I’m grateful for a field trip. I’m grateful for seeing all the way back and for rediscovering what was there. I’m grateful for the people who help me see things. I’m grateful for patience and caring and support and friendship. I’m grateful its Friday. I’m grateful for the chance to work with other alcoholics. I’m grateful to be sober today.
song of the week:
I’m going to be honest, there was another song that I was going to put here, but then decided the time was not yet right for that one, and this song, which I do listen to quite a bit, popped into my head. Isn’t there something about what happens when you clear away attachments to the wrong things? It makes space for the “right things” to arrive.1 Well, this song arrived. I went to find the YouTube video and then I knew it was indeed, the “right thing.”
I’m going to strongly urge you to click on the link and watch the video, but only if you’d like to see Lionel Richie AND the Commodores playing soccer in circa 1981 kit. As you might expect, romance blossoms on the pitch, and oddly, the main squeeze and goalie makes an amazing save wearing what looks like a very itchy sweater. By romance, I mean the kind of stuff that used to break out on Hai Karate ads.2
But, as is often the case here on Friday mornings, it’s a bit of a bank shot. This is not meant to get me talking about the great Paul Pierce, saying, “I didn’t call bank, I called ‘Game,” this is meant to introduce the greatest hit by the Commodores, “Easy.” I go through cycles on that song, I listen to it occasionally, but definitely have to be in the right mood.
Listening to “Easy” reminds me of the end of the very fantastic play, “The Motherfucker with the Hat.” It’s about an alcoholic making his way back, of course, with the help of a wise and tough sponsor, but then there’s a very dark betrayal. It’s a play after all, it’s supposed to have some drama, but it’s not a bad take on the whole alcoholism thing. I saw it in DC many years ago, very early on in the sobriety campaign, and “Easy” is the song that plays right after the shattering end.
I remember sitting in the theater and just getting chills at the combination of the song and what had just happened. At the time, I thought it was very dark irony, now I realize that it was an expression of sobriety, maybe even serenity. So, at the very end of the play, you do realize the Sponsor has done something pretty heinous, definitely outside the lines of the Sponsee/Sponsor relationship, but that gets me thinking about what might actually be the lines of the Sponsee/Sponsor relationship?
Like so much else in AA, there aren’t really rules to go on. There are no real qualifications or standards for being a Sponsor, and I think that can be a problem. First, what even is the job of being a Sponsor? I think it is this: Guiding someone else through the Big Book and helping them work the Steps. Beyond that, it’s finding other ways to work together to nurture and grow sobriety, becoming a friend, a resource and someone who can be counted upon to provide straight advice. I think that’s a Sponsor. But if you’re not reading the Book and working the Steps, maybe it’s more a “friend zone” thing.
I get very nervous working with Sponsees because I realize I have no professional training or specialized knowledge. I think it’s important to remember that all I bring to the table is my experience as another alcoholic—I’m not a super alcoholic sent in to rescue the more hapless ones. I think it’s important to remember that I’m someone who has made a lot of questionable and dubious decisions, I’m very reluctant to tell people what they should be doing with any degree of certainty. I think part of humility is understanding the limitations about what I actually know—do I really know enough to boss Sponsees around? Does that seem humble?
Again, I think it’s important to remember who I am as the Sponsor. I’m simply another alcoholic, with a little more sobriety and time in the Program. I think my job is to show someone the ropes, share what worked for me and what didn’t. I’m not there to make important decisions in my Sponsee’s lives. I’m not there to tell them which meetings they should attend. I’m not there to threaten to cut them off if they don’t follow my rules. I’m there to listen, to help, to share, to work together to deepen and strengthen our collective sobriety. Whatever I think I should be doing as a Sponsor has to be bounded by the 3rd Tradition:
The only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking.
Anyone who thinks being someone’s sponsor gives them the right to add extra qualifications or requirements to the Third Tradition, maybe some remedial Big Book reading is in order. Also, what’s with the huge class size? I once had a Sponsor who literally had more than 20 Sponsees. He dispensed wisdom via group chat in the morning, sponsored golf outings at his club on a pretty regular basis and insisted that everyone go to dinner and attend this meeting he chaired on Tuesday nights in McLean. What never happened? We never read or discussed the Big Book, we didn’t actually do any work on the Steps. I, personally, didn’t stay sober.
