Sponsorship and the Big Book – Came to Believe – Part 2 of 4 – Sandy B.

Thank you, Becky. My name's Dave, I'm an alcoholic. I'll end now actually, get a round of applause at the beginning, that's downhill from now I guess, but thanks for asking me, I am pleased to be here and I'm pleased and very grateful to be clean and sober today. It's always a pleasure to be asked to do any kind of service in AA and if it's within my power to do what I'm asked to, I will do that. You know, I've found the benefits of AA in my life over the years that I've been sober to be immense, really. And what it provides me with today, you know, I haven't had a drink for 13 years. I don't think necessarily I'm going to have a drink today. But what it provide me with is a perfect vehicle to get out of self. You know I can come here and AA gives me a vehicle or structure in my life to be able to try and help somebody else and as a result of that ease my self-centeredness and it seems to work perfectly as that vehicle. In the years that I've been coming, I've found no good reason to leave. I know people do leave and people do different things and stuff like that and what other people do is entirely up to them but I've stayed and I enjoy it. So today, I mean you've got three hours of me talking, which is a long time. And one of the questions you get asked by newer people is how on earth do you find things to talk about for three hours? And then when you get around to be around as long as I have you think well actually I need to cut some bits out. And like a lot of AAs I guess I can talk a lot and those of you that know me will attest to that I'm sure. But what qualifies me to do this? for those of you that don't know me I think the main qualification I have is that I'm a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous and I was asked to do it. And I think that I don't think there's anything particularly special about me that enables me to sit and talk for three hours when maybe somebody else doesn't get asked to do that. But how do I manage my ego within that framework? I'll just do what I'm told. The speaker in AA can be a dangerous job to sit up here and think that I have knowledge that can change people's lives or impart wisdom that means that you're going to have an improved recovery and that's all down to me, it's a very dangerous idea. So I find that the way that I manage that dynamic is that I only do what I'm asked to. Someone says to me come speak about sponsorship, I'll come speak About Sponsorship. Someone says come speakabout the Seventh Tradition, I'll go speakaboutthe SeventhTradition. And I endeavour wherever possible to limit what I say to my personal experience rather than what I might believe or my opinions about things. But within today, there maybe will be some belief and opinion because sometimes that dialogue could be useful to tell you how I got where I was, you know, where I am currently. So that's my main qualification. In terms of specifically with sponsorship, I've been a sponsor for about 11 years, 11 and a half years to other people. And I've had four sponsors myself in my time in recovery. So I'll endeavour to speak about both sides of that dynamic. I think they can't have one without the other in some respects. And I probably heard, I think at the last count, there's somewhere in the region of about 110 fifth steps. So I've worked with a lot of people. That doesn't mean that I'm any better than anybody else. That's just the path that's been presented to me in my journey in recovery and what it does mean is when you've sat with so many people and heard so much stuff it does give you stuff that you can share to help maybe people that haven't had that experience so that I guess is my qualification to be here if anything that I say is at odds with what you currently believe your current practice or anything that you think is right for you please endeavour not to take that personally I'm not here to convince you that what I do is the only way or the right way. A few years ago, I might have been here to do that because where I was in my personal recovery meant that I actually felt that a lot of people were doing it wrong. I've overcome that barrier personally and I've come to understand that actually there is a right or wrong actually to go about this because people are very different. One of the wonders of life for me is the understanding about the human being is that everybody's unique, everybody's different. There aren't two human beings the same in the world. I know several sets of identical twins who have the same genetic make-up. They came from the same egg. So genetically they're the same. But if you speak to them, they're different. They have different ideas about things, they have different beliefs. The way that they've lived their life may be different and things like that. The human beings are unique. And the chances of all of you human beings being here sitting in a chair, being who you are currently today, the odds are infinite. You can't actually compute them. It's an infinite thing that could be a possibility. But I find that immensely exciting. Immensely exciting that there are no two human beings the same. We're all having a very unique experience of life from our own perspectives and our own way of living and nobody else can have that experience. So you can love other people, you can have other people share your life with you but nobody else can live your life as you. it's wonderful isn't