I've tried on a few different occassions to work with a temporary sponsor to go through the steps but for one reason or another it didn't go well. One was a lunatic AA nazi who I thought was an unstable nut. A few went back out shortly after they became my temporary sponsor. A few I treated poorly and they gave up on me. My question is do I really need someone else to take me through the steps? Can't I just do it on my own? Is there an online resource that can help me?
Yes, you do need a sponsor. You need on to check in with. You need one to call when you have cravings. If you would call your sponsor daily, you would cut your chance of relapse drastically. The danger of not working the steps with someone else who is knowledgeable is that you will sell yourself a bunch of bullcrap and think you did everything right when you might not have.
There are some programs that go through the steps in groups...a step group. You might be able to do that at a recovery center near you. I think your experiences with sponsors are indicative of how you were not ready for recovery at the time...If you are really ready Tipsy, the right sponsor will appear for you. Stop doubting the process. That is a reason for relapsing. Trust the process. Be willing... You are trying to find flaws in the program again.
Mark
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Keep coming back. It works if you work it. So work it. You're worth it!
pinkchip wrote:If you are really ready Tipsy, the right sponsor will appear for you. Stop doubting the process. That is a reason for relapsing. Trust the process. Be willing...
I think so. I had a sponsor who just bailed on me but before she got a bit flaky, I was well on track with the steps. I am actively looking for a new sponsor as I know what a great support it can be.
If the problems you are now having are because you have been doing the leading you need another leader(s). I was told I would never find real sobriety using the same brain I drank with. That sounded more reasonable than anything I came up with so I waited for a while longer and then found a sponsor willing to help me who I messed around with (not serious in my recovery) so then I bailed out and found another who was more suitable who passed away and then I got another who had what I wanted and who I decided to work with for a long time and then after he left I got another who was very good for me and had more perspectives and came with more tools and then I got another.....What's the point? I had a sponsor and it wasn't me.
What was I afraid of? mostly stuff that bounced around in my own head and thinking which had nothing to do with reality. God and a sponsor were powers greater than myself (when I allowed it) for which I could experience sanity at thing I could never achieve when I self sponsored.
I don't know aboout "Do we..." Your question for me is "Do I?" and the answer always has been yes.
Did you need someone to teach you how to drive a car? All I know is if I want to learn how to do something I don't know how to, I'm gonna ask someone who knows how to do it for help to learn. I was told that when a person uses themselves as a sponsor, they have a fool for a sponsor. Not only that, but Sponsor/sponsee stand an excellent chance of becoming drinking buddies sooner, rather than later. It's my opinion that trying to work the steps with a temporary sponsor is pointless. To me a temporary sponsor is just that...temporary. Find a sponsor who has the kind of sobriety you want and get to work. It works if you work it, but you HAVE to work it everyday in all your affairs.
Brian
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Nothing ever truly dies. The universe wastes nothing. Everything is simply, transformed. :confuse:
Can only say for me"self sponsorship" never worked.Hard to see myself coming, and if I did, I could rationalize it away..A sponsor helps us work the 12 steps by providing explanation,guidance and encouragement among other things...We all need another perspective on our lives, sponsorship provides that perspective and also builds humility. Even though the steps are only suggestive,how would they be worked alone? and they are the basis of our recovery.( E.G.hard to admit to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs sponsoring yourself)We never outgrow our need for a sponsor because the steps are worked over and over..We arent forced to do the steps and we dont have to work them unless we want to stay in recovery(recovered) By "working" the step we reach 1st stage of it ,understanding it ,and how you can directly be helped by your sponsor to understand the step and how it relates to you personally and to feel it "emotionally"(as important as the understanding of what it means)..2nd stage learning to apply it and change our behaviors according to the principles of the step., and apply the principles in our daily lives.. There are writings that tell us those who find sponsorship important get the most from the program...Jump in, listen closely for a sponsor and "go to work"" openmindedness,honesty and willingness will open the door to a life better than you have ever known!!
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Selfishness-self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles.
