AA Redux
AA Sponsorship in the 21st Century
Early Sponsorship Guidelines
Early Sponsorship Guidelines
Long term sobriety may depend of a sponsee's early experiences with sponsorship.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
AA Sponsorship in the 21st Century
Through a period of sobriety in AA and many experiences in sponsorship, certain common ideas about the good work of sponsorship have become apparent. Well aware of the admonition of our Traditions with respect to speaking for AA, everything here is actually only a suggestion! Perhaps you can use these concepts and perhaps not. In any event they are offered gladly for whatever benefit they might bring.
Taken all together, there is very little original in this list. The genius for all these ideas was found in AA meetings and the work of sponsors. This short list was originally prepared for a certain young sponsor, new to our program and, although tremendously dedicated, still a bit inexperienced. It is not intended to be complete.
Perhaps every reader of this paper can pause for a moment to ask that our Higher Power help all our sponsors in their important work.
Sponsorship Definition
The Big Book’s description of a good sponsor is found on page 18. This material is a good place to start. Nothing has been added or deleted since 1939. (BB p18)
One Thing at a Time
New members of AA are frequently cloudy. When setting the agenda for sponsorship meetings, a good suggestion is “One Thing At A Time.” Not following this idea can result in never getting anything handled really well. All AA’s understand the meaning of confusion. Sponsorship will work more productively when one idea gets handled thoroughly instead of when many are handled a bit here and there. At the end of these sessions it is very good if everyone knows exactly what they were all about and what was covered, and it is not out of line to "recap" precisely what has been covered.
Sponsorship Meeting Length
Be open, especially at the beginning, to limiting sponsorship talks. A hour may be good, but if it is too long, make the early meetings a half hour. If inclined to do so, conversations about other things after the sponsorship session will help break the ice. (The sooner, the better.) This is a great time to share stories or parts of stories about drinking.
No matter how unlikely it might seem, a sponsee should know that changing sponsors can be done if a compelling reason develops. Feeling trapped by a sponsor who is not working out will not make getting the AA program any easier.
Get Ready. Get Organized.
The agenda of the sponsorship meeting is important. This is not to say what the topic will be, only that there will be a specific topic. Be sure to know ahead of time where it can be found in the Big Book. (“Yeah, hang on a minute. I know this part is in here somewhere.”) A sponsor might even read this section before the meeting. A sponsor might spend a few minutes to organize his own thoughts before he starts a meeting with his sponsee.
Read It Aloud
The part of the book to be discussed should usually be read aloud before beginning the conversation. In fact, it is not a bit out of line to repeat the reading while preparing to discuss it. Alcoholics have usually mastered the ability to read something to themselves and have no idea what it said.
Literacy
It is not bad manners to ask a person in your sponsorship if he can read, especially if he is something of a stranger to you. Warning. Sometimes the answer should be “Sort of” when it was given as “Yes.” If the sponsored person has trouble reading, you are, of course, entirely ready to do the reading. My experience is that I once failed to ask this important question. Everything worked out well enough. The first thing this sponsee ever read was Chapter Five’s How It Works. (BB p58) He lit up with true excitement when he was able to read it in a meeting!
An excellent way to handle this kind of a reading problem is to assign some other person in your sponsorship to read to him. This approach kills several birds with one stone!
One further important note. People who can’t read well carry a lot of baggage about it. This kind of a problem requires kid gloves, a lot of love and a strong understanding about AA ideas. No one who tries must be left behind!
Meetings
A sponsor must teach about sharing and other ideas about attending meetings. A new member can easily do and say things generally considered inappropriate for a meeting. The danger of this is that the new member can become so embarrassed that he won’t want to show up again. We have all listened to sharing in meeting that was irritating or inappropriate, but aside from having our feathers ruffled, no harm was done, but this may not be the case with brand new members. Meetings are open to a wide variety of comments, but some things are probably best shared with sponsors or, at least, outside the meeting with other AA’s. Our Big Book suggests that we AA’s are at our best when we “speak the language of the Heart.” (BB p xxiv)
Some Specifics:Meeting Etiquette for the New Member
Avoid speaking about other people, especially by name. Sharing is about “me,” “my alcoholism” or “my program.” Encourage the use of the word “I.” Alcoholism and the recovery from it is what brings us together. Anonymity is what allows us to focus on our alcoholism instead of our cars, wives, husbands or jobs.
We have been given the amazing term “Higher Power.” Speaking of Jesus Christ, Mohammad or anyone else like them probably belongs somewhere else. Too often comments such as these are a projection of “authority.” Our Traditions set our ideal about “authority" very clearly. It is usually good to emphasize that we can always say what we need to say by speaking of our “Higher Power.”
Very often new members are bashful about sharing. Sometimes they are “blabber mouths.” (I was.) For the bashful ones who just don’t know what to say, the solution is easy. Read the book, then talk about the ideas you have read. What could be more appropriate than sharing about our book and our program? The “blabber mouth” needs to be told that other members in the meeting also need to speak. Usually, a quiet suggestion can straighten everything out, but it almost certainly will best done by a suggestion from his sponsor.
There are limits of both privacy and illegality which can be learned either the hard way or with the thoughtful help of a sponsor. The rule is easy. In conversation with the sponsor, anything goes. Sharing in meeting needs to be in good taste, true and given with the idea of helping the others present. Also, even though there seems to be no concrete rule about it, the amount of your sponsee’s swearing needs to be adjusted to the tradition and nature of the specific meetings he attends. For some meetings -- no problem. For others -- a serious "no go."