it so understanding that has enabled me to have respect for what other people want to do, choose to do. Want to believe or do believe I no longer try and convince people that I'm right and they're wrong and that's been a blessed relief for me it creates less suffering in me to come from that position so if you're here and you feel yourself getting moved to a position of defensiveness because it's what I'm saying maybe is challenging in what you currently believe, don't take it personally. But sometimes when you get them challenges, and I've had it, I've been in conventions in various places around the world where the speaker's been saying things and I feel myself bristle a little bit because I'm thinking that's not quite right. That's not how I see it. And sometimes after the convention or maybe in the tea break I'll get a moment to reflect. I think why was I getting so defensive about that? Why was that making me angry? and sometimes I've changed my mind you know, my beliefs have changed I've experienced complete consciousness shifts whilst sitting in chairs in conventions now I go to a convention the speaker will be talking after an hour of listening to the speaker I'm in tears because what I believed before I sat down has changed whilst I've been sitting there and so, you know again, I guess the recommendation from this speaker would be to try and sit with an open mind you might learn something you might not So that's the opening caveat. The way I'm going to try and do this today is speak for this first session just generally about my experiences with sponsorship, so what it was like to be a sponsee, how I initially felt about them experiences and things like that and then how I've become the sponsor that I currently am. I think for me it's always been a work in progress. The way that I approach sponsorship has changed over the years that I've been sober. As more has been revealed to me, as I've kind of got to work with stuff and practice stuff in different ways. And then the second hour after lunch, I'm going to endeavour to answer some of the common questions that have been asked over the year about some of pitfalls of sponsorship, some of things that people are uncertain about, the general queries that occur and then open that up for some questions from the floor as well that second session. And in the last session what I'm going to do is I'm gonna get a big book and I'm just gonna sit here and I'll show you exactly how I go through the big book with a new person. Maybe some of that would be helpful. So my I came to AA I took my last drink on August, I can tilt it today, on August the 24th, 1998. And to me it seems like a long time ago now. When I talk about my drinking stories in recovery sometimes it's like I talk about someone different. It doesn't really feel like me anymore. You know, the changes that have happened in me and in my life in recovery mean that when I look back on the person that I used to be, it's almost like looking at somebody else. And so I've got the language to talk about the stories and stuff like that but quite often I'm not connected emotionally to that anymore it's kind of it's just a narrative you know but i'm aware that that narrative can be helpful you know so when i came here i was in a terrible state you know i was uh suffering from my alcoholism and um very mentally unwell and looking for something different you know and i didn't know that when i first come to aa that that would involve not ever drinking again you know I figured that maybe I could find a way to not drink for a while, improve my mental health, get access to my daughter, improve things at work. You know, the kind of life management stuff that was kind of falling apart around me. And, you know, I don't think I came here with the idea that I would never drink again. In my early meetings in Alcoholics Anonymous, I got hope. I heard people talk about drinking like the way that I drank. I heard people talking about feeling the way that I felt. I heard People talking about doing some of the things that I used to do whilst I was drinking. And it helped, I understand now that that helped ease some of my separation, my sense of separation. Because I never knew that there were other people that kind of had that stuff going on. You know, I was a very isolated human being. You know I could be in a room surrounded by people and feel completely alone. And in AA, that first few meetings was the first time I'd felt like maybe there were some people like me in the world. And it gave me hope. And I continued to come to AA and after a period of a few weeks in AA a miracle occurred and I completely recovered from alchemy. And I went from being that kind of hopeful individual that came to them first few meeting and returned and reverted to what is, I guess, my natural state of mind and being which is extremely arrogant and judgmental. And I sat in meetings being extremely arrogant and judgmentable in my head. Not to you. I'd smile at you and be polite. My mum brought me up to be polite but in my hand I'm thinking, what a bunch of losers badly dressed some of you are really old Some of you didn't really seem to have much else going on other than AA I felt a bit of pity for you about that When I look back now I can kind of see why that was but at the time it felt like I was right and he was all wrong People talked about sponsorship not often, you know I didn't hear it a lot in AA when I got sober in this area and the kind