Hi everyone, I wanted to ask a question just to get some other member's input. When I first came to NA and began trying to understand recovery, (over time we DO come to our own understanding of the Program) one of the things I noticed was that there were several people all talking about working the steps, but everyone seemed to have their own way of doing it. Further, everyone seemed to think that THEIR way was the only CORRECT way of working them. Some folks said I needed a Step Working Guide, some said the "white sheets" were better. Some people said I needed to be working the steps immediately, some even said I had already completed my first three steps when I walked into my first meeting and that I should begin my fourth step as soon as possible. Others said that I should wait a whole YEAR before beginning formal step work with a sponsor. Some said I should work a step a month, one member said he worked a step a year! I know everyone here probably has an opinion on this and I'm not trying to divide the room into separate camps, but to merely stimulate discussion and share with you what I found. I look around at all the different 12 step fellowships that there are (I was told in treatment a few years ago that there are over 500 of them, don't know if this is true) and people seem to be recovering from many kinds of emotional disorders, abuse of all kind of substances and a variety of behaviors, and doing it very well. How can this be? I wondered about this silently for a while and even prayed about it, then one day it occured to me that there IS just no WRONG way to work steps. I read in Step One in the Basic Text that "When we give our best, it works for us as it has worked for others." As long as we give ourbest, the Program works! That seems to be the only condition of successful step work. The power and perfection of this Program just blows my mind! It is so powerful and simple that even a whole BUNCH of addicts can't screw it up! How sweet is that? God gave us something so perfect that we can't mess it up if we try! One final thought, though: I've heard it said that on any given day we live the program only to the best of our ability. I wonder if I do this. It seems to me that most days I can do it to the best of my willingness, I'm not even sure what the best of my ability might be. Sign me: Still confused but Hopeful!!!
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"With a sweet tongue of kindness, you can drag an elephant by a hair." ~Persian Proverb
great topic. I was told to pick a sponsor because they "had what you wanted" from a recovery standpoint. Obvioulsy this is going to be a successfully recoverying person that's life is reflective of that. Then this is a program of duplication. "If we want what they have then we must be willing to do what the did". Working the steps is not a solo affair, it's done under the direction of a good sponsor. That's usually who we will rely on for method, timing, and materials used... Doesn't hurt to go to step meetings and learn as well. In my first year I had 3 home groups (many more if you consider the other groups that I attended. I had a step meeting on monday to help me get my head right for the week, and another step meeting on friday to get my head right for the weekend, and a discussion meeting on wednesday to keep me straight midweek. I went to these every week and let those people get to know me so that they could tell me when I was full of sh*t.
I also heard all kinds of things over the years about time to complete the steps, but I would go for a month or at the most two months per step. I feel it's very important to get the 4th and 5th steps completed, not much later than your 6th month. It seems that when people put off these two steps (most never do them) past that point then they get complacent and never get around to it. That's why it's important to get an Active sponsor and attend step meetings so that you can get thru the steps to affect the change required to lose the obsession to use. "The same person will use again". One of my favorite sayings is "until we pull our head out of our @$$, we're going to keep experiencing the same old sh*t".
hey dan , first thing that popped in my mind reading your post was a lesson an old timey machinist told me a long time ago. its a redneck approach but here goes. i was just starting work in a new shop and would be assigned to a computer controlled grinding machine. as he was explaining controls and knobs and amps and how not to kill myself and more importantly how not to blow up the machine he told me this..kid, do you ever watch NASCAR ? you notice all the cars line up at the same place. and god willing with no breakdowns or crashes, they all after 500 miles end up at the same place. but if your in the car you notice each one of them drives just a little different than the others. they go fast sooner or later. they brake at different times. they are on different parts of the track. the point he was making of course is that even though he was an expert craftsman at his work , and he was going to show me just exactly how he did it. he knew i would have my own way, my own style. when i train kids today in my job i try to always remember that..I'm thinking that works in the program too . we are not robots. we cannot and mostly will not be put into a cookie cutter mold so that we all are alike to the nth degree. we start at the same place , broken and spiritless. we hope to end at the same place. for me just clean and happy. but the journey will be different for each of us. maybe not hugely different, but subtly different. as far as sponsors go, i need one but frankly the ones that qualify (clean time ) don't have anything i want. Ive met cynical, pessimistic and overall angry guys . i want to be clean ,i don't want to be a jerk. so the search continues. as you can most likely tell I'm new in the program , but I'm working and I'm clean . hope this is helpful...anthonyg
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" If you have built castles in the air , your work need not be lost ; that is where they should be . Now put the foundations under them . "
I had the same problem finding a sponsor that "had what I wanted". fortunately I was also attending AA (dual addicted) and was able to find one there. I don't want disrespect the program here but I think that it's important (imparitive) to find, choose, and use a good sponsor. With that said, there is no shortage of sponsors in our parent program. Recovery is like climbing a mountain, we're either climbing up or sliding back down. We can't climb without a partner.
