Our city is small... i think population runs about 40,000 .I first heard that our 12 step programs here are considered by many as very sick. AA mostly. We have many AA meeting..only 2 NA meetings a week. Alot of members of AA use the maintenance program.
After about 3 months around the program here i became friends with a guy who has 7 years sober and 5 years clean. Just after i broke it off with him I found out he had supposedly gotten a woman he told me was his cousin...ya... pregnant. 2 days ago she delivered a baby boy. I\m over it really...but people talk, thats their shit i know. i have worked hard on not letting any of it affect me, i continue to go to as many meetings as i want/need.
We have a detox (14 days) here that many come to from outside cities and there are members who seem to prey on the newcomers.. 13 stepping stuff.. i pray for them but stay away.
My recovery is so very precious to me that i am very careful of who i hang out with, really bottom line is i don't hang out with anyone but a precious few, my boyfriend now and a few women that have wonderful long time sobriety and cleantime. There are only a few people in this town that even know where i live and i prefer it that way.
Now, being that it is a smaller place, we have our men to women ratio... ya not many women with longtime cleantime and it seems that some who do are still quite sick, just my opinion. Where that line of judgment comes before looking out for oneself i don't know.
I am not even sure today if i am happy with my own sponsor...some days it seems like i am her sponsor... that could be my own twisted mind.. the ladies that i would rather have are not taking on sponsees.
back to my question... :)
there is a young girl here,22 and 6 months or so in and she informs me one day that "Wendy you don't know it but...you are my temporary sponsor..." ok... i said...
She tells me the other night that people around here are telling her i don't have enough time in to be a sponsor..i mostly agree.
She says though that i really help her alot by my shares at meetings and our talks together, and that she likes my sharing on spirituality. In my own eyes i really have a long way to go!!
When i think back ya know... i have been in and out for 5 years or so but it is this recovery, now, that i feel i am starting to get it. It is this now that i am truly doing some practice in the program...action, action, action :) yet, i am just beginning, one day at a time. i don't have a year in even yet this time.
So she comes to me the other day and says she is moving to another city..that some people are telling her she is running away and will surely fall.. i say well, what do you think?? she says no, i say are you going to attend meetings?? she says probably not.. i say..hmm... thats no good..where do you think that will take you?... she looks at the ground...She is quite shy when it comes to sharing and often passes, if horrified at attending new meetings, especially by herself. I say well i could perhaps drive in once a week and go to a meeting with you.. she seems happy for that...and i say that i\m concerned though that one a week is not enough.. she is moving for work yet hasn't put any effort into finding a job here, but going to meetings pretty much everyday. Easier , softer way?? been there, done it. i say, i will support you in whichever you choose and if you go and feel that it is not working there..come back before its too late. And use the phone!
the ones that harrass her to stay keep harrassing her... she comes to me again and says...ok, i'm staying, they were right, that she's pretty sure she was planning a relapse.. ok then, good for recognizing and being honest. As honesty sets us free, and ultimately we hurt ourselves by not being honest. I ask her if i had told her to stay would she have listened?? She says yes, absolutely. Did they see something that i didn't?? that compounds my feeling that i am not ready to sponsor.
So i said...ok then... on that note...the other day when you texted me and said that you just about smoked weed?? Stop hanging out with those people, she looks at the ground...and says ok. Trouble lies in that those people go to AA and maintain there addiction with pot. ||Trouble lies in that there are not many young people for her to hang out with from the program that don't use pot and/ or other substances,a s we all know, well for me anyways, pot is a gateway.
So i took her for coffee yesterday and to drop off some resumes. I asked her if she feels better about herself by putting in some effort to find work, she says ya for sure! :)
There are other issues.. i don't feel i should share on, more serious ones that i don't feel qualified to deal with as i have no experince with them and have told her to talk to her addiction councellor about to get further help. She SAYS she will.
so i don't know...doubting myself.. course i'm good at that.
As far as my own sponsor, i don't call her, we meet once a week to do our step study, she is purturbed at that i know as she has told me so. I am very busy with 2 jobs, 3 kids at home now and of course new puppy, add a boyfriend and my jewelry...meetings...time to be bored?? not! So she called me the other night we made a coffee date for after work last night i agreed. My oldest daughter calls just before work is done and wants to go to bingo with me, says just me and her, time together...shit..so i agree, i stop in at our coffee meeting place and my sponsor is no where to be seen,s o off i go to bingo.. i get a message on my phone an hour later or so saying that she waited for me, not sure if i forgot but ya she waited.. she sounds not very impressed. i swear she was not there, having other plans i didn't wait around, guess we simply missed eachother. there is other stuff i need to share here but must get ready for work now.
love you guys, and gals thanks for being here (((hugs)))
A Sponsor, as I was told by my first Sponsor, is someone who has a working program by which I mean has picked up the tools of the Steps and has learnt to apply them in their daily life. Sponsorship is passing this on to a Sponsee by guiding the Sponsee through the steps and passing on the program that works for them, or so I was told when I first took a Sponsor. And that is what my Sponsor did with me, and that's what I do too...
Also, our IP Sponsorship also defines a Sponsor as primarily someone who guides a Sponsee through the Steps...
Also, the NA book "Sponsorship" has a chapter addressing this aspect alone. You can find a few things that one might want to consider before taking on a sponsorship role there...
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"If we do an honest examination of exactly what we are giving, we are better able to evaluate the results we are getting."Chapter 10 - Emotional Pain - NA Way of Life.
I second Tahir's comments. I would also add that I always discuss with my sponsor when considering taking on a new sponsee. My sponsor helps me to look at aspects of the situation that I may not think of on my own.
