Hi Ladies,
My name is Hilarie and I am a Recovered alcoholic....
Thank you #$&*@! for your informative and insightful lead. It's wonderful to see real information backed up by fact. When I came into the rooms almost 4 years ago, I was terrified and defeated and had NO clue how the hell I was going to do this sober thing. At the end they asked if anyone was willing to sponsor to raise the hand. The women sitting next to me raised her hand. I picked her to be my sponsor. When I asked her she said she would "temporarily" sponsor me. OK...whatever that means..just show me what to do! She told me to go read the Big Book and write down how my life was unmanageable and then told me to text her if I wanted to drink and to go to meetings. I know now that she was started me on Step 1. After that I was pretty much on my own.
We didn't go through the book or the work nor did she tell me what the meaning of Step 2 or explain the magnitude of Step 3. I did read to her my Step 4 that I did from a rehab inspired worksheet I found online. She fit me in to hear my 4th Step before a meeting in her car. After that, no instruction, no 6 or 7...no 8 or 9...no 10, 11, 12....I thought..Ummm...I guess that's it. Yes, I did read the Big Book, but my mind was still wet. After about 6 months as a dry drunk..I do not consider what I did with my 1st sponsor as working the Steps, I was not doing good.
God was the only thing that kept me from drinking. Fountionaly, I say "fortunately" now in retrospect, because at the time I was in hell, fortunately something told me I needed to do something quick. I started to study, not read, study the BB. I started to listen to AA podcasts. I found my guide, Peter M. He was talking about things that I hadn't heard in meetings. He wasn't saying "keep coming back" he instead said things like "here are the steps we took" he was talking about God, he was talking about being done with the Steps in a month, not a year, he said "How about instead of 90 meetings in 90 days, you are done with your Steps and are working with 5 newcomers!" Peter M. sponsorship linage goes back to Dr. Bob, so he speaks on the Solution in the BB, not the slogans that developed in the meetings further down the road, not the half in half out sending newcomers to endless meetings instead of taking them through the Big Book, he was saying Recovered, not recovering. Back in the day, the moment a newcomer walked in the door, a few people would take him aside and work the first 3 Steps with them. Then if the person decided that they wanted to proceed, he was assigned someone to work with him through the rest of the Steps.
Now, we send these very sick women to meetings and expect them to just know how to work the Steps and comprehend the Big Book? Sponsor, no sponsor....it's up to all of us with experience to guide them and take them through the work ASAP. No title necessary. "Here is what I did, this is what it says in our book...see as explained in Doctor's opinion that we suffer from a illness that doesn't just have to do with the body but that our obsession of the mind tell us to drink that triggers the allergy in the body which has resulted in our spiritual malady? That Dr. Silkworth recommends that we read this book and though may scoff, but to pray? Do you identify with Bill W.? Do you drink like him? Are you powerless over alcohol? Has your life become unmanageable because of it? Are you willing to believe that a power greater than you can restore you to sanity? Are you willing to turn your life over to God? Ok...You just did the first three Steps."
Bill's Story
Step 1
There Is a Solution
Step 1
More About Alcoholism
Step 1
(57 pages on Step 1!)
We Agnostics
Step 2
How It Works
Steps 3 and 4
Into Action
Steps 5 thru 11
Working With Others
Step 12
It's great to have a spiritually fit, knowledgeable AA sponsor, I didn't. I had God, guidance from Peter and a real desire NOT to die. Nobody in the rooms that I was told to keep going back to, was telling me what the solution was. Just because you have "time" sober, that doesn't mean you have good sobriety. You might have the half measures meeting maker kind...I wanted the immunity to alcohol, the spiritual awaking, the FREEDOM from "needing" a meeting or a sponsor...Real, recovered, physical and emotional sobriety.
There is NO such thing as "time" in the Sunlight of the Holy Spirit. We should always remain teachable....Can you be taught by a homeless ex crack addict with 10 days sober? Why not? She has just as much God in her as you. What if she "got it" quicker because someone took her through the work at her bed side in a matter of hours like Bill W. and Dr. Bob did with Bill D.? I would rather have a fresh teacher than someone with "time" that has no tolerance for a long lead.
I pray that the "old timers" wake up. We must stop sending dying women to meetings and take them through the work along with meetings. Our complacency is killing them because we have allowed pop psych rehab bs in our rooms. We talk war stories, feelings, slogans and entertaining fears from women who have 20 years sober about job loss...How about instead of coddling her we tell her that her ego has reconstructed, she has fellowship reliance instead of God reliance, and she that she is on a fear spree which is what happens to dry drunks....That she needs to go through the work again.
How about instead of clapping and rejoicing that someone is receiving their 5th white chip because they relapsed again, nobody clapped, instead a oldtimer pulled them aside and took them through ALL 12 Steps that night. Would you take the time? Would I? How about we stop being selfish, self centered and self seeking attention and start teaching the Solution? How about we start walking the walk? How about "sponsors" get back in the trenches with these women who are suffering instead of the flowery slogans and passing her off to the next meeting?
Love in the Sunlight of the Spirit!
Hilarie
4.8.14
"I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world."John 17:14-16