The discussion of selfishness may still be ahead of where you are in the Big Book, but one common form of this problem turns up when AA members fail to speak loudly enough. What is being said by this person who is in your sponsorship is important to the other members in the meeting. These words hold the message that will help keep us sober, no matter how long the speaker has been in AA.
Attending meetings is important. Be sure to tell your sponsee that he does not need a shower or clean clothes to attend AA meetings. Although it is best to arrive early, arriving late is better than not arriving at all. “The only meeting we were late for was the first one!”
Although not an air tight rule, it is generally bad manners to eat during a meeting unless one is squeezing it in during lunch break. Take a cheeseburger with you into a meeting and the Higher Power will send a very hungry new man to the same meeting. Eating in front of him is selfish, thoughtless and a few other things that won’t wash with good AA ideals. He may be so fixated on your sandwich that he misses something important in the sharing! You might consider feeding him. A man with a full stomach can’t understand a man with an empty stomach. Our book mentions self-seeking very clearly.
Explain “cross talk.” It is not only bad manners, it goes directly against the great AA idea of “one speaker at a time.” New members need to understand that this is part of why we always introduce ourselves. It sets the field for one person to speak at a time so we have the chance to hear about recovery instead of an hour long session of interruptions!
Sponsees who are brand new members may need to be told to be quiet in meetings. Conversations with others seated near you are rude. Tell you sponsee that: You are supposed to be listening.
Finally, it is a great idea if transportation and schedules permit to arrange to attend meetings with your sponsee. He can hear what you say. You can hear what he says. The two of you can discuss what was said in the meeting, and it is a wonderful opportunity to introduce him to some of your friends there.
AA Friends
It is usually a good idea to require your sponsee to introduce himself to a certain number of people in the meeting. Don’t let this slip away. Require him to keep a list. The idea of phone numbers, while well intentioned, almost never works. Some of the people in that first meeting are pretty frightening, and he may not know which phones numbers go with which people. Quantity cannot match quality in this matter. Shaking hands and introducing himself to AA members he is not afraid of and who he might actually call is much better. If your new man comes up with two or three working friendships, he will have a much better chance. AA friendships can make all the difference. In meetings, the sponsor may be able to point out some good choices to the sponsee. Still, the sponsee will ultimately select his own friends.
Getting Drunk Without Fighting Back
There are events and moments, especially in early sobriety, when matters really can come to a crisis. As a sponsor it is unrealistic to assume that you can be present every time this happens. It is even more unreasonable to presume that you are responsible for getting your new member safely through every one of these tough moments. He may go out after getting a busy signal. Friends in the program, along with phone numbers, are very important.
The point is this. Without frightening the hell out of your new member, there are still some very effective preparations which can be made calmly ahead of time. It is very responsible planning to lay in a few useful “just in case” items. Head in the clouds and feet on the ground suggests two important things: HIGHER POWER and HALT. (BB p130)
A very new member of AA may be susceptible to drinking. Afterward, when such an AA member is asked about the episode some common answers appear at an alarming frequency. “It just hit me.” “I have no idea why I did that.” In such cases it is often an instance of not paying attention. We all know that the disease of alcoholism is still going strong, even after a short period of not drinking. (BB p37)
Talk to your sponsee about the signs of alcoholism which might lead him toward having a drink. Emphasize the importance of paying attention to how one feels. If a single minute becomes available before that drink, it may be enough time to take successful action. Panic does not assist us. A previous conversation with a sponsor might make all the difference. As sponsors we may hope this doesn’t come up, but if it does, we want our sponsee to be aware of the danger he is in and the necessity of taking action.
Playmates and Playpens
Other drinking memories act in a different way from the “on the spot” attack. A phrase which has become an AA tradition fits in well right here. “We must avoid our old PLAYMATES and PLAYPENS.” We can assume that every member of AA had drinking buddies right up to his first meeting. Likewise, there are inevitably places which were previously associated with lots of drinking.
Sometime, perhaps in the telling of your stories, these people and places can be noted. It is well worth while for the sponsor to suggest that they be listed. That helps eliminate any confusion on the part of the sponsee. “You don’t have to stay away from them forever, but you need to stay away from them just now.”
A Few Red Alerts
It may be worthwhile to mention a few red alerts. No matter how long a list is made, there will always be more which have been omitted. Again, these might serve to warn a new member that trouble is near.
If this is sobriety, who needs it?
No one will know. After a few meetings, I’m pretty sure I’m not an alcoholic. I’m not like those people (AA’s). All they want to do is stuff things down my throat. I need a break from meetings. I’ll go out of town for a few days.
As a sponsor, this is a great place to add you own experiences, along with the story, accompanying it, to the list. Your sponsee will be a little more durable with a few of these specific examples. I knew an AA who went to treatment, got out and went to AA. He was not very happy about it. One night his wife made hamburgers, but there were no potato chips. He drank eleven more years. Paying attention is part of being sober. Make sure your sponsee knows what signs to look out for. “Smart won’t get you sober, but stupid can get you drunk.”
