Interesting reading what an outside organisation thinks sponsorship is. The main job of a sponsor is to take the newcomer through the steps following the directions in the book.If sponsorship is about carrying the AA message, there can be no sponsorship relationship if the steps are left out.
Also, on step 5, it is the usual and wide spread practice to take step 5, which is much more than reading step 4, with an AA member. However this is not recommended in the AA program. Earlier publications predating the Big Book even went as far as to say that a 5th step should be taken with anyone other than an AA member. The reasons go beyond those mentioned in the brochure. The could include legal issues, the sponsor has no protection under the law if he hears something criminal he can become an accessory, and there is no training or direction given in the big book about how to hear a fifth step. Ministers of religion do have protection under the law, and are trained to hear step 5. This is very important as step five is such a vital step and a lot of damage can be done by a person who does not know what they are doing.
Incidentally, there is no such word as sponsee. Sponsorship in the beginning was a completely different thing. Ebby was Bill's sponsor. Ebby 12 stepped Bill and took him through the program. Bill was Bon's sponsor, 12 stepped him (or 6 stepped him to be exact) and took him through the steps that night. Then they went off to find others to sponsor. It used to be take the newcomer through the steps, get them connected to God, show them how to work with others, then find another newcome. The lifetime idea came later and in my humble opinion often does more harm than good.
On phoning your sponsor if you feel like a drink, it is probably true that of you phone you probably won't drink. It's a sane thing to do. But if the insanity of the first drink is on us, the last thing we want is to be talked out of it. That's what beyond human aid means. People who are in the grip of the obsession almost never ring their sponsor or anyone else.
Yeah....that's a "take what you want and leave the rest" kind of thing. I forgot about that brochure AA has. I don't agree about the "friends" part between sponsors and sponsees, at least for me. I don't want to have a "friendship' with my sponsor -- I don't want to get close friends with someone who may end up not wanting to sponsor me or I have to stop using as a sponsor. That way, two relationships don't end rather than one. That's just me, though, and I have heard others share about being best friends with their sponsors for years. Glad that is working for them.
Agree with you, Fyne Spirit about the moral inventory. I have decided anything I share with my sponsor from now on will be things I have already discussed with her and/or superficial things. After she had told me that anything I told her was confidential, and then she told me she shared one of my problems with a friend of hers, I do not feel comfortable discussing anything of a sensitive nature with her anymore.
Also agree with your last part. When I relapsed, I didn't pay any attention to "just call your sponsor or someone else in AA if you want to drink". I had been to hundreds of meetings and heard that over and over.
I didn't want to chat. I just wanted to drink....and there was nothing anyone could say to me to change my mind....unfortunately.
I didn't want to chat. I just wanted to drink....and there was nothing anyone could say to me to change my mind....unfortunately.
Same for me. However, once I got in the habit of calling people, especially my sponsor, everyday, whether I was feeling good, bad or indifferent, something changed. I am of course talking about the first few months before the steps got some traction. My behaviour though sober, was still extremely selfish through that time, and I frequently set my self up in conflict with my fellows and myself, though I could not see cause and effect. My sponsor was able to defuse this before it brought on the obsession, by lending me his reasoning power and helping me to see the link between my actions and my feelings.
This would be too big a burden for a sponsor to carry on a permanent basis, and too stressful for me too. However he was able to keep me on the beam long enough to get into the steps, and when the work began in earnest, those kinds of problems seemed to relent.
