Anne,

AA is a simple program.   I like your thoughts.  This patteren sure worked for me.

First I got to AA and got a sponsor.   Under his guidance I worked the steps
(ALL OF THE STEPS),  Then I sponsored someone and passed on what I had been taught by my Sponsor.

My Sponsee's are sponsoring.  The only thing better than being a Sponsor is being a Grand Sponsor.

Only thing I would add is my HP whom I choose to call God. Without God nothing would have worked.

Modifying just a little your thoughts results in a formula that worked for my sobriety.

                                                              GOD
Sobriety  =    -------------------------------------- 
                       Sponsor -->  Steps -->  Sponsees


By the grace of GOD and Alcoholics Anonymous I have not found it necessary to pick up a drink since July 12, 1976.   Using this formula resulted in NO SLIPS.

Larry,
----------------
Don't give me advice...
Tell me about your Experience and Strength...
It gives me hope...



-- Edited by Larry_H on Thursday 30th of September 2010 10:37:24 AM

I like that Larry. Good thing for me it is such a simple program. I agree that Steps and sponsorship are the meat and potatoes of our program. There are 4 guys in my home group (each with no less than 20 years sober) who have never sponsored anyone. I can't even imagine where I would be without the experiences shared with my sponsees, but not everyone is like that. I would hardly say sponsoring someone is necessary to stay sober though. There are some people that simply don't have what it takes to be good sponsors. I feel they have just as much of a chance of staying sober as I do. I've met some guys who shouldn't have ever sponsored anyone, and actually seen the two throwing them back at the bar...so sad. That's what I like about the program...everyone can work it differently and get the same results.

Brian

I agree, happycamper. AA has one message and one program. The idea that it's okay not to sponsor simply isn't realistic.

-- Step 12 says we TRIED to carry this message. The idea of a "good" or "bad" sponsor doesn't exist because we put God in charge in Step 3, and because we TRIED means we're not responsible for results. Quite honestly, I have a 100% success rate with my sponsees. I have stayed sober many years.

-- Page 89 of the Big Book says nothing will so much insure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics. Intensive work isn't making coffee or giving rides. It's one alcoholic sharing with another.

-- Page 89 also says this is an experience you must not miss. We know you will not want to miss it. Frequent contact with newcomers and with each other is the bright spot of our lives. A bright spot seems to me to mean the BEST PART of my life.

None of those sound to me like cafeteria sobriety. They sound to me like necessary components of staying sober according to those who have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. To show other alcoholics PRECISELY HOW THEY RECOVERED is the main purpose of the Big Book. "Precisely" is a pretty strong word. I think I'll follow the book as precisely as I possibly can.

Reffner wrote:

---

Anne Troy wrote:

---

 

I agree, happycamper. AA has one message and one program. The idea that it's okay not to sponsor simply isn't realistic.

-- Step 12 says we TRIED to carry this message. The idea of a "good" or "bad" sponsor doesn't exist because we put God in charge in Step 3, and because we TRIED means we're not responsible for results. Quite honestly, I have a 100% success rate with my sponsees. I have stayed sober many years.

-- Page 89 of the Big Book says nothing will so much insure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics. Intensive work isn't making coffee or giving rides. It's one alcoholic sharing with another.

-- Page 89 also says this is an experience you must not miss. We know you will not want to miss it. Frequent contact with newcomers and with each other is the bright spot of our lives. A bright spot seems to me to mean the BEST PART of my life.

None of those sound to me like cafeteria sobriety. They sound to me like necessary components of staying sober according to those who have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. To show other alcoholics PRECISELY HOW THEY RECOVERED is the main purpose of the Big Book. "Precisely" is a pretty strong word. I think I'll follow the book as precisely as I possibly can.

 

---

I believe everything you quoted from the BB can be accomplished at meetings.  I can carry the message and work with newcomers without taking them on as a sponsee.  According to what you posted it's not okay that those I know with long-term and QUALITY sobriety have never sponsored anyone.  Saying that we must sponsor others is simply too broad a term for me to accept.  The program of AA works differently for different people.  Thank God there are no "musts" or I would be screwed.

 

Brian

---

Regarding newcomers:

Do you think this is an opportunity that the treatment industry is supplanting?
Of the newcomers to AA, it is my current experience that they are familiar with what they have been told about the program of AA ("go to meetings and get a sponsor. Talk about your week". No steps, no God, and certainly no WORK).
Anything else isn't required of them, and isn't of much interest. After all they are sober.

For a while anyway.

The big book never mentions sponsorship (only the 12x12), and the description of helping a newcomer work the steps, and the idea of perpetual sponsorship are not exactly the same thing.

While working with newcomers is 12th step work does it then follow that all 12 step work is working with newcomers?  

If only working with newcomers, and working on the steps with them, and as it says in the BB working with their families, seeking out alcoholics and researching them via friends and families is the only legitimate 12 step work, what was Bill nattering on about in the 12x12 and "Comes of Age"?

 

Anne Troy wrote:

---

 

If only working with newcomers, and working on the steps with them, and as it says in the BB working with their families, seeking out alcoholics and researching them via friends and families is the only legitimate 12 step work, what was Bill nattering on about in the 12x12 and "Comes of Age"?


I don't know. I don't deal with either of those books. They're not the textbook that tells us precisely how they recovered. Nor did anyone deal with either of those books prior to 1952. So, just how DID they slack off between 39 and 52? Interesting question. LOL

~As Anne Sees It

-- Edited by Anne Troy on Saturday 2nd of October 2010 03:48:25 PM

________________________________________________________________________


Well I guess that I shouldn't sponsor anyone then, as I did the steps according to the  12 & 12.  Back in 80's  all the step meetings  used that book and I thought I was doing the right thing, apparently not.  And actually I've sponsored very few people and not because I wasn't available, it's just that I wasn't asked more than 3 times.  I imagine I wasn't paroting the Big Book well enough in meetings to impress the newcomers.   What a pity that I had so much time left over to enjoy my wife, family, business,  hobies, friends, vactions, managing my investment properties....  Life just kind of took over.  I'm really embarrassed sometimes that I had a life.

I was always genuinely  concerned, lol,  that I'd  lose my sobriety over "complacency" and not enough working with others,  but tooling along in my 3rd decade I might just make it.    My sponsor, who has about the same amount of time as I do, and I were laughing last month that  the "Old timers"  here in the west coast of  florida raised the bar to 25 years in thier "Old timers" meeting.  Apparently there's too many of us youngins (under 55 with over 20 years) and God forbid they'd might lose thier tenure. 

-- Edited by StPeteDean on Saturday 2nd of October 2010 06:47:55 PM