Basic Training
Just what advice will the sponsor give to the sponsee if the danger of taking a drink is close at hand? Praying is a great choice, but we need to be realistic here. If your sponsee has not yet accomplished a relationship with a Higher Power, this may not solve the problem.
Service in the military is not done by handing a rifle to the young man getting off the bus then sending him directly to combat. He will need to learn all sorts of things so he can be a good soldier and take care of himself. AA sponsorship has a lot in common with basic training.
Our Big Book tells us that our opponent is cunning, baffling and powerful. (BB p59) As a sponsor, your aim is for recovery as the Big Book describes it. Until then, basic training is extremely important. So what might work? The telephone is probably the first choice. If that cannot be done, the second choice is leaving. Get away from the environment which is making the sponsee think of drinking. Tell him to call later if he can’t get through. Tell him without any question -- without any question -- that you will come get him. If not you, someone. If you don’t have any AA friends who will help with this kind of emergency, you might consider making some before you accept the responsibility of sponsorship. A distant third choice is for him to approach a non-AA wherever he is and describe the problem. There is no telling what the Higher Power might be wearing on any given day!
This resistance to using the phone when things get tense can actually be addressed ahead of time. In sponsorship discussions ask your sponsee to produce his phone number list. Hand him the phone and have him call three or four of his favorites. The conversation can be as short as “Hi, this is Larry. I’m fine, but my sponsor wanted me to call you so it would be easier if I got in a jam.” Actually making calls like this reinforces your sponsee’s idea that his calls are not being inconvenient and that they might offer some real help if he needs it. Remember. If your sponsee can do this much, that is, call or leave or both, he has already done a good deal of work trying to stay sober. Now it is time for you to do your part. Our book tells us to remember that we will go to any lengths for victory over alcohol. That means “we.” It includes both sponsor and sponsee.
The frequency of this type of emergency will probably diminish as your sponsee’s work in the program progresses, but on days when you get to do sponsorship work like this, you will have a great night’s sleep! (BB p76)
Respecting the Sponsor’s Time
As a sponsor you have dedicated a certain amount of time to the task. Your sponsee needs to understand that you value your time. The entire structure of sponsorship as 12th Step work is based on the idea that you are helping him because he asked you to help him. Getting sober is his job. It is a task that he has undertaken for himself. Helping him get the most horsepower possible from our wonderful AA program of recovery is your job. We are not banks or hotels; we are sober AA sponsors ready to share every bit of our experience and knowledge. It is easy to lose track of this, and doing so will probably hurt him and possibly also hurt you, too. Be sure to remind your sponsee that you two can get a “divorce” if things won’t work out. His sobriety is worth more than your batting average. (BB p96)
Great AA abbreviations
Romance
AA romances are not usually a good thing. There is a small chance that they might work if both parties have twenty years of sobriety and spiritual programs of planetary perfection. For a newly sober sponsee it may be better to take a break from sex and romance until some progress has been made on his drinking. A great line from the Big Book’s account of a 12th Step call should be remembered: “We’re giving you a treatment for alcoholism.” (BB p157)
When new members in AA get entangled in romance and sex, the relationship becomes a distraction to the work at hand. When it ends, one or both may start missing meetings because they won’t want to see each other. Broken hearts, self-pity and self-delusion can work together to make sponsorship more confusing. Relationships between new members can make sponsorship more complicated, and they can threaten sobriety. Further, if one goes out, although not always the case, the other will often be blamed or blame himself.
Although not mentioned in our book, the AA program of recovery will help an alcoholic develop to the point where it is quite possible to live with all the non- alcoholics in the world pretty well. Romance-wise, there are plenty of young men and women out there for your sponsee if he stays sober and follows the principles of the program (a few simple rules). AA relationships that deal with auto repair, house painting, writing poetry, getting a job or fixing plumbing are absolutely great! Early sex and love relationships are probably not such a good idea. They can be filled with every kind of alcoholic mischief!
A new member with a sex relation inside the AA program may as well have packed a case of old, wet dynamite in his trunk. No one can guess when it will blow, but everyone agrees it probably will, sooner or later! (See loneliness.)
Sponsee Relationships
What if your sponsee has arrived at AA with a girlfriend or a wife? Depending on the personality of his partner and whether or not there is a willingness to assist in his path to sobriety, the sponsor must remember that while all personal matters are the sponsee’s business, all matters affecting sobriety are “on the table.” His relationships with wives and girlfriends are seldom “Roses, simply roses.”
“One of the most spiritual traits in our program is minding one’s own business.” The sponsor in this situation definitely has his work cut out. The sponsee may constantly argue with this partner, challenging his serenity and maybe his sobriety. The sponsor is a clear player in this part! The sponsee’s mate may be opposed to AA. The sponsee’s mate might require a drink before sex. All kinds of situations might arise, but as sponsor in such an affair, it is important to remember not to make personal decisions for your sponsee no matter how well intentioned or brilliant. It is far better to help him apply AA recovery principles and develop correctly through AA Step Work and other AA ideas so he can make good decisions for himself.
There may be moments when it is hard to hold one’s tongue, but providing good sponsorship in this area will be worth the effort in the end. It is completely unrealistic to expect that new members coming into AA will not have personal relationship issues such as these. It is also unrealistic to assume that every sponsor is automatically a marriage counselor. This is a good time for sponsors to discuss such troubles and possibilities with their trusted AA friends. We already know what incredible things we can do when we work together. Our Higher Powers seem to agree.
There have been recurring concepts about sex, in particular, “no sex for a year.” No such idea is even hinted at in the Big Book. The possible origins of such an idea don’t really matter much. At about the time that our group was deciding about a smoking ban, my first sponsor gave me his opinion. “If you bring a new man who is probably already uncertain that he is in the right place, then you tell him no smoking, then you tell him no sex for a year, you may be helping him drink himself to death. Is that your idea of a 12th Step?”
Our selfish ideas about how we wish things might work are just that. Selfish. Aren’t we glad that we didn’t run into something like this when we were new? Like most bad ideas, there is probably something of value beneath the surface here. The “no sex for a year” idea more than likely came from a very good AA idea often used in sponsorship. That idea is “no big changes for a year,” and it means no divorces, no quitting jobs, no running away and that sort of thing. It is easy for both new and seasoned AA members to consider sex a big change. Ours is a journey of spiritual work which has a very specific destination. Life will "happen" all along the way.
Gossip Is Not Carrying the Message
When we sponsor we open up two lines of gossip communication, both equally damaging to our goal of helping our sponsee become a successful AA citizen. Those two lines are gossip he might hear and gossip we might hear. When our new member brings some tale of this sort, we can provide a good example by stopping him right away. We can use the same discipline with ourselves. Matters of who is sleeping with whom or who has been arrested do not promote sobriety and serenity. Our AA experience has undoubtedly included episodes of gossip which have ended disastrously for both the speaker and the listener and almost always for the “repeater.”
If the matter concerns some member drinking again, the only account which can benefit us will come from that person. If such gossip includes an “explanation” or a “reason why” someone took a drink, it is even worse. We know why someone took a drink.
Two Sides of AA - Part 1People and Liquor
Emphasize to your sponsee that while alcoholism is the problem it is almost always the people the alcoholic is trying to live with that puts him in his first AA meeting. These “people problems” are likely to be more understandable to a new member than “disease” problems.
Anonymity
Our tradition says that anonymity is our spiritual foundation. A sponsor can explain to his sponsee that this means a number of things. Probably first on the list is that we never, ever say that we saw John Smith in an AA meeting and that he said that he was an alcoholic. John Smith may have even said that he doesn’t care, but that never releases us from the responsibility of anonymity. Tell your sponsee that if there is a doubt, say nothing. The damage done by breaches of anonymity are legend. Sometimes their hurt can never be repaired.
So what about the “spiritual foundation” idea? A good way to explain anonymity is this. Consider the painted panels at a State fair. A person places his face in the hole and he becomes a cowboy or a sailor. The painting on the panel covers up all parts of him except his face, a funny photograph is taken, then he pulls his face out to become himself once again.
AA anonymity has a lot in common with this. When we are in the AA meeting, we are strictly alcoholics just as if we had put our faces in the hole at the fair. This allows us to deal exclusively with our alcoholism instead of our whole personalities. When we leave the meeting we once again become doctors, policemen, nurses and grandmothers, but while we are in the meeting the only visible part of us is our alcoholism, our recovery from it and our willingness to help each other. We are a group of alcoholics who are theoretically giving help to and receiving help from anonymous strangers who have the same problem. That’s spiritual!
Depression is not Always Whining
Most sponsors are not psychiatrists. Nonetheless, the Big Book tells us that alcohol is a depressant. We can assume that practically all AA’s were depressed at least at the end of their period of alcoholic drinking. For some reason we as sponsors are surprised when newly sober alcoholics show signs of the same problem. It may be something besides drinking. It may be left over from the time before sobriety. It may pass. It may not. Even if we as sober members of AA have not shut the door on our past, it is possible that we never experienced depression such as we might see it in our sponsee.
The following rule is strictly subjective. Before a sponsor makes any suggestion about psychiatric care (suggesting a medical doctor for physical problems is not quite as controversial), he should collect three or four of his sober AA friends and ask their advice. Our tradition of anonymity should also take a seat at the table, too. The best idea is to help if possible, but to cause no harm.(BB p133)
Energy Levels in Sponsorship
Some newly sober members of AA are just booming with energy. They have just been liberated from a seemingly hopeless malady. However, many others are not. With all sponsorship work it is important for us to freely show our own energy and enthusiasm. When a sponsee is barely making it from sunrise to sunset, he hardly needs a sponsor who is constantly tired, sad, listless or uninterested. As sponsors, we can take a quick moment before meeting our sponsee to remember how important it is for us to be at our best. A little humor might also be spiritual!
Two Sides of AA - Part 2The Consequence and the Disease
Without wreckage most of us would never have come to Alcoholics Anonymous. Different people, different wreckage, same story. These accounts of AA members’ drinking life and their similarity to our own experiences glue us together.
On the other side we have what our Big Book describes as the disease of alcoholism. Of course, all of this goes together, but what suggestion does it give in terms of sponsorship? Remember, we believe it to be an illness.(BB p18)
Our new member will get an extensive picture of consequences. It is important that, from the very beginning, he understands that these consequences are not the disease of alcoholism. Consequences, one thing. Disease, another thing!
The consequences will probably go away (probably replaced with new consequences) for the sober AA member who works a good program for a few years. The disease of alcoholism doesn’t go away. Our work on it will go on everyday.(BB p33)
Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic.
