need direction on sponsorship

Tanin · MIP Old Timer

need direction on sponsorship

sooze · Member

Hi, I am new and very alone in a new city. I have 47 days of sobriety. I am thinking and feeling with a lot less fog, and feeling lots of emotions and resentments that are hard to know how to deal with, but committed to not drinking a day at a time.

Here is what I need to run by people. I am on my 4th step with sponsor. I know I need AA and am in the right place with AA. My question for you all is: Yesterday I was in a major distress mode, crying and sobbing over a reactioin to something regarding my disabled son and those that have custodial care over him, I was upset and angry. My sponsor reacted as though I was too emotional and she could barely understand my voice mail. She actually told me "it does no good to talk about because that will just make your anger worse. Go home and write it down on your 4th step, that is what I do." and with that she basically shut the conversation down. I have found this has happened before with my sponsr. To be honest I began to resent her while speaking to her after she told me talking about things makes things worse, to write it down instead. I understand the writing part, but I feel uncomfortable about not being able to talk to her about things. Never in my life have I had someone tell me talkiing about things that bother me would make things worse. Please help if you can? I want to carry on with the steps but feel conflicted about this issue.

sooze · Member

Thanks Tanyn! I will check this out right now

sooze · Member

Hi, Tanin! Sorry, misspelled your name earlier. I read it and my answer is there in the link, "So we select an A.A. member with whom we can feel comfortable, someone with whom we can talk freely and confidentially, and we ask that person to be our sponsor..." plus a mention of there should not be a feeling of embarassment. I have felt embarassed and uncomfortable in each dealing where I am grappling with very unmanageable feelings. I have felt like I am bothering her and/or freaking her out. I know what to do now, although I wish it was not something I have to do. Onward to a sponsor I don't feel weird around. Thanks so very much.

Stepchild · MIP Old Timer

Welcome sooze...I think it very important that you find a sponsor that you can speak freely with...I know it was for me. And one that you will be doing your fifth step with....You have to be comfortable with them. I'd be honest with her why you are moving on and finding a new sponsor...And be honest with your new potential sponsor about your reason for finding a new one. I hope and pray you find one and have the kind of relationship I have with the one God blessed me with....This is a life saving journey...You want to be taking it with someone you trust...Glad you are here sooze...Be sure and read here and post often.

Pythonpappy · MIP Old Timer

Welcome Sooze, ...

The 4th step is for the past ... ... ... if you've got an issue that's right here, right now, then your sponsor should be helping you deal with it now, not later ... that's why we're here, to help guide you through the process, to teach you how to handle these type situations in the future ... to put it in writing may or may not help ...

I have two disabled sons and I would take exception to anyone not respecting them as anything other than a person not only needing help from others, but deserving of it ... ... ... ...

God Bless,

Pappy

Mr_David · MIP Old Timer

My suggestion, find a new sponsor. Someone you can talk to on a personal level, not just a name and face either. Basically, a person who can guide you through life's bitter turmoils. I hope this helps. Welcome to "MIP".

Tanin · MIP Old Timer

The sponsor-sponsee relationship is looked at through different lenses.

There are different models of sponsorship, some good, some bad, most OK.

Common positive attributes which I've noticed over the years are equality and open communication. If those are lacking, the relationship is largely negative over time, I feel.

The AA pamphlet, Questions and Answers On Sponsorship has some very good AA advice and information on selecting a sponsor. Check the thread:

Sponsorship Pamphlet

http://aa.activeboard.com/t50146639/sponsorship-pamphlet/

-- Edited by Tanin on Tuesday 7th of August 2012 07:48:17 AM

LinBabaAgo-go · Senior Member

My experience is when I was new I brought my day to day stuff to my support group, working my steps with my sponsor, leaning on any one person is doomed to failure, no human power could have relieved our alcoholism as it were

Seriously, my support group was invaluable for that stuff, my sponsor was invaluable in guiding me through the steps, sponsors aren't therapists, and if we aren't careful we tend to lean too hard on them when we are new, then we blame them, when the truth is their job is to guide us through the steps, not hold our hand

Stepchild · MIP Old Timer

LinBabaAgo-go wrote:
My experience is when I was new I brought my day to day stuff to my support group, working my steps with my sponsor, leaning on any one person is doomed to failure, no human power could have relieved our alcoholism as it were