of things that you hear in meetings now has changed in my time in AA and sometimes I ask is that my perception? Is that just that I'm remembering it in a certain way and that isn't actually what happened? So I ask other people who got sober at the same time that I did and we agree actually no there wasn't a lot of talk about sponsorship in the meetings. There certainly wasn't much talk about God and very few people seemingly had worked the steps and those that had in a general way talked about it as being a really tough thing to do I can remember people talking about spending years writing a fourth step and things like that so it sounded like quite a laborious kind of option so I'm sitting there three or four weeks over thinking well what does this really mean to me then, this laborious option that doesn't really seem to do much anyway and nobody really seems to think, you know, and so I didn't really bother with it. If there's an easier path, or apparently easier path, I will choose that. A path that requires no work, or a path that seems to require effort and work, I'll choose the path that requires not work. You know, this makes perfect sense to me. And so I did get a sponsor. I didn' t think there was anyone in AA who could sponsor me anyway, because I figured I was probably more intelligent than the rest of you. And, you know, I figured that I'd be sponsored by Marlborough Light. That's what I thought. I like Marlboros and, you know, other people got sponsored by Marlbour and they're racing drivers and things like that so I thought that's what I'd do. I'd be sponsored by Marlbourg and I didn't read the big book. You know, I opened my first big book when I was three weeks sober and we were getting it home that night and sitting in my bed and I opened it up and it said it was written in 1939 and I immediately thought, this book can't teach me anything. See, I've got a psychology degree, so this book can't teaching me nothing. And I looked through the contents page and there was a story near the back called Freedom from Bondage. It was quite late at night and I thought, well that might be an interesting read. And I read the first few pages of Freedom from bondage and it wasn't what I thought it was going to be and I closed that book and it actually stayed under my bed propping my bed up it was a bit of a wonky bed and it stayed there for the first 18 months of my recovery so my initial introduction to AA didn't involve things that I now see as important because of the way I was and possibly because of the way the fellowship was at the time it was made quite easy for people to come in and not work the steps and kind of do that stuff. I can remember talking to a bloke at a meeting there was a third meeting I went to and I said what's all this God stuff about? You know, I was an atheist I was educated atheist you know, I used to like arguing with people about God you know but I wouldn't listen to their side I'd only tell them mine and you know and he said to me don't worry about that Dave it's all a load of bollocks sorry for my language that's what he said I'm quoting. And I thought, oh, excellent. You know, and I can remember periods in my recovery getting angry about that, you know, when I kind of had different experiences later on, thinking, you now, that bloke sold me down the road, didn't he, saying that? You know. It was out of order him saying that to me. But again, I've got to reflect on that. And I think that if he'd have said anything else, you known, I'd have probably left. Or maybe I would have been less interested in staying. So maybe he did tell me what I needed to hear. You know? And so I'm careful about my judgments today, you know, about what other meetings do or other people do and things like that. Because I don't know what the big picture is for each and every one of you. You know, for some of you in here, suffering will be required for you to live your life. Suffering will be require for you to find a solution. I'm not going to deny you that opportunity to suffer if that's what you want to do. So my initial experiences with AA they were kind of interesting, really, but masked by my arrogance. And I carried on like that for a while and in the end I decided to leave AA. Because if you're an atheist going to AA, who's not interested in getting a sponsor, doesn't want to do any service, doesn't even really want to be in the meeting, doesn't really want put any money in the pot, really. I also begrudged that. Even though it was only a pound, you know it was like my that's how I absolved my conscience well I'm not doing any service but I put a pound in so that's my bit an AA doesn't offer much really I didn't really like you you know I could see that some of you were quite genuine but I was also quite suspicious of a lot of you you know a lot people I thought what's their angle you know because I judged you with the way that I was see I was always on an angle I was playing people I'd only do something for somebody else if there was something in it for me. I was the kind of bloke in the pub that I'd lend you a fiver on a Wednesday night knowing that you were getting paid on Friday but I could tap you for a score. So sometimes in AA, this is the kindof, you know, the over-happy individual who wants to shake your hand and give you a lift home and stuff like that. I was like, please stay away from me. You want my phone number? No chance. and life carried on I left AA I remember sitting at work one