Hey Mcstagger, That's probably a question everyone of us has either voiced or thought about. The answer is, in AA, you dont need to do anything, and you can do it as long as you can stand it. If your a real alcoholic though, our experience has proven that this thing works when two alcoholics work with eachother. Just sayin...and its a buddhist proverb that say's " when the student is ready, the teacher appears " and its always come true for me, just sometimes I was too stubborn and rebellious to see it happen, so I missed it.
Oh ya, the temporary sponsor thing. Do you got a temporary disease?
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Since it cost a lot to win, and even more to loose, you and me gotta spend some time just wondering what to choose.
Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. We take the steps, we don't just read about, talk about, and study them. If I don't know "how" to take a step, why would I not ask someone who does? Thus, the beginning of the concept of sponsorship. Not a bad idea, sounds reasonable, why not try it?
the big book suggests we open ourselves up to God and another person and guess why? we can BS ourselves easily, but not God and it is about humility, which means someone else should be in on this process to help us get through it without BS....
Bill recovered alcoholic. Boy I remember taking my stand and picking and choosing what I was willing to do.when I first got sober. Getting a sponsor working any steps was not in my plans. I was a big pain in every ones ass. So I can laugh now because I see and hear me when I was new. So this is my experience. After 9 months I was at that turning place. And do you know what I learned I had to do ? I had to turn . ! And until such an understanding was accoplished. There was nothing and I mean nothing was gonna convince me. To do this . So go a head and try every thing else first that's what I did ! I have a sponsor it my third one .and he like all the ones before know every thing about me. They are willing and they showed me how to do this. I sponsor guys who sponsor guys who sponsor guys! I just got in the line and did what every one else was doing .and I don't worry about wheather or not I need a sponsor now. Why ? Because selfish and self centered has slipped away. I am one of about 200 men who have followed the path that I am on.it is my support group! I can call any one of them and get the solution for all my problems . And I know that I am wasting ten minutes on typing this crap out ! I did what I was gonna do. I suggest you do the same.
I recovered from a seami had to know I had it and I had to knowingly hopeless state of mind and body. How did I do that .? Well I had to catch it and I caught it in the rooms.
yes we can't solve "the problem" using the same thing that caused it in the first place (our thinking) the steps are a mathematical equation using socratic questioning that bring about a personality change sufficient to recover from alcoholism. it needn't be in the nature of a religious conversion although for many it is (and that's a good thing)
simply put it's a remapping of the brain where when you reach step 10 sanity has been restored since you will recoil from alcohol as if from a hot flame, which is what was missing before.
if you are agnostic or atheist PM me and i will get you through step 3 on the phone and online but you will have to get a face to face sponsor for 4~9
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it's not the change that's painful, it's the resistance to change that is painful
When I first decided I wanted to play saxophone, I was self taught but that's sort of misleading. I didn't initially have a saxophone teacher, but I had prior musical training both formal and self-exploratory. I also had the internet at my fingertips for advice so rather than having one single teacher (sponsor) I had a whole bunch of them, and it was up to me to sort them out.
After a few months on my own, I sought a teacher and the process took me through several referrals and phone calls. I ended up with someone I could work with, who didn't mind taking on an adult student who had prior musical training but was a saxophone novice, and who understood I wasn't trying to make a career of it but I did want to work at it to become a better player. 12 years later I'm still taking lessons from this teacher and we are good friends. I'm probably not the most "on fire" student he's ever had, but life has priorities. Saxophone is not number 1, but it has remained on the list and I want it to always be.
Sobriety is a much higher priority for me, and something I had no prior experience with. I didn't know how to "read the music" or even how to hold the horn, or whether to stick it in my mouth or in my ear. I just liked what I heard, and wanted to be part of it. So I got a sponsor - I know it was within the first 2 weeks, maybe even sooner. He was not a "nazi", which was good for me - but he was very active in AA and he got me involved very quickly in doing the grunt service work. It was a good fit for me at the time. I couldn't have dealt with someone screaming at me that I'm gonna die if I don't do what he says - just as I couldn't have dealt with a saxophone teacher that pushed me to either audition for the symphony or give it up.
I worked with that sponsor up through what I'd consider a half-assed step 4 and 5. I feel that I really didn't do those steps by the book until a couple years later when a workshop group I was with insisted I do it that way. It just sort of worked out like it was supposed to I guess.