Seriously, my support group was invaluable for that stuff, my sponsor was invaluable in guiding me through the steps, sponsors aren't therapists, and if we aren't careful we tend to lean too hard on them when we are new, then we blame them, when the truth is their job is to guide us through the steps, not hold our hand

I disagree...When I started in AA I didn't trust anyone....My sponsor gained my trust...When I was new I needed that....If I was told to add what I felt to my fourth step....I probably wouldn't have stuck around.

pinkchip · MIP Old Timer

My sponsor let me yap on and on and on and then would interject sometimes when I was wallowing in self-pity rather than any solution or when it had nothing to do with the steps. Of course there has to be a balance between supportive versus solution focused and step-focused. None of us are perfect - even sponsors.

sooze · Member

Thanks to all for your input. I very very much appreciate it and am thankful to carry on in this program which has been a gift to me over this short time, I will keep on with the work and guidance. Your input has been invaluable!
Sooze

LinBabaAgo-go · Senior Member

Stepchild wrote:
LinBabaAgo-go wrote:
My experience is when I was new I brought my day to day stuff to my support group, working my steps with my sponsor, leaning on any one person is doomed to failure, no human power could have relieved our alcoholism as it were

Seriously, my support group was invaluable for that stuff, my sponsor was invaluable in guiding me through the steps, sponsors aren't therapists, and if we aren't careful we tend to lean too hard on them when we are new, then we blame them, when the truth is their job is to guide us through the steps, not hold our hand
I disagree...When I started in AA I didn't trust anyone....My sponsor gained my trust...When I was new I needed that....If I was told to add what I felt to my fourth step....I probably wouldn't have stuck around.

It's not a matter of "disagree" or "agree" stepchild, it's a matter of 2 people having different experiences, I am speaking from experience of sponsoring people for twenty years, of getting many dozens of men through the steps and working them maybe a dozen times myself, I am speaking from the "school" of AA I attended where sponsors aren't therapists, and having dozens of friends with the same experience, and I am speaking from my experience of leaning on my support group, I am from the school of carrying the message not the alcoholic

Your experience differs, doesn't make it agree or disagree, it makes it two people who had differing experiences, after you sponsor a few dozen guys through the steps your experience may be different, I don't know, but it isn't about "right and wrong" it's about finding the people who are a good fit for -you-

What does the pamphlet say?

What did Clarence say about it? Being he's the guy who invented sponsorship as we know it. When my new guys come to me with all that **** there are some things I tell them to take to their support group, some things I tell them to go to a meeting, and some things I will listen and give my experience, but I learned long ago not to "co" my sponsees, it doesn't work, I am not their financial advisor, therapist or friend, I am their sponsor, I am there to teach them how to stay alive after I am gone, not to teach them to lean on me.

That's my experience, it's different then yours, it's not a matter of right or wrong or agree or disagree, when I had 13 months I had just gone and seen Joe and Charlie live and began my crusade to save AA from all the people "doing it wrong", I went every year to see them for a few years, they were great, but over the years I had to learn that I wasn't always right, and that I didn't know it all, especially at 13 months, that was an incredibly painful time for me, the terrible two's, and I've watched many of my sponsees got through it, thank God it passes

The truth is different people have different needs, I am not the best sponsor for everyone, and vice versa, some sponsees need structure, some need empathy, there are many paths up the mountain, there are some newcomers I will direct to someone else if I feel they will be a better fit, some I will direct to someone else if they need more time then I have, for me personally, I stick to the notion "no human power" could have relieved our alcoholism, sponsors are human powers and if we rely on one person too much, they will fail us because they are human too, it talks about that in step 4 of the 12 and 12, I teach sponsees NOT to rely on me or any one person but to rely on the Program and the process.

Your experience sponsoring others through the 12 steps may be different

-- Edited by LinBabaAgo-go on Tuesday 7th of August 2012 07:13:04 PM

Stepchild · MIP Old Timer

LinBabaAgo-go wrote:
My experience is when I was new I brought my day to day stuff to my support group,

Im sure experiences are going to be different for everybody...When I was new my sponsor told me not to share for the first 90 days. He cut that down to 30. I didn't have the option of taking my day to day stuff to the support group. I think for myself...It was better to deal with him and try and listen to learn in the meetings. I'm all for whatever works.

pinkchip · MIP Old Timer

Yeah - I went to a lot of different kinds of meetings. Many of them were newcomer's meetings designed for folks in early sobriety to go on and on about stuff :) So that is just what I did in those meetings. In other meetings I learned quick to shut up and listen to the oldtimers. As with sponsorship, I got a feel for when it might be okay to talk, whine, or whatever and when it was time to get down to business with steps. I choose a sponsor that was gentle but very knowledgeable about the steps. That is what I needed. Someone strong on listening and teaching. I hear some people saying "I need a sponsor who will kick my ass and call my on my BS!" Um, not for me. Especially in the beginning. I would have just cried like a biatch and played victim/martyr.