The pickle cannot be turned back into a cucumber. We will live as alcoholics, either drunk or sober. We will be buried alcoholics, either drunk or sober.
Our sponsee must be shown the differences between consequences and disease. Otherwise he might make the mistake of thinking that the alcoholism is gone when the consequences quit arriving. It is necessary for a sponsor to make these ideas clear. Consequences do not necessarily indicate alcoholism. My non-alcoholic neighbor can drink too many beers, belt his wife across the room, get in a fist fight with his father-in-law then drive his car into a tree. On the other hand, serious alcoholics can get to AA in great shape, good health and with money in the bank. If these folks had to wait for consequences, it might have been too late!
New Member Loneliness:the 1,2,3 Approach
When the good advice concerning “Playmates and Playpens” is sincerely followed by the new member, what is next? Probably a bit of new member loneliness. The sponsor needs to remind his sponsee that his old friends were accumulated one at a time over a long period. New friends, although very important, will need to be approached more formally than the old ones were. Emphasize that with respect to alcoholism, any friend is not necessarily better than no friend at all! Lonely is better than drunk! The best choices are going to be friends from AA. The second best choice will be non-alcoholic friends who are not in AA. Your sponsee may need guidance about making friends inside the AA group. The following 1-2-3 approach was suggested to me by my wonderful first sponsor.
Part 1: Be Interesting
Many new members arriving at AA are simply boring. For a long time they have filled all their thoughts with alcohol and drugs, getting alcohol and drugs, friends who have alcohol and drugs and every possible idea about the next party. If these are not the thoughts that filled their days, they were probably thinking desperate thoughts about their situation, the results of their habits or simply some form of alcoholic depression, at least, more than a little gloom about their likely future. Sharing this sort of idea in meeting is fine, but if there is to be progress with AA friends, the new member will simply require something else to talk about. Something interesting. Something that reflects the fact that friendly conversation can proceed on topics other than AA topics.
Get interesting by reading National Geographic, taking a class -- about anything, reading a book or writing a poem. Suggest to the sponsee that he make the outwardly directed effort to secure something to talk about. There is no particularly right or wrong choice. When a sponsee does this simple work he demonstrates that he is prepared to think of someone other than himself -- a great first step in making new friends!
Part 2: Be Interested
New members have been so centered on themselves that they may need to make a conscious effort to show interest in someone else, for example, their new friends in AA. This means “act” interested whether he is or not. He must ask questions about his new friends. This shows that he is working to move even further beyond his self-centeredness.
His interest may not be completely sincere, but it will never become more sincere without practice. Everyone has to start somewhere. Have we ever seen a sober AA who has not benefited from having AA friends? Being self-centered and lonely is hardly the mark of successful sobriety inside our program. AA has a friend for every alcoholic willing to make the effort to get things started.
Part 3: Make Plans
How many times have we heard our fellow AA’s say something like: “Yeah. We ought to get together for coffee sometime?” Enough of this will help create the lonely alcoholic mentioned in Part 2. Make this point very clearly to your sponsee. A plan includes, at the minimum, a day, an hour and a destination. For example, when we apply this idea to the comment above, it becomes: “Let’s go this Friday morning for coffee. I’ll drive, and I’ll pick you up at 10 AM at your apartment, that is, 256 Smith Street, Apartment 6. I’ll call before I come. Your phone number is 233-8976, right?” This is a plan consistent with the Part 3 idea. This simple step will put your sponsee at a coffee shop to have coffee with his new AA friend. Less than this will leave him in his apartment thinking that no one wants to have anything to do with him. (Check out FTMR - failure to mind read)
The Name: New Member
Your sponsee is a new member of AA. One of the terrible names given to new members is “pigeon.” The AA joke which explains this name is that a sponsee is similar to a pigeon because he may shit in your hand or fly away. This is less of something which might benefit the new member, and more of something that might be food for the pride and self-centeredness of the speaker. It will do nothing to assist a new member’s work toward sobriety.
Another example is using the word “new comer.” Although probably innocent enough far back in our AA tradition, all that stopped with the 1970’s television show about an alien space ship that landed near Los Angeles. The story was about the aliens attempting to integrate themselves into the city. They were call “new comers.” Your sponsee is a new member of AA, not a “pigeon” or an alien “new comer.”
Self-Improvement Part 1Better Health
Sobriety, that is, the elimination of alcohol, starts rebuilding health right away. Some new members of AA are so sick as a result of their recent history that the recovery of physical health can take a while. Livers can recover. Skin and hair can grow more and more healthful. With the alcohol gone, general life habits of all sorts can improve. Frankly, it can be difficult to shop and cook while one is drunk. It is a definite part of the sponsor’s responsibilities to discuss this with the new member and to encourage good, sober habits concerning diet, sleeping enough and getting fresh air and exercise when possible. (BB p133)
There can, however, be a type of down side to this. New members, recoiling from the state in which they find themselves, can over extend. A contract with a health club might better wait a few months. The purchase of large amounts of expensive vitamins may not be a responsible outlay of limited funds or even necessarily the right idea. Commitments such as these can begin to cloud the importance of AA and recovery. It is easy for the new member to associate falling off something such as the health club plan with falling off the AA recovery plan. If these new undertakings result in a financial crisis, it might be even worse. Patience and continued concentration on the AA program will pay dividends. (see KISS) In sobriety there will be plenty of time for all of this after the new member is thinking better.
