I also thought about how this lesson allowed me to stop placing so much “weight” on other humans or earthly entities. For example - a sponsor who ends up relapsing. Without believing that God is the solution and spiritual help is my only hope, something like this happening would have blown my mind in the beginning and I’m sure it did back then! I put humans on pedestals internally and if they faltered, it was a big shock to me.
But once I truly grasped “the God idea” and started to place all my eggs in the God basket - that all changed for me. I see everything in terms of spiritual fitness and spiritual condition that happens through the maintenance of practicing the AA principles. It’s no longer seen as willpower or some humanly strength that I saw it as in the beginning.
Thank you for your insightful share about something that I have struggled with communicating about what I personally derived from the human aid concept. Because of my background in extremes, and not being at times to separate the true from the false, I would put expectations on people to do for me what only God could do, or I could do for myself but didn't want to. But, if you don't know that, you will continue to "use" what you found worked. Even if it only worked a few times, I would go back to what I knew and hope it might work again, one of those "go tos" was idol worship. It's easier to set you up to fail me then it is to take ownership over myself. As soon as my idol disappointmented me, let me down, tried to edify me, or call me out on my behavior (of how dare you!!) then they would be thrown into a pit faster than I could unfriend and block them on facebook-but since I didn't have facebook back then (gen xer here) I would cut them off.
When I got here, I had to learn an entirely new way to perceive and then process suggestive feedback. I won't even call it critical feedback, because I constitutionally comprehended, even though it stung ego, that these women were coming from a place of experience and authentic truth-meaning they had zero attachment, fear or mal intent attached to suggestions about things I should consider doing, instead of what I was doing, in order to have a more peaceful existence and better quality of life that would keep me connected to God who would keep me sober.
So while I grew up with "Do as I say, not as I do" boomer mentality, with zero instructions on how to do life and at the same time being told that I was awesome and beautiful no matter what, even if my behavior was destructive to myself, others and the community; in AA, I learned what the intention and acts of true stewardship that were age appropriate, looked like.
While these women didn't "mother" me, they did help me to clear out the wreckage that was blocking me off from my spiritual parents that would re-parent and rewire me to discern the truth from the false without the lens of ego distortion. This sort of relationship negates the idol worship aspect because all they were there to do was to bridge the gap and help me see things in a different perspective-that's it. Nothing more, nothing less.
So even if they relapsed, showed some humanness, or disappointed me by being wrong, I didn't have to throw them under the bus, or throw the baby out with the bath water, because it was a healthy exchange in spiritual consent within God's jurisdiction. They are not God-people are not God. God works through them and depending upon where that person is at any given moment determines the information that will come from that person/conduite. I mean, I have received some information from destructive people that I wouldn't allow in my home, but could receive that info without having to turn them into an idol or carry on a relationship with them.
So, say I feel crappy, and on a spectrum that is currently low; I might not be channeling good information that day. If I then give that information to someone who I am in a relationship with, it's their responsibility to determine/discern whether or not it's usable or good information.
This is where I confused people with God. I wanted them to be right all the time-and if they weren't, then I was compelled to replay the program my body recorded from an incident prior where it genuinely felt like a betrayal and maybe even was-it just doesn't apply to the current situation.
We are all given the right to self determination, and as adults, to now learn to properly discern good information with bad information and the courage to discard all I think I know about what I was taught growing up to be open to new information.
Healthy sponsors operate from experiencial, never judgmental or bonded to identity or status. Again, this removes the backlash of the pedestal/pit program or victim/victimizer program that I operated on. Essentially it's easier to keep God in the God role so that everyone else can learn and grow in their proper roles and not have to worry about me making them my HP. No idols-including myself.
I initially needed those women to help me see somethings that were blocking me off from receiving new information from God because my ego and disease were not allowing me to see. They only knew what they knew because they themself did it and were relaying the information they learned from doing it. So again, I needed their human aid in that regard-but they could never have kept me sober, nor could anyone. I think, unfortunately in AA, we have misinformed people into thinking the sponsor's role is more than it is. So instead of examples of growing with each other, we are making idols and codependent relationships instead.
I hope this makes sense to someone. It helped me hammer out this idea that I hope to convey clearly someday when asked to sponsor to establish better communication and boundaries that I couldn't do before.