I have only sponsored 2 people so far so I am not at all in a place to tell anyone else how to do it. My biggest quandry is that I WOULD act like their therapist cuz I don't know how to turn that crap off sometimes. It's annoying. It would be important to use my own sponsor in learning how to sponsor others. I guess that's why you hear the saying "get a sponsor who has a sponsor."

LinBabaAgo-go · Senior Member

Stepchild wrote:
LinBabaAgo-go wrote:
My experience is when I was new I brought my day to day stuff to my support group,

Im sure experiences are going to be different for everybody...When I was new my sponsor told me not to share for the first 90 days. He cut that down to 30. I didn't have the option of taking my day to day stuff to the support group. I think for myself...It was better to deal with him and try and listen to learn in the meetings. I'm all for whatever works.

not "share at group level", share with your support group, we share the solution at group level, work the steps with a sponsor, and dump our stuff to our support group and learn how to be there for others with them

you were lucky, I wasn't supposed to share for a year, I snuck off to different meetings and did anyway...always got busted though

Stepchild · MIP Old Timer

I went to a different place for a meeting one day with a friend...There was a lady there that got sober in a really seedy part of Chicago....43 years. She said when she started she wasn't allowed to share her first 5 years....And she did it....That's unreal. I don't know....She was sober and happy.

LinBabaAgo-go · Senior Member

old school was a little different, back then the meetings followed the Traditions more closely, as in a meetings primary purpose was to carry it's message to the still suffering alcoholic, emphasis was on sharing "The Solution" not let the still suffering alcoholic "share" about "the problem" and hold the entire meeting hostage, I'd get dragged out mid share by my ear if I started sharing my vast wisdom when I had less then a year and get my ass chewed, no exaggeration. If you couldn't teach anybody how to get drunk, and you couldn't teach anybody how to get and stay sober you were asked why you felt qualified to share at a meeting of alcoholics anonymous. Rehabs changed that forever, actually old timers let it happen, and by the time they woke up, the change had already happened, thank God for guys like Joe and Charley.

By the time I was in my mid thirties, been around the Program and had grown brains enough to really appreciate the guy who used to do that to me, he had passed, he taught me soooo much and I never got a chance to thank him properly, I will always regret that, sometimes love is having your butt kicked, took me a long time to understand he did that because he liked me, and he saw potential, not to just be a grumpy old guy, that's the shame, by the time we are old enough to understand these old codgers we are one ourselves

43 years huh? seemed to work

Meetings aren't therapy and sponsors aren't therapists, therapists are therapists, and the best ones I ever met frankly did the same thing as the steps and a good sponsor, they didn't "should" and they didn't give advice, and they didn't tell me what to do, they used Socratic questioning until I uncovered my own answers, all this Program is ultimately is uncover, discover, and discard, that's what AA and The Tao have in common, in the pursuit of knowledge every day you learn something new, in the pursuit of serenity in AA and taoism every day something is discarded.

It's a beautiful thing, and one of the coolest things I ever learned was a lot of the supposedly "doing it wrong" guys, guys that chanted or burned their fourth steps or attached them to balloons, a lot of them were much happier and more well balanced then the "doin it right" guys, I spent a lot of years trying to get others to work the Program correctly, but the truth is anytime I am taking anyone else's inventory I am "doing it wrong", there is a deep irony there, how miserable I was running around trying to correct other people on how they did their program, what a waste of time.

Stepchild · MIP Old Timer

Yeah....43 years...She was a trip. She said everyday she did her maintenance steps...Steps 1, 2 and 3. Am I powerless over people places and things?...Am I sane or insane?....And who's running the show?...Me or Him.

My homegroup is near a homeless shelter so there is a steady flow of newcomers....These aren't street bums...Just people like you and I that lost it all. But you do have a lot of meeting time where you hear the mess....And not the message. You can only try and steer things back in the right direction.

Good share LinBabaAgo-go