Hello Assuieguy,
Welcome to the board. You raise an interesting subject here. Do alcoholics issues/feelings vary, according to thier sex or orientation, especially as they relate to relationships? Let me
share my experience from a hetero position. My first and greatest sponsor, that was in one of my first homegroups in '87, was an older gentleman who I was amazed by his profound remarks in meetings. I was without a sponsor and was looking. He probably had about 20 years sobriety and I thought about asking him but was too new and thought that maybe he would be a staunchy old timer and be too tough. He was a big guy, wore sweatshirts with the sleeves cut off and had a full beard and spoke very matter of factly. I continued to go to that homegroup for the next year and then that meeting ended. I floundered for another year trying to get sober, all the time thinking that if I'd asked John to be my sponsor that maybe I'd have gotten sober.

In '89, a sequence of events brought more willingness and desperation to me, and I decided that I'd ask John to be my sponsor, if I could find him. I looked around meetings in Alexandria for a couple weeks asking if any had seem him, no luck. Then I decided to pray that I might find him. Later that day, a friend in the program who lived in Vienna (40 miles from Alexandria) and asked me to meet him at meeting there. I showed up 10 minutes early, which was unusual for me, entered the room and there was John. I immediately thought of how my HP had craftully arranged this. John had moved to Vienna.

I asked him to sponsor me and we had a meeting outside the meeting afterward. He accepted and said "I hope that you don't have a problem with the fact that I'm Gay".
Well, I was taken off guard, I had no idea. I had already made my decision and wasn't going to let this get in the way. So I asked him how was that going to make any difference?
And I expressed my concern that he wouldn't be able to help me understand my troubled
Marriage that was possibly headed for divorce.

He went on to say, in great detail, that "we are all wired the same emotionally, whether we're men, women, gay or straight. We all feel the same when we get sober and we all feel/react the same in relationships. We have the same issues and our orientation has no bearing on those facts". I got that immediately. He later helped me tremendously with relationships and understanding my hangups with women. He told me that I treated women diffently then I treated men, and that was my problem. He said repeatedly "The only difference between men and women is minor differences in there plumbing".

I am a recovering Codependent also. I didn't know that at that time. I had a tendency to be
compliant (read doormat) in relationships. I had no boundaries and let my girl friends run all over me. John hammered me about that. He said that I should treat anyone that I'm dating just like one of my Guy friends. If they break a date, don't show, don't call, that I should let them have it. You know like "WTF! do that again and we all done!" I began to be assertive in relationships and immediately noticed that my boundaries were getting respected and so was I. He also taught me that most relationships were meant to end, and that I should look to end them as soon as there was a reason to. I could go on and on about what I learned from the man, but my point is that you could be passing up a lot of people that can teach you alot due to this conception of yours. I'm glad that I didn't let it get in the way, I might not have gotten sober.
John continued to be my sponsor, thru my diviorce and for the next 3 years, and would probably still be my sponsor in some compacity today if he hadn't died of lung cancer about 16 years ago. 

Dean


-- Edited by StPeteDean at 09:21, 2008-05-13

You should message cooncatbob.

I think he meets your criteria.

Good luck =)

Thanks all for the responses. Thanks esp. tp STPeteDean for your time too. Great stuff to think about for sure. StPete actually has stated what I have been thinking for the last 18 months. BUT, there are some 'issues' that I have had difficulty with. My sponsor has said, 'I don't understand gay relationships'. He is a fantastic sponsor, don't get me wrong. But the reason I have decided to post this message and have been a bit specific with my request is because when we come into AA, we are told to look for someone that has what you want. I'm yet to find that and I know it's out there. I've been taking bit of one persons sobriety, a bit from someone else etc. etc. So really, thats why I was hoping to get in touch with an older sober gay memeber that has been in a long term stable monogomous relationship. Its certainly not the be all and end all of my recovery, I just know it is a small part of my recovery that would really help my growth.
Now, change of subject, any newcomers to sobriety please take note, take one day at a time and life gets better. I heard that said so many times when I first started attending AA and I thought to myself,
"yeh yeh, maybe for you, but I have continually stuffed my life up no matter how hard I tried to get it right". Well, they are right, it does get better...just as long as you don't pick up the first one.

-- Edited by aussieguy at 03:30, 2008-05-14