Self-improvement Part 2Religion
Many of the new members have long ago stepped away from the religion of their families. Sponsees such as these are usually able and willing to embrace AA’s ideas about spirituality. But what about those who have been, more or less, continually committed to a religion? Although these new members might have been very involved during earlier times, they may have slipped away during the time of alcoholic drinking.
Now, especially when approaching the 2nd Step, your sponsee may become quite pious in a moment of guilt, shame or concern about salvation. This may make a confusing mix of AA ideas about spirituality and about those promoted by a long forgotten church. This is a dangerous mixture which can, in a short time, produce a drunken yet religious individual. The Big Book encourages the AA to find what has value in religion. This optimistic suggestion may be an invitation to conflicting priorities, not to mention the possibility of appearing to be in conflict between sobriety and salvation. Many religious groups perform an incredible service to alcoholics in their early recovery. Many others seem to be determined, not intentionally, to offering quite destructive influences in their efforts to be the exclusive factor. (BB p49)
As a sponsor, you will need to see this approaching storm. Failing to sort this out with your sponsee is dangerous, irresponsible and probably a case of dogmatic AA thinking. “It’s not my affair. My job is to get him through the steps.” It is always the job of the sponsor to help however possible. Most AA members who have completed step work, and who have an interest in religion, find that a sober church member has many new strengths and understandings which will make him a good church member. AA sobriety makes many things possible. There will be plenty of time later for religion.
Redefining Prayer
Our Big Book goes to great lengths in its description of prayer. (Big Book pg. 85) What is given there can be applied with great results for the new member who comes to AA with this sort of religious experience -- or even religious ideas that are even somewhat similar! Other new members may be forced to confront more than they bargained for when their sponsor becomes insistent on these ideas from the Big Book. This model of prayer is aggressively Christian.
Apparently, it fit in just right in 1939. At that time one would encounter very little variance in religious ideas among AA members.
Now we find ourselves in the complexity of the 21st century. Many new members, perhaps including your sponsee, have long ago departed the Christian religions and have no particular appetite to rejoin them. Other new members hate the Christian religion and consider it to be the enemy. Regardless of the motive, this religion acting through parents, counselors and judges has sometimes done some real tangible damage to alcoholics.
As a sponsor, regardless of your own religious ideas, it is extremely important to get this prayer business handled constructively. By “constructively” we mean sponsorship ideas which can accomplish the goals of prayer in the AA program. Pressing or threatening about the Christian ideas on our Big Book onto a resistant sponsee will hardly lead him to the full benefit of the 11th Step. In fact it may lead him to a drink, or, at least, to a new sponsor.
The AA program is not intended to challenge the faith of a religious new member, but it is also not meant to be a way to convert all new members to the Christian religion. None of this can be a part of our aim of recovery from alcoholism. A reputation about this sort of thing has sent alcoholics on a search for some alternate means of recovery which is more palatable.
Prayer is always an opportunity to think about and say what one considers “right,” then to consider what has just been said. The answer to prayer is always one’s definition of what work needs to be done on oneself to reach the goal or survive the problem. Of course AA principles can be a great assistance in this process, but the prayer business is far more personal than even this.
As a sponsor, you may often ask: “Did you pray?” And get the answer: “Sure. Of course I prayed” This may be a good time to be a little suspicious. Your sponsee may actually think that the whole prayer business is no more than your idea of humiliating domination, enforced by the threat that failing to comply will result in a return to drinking. Praying is supposed to feel good and create honest hope in your sponsee’s life and your own.
My first sponsor suggested that the 2nd Step was meant to be a certain dimension of surrender. His opinion of my 2nd Step was that it was more like a “cease fire.” Two short prayer stories.
“Go to your room, close the door and turn off the lights. Try your very best to pray as well as you can. When you are finished, leave your room. If anyone asks you if you were in there praying, say ‘No.’ Don’t let your pride keep you from spirituality. You can work on pride later.”
This is the first prayer that was given to me. Start out by being honest. “Higher Power, I don’t believe in You. You may notice that I am on my knees. That is because I need help. Help me understand what is happening. Thank You, if You are listening. I’ll just wait here.”
Saying prayers about things your sponsee does not believe is, in general, not a constructive path. It is what can be called “naked begging.” If the Higher Power wants something like this, believe me, It can create as much as matches It’s plan.
At the start of sponsorship meetings, a short prayer about what is the goal of the meeting can be said by sponsor and sponsee. It should be original for each meeting. A prayer like this shows the sponsee how his sponsor sees what is “right” for the meeting and what “work” will be required by both to reach it. It is an opportunity for the sponsor to demonstrate his prayer ideas, how comfortable and hopeful his prayer is and the fact that he does not blindly convert its entire text into Old English.
For a final comment on Old English, it is a very good idea to “translate” the prayers in the Big Book. As a sponsor it is assumed that these ideas might be more worthwhile in the common language. Speakers of American English have difficulty with them. When American English is a second language, these critical prayer ideas may as well be a concrete wall.
AA and the Competition
Alcoholics Anonymous continues to be the most successful opportunity for an alcoholic to reach sobriety. The story of the threefold road is a good one. It also happens to be nicely told in the Big Book.