For me, I've got 20 months now and I feel pretty good and I haven't gotten a sponsor yet. I'm not opposed to the idea by any means, but I just don't think I've found the right person yet (I did have a temporary one for a short while).
The fact that you've tried several times and it hasn't worked out makes me wonder how you are picking them and maybe if you need to find someone with a lot longer sobriety to try.
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Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and unto God that which is God's.
Hey Tipsy, I was looking for this earlier, it was something I wrote awhile bck about the necessity of someone taking you through the steps
LinBaba wrote: My sponsor also told me I had to do the steps and be fearless and thorough
I said I don't want to do the steps, why should I do the steps?
To stay sober he said, we went round and round, finally I did steps 4 and moved into 5 just to prove him wrong
My sponsor and I had seemed to have differing ideas about what was wrong with me, I thought my problems were caused by other people and the fact I drank too much, he seemed to think my problems were I had a pathological inability to tell the truth to myself therefore others and I couldn't find my ass with 2 hands and a map and I was so monumentally self centered it bordered on delusional insanity
So to prove him wrong and to make the idiot happy I wrote down my entire life history, listing my resentments, my entire relationship history, all my fears, and we were going over them....he would use homilies, and cliches...."you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs....hell hath no fury....the road to hell is paved with good intentions...."
I was like why do I have tell this guy my whole life story just to listen to him spout cliche's?
so after we had gone over it he says,
"hmm...so you never got your parents approval, if you got an A they asked it wasn't an A+?"
yeah...so?"
your parents belittled your achievements, so now even as an adult you are still trying to win their approval
uh huh
"so you also seem to have trouble saying No to people, you say no 2-3 times and then you say yes"
yeah...so what?
So you are afraid people won't like you and that's why you say yes? Even though you have more friends then you can count
ummm...yeah
You tell how incredible hard you work, you work 2 jobs and long hours, you work longer and harder then those around you, you then end up angry at because they aren't "pulling their weight"
yeah...so?
it shows here, after we did your relationship history, that you checked off the same behaviors in every relationship, how you were frightened, selfish, dishonest, manipulative, how if we talk about each relationship one at a time you have this great "story" about how it was the other person who was to blame, but when you write them all down in a column it's the same relationship over and over and over...you are the common denominator reliving the same relationships over and over.....
oooh, ouch...OK, yeah?
So what kind of person are we describing here?
what? my mind went blank...
what kind of person seeks approval from those around him, feels the need to lie to his girlfriends to protect himself, and no matter how much he does feels it's "never enough, what kind of person is a perfectionist at work and works harder then everyone else around him"
....umm...drawing a blank here.....
finally he said aren't you describing an insecure, fear based, self centered person with low self esteem who is destructive to everyone he comes into contact with? That can't seem to fit in anywhere he goes, he either has to struggle to the top of the heap or hide underneath it, who relives the same relationships he had with his parents over and over, trying to win approval by working harder then those around him because he has low self esteeem......Lets look at your list....
There it was, in black and white, staring back at me in my own handwriting, lifelong patterns that had started in my childhood, the picture of a train wreck so wrapped up in himself that he couldn't see how his actions impacted those around him, a fear based man that was the author of every one of his own miseries, caused every one of his problems, and all my resentments were the direct result of some action on my part, some decision based on self that placed me in a position to be hurt
Someone who didn't think the rules applied to him because he was terminally unique
Me? Mr sleep with all the ladies and popular with all the guys? Mr Popular? scared? a liar? insecure? the author of ALL my own miseries? THAT'S why he used all those cliches, to show me I WASN'T different, that I was just like everyone else, that the rules DID apply to me, that I was no beautiful and unique snowflake, my sponsor was trying to show me that there was a lot of rules that had been around for a long time and that they probably wouldn't make an exception for me, I kept thinking life was going to turn out the way I wanted it to turn out, and I was wrong
Me doing the steps ripped away my denial and showed me how to take responsibility for my life and my decisions, I didn't have to be the helpless victim any more, the terminally unique snowflake that no one understood....steps four through Nine gave me POWER
The Power to take my life back from the ravages of my own delusions and fears...
Want a shitty life?
