My name is Hilarie and I am a Recovered alcoholic;
“..but I soon found out that when all measures failed, work with another alcoholic would save the day. ..It is a design for living that works in rough-going." (Big Book, page. 15).
It's truly amazing the way this program works. Yesterday while responding to a sponsee, I was able to relate and then verbalize something that I am struggling with; hopefully helping her with my experience with it. The night prior I practiced using all our tools; prayer, meditation, restraint of pen and tongue, inventory...all that kept me from reacting to the situation which is wonderful, but I still woke up heavy. As soon as I corresponded with her, that weight that I woke up with was lifted. I went on to have a wonderful day.
This kind of relationship establishes trust and keeps me right sized. Yes, I am her sponsor, but I am human. My sponsor is my sponsor, but she is human. We can learn and grow from our sponsors without putting them on a pedestal, setting them up to fail us if they show their humanness or loose our sobriety because they may have temporally lost their serenity. She knows that I too struggle with things, that I am not in anyway perfect. The point is that when I suit up and show up each day for others I get fed too. I get to learn and grow from their wisdom and their defects that they are battling with. They become my mirror of defects in me that I still have, or remind me of how far I have come.
God designed this program to keep us humble-I am no better than the person with one day sober-I now just have some experience to share as to how I got and stay sober. I either want want my sponsor has, or I don't. She is human, not God. My job is to learn to rely on God and to not to put others or myself in that role as I did throughout my entire life.
In my first year of sobriety, my first sponsor found out that her husband had cheating on her with a friend. Her response wasn't of this world, or what I was use to. Yes, she was extremely hurt-but what she said was absolutely amazing to me-she said "I feel so horrible for them because they do not have God or the program to get relief from as I do" And she meant it from a place of true sincerity and compassion for the people who hurt her. I know truth when I hear it, she meant it.
I am sure, certain actually, that she was just as astonished as I was that she felt that way for real. She didn't say that from a holier than thou attitude-she actually felt compassion for them. By her opening up to me about her experience gave her a chance to verbalize and set a HUGE example for me as to what a drug addict/alcoholic can evolve into. She wasn't driven to an emotional outburst, going crazy seeking revenge or anything to numb her pain, instead she picked up the phone when I called her about my new "crisis"..LOL!
She lead by example and taught me how to behave under a very emotionally charged circumstance. My first question to her was "Don't you want to DRINK?!?" She said "No, but I kinda wanted to smoke a cigarette" She had quit that too, and drugs. She was honest and handled herself with grace and dignity. Something I could emulate, not put her on a pedestal for as she knew and taught that it was all God, and glory goes to him for changing her.
I grew up in a house that was in a constant emotionally charged state....my mom showed me how to react-Not how to respond sanely and rationally to life matters. I of course emulated what I was taught, as did she what she was taught- "Do as I say, not as I do".
In AA I was taught to unlearn and let go of conceptions and perceptions I had learned growing up. I was willing to open my mind to learning a new way to handle life. I could only learn that from people who had actually experience with that. Not from someone who didn't walk the walk. Alcoholics and addicts know bullshit when they hear it-they also know truth when they hear it. I may cringe when I get some truth thrown at me, but in here, from a sponsor, I am safe knowing it's coming from love and experience.
I am grateful to be apart of this fellowship of women that seeks a design for living that the world around me doesn't get. I get to learn to love without expectation or disappointment because I finally get, and practice to accept, the humanness in myself and others-most of the time ;)
BTW, my first sponsor and her husband are still married 5 years later. She could forgive because she herself was forgiven all her bad choices.
Thanks for letting me share!
Hilarie
4/8/14