“Sponsorship gives me a chance to share intimately, to care, to practice detaching with love, and to apply the Al-Anon principles more consciously than ever.”
-Courage to Change June 27
In the daily reader Courage to Change: One Day at a Time in Al-Anon II, a story is shared of a man who was asked to be a sponsor for the first time. He has a lot of self-doubt and fear. He is afraid of losing himself. He was afraid he didn’t have anything to give. And then he remembered something critical: “I remembered that he was not asking me to be his savior, only his helper…”
How many times have I needlessly worried about not being a “good” sponsor? I have worried just like this member did about not doing or saying the right thing. About being too hard on the sponsee. About letting her walk all over me. About losing myself. And it has never happened. This fear of the future never came. But how did I do it? Good sponsorship with my sponsor. I have been able to take all of my concerns over the years to the closed-mouth advisor who continued to share her experience, strength, and hope with me—this time about sponsorship.
But I am going to be honest with you: because I have been so gravely affected by another’s drinking, sponsorship is especially challenging for me. I think many of us in AA have been affected by others’ drinking, but we just have little awareness of it. And while I have seen many men step up to be sponsors, I see women who are much more timid about this*. In fact, I had a sponsee recently tell me that she would NOT raise her hand to be a sponsor. And then a few days later at another meeting, someone asked her to be her sponsor anyway (my Higher Power has quite a sense of humor).
Al-Anon principles have been a great guide to sponsorship. I am reminded that I can detach from the alcoholic’s behavior with love. Since the sponsee is in AA, she is most likely an alcoholic, so this can indeed apply!
The Al-Anon bookmark: Sponsorship—Working Together to Recover (M-78) describes sponsorship as “a spiritual relationship with no strings attached” and also as “a one to one relationship, not an exclusive club.” We can love the person we are sponsoring unconditionally and without judgment. We can let them live their own lives with dignity and make no demands on them. It’s truly a mutual relationship in that I am getting as much out of the relationship as the woman I am sponsoring is.
However, I have found that while mutual sharing is important, in AA sponsorship, the sponsee has to be willing to take suggestions. If she is not willing to take suggestions to do step work specifically, then there is little chance for her recovery. And alcoholics love to manipulate situations. Sometimes they want to run the sponsor-sponsee relationship and that is not going to work. I don’t want what she has.
And we are not friends. And I am not her mother. Boundaries in sponsorship have been extremely important for my own sanity. My own AA sponsor has always provided a strong model of not being friends, but instead of being a lifelong trusted advisor. I am willing to listen to her because she is not concerned about hurting my feelings, the way a friend or mother would. The important of this boundary in our relationship became very obvious to me a few years ago when I was in trouble and I felt 100% confident in seeking her guidance and wisdom. I may not have been able to do this if we had become friends.
There are as many ways of sponsoring as there are potential sponsors. I am grateful that both programs have provided literature to guide us in this important part of our own recovery.
*Note: In an AA women’s meeting, we added to our format “please raise your hand if you are willing to be a sponsor.” What started as just a couple of women raising their hands has become the majority now willing to sponsor, but this took time to happen.