day thinking to myself I've been sober about about ten months at this point and I can remember thinking you haven't drank Dave you know things like that but life's still not that great things still aren't really going the way that you'd like you really need to make some changes in your life maybe you should drop out of that AA if you haven't drank for a while all they do is talk about drinking and you don't really like them anyway so why do you go I thought to myself I've got no idea where I'd go I'm not going to go and I stopped going and I carried on without AA for 8 months and because I've only lived my life I'm a unique human being like all of you are Yeah, I don't know what it's like to live like somebody else see I don' t know what its like to Live a different life. I've only had my experience Because my experience of coming to AA and putting down the drink Things were slightly better than they were when I was drinking in a physical sense and in a mental sense You know the main symptoms of my mental health problems went away My physical health improved because I wasn't drinking alcohol I thought that was all that was here, all that was on offer. I didn't know that there was an alternative a way of feeling good. I did not know that. And I never really felt good, only artificially but I didn' t know that either so I only felt the way that I had felt and so I struggled on thinking that it was ok, that this was it, this is all there was And what happened to me is after 18 months without a drink, I reached what I now understand was my rock bottom. And at that time in my life, externally things were better than they'd been for a long time. I had a job, had a car, living in a better place than I had been living in. I had access to my daughter. You know, I got fit physically, you know, things like that. To the external world, things seemed to be going okay. but internally I just felt complete despair. And I reached the point of suicidal depression where I decided that the only way that I could change the way that I felt, knowing that alcohol and drugs were not an option for me any longer, was to end my life. And, you know, I was always quite a positive bloke as a drunk, really. You know, even when I was on the psychiatric unit I thought things were going to get better, you now. I guess I was always like that as a child even in my drinking I was never suicidal not once was I suicidal with my drinking even though I ended up in some terrible conditions physically and mentally but never once really considered in depth that ending my life would be the thing to do I used to think quite regularly about ending other people's lives because I thought I was alright really everybody else what's the problem and so after 18 months without a drink to reach this point of wanting to end my life is a significant thing for me even now just to reflect on really that I've reached that point of desperation you know and I was just talking to somebody before the meeting about a friend of mine who did end his life you know, as a result of this illness. And all the other people that have ended up in that situation, drunk and sober. So I don't say it lightly, you know that's my experience is what happened. I decided I didn't have a particularly original plan for ending my life I did plan it but that's how you can tell whether someone's serious about this or not is that they have a plan generally about how they're going to do it. And so I had some pills, and I had some booze. And you know, I decided that I was going to do it away from home so that for some reason I thought that would lessen the burden, or lessen the blow to the people that love me. You know. And I ended up 300 miles away from home from a strange huge event. So I didn't end up going to where I wanted to go to. But somehow I ended up there. And I booked into a hotel. And I can remember thinking it was a Friday. I remember thinking, sitting in this hotel room, maybe you should go to one more meeting of AA. At least then when people think about what you did on your last day, my mum and dad and things like that, they think well at least he had a go, at least tried to do something. He didn't just give up. So I rang the AA helpline team and asked them if there was a meeting that night There's one where I was in the town that I was in that night. And it started at half past seven. So I thought, well, I can wait till after that meeting. I can waited after that meeting before I end my life. I went to the meeting and there was a bloke there. And this bloke, he eventually became my first sponsor. He didn't know that at the time and neither did I. And you know, I sat in the meeting and it was apparent I wasn't really enjoying myself. know uh and he saw that you know he's a good aa really and he and he he didn't make it a question after the meeting he just said you're coming with me son and he kind of put his arm around me and scoot me away well he didn'T ask me but i thought about that a lot you know over the years i think if he'd have asked the question would i have gone i'll probably have made some excuse and not but on some level i guess he probably knew that you knows he kind took me hostage really He just said, you're coming with me, son. He's quite a big bloke. And he put me in his car and he was driving me around. And he didn't ask me how I was. Well, he didn' t need to, did he? You could see. And what he'd done, like a good AA, he just talked about himself. You know. What seemