. Her Higher Power placed temptation in her path and she rigorously worked the Steps, not perfectly (none of us do), and the momentum of her strength and gusto to live an addiction-free life was high, having a snowball effect pulverizing all bullshit in her path.
I had many spiritual experiences working with her. Having never taken someone so far into the program as her, for me it was like watching fireworks and miracles bursting from her soul into every aspect of her humanity.
The Fourth Step is a huge thorough inventory. I hugged her and prayed for her as she put pen to paper to re-examine the pain. She sifted through her memories for things she was resentful of, responsible for, her what part she played in the resentments she harbored as an adult. Another part of the inventory is listing and exploring your fears and doing a sex conduct. Tunnels of grief emerged and rage was deliberately tapped into. This shook her to the core. I remembered my own experience going through the Fourth Step. Working with sponsees was never going to let me forget this magical process.
Finally, it came a time for her to give her 5th Step. She poured her soul out to the unverse with me as a human witness, and God, in the small room we had rented inside of a coffee shop outside of Denver. I watched her face the whole time, her eyes swelling with tears running down her face hitting the table top.
It felt so human what we were doing, yet guided so clearly from above.
We would stop and reflect at times, look at different angles, seeing things through the lenses of 12 Step wisdom. She grew up before my very eyes that day. My heart swelled with so much love and compassion for her. The depths of knowledge, the dug up emotional expression of her history was a gift for my own growth.
The empathy I felt that day started bleeding all over me—I felt intense energy, a warm closeness intermingled with emotional exhaustion, from the intimacy of knowing someone so deeply.
Many times at our meetings, I was amazed at the things that just flowed out of my mouth. It was as if The Holy Spirit was shining His light through me, transforming me into a beacon of light. It was the answer to my prayers—to do God’s Will instead of my own. To get out of my own way. To stop being so self-centered. I don’t didn’t know exactly what was going on. It didn’t matter. It felt right.
Sponsorship is the most effective way to stay sober. The reflections, the mirror, the genuine caring, the work. You get well together. You fine tune your own recovery. The comradery, the sharing, the caring runs really deep when you work with someone in a sponsorship. Being there for someone. Discovering truth and wisdom of becoming a healthy person together. Being each other’s teacher and student all at once; reminding each other of where you’ve been and sharing the ambitions and successes in the present into the future.
My sponsee was, and still is, one of my cosmic sisters. She is a beautiful child of God, same as me. I love her. I care about her very deeply, yet don’t try and fix, change or rescue. The work is up to her.
When they ask at a meeting, “Who is available to sponsor?” Raise your hand.
