The opportunity to help another alcoholic work the Steps and live in the solution keeps me in the heart of what recovery is all about. It has helped me to feel a “part of”–something I had tried to do for years. But it turned out to be as simple as sharing my experience, strength, and hope with another drunk.
The Twelve Steps have the answers to all of the riddles life throws at me. Other drunks took the time to show me, not only by sharing their time and lives, but by living in the solution and dealing with whatever came along with faith and trust. This truly is attraction versus promotion. The “winners” worked the Steps and stayed involved in service–those were the people I wanted to hang out with; that is where I looked for a sponsor.
Today, I sponsor five women who are five reasons for my growth. I met four of these women in a Step meeting–the same meeting that laid the foundation of the Steps for me. I think that spending time at the same Step meeting listening to people share and getting to know them is the place to look for a sponsor. The Steps offer the solutions, and that was what I was looking to learn.
Spiritual fitness is required if I am to be of service to anyone. Without a connection to my Higher Power, I am the same old person with the same old defects, causing the same old pain in my life and others’. So often I have found myself at a complete loss of thought and words for a sponsee who is struggling with life, and then an intuitive thought comes to me and offers a new perspective for consideration. When I wonder where the thought came from, I feel the warmth in my heart, and I know that once again God has done for me what I can’t do myself.
As a sponsor, I neither expect nor desire to make decisions for people. I just ask some extra questions about motives, honesty, and spiritual contact. I was taught to make informed decisions and stand ready to accept responsibility for those decisions. I was also taught that Steps Six and Seven come into play when fear is running those decisions. This was a big factor for me when I first started sponsoring–fear that I would mess it up and harm someone as well as the fear that I wouldn’t know the “answers” and be viewed as a dope.
Thank God that today I have a clearer perspective on what my role as a sponsor is and isn’t. It is to stay sober, be available to listen, share my thoughts, pray for others, and let them live their own lives. It is not to “fix” anyone, get them sober, make them happy, demand they conform, or make their decisions.
My God has blessed me with some incredible role models in sponsors and friends. What a lesson in humility and gratitude sponsorship has given me. I have grown so much in this program and in life. The Promises have come so true in my life–all from cleaning house, trusting God, and working with others.