Do a shitty, incomplete walk through on the steps
Want a life free of fear, delusion, uniqueness (the kind that keeps you isolated) resentment, victimhood and unhappiness?
Do the steps, and do your own, I can't get self fulfillment taking YOUR inventory and applying them to me, I had to do my OWN inventory, so I could see ME looking back from every page in my own handwriting, selfish, self centered to such a delusional degree I didn't even see it, I had a complete and utter inability to see myself as I saw others so clearly
We beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start, we beg you because it's important, otherwise 'as long as we hang on to our old ideas the result was nil"
It comes down to, if I don't do the steps thoroughly basically one of 3 things is going in my mouth
A drink, a pill, or a gun
up to you what quality of life you want, I realize you are a beautiful and unique snowflake that no one else could possibly understand, I too was like that when I got here, a child that had a machine gun and a pistol at the age of ten that knew before we went in where to stand during drug deals with a pistol hidden in my pants, I knew who to kill if my father looked at me and nodded (look for the large man who didn't say anything who's eyes never stopped moving, don't stand behind him or he'll get suspicious, stand off to the side so I won't be noticed), if dad nodded shoot him and then the man who my father wasn't taking to, the child that had been molested by strangers, the child who grew up living on boats, I was certain no one could understand...
turns out I met other people who had childhoods that made mine pale in comparison, people who had been raped repeatedly by fathers, uncles and brothers, who had tragedies beyond my comprehension....
I was wrong about being a beautiful and unique snowflake that no one could understand, you might be too, you got nothing to lose except your present delusions, unhappiness, and the evidence that you can't live life without AA, which is why you washed up in AA, try it the way it's suggested, you can always go back to living the way you were living, having the feelings you were feeling if it doesn't work out, no one is forcing you to stay, we are only telling you what works, don't do the work, don't be surprised if you don't get any results, and you just end up sober and miserable instead of drunk and miserable
-- Edited by LinBaba on Wednesday 9th of February 2011 07:52:15 PM
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it's not the change that's painful, it's the resistance to change that is painful
Get a sponsor, if nothing else it will teach you tolerance in working with someone. Like you say, a sponsor can only guide you and help walk you through, if you have trouble dealing with them, just listen then go do the work.
I might get flamed for saying this, but I think too much importance is placed on a sponsor's role in a new person working the steps. You have to do the work.
1-3 are beliefs you need to be convinced of. Then we get into action.
Get the Hazelden "Little Red book" and follow the instructions 100 percent, bounce things off your sponsor get a home-group and get active/phone #s.
Either you do the work and believe in the program or you don't. If you don't, the alcoholic mind is not replaced with one that will insure sobriety and you will probably drink again.
Good to see you back!
Hope this helps
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Rob
"There ain't no Coupe DeVille hiding in the bottom of a Cracker Jack Box."
Tipsy, Tipsy, Tipsy you show up about every 6 months and you're always looking for the easier softer way. Have you crapped your pants lately when you were drunk? LOL. I'm starting to really wonder if your even a Alcoholic or just some Troll who likes to travel the internet stirring up shit. I've been a member here since 05 and you were bouncing in and out back then. If you are a real Alcoholic and not just some Troll you ought to consider working a real AA program the way it's written in the book and not Tipsy's program, BTW how's that working for you? You got a real long term sobriety?
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Work like you don't need the money
Love like you've never been hurt, and
dance like no one is watching.
In typical McStagger fashion, lots of replies to a provocative thread. Just the title of this thread tells me that you've probably got some more drinking to do yet.
He rattles the cage, then makes 1 reply, then duck out to watch the show. When I was 16 we'd get drunk and make spoof calls to the AA hotline in the middle of the night, little did I know that 25+ years later I'd be on the other end of the line. Tipsy: If your ever ready for AA AA will be there for you, until then Godspeed.
StPeteDean wrote:
In typical McStagger fashion, lots of replies to a provocative thread. Just the title of this thread tells me that you've probably got some more drinking to do yet.
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Work like you don't need the money
Love like you've never been hurt, and
dance like no one is watching.
Hey Tip!! Good to hear that youre still breathin. :) My thoughts? To each their own..as long as it moves us forward..instead of backward:) Keep on truckin bud!!