For the alcoholic still in his cups, it seems that there are only two roads as choices. On the right, he can simply continue drinking until he reaches the end. If he sees this, he knows it means a journey through relentless, hopeless alcoholic misery. On the left is the option of simply stopping, if he can. For however long this can go on, he will constantly be at war in his efforts to not take a drink. He may have seen alcoholics (“dry drunks”) who are trying to do this. He may have noticed that these alcoholics are usually somewhere between “miserable” and “insane.”
AA offers a third road. The AA program of recovery can be the end of the constant drinking. Steps, meetings and fellowship have pulled us off the path of drinking ourselves to death (the first road). The growth and maturity of sobriety, possible through the AA program, do not leave us stranded with the insane desire to drink (the second road). They allow us to live sober without the “craziness” of untreated alcoholism (“dry drunk”). (BB p25)
Without what AA offers to us as alcoholics, we are left with the choice of drinking ourselves to death, or living our lives as miserable “dry drunks.” AA is the third road.
There are clinics, treatment units, hospitals and religions which claim to be alternatives to AA. AA never need compete with these approaches. It would violate our Traditions in any event.
The greatest attraction of these alternatives is that they are a way to avoid our AA emphasis on ideas about the “Higher Power.” The irony of this, beyond the fact that these often don’t work, is that our Higher Power ideas are not at all what these patients or these providers think they are. We AA’s have caused this problem, and in doing so we have seriously betrayed our responsibility to our 12th Step (not to mention our 5th, 6th and 10th Traditions).
Two Sides of AA: Part 3Live Decent. Don’t drink.
Select any date in our recorded history, say 1,000 AD. Apparently almost everyone who could, drank alcohol. Society ran on the basis that a great many people would be drunk at any given moment. Drinking was the same as now, but the expectations of society were quite different. For one thing, a horse would not run into a tree because its rider was drinking.
In our time, however, society is pressed to run more and more efficiently. In 1,000 AD a drunk could probably still go to work or beat his wife. Not so in the 21st Century. Because of the demands for social and economic efficiency, the creation of all sorts of laws and our modern intolerance of drunkenness at the personal level, there has never been a time when the drinking alcoholic has had a rougher time than now.
The alcoholic drunk represents a great inconvenience as he tries to function in our modern world. The treatment center, often paid for by company insurance, is an attractive choice to the employer. Psychiatric care or hospitalization are often the choice of the wife or family. The alcoholic drunk without insurance or the assistance of his family often cannot afford these choices. If he is running wild with his drinking, he will probably wind up in jail. Ready or not, all these spots carry with them the expectation that the alcoholic drinker will quit, an expectation not realized very often.
In 1,000 AD the alcoholic drinker was somewhat an inconvenience. In our day, the alcoholic drinker will almost certainly become a huge inconvenience to his boss, his wife, his family or the judge. The modern view of this is that the alcoholic drinker is consuming more freedom than he has a right to consume. For example, a drunk driver was demonstrating his claim to have the freedom to drive drunk. Our modern social culture could not disagree more. This DWI driver has just placed himself in the “inconvenient to society” status.
What does this have to do with sponsorship? We separated consequences from the disease during our alcoholic drinking. We also need to address the consequences of alcoholic thinking in sobriety. Recovery is clearly based on applying the AA program to the disease. If we intend to enjoy the benefits of fitting into society we must pay our bills, pay our child support, drive the speed limit and avoid shoplifting. Your sober sponsee can become a very inconvenient man in sobriety. This will not make for a serene life filled with AA friends. Self- respect and the respect of others is one of the blessings of recovery your sponsee will not want to miss. As a sponsor, it is part of your responsibilities to guide the sponsee toward his responsibilities in sobriety.
Almost every new member of AA has a good, working understanding of what is meant by “decent and responsible,” especially when compared to “consequences.” It is absolutely the task of the sponsor to encourage good citizenship. Everything will work better!
Does assistance to the new member in this area deal with staying sober? Yes! Going to jail for two hundred dollars worth of parking tickets on a bad day can become an invitation to a new sobriety date. Help your sponsee avoid this sort of thing! Paying attention to the necessary details of life is a great idea.
The Big Book
A big book could easily be written about the importance of the Big Book. From the very start a sponsor must emphasize the importance of the Big Book. He should tell his new sponsee that the Big Book is the origin of what is said in meetings. The operative ideas of our AA Big Book are the central part of the AA program where we all agree. The sponsor should open the Big Book often and quote from it. When a sponsee calls in a panic, he should get a quote from the Big Book and an invitation to meet his sponsor at an AA meeting. The Big Book can be the guide for discussions with the sponsee at sponsorship meetings. Two Big Books, one for each, are a good idea. The Big Book is the “business end” of the AA program. It is what we do.
There is nothing more frightening than a meeting where those attending have clearly never read the Big Book, hired a sponsor or worked Steps. These poor people are sober on borrowed time. This is a great place for good sponsors to go to work. Then everybody stays sober.
AA’s Larger World
The sponsor is responsible soon after starting with a new member to explain what is meant by his District, GSR’s and the World Service Office. It is easy for a new member who has seen perhaps a single AA meeting to have no understanding of its connections to this global AA structure. He may not be able to officially participate in District Meetings until he has more sobriety, but knowing the relationship between his meeting and these larger groups can be helpful. This topic is a great opening for a discussion about the Traditions.
