Comments on: The Art of Sponsorship: beyond the basics

By: AneetaGoodSponsor

AneetaGoodSponsor — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 20:29:36 +0000

So, I relapsed…first technically, then I was all in. So, my sponsor dumped me last night…well, technically. I guess. I don’t know. She’s angry and says that she does not hear in my voice that I am “serious”. WTF

I have been in for almost four months. I’ve taken hers and her sponsor’s suggestions and acted on them to the best of my ability. I don’t have a car and no cash. She started talking me to 3 meetings a week of her own volition last summer. Not only did I NEVER ask her to do this, I mentioned several times that we should cut back the number of days that she picks me up for meetings. Why? I was uncomfortable with it from the start. Now, four months in she’s says she is “enabling” me. Popular word, but I do not feel she really knows what it means.

Don’t you just hate when you do not even ask someone to do something, they do it and then come back and kick you in the ass for it later?

Honestly, I know I should have called her and never bought that fucking vodka. My technical relapse though awakened something in me and I just could not stop myself. It was like I was possessed.

So, last night after chewing me a new one and telling me all the things she has obviously held against me for months, she goes, “It is going to be even HARDER for you now! Your disease is FULLY reactivated.”

Then she goes, “Don’t call me until after you’ve been sober for 30 days!”

It felt like being kicked in the stomach by a mad cow.

I know that I was wrong rush thru buying the vodka and drinking it without calling her. I knew what I was supposed to do. I just couldn’t. I do not understand why. She says it’s due to my ego. Maybe she’s right.

But I do not agree that I deserve to be hurt this way. I am physically ill and now thanks to her emotionally hurting. GREAT! So glad I let people talk me into participating with this . . .

I have learned invaluable lessons though. Met wonderful people and actually went 4 months without drinking…

I have not drank today.

I hope I make it back.

By: peaceisthegoal

peaceisthegoal — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 06:47:40 +0000

The whole people pleasing, afraid of confrontation thing? Yeah, thats me… One day I missed my exit because I was thinking about all the things my sponsee was NOT doing… like NOT calling me, wondering if shes been to a meeting this week, did she get into a relationship with that new guy she met after I told her about the collective conscious around the rooms ” no new relations for the first year… after all shes only got a few weeks back from a relapse… etc., etc., etc., this kind of thinking caused me to miss my exit on the freeway… I feel I want to fire her, because its effecting me… however feel that everybody deserves a chance to get well… maybe she needs more love and tolerance? Any suggestions?

By: Tiffany

Tiffany — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 20:46:30 +0000

Thank you so much. I have been sober and in AA for a little over 2 months. My first experience with a sponsor has been brutal. I have had to research online to determine where it wrong and was it me or her. But let me just say that the trust I put in her was great. I had much hope that she would be a good guide and help me when I had concerns. Instead, she “fired” me for being sick and missing a meeting. I didn’t see it coming, so I was tremendously hurt. I realize now from reading the Big Book Ch. 7 and from seeing what AA says about sponsorship that she has the wrong idea of what sponsorship is all about. I agree with most of what you say in this article. However, I don’t understand when a sponsor would ever need to hold a sponsee accountable with negative feedback. The book says we should be gentle and let the man know that we doubt if we could have maintained our sobriety had we not gone through step 9. That is about the harshest it gets. If it gets any harsher, we are to let him go….(Not verbally, but just throw ourselves into someone else.) FIRING a sponsee is a rejection and could cause many people to drink again or worse. Especially when you trust your sponsor. I think ever expecting anything from a sponsee is wrong. The book says nothing about what we are to expect. It just says if they make a mistake, we thank God that they helped us more than we helped them. Unless you can show me something in the book that relates to sponsors planning out actual actions for the sponsee, I have to respectfully disagree with just that part. The rest I do agree and I like the counselor-style approach. These are methods we use in my field (Rehabilitation Studies/Counseling) and I do agree with them. They work. =) I can’t imagine my own paid therapist firing me for missing ONE appt. due to illness. Much less my AA sponsor. Kind of turned me off to AA. I’m still considering and praying about what to do, but it may end up doing something to take better care of myself instead of risking being hurt again in a negative environment. (I have seen more negative in AA than positive.)

I guess it helps to mention that I live an hour from where my sponsor does and where my meetings were. She wanted me to drive past all that twice a week to help others. She never met my children, came to my home, or even met me halfway between our homes. Something had to give eventually I’m sure. I thank God I found out now. God is great! She (since she was experienced and I had never cracked the BB open) should have told me right away that I should probably consider finding a sponsor in my area and work w/ others in my area. Or even better, offered to come up to me like the book suggests and take me to a few meetings to help me find one while working some of the steps with me. I would have been less likely to “get in trouble” with my sponsor, although I don’t believe ANYONE should get in trouble w/ their sponsor. That implies one is in authority over the other….and that is not what AA is supposed to be about.

AA reminds me of church, but worse. There are a lot of churches out there that are NOT right for you. You keep looking until you find the one that is. OR, get what you need elsewhere. =)

Thank you for posting all this. It is helpful!!!

By: Daisy

Daisy — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 23:10:48 +0000

Thank you so much for this article. It appeared at exactly the right moment. I have an AA sponsor who has been so helpful. However, when my son died this past summer, she has become manipulative – acting more like my (demented)therapist than my AA sponsor. She wants me to ‘get to my feelings’. Good Lord but I’m grieving and grieving the most painful loss within my life – and soberly. Trust me, I’m feeling. For 6 years this February, I have been given a daily reprieve from drinking through the grace of God and by practicing the 12 steps of AA and by carrying the practice of the principles of the 12 steps into all my affairs .. including my God given grief. When I let my sponsor know that she’s stepping on my feet and I want her off my feet, she claims that I’m holding a resentment!The fear I have is that she’ll drop me as a helpful sponsor. The reality is that she is no longer helpful, in fact, she’s become harmful. I can take my own inventory and am willing and able to share that w/my sponsor (as long as my sponsor is healthy). I know it’s not my sponsor’s job to take my inventory and I’m not going to harm myself any further by allowing her to do so. Thank you so much for providing me the space in which to think this through. I already have a therapist ; I do not need my AA sponsor to become my therapist. Again, thank you for your article. It has been very helpful.