use boasting about one’s great plans for the future years while attempting to show the virtue of the twenty-four-hour program.
No use for the sponsor to describe the beauties of contented sobriety to the newcomer while he, the sponsor, is on a “dry drunk.”
Example is man’s most powerful force for good or evil. To me, the debts hardest to repay are to those I harmed by bad example, and thus do I believe that my greatest responsibility to those whom God has given me the grace to sponsor, and to AA as a whole, is the good example I can give by practicing the principles of the Twelve Steps in all my affairs.
G. K.
Kirkland Lake, Ontario
A Sponsor Is … (Excerpt)
August 1985
The kind of question I like to hear from a newcomer is “What’s a sponsor?” It shows he’s been listening, and I am happy to respond. Secretly, I hope he thinks he already knows the answer and is introducing the subject in order to find out if I am willing to become his sponsor.
My own sponsor has a good way of putting things. His definition: “A person whose opinions you have learned to trust; someone whose advice you know you are going to follow before you get there to state the problem.”
It was a twelfth-stepper, rather than a sponsor, who first brought me to AA, from a psycho unit. I didn’t consider myself “one of those alcoholics.” Even if I was, I was certainly too intelligent to need a sponsor. Besides, I had no intention of continuing with AA; I was only checking it out to keep my psychiatrist happy. I had discovered that happiness on a psycho unit is having a happy psychiatrist.
I didn’t ask anyone to be my sponsor until the men’s stag group got after me for thinking myself too highbrow to need one. Since then, I have had absolutely fabulous experiences both in having a sponsor and in being a sponsor to others. I’m not sure which has been of greater value and have no intention of giving up either.
Who should have a sponsor? Our group thinks everyone should. Since we are all equal, how could it be otherwise? Obviously, persons new to the program need more frequent contact with their sponsors than those with years of happy sobriety, but we all need a confidant.
Since the Big Book doesn’t have a chapter on sponsorship etiquette, we just pick up ideas as we go along. The most important considerations about a sponsor are: to have one, to use one, and when asked, to agree to be one.
There isn’t any single “right” answer to the question “What’s a sponsor?” But an entirely appropriate answer to the question “Will you be my sponsor?” is “Sure! Let’s have some coffee and talk about it.”
P. O.
Claremont, California
Sponsorship (Excerpt)
February 1955
All of us are acquainted with individuals who measure their success in AA by the number of people they have sponsored who “make” the program. Some consider it a failure on their part when someone they have contacted or sponsored fails to remain sober. As far as my own success or failure on this program is concerned, it makes little difference whether my “baby” makes the program or not. Naturally I like to see him make it for his own good, but the important thing, for me, is that I have tried. I have tried to “carry the message” and tried to give what has been given to me.
It is very possible that I might not be the most suitable person to sponsor a particular new member. I might be unsuited by my personality, by my education (or lack of education) or by my profession. For the same reasons I might be just the one to sponsor someone else. It is my belief that the more we have in common with a prospective member the more help we can be as a sponsor.
Because of the very nature of an alcoholic, the approach used to convince one individual that AA is the solution to his problem will not necessarily work for another prospect. Many members use the same approach on all prospective new members whom they contact, when actually we should pattern our methods to suit the personality of the individual with whom we are working.
R. L. O.
Lawton, Oklahoma
Closed Meeting
July 1961
“If you travel in a foreign land,” said one of our older members, “you need a map and a guide. For us, in the new land of sober living, the program is our map and a sponsor is our guide. Our sponsor can help us to understand and to work the program, and is the desirable person with whom to do the Fifth Step when we are ready for it.”
ANONYMOUS
New York City, New York
My Sponsor, My Friend
August 1982
When I came into AA, I was told to get a sponsor. The word itself confused me, but I began looking. At a meeting one night, I heard a girl talking. She sounded so nice and her story sounded so much like mine that right away I asked her to be my sponsor.
As time went by, we became very close friends, but I did not feel that she was helping me. I really loved her as a friend, but she always seemed to want to control me and my life, when I only wanted advice. Whenever we were together and she asked what Step I was on or brought up anything that had to do with AA, I changed the subject. I guess you could say I ran. This went on for many months, and I kept thinking, Well, I have to get a different sponsor.
One night, I was going to tell her that I would have to let her go. You know what the outcome of our talk was? We became closer than we had ever been, as sponsor and sponsee. I found out why I had felt she was not the right sponsor for me. It was not her so much as it was me.
I had built a wall between us that I could not break through. I realized we had seemed to be growing away from each other because I was not letting her see me. How am I supposed to get help from any sponsor if I do not let her see who I am and where I am at? I was afraid that if I let her see me, I would be judged, and I didn’t want that—I wanted everyone to believe I was well. I wanted to be where everyone else in the program was, rather where I was. That night, I opened up and let her know that I was not where I pretended to be.
I am sick, but I am getting better slowly. I now feel that I can talk to my sponsor, not from my mouth, but from my heart. It does hurt to let people know that you’re not as well as you want to be, but I want to get better. Running from where I am is not going to get me better. So I am working today with the help of my sponsor.
S. D.
Chicago, Illinois
More Questions Than Answers
March 1989
Last night at one of my favorite meetings, a friend pulled me aside to ask for some help with a newcomer she was sponsoring. She needed to talk, and I needed to hear myself say, “What do you or I or anyone know about sponsorship anyway?” even though I have spent hours, days, months, and years working with newcomers in the Fellowship.
Sponsorship