My experience has been so that it's always best to follow my Sponsor's suggested way of working the Steps as my Sponsor passes it on to me... that's what works best for me... I've worked the program under 2 Sponsors, in two different ways, and believe me, It works anyway you follow it, more than the format, I've come to an understanding that an open mind and willingness to experience the result of stepwork under my Sponsor is what clicks for me...
I'm grateful to both my first and current Sponsor for emphasizing more on the need to internalize the application of these steps in my daily life... stepwriting for me is only the initiation into gaining an understanding of the 12 Steps and personalizing them to my experiences... However, living the program is what has been the major part of stepwork for me...
And yes, just like one of us expressed above, I also believe that no matter what the format is, as long as it works for another, it will work for me too if I'm openminded and willing enough...
My first Sponsor used to tell me in my early days in stepwork that there is no right or wrong way to work the steps, that each of us develop our own unique ways to internalize the principles of this program as per our perspectives and experiences...
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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 have been taught the same thing...to do what worked for my sponsor. I've seen addicts do the step a month version, the wait 'til you're a year clean to work steps version, the worksheet versus the guidebook, even heard of another fellowship's drag 'em outta the gutter and work the first three steps while they're still under the influence. I have seen addicts who are NA members but have a sponsor within a church recovery based program, even seen the rebellious "I don't need a sponsor to work steps" addicts.
Currently, I've just switched sponsors. I'm on my 9th step out the guide with the previous sponsor...finding out this evening after going over my 8th step list with my new sponsor who does the worksheets, if I'll be starting over with the sheets or moving on with the sheets. I still adore the guide, but I'm willing to do the sheets because they've worked for decades before I got here. I think I'll miss the guide, and continue to read it as a tool, but I'm open-minded to this change because right now more than any other time in recovery I've had, I need a positive change. I'm a bit excited for the first time in a year+ about the steps. I don't know what will happen. I guess more will be revealed.
-- Edited by ItsAllGolden at 12:04, 2008-08-22
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"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." ~Oscar Wilde~
I'm still a recluse and don't get out much to meetings. I got rid of my sponsor quite some time ago, realized the guy only had part of what I wanted in my recovery, the other parts I saw in him I had to get rid of personally and I saw that he was going to be hanging onto those type of personal defects for quite awhile so I walked away from him. He helped me work through alot of the steps after i came back from a relapse but there rest of the steps I saw were things I could work on myself 6-12.
I have what I call a spiritual sponsor, she's a person that teachs me high moral standards and ethics, things that relate to life on lifes terms. She helps me when I get STUCK with this life stuff and no she doesn't totally live by example but she trys and she knows no one is perfect, thats what I respect and how I want to be.
This is my belief , no ones going to work it exactly the same we're all unique in the sense that we have our own way of dealing with and facing up to who we are and what we have done but as long as we do it with Honesty, as long as we're openminded and willing, as long as we've hit some sort of hard bottom and made enough pain in our lives to want something different we have a chance to stay clean and become reasonably happy.
It's really not totally about Me it's about US I figure that most of us have spent a good part of our lives selfishly staying and getting high as often and as long as we could and once we've gotten some clean time and cleared away some wreckage and some baggage it's time to start helping others.
We all need to find a way to sponor others it doesn't neccessarily mean literal sponsorship to one individual it means that when we're out there walking through life that at any moment we may meet another person who is ready, just about ready or simply on the path to needing to be clean. We are examples of people who have survived this disease/addiction and have found a way OUT.
But not just from addiction have we found a way out, we found a way to change our lives and face life and become someone productive and meaningful, we have worked steps and taken action and faced what we are and who we are and are going down a path of rehabilitation which is a continuous journey that will last the rest of our lives , hopefully, unless we decide otherwise and take back what we had formerly to our recovery .
Through much pain and suffering, mostly unto ourselves we've come ot a place where the road split, we decided we did not want what we had and needed to be on another path, and decided that no matter how difficult and hard it got we would stay vigilant on that path, thats pretty damn good for an addict who only looked for comfort in life to escape the discomfort in his/her head, we all used behind the way we felt that is a common gorund.
I still feel that pain sometimes day on end, I still feel discomfort at times and I acknowledge it and say to it " I know I am sorry but I can no longer allow you to control my life and my actions and i am sorry you feel this way but there is something we can do about this".
And I work on myself to become a better person and more useful and joy filled person, a person in rehab constantly for the rest of my life LOL, sorry thats how I see it I doubt that I will ever be well and completely sane but its getting better by me working these step IN MY LIFE DAILY and having a spiritual attitude and a contact with something bigger then me, bigger then life and bigger then addiction .
I am SO SO GREATFUL to have all of you here I love reading all that you have to share, there is some really good recovery going on here at MIP, from you old timers all the way to our newcomers like ANthony who has so much good stuff to share you all help me in this thing brings tears to my eyes having all this support I am just so so greatful this morning, thank you I have really needed to pop out a tear and I am glad to be doing so out of gratitude .
