WEEK 16 - STEP 12 (SPONSORS)
This week we are considering Step 12: Having had a spiritual awakening as the result
of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practise these principles
in all our affairs
. The reading from the Big Book is the chapter Working With Others, which
is the vital guide for the traditional "12th step" work: working with the alcoholic before they
get to a meeting.
This week we will focus on one particular aspect of working with others that happens at
group level:
SPONSORSHIP.
A key part of service to the still suffering alcoholic is guiding him or her through the
steps - sponsorship. Clearly we need to have experience of the steps we are taking people
through. Beyond that, some suggestions made to us at the outset that were helpful:
We were told to read, if we can, AA Comes of Age. This book contains a lot of the
background to the early days of the fellowship and will give us a feel for how the oldtimers
approached sponsorship.
We were told to be ready for rejection from sponsees and to try not to take it personally.
For a sponsor/sponsee relationship to work, both parties need to go into it willingly, which
means that at any point either may decide to end it. However unwise we may think it is, and
however surprised we may be that someone does not want our help, the sponsee is free to
reject it and to get another sponsor or even to decide not to have one at all. Some may decide
that they don't like you, and others that they are not ready to put the work in once they
discover what is required (even though, of course, in reality, doing the Steps is the easier,
softer way). So all who sponsor should be ready for a sense of rejection.
When it occurs, we remind ourselves that the reason we sponsor is to stay sober
ourselves: if that help isn't wanted, there are other people who might want it and even if no
one else wants our help directly, there are other sorts of service. Also, on occasion, the
sponsee can resent the sponsor for the suggestions made: blaming the messenger for the AA
message. Then it can lead to acrimony and we should take care to try not to let bad feeling
lead to gossip, whatever the other person may be doing. Of course all of this is dealt with
through the programme, by taking our inventory for example and looking honestly at our part
in what has happened. But it is just as well to be aware of what might happen before entering
into it.
In taking an individual through the steps the sponsor is showing the alcoholic how to
rely on a Higher Power. We show them, in the light of our experience the principles of the
programme. These principles can be applied to any situation in our lives and so once we have
a feel for them, we can apply them, on behalf of others, in areas we haven't experienced
before ourselves. For example, honesty is a spiritual principle. We do not need experience of
robbing banks to know that robbing banks is dishonest and to suggest to someone that they
should stop robbing banks for a living if they want to stay sober. Having said that there will
be situations faced by our sponsees, when they seek help, that we have not experienced and
we are not sure what the right thing to do is. This shows one reason for the importance for
sponsors to have their own sponsor, because then we can tap into their experience, and
through them, the collective experience of AA as a whole, on the sponsee's behalf (and with
their knowledge and permission).
The Big Book tells us on page 161 that, "No one is too discredited or has sunk too low
to be welcomed cordially." This indicates that the steps should be made available to any
alcoholic who wishes to recover. There is one qualification, the sentence goes on: we are told
that any person will be "welcomed cordially - if he means business" - in other words there is
a condition attached to that welcome. This may seem a harsh attitude, especially as it says on
page 89 in the chapter Working With Others that: "To be helpful is our only aim."
We can conclude from this that we are not being as helpful as we could be if we are
trying to work with those who do not "mean business" that is, those who are not willing to
follow the suggestions contained within the Big Book. There are two reasons given as to why
we should adopt this approach: the first is that it does not help the individual to indulge him
or her with attention before there is willingness to do the programme, in fact it might even
hamper their recovery, for the Big Book says on page 90 that if you "waste time trying to
persuade him. You may spoil a later opportunity"; and the second is that if we waste time
with those who are not willing, we are denying the opportunity for others, who are, to benefit
from our experience. We may be of some help, but we are not being the most useful we can
be. As the book says on page 102: "Your job now is to be at the place where you may be of
maximum helpfulness to others..."
These points are reinforced a number of times in the book, particularly in the chapter
Working With Others: for example, it says on page 95: "We find it a waste of time to keep
chasing a man who cannot or will not work with you" and also: "To spend too much time on
any one situation is to deny some other alcoholic an opportunity to live and be happy."
So how does should this be reflected in our attitude to sponsorship? If someone is not
willing to follow our suggestions we find that it is best to do as the book says and, "drop him
until he changes his mind"
.
Of course, this is no reason to be rude or dismissive to anyone. After all, we just want
to give people a chance to have what we have been given. If some don't want it, they cannot
be blamed or reproached - everyone is at liberty to reject help; just as they are at liberty to
decide that although they do want what the programme offers, they do not want it from me.
All of us are free to choose. We try to wish the person well, and make it clear that if they
should ever change their mind, the door is still open to them.
For a sponsee to follow a sponsor's advice in this way requires great trust and, perhaps,
great desperation to get well. One way of building up the necessary trust between sponsor and
sponsee is to encourage the sponsee to read daily the Big Book. This contains the principles
we are applying and if the sponsee can see this, they will be reassured that they are getting the
real thing and that everything they are doing is leading them towards the life promised to us.
That is the end of the talk. Now I am delighted to hand over to [Name] who will disclose in a general way, what it was like, what happened, and what it is like now.