Traditions for New Members
As a sponsor it is your responsibility to completely explain AA’s Traditions. However, for the new member it is usually best to concentrate on the AA program in the Big Book and the meetings. It is an obvious mistake for a man just getting sober to be studying the Traditions just when he could benefit most by learning to stay sober. Some new members would rather study our Traditions (or anything else) than read about the AA program in the Big Book. Others seem to have been born to break every AA Tradition before their second meeting. Learning to live within the Traditions is important, but “Job One” is learning to live without alcohol.
The new member will hear the Traditions read in his meetings. Any questions he might have about them should be answered honestly and frankly.
Occasionally our famous AA gossip will tell about some member or other acting outside our Traditions. Again, an honest and frank answer from his sponsor, including answers to any questions he might have -- but not commenting on the gossip -- are a good idea.
“I’ll tell you what. Let’s work on getting and staying sober right now, and then we can study our Traditions as soon as possible after things have calmed down a little.”
How Many Meetings?
A new member is not accustomed to attending an AA meeting everyday. This is a good example of the benefit of attending meetings together. Sooner or later some AA member will share about drinking again because he did not attend enough meetings. New members very often enjoy AA meetings at first only to taper off after a while with disastrous results. This dangerous habit will either result in a new commitment to meetings or permanent serious trouble. The following is AA humor about this problem.
“Gosh. Do I really have to go to all these meetings?”
“Well, I suppose you could go to fewer if that is what you want.” “How many less could I go to?” “I don’t know, but one idea is to just cut them down one each week until you get drunk. Then you will know that you cut out one too many.”
A sponsor should emphasize that meetings do many things for the AA member. One of the most amazing is that they keep him in good spirits.
Talking About Sobriety
As sponsors we realize that our discussions with sponsees can encompass all sorts of topics, sometimes squeezing out the topic of sobriety altogether. It is very worthwhile to make a point of talking about sobriety in every meeting. This means talking about his sobriety, your sobriety, sobriety in the Big Book or just sobriety in general. There are many parts to the AA program. Sobriety is the most important.
HALT: Coffee and Other Problems
AA coffee, no matter how bad, has been said to have a healing spiritual effect. Actually, many new members drink coffee with a vengeance, possibly looking for some of the effect they previously got from alcohol. Suggest moderation to your new sponsee. Too much AA coffee, while a wonderful change from too much liquor, can inflict a hard blow to a new member’s stomach, sleep or both. The best advice for a new member, unless you are a doctor, is to pay attention to get enough water. Dehydration coupled with too much coffee might begin to look like needing a drink.
As a sponsor you probably cannot know what your man’s diet was like before sobriety. Cookies and birthday cakes in meetings most likely never hurt anyone. However, a constant diet of coffee, sodas and fast food may actually be making sobriety more difficult. Of course you can boss and nag, but the correct time for this discussion is over dinner. Just cook a meal that demonstrates your point and invite him to dinner.
Suit Up and Show Up
There is an AA saying which may apply here. The abbreviation is “FYF,” and the saying is “F**ck Your Feelings!” In more common terms, if your sponsee doesn’t feel like going to a meeting, it is usually a great time to go. Same with 4th Steps. Same with 10th Steps. Same with giving someone a ride, a shower or a meal. In fact, the AA program is a miracle of design in this respect! When things get tough, just about any AA associated choice is a great choice. All the AA ideas of working with others, talking to another alcoholic or attending a meeting are great ideas no matter if “feelings” may be saying to do nothing. Every sincere energy applied to any part of the AA program will help. There is enough of the great AA program for every member to find a place for his participation no matter what his feelings might be.
We know what a dismal creature our alcoholic drinking made us and how much energy it took from us. When we apply the same energy to the AA program, miraculous possibilities are suddenly at the door. Even if your sponsee doubts if it is going to work, reassure him. Tell him to give it everything!
How much needs to be given? “Whole hog plus the postage!”
What Priority Sobriety?
As a sponsor it will be important to explain to a sponsee that everything else in an alcoholic’s life is a second priority to the importance of not drinking. Most sponsees buckle at this idea a little. After all, isn’t he in AA to save his job or his marriage? Help him to gradually understand that these things will flourish as never before when they are placed on the second shelf, after all, they are wonderful parts of life designed to be done sober.
Success in AA means placing “not taking a drink” into the first priority.
The Bored New Member
The bored alcoholic is in trouble. The old high life of drugs and drinking is past. The visitors have stopped coming by. The “Playpens” are closed and the “Playmates” are playing somewhere else and your sponsee is sliding into a state of continuous boredom. As a sponsor, there is always the “Let’s take a nice walk through the country and talk.” “Why don’t you help me rake leaves? We can talk.” “Why don’t we wash our cars? It would be a chance to talk.” Get the message?
All of this gives your sponsee a chance to see you sober, living by AA principles. While you are talking, it might be a good time to suggest that he take a little better care of himself. If he is bored, he needs to, of course, take action! In his sober life he needs to learn to be aware of something like boredom. Then he can either endure it or do something about it.
As a sponsor, you can make arrangements to take him to a new meeting or even a meeting in the next town. Some of your AA friends might make good company. Some of his AA friends would, too! A trip of a few miles can be an opportunity to have your own mini-meeting right in your car!
|