The Big Book says faith without works is dead, I take that to mean that simply talking about sobriety or the ups and downs of my life with a sponsor or a sponsee is not the same as working the steps, finding ways to broaden and deepen our spiritual experience. It’s a lot of work taking one person through the Steps, thinking about the homework, reading and assessing the homework, talking about the homework. But there’s no substitute, and, in my experience, if the Sponsor is not pushing the Step work, the Step work probably falls by the wayside.
Last, anyone who really wants to be a Sponsor, should, in my view, carefully read “Working with Others,” and think through their own motivations in wanting a Sponsee. Is it for ego, bragging rights, the prospect of moving up the alcoholic social scale? Nothing says you’ve arrived in sobriety like having a gaggle of sponsees! 3 I think this is one of the prime dangers of the AA non-system of sponsorship, people can become sponsors for the wrong reasons and are not equipped or interested in teaching the Big Book and aren’t willing to really put in the work necessary to help someone really develop a Program.
I had a Sponsee, smart, funny, fighting a pretty serious alcohol/crack thing. He did the work, lived in a sober house and was closing in on one year of sobriety. We were talking one evening and he was telling me how excited he was about going to a meeting, because now that it was was his anniversary month, he could raise his hand when the person running the meeting asked for a show of hands of people willing and able to be Sponsors. I tried to suggest that he slow his roll on the Sponsor thing, let it come to him naturally, see that his sobriety was on solid footing before inviting someone else to come share it. But he was in a hurry and had good reason to be, he relapsed four days after his One Year Anniversary and hasn’t been back.
That’s obviously not because he raised his hand at a meeting. But it did have something to do with the attitude. The old alcoholic brain saying that more and faster is always better, even on the topic of Sponsees. One of the most important teachings of the Big Book is that our oversized alcoholic ego is the cause of many of our problems, including our drinking. Bill W. declared that it is the real aim of AA and sobriety to destroy, maybe even kill, the alcoholic ego. I think it’s way too easy for that very versatile and eager alcoholic ego to find purchase, sustenance and self-importance in the Sponsor-Sponsee relationship.
I’ve learned almost all of the most important lessons about sobriety from my work with Sponsors, I don’t think it would have been possible for me to get and stay sober without the loving people who taught me the Big Book and showed me how I could be saved, too. Every time I spend time with my Sponsees, I come away feeling like I’m getting all of the benefit out of the deal. My first Sponsor here in NY always used to deflect my thank yous, saying,
It’s the other way around, you’re keeping me sober.
The Sponsor/Sponsee relationship is a mystical, beautiful, powerful thing, it’s a relationship that can transform multiple lives, and at the deepest level. It’s a lifeline for people who thought they were beyond care or hope. It’s emblematic of the helping and open hand of AA. It’s at the core of the program and it needs to be approached with seriousness, care, thought and purpose.
Sponsorship is what props the door open, and beckons someone warmly inside. A Sponsor is someone who has done what you’re trying to do and all they want is to show you what worked for them. I think sponsoring alcoholics is, in part, an effort to repay the tremendous debt I owe for my own sobriety and the only accepted form of repayment is helping someone else reclaim their life. The important part of sponsorship is not casually mentioning the large number of people you help in conversation, it’s not taking credit for their sobriety or even telling them what to do. It’s simply the privilege of walking next to them as they do one of the hardest things there is to do: Getting sober and getting their life back.
There’s a beautiful story people tell in AA. Someone is in this dark cave, searching for a way out. They’ve been searching for a while and they’re starting to lose heart. They notice a faint light in the distance and walk towards it. As they approach, they see it’s a person standing there in the dark, holding a flashlight. The lost person expresses great relief at finding someone else, and a desire to get out of the cave. The person with the flashlight, says “I’ve been waiting for you, ” and shines the light on the path out, “it’s right over there.” But then she hands the flashlight to the lost person, “Here, you’ll need this, you need to wait here, so you can show the next person the way out.”
That’s sponsorship.
Please note, and this is important, it took me quite awhile to “accept” the idea that I was no longer in charge of determining what those “right things” were—the ones that kept needing to happen.
A cologne that required instruction in self-defense. Oh, to be in that phone booth as it’s lifted away. “Wait! Where are we going?”
What is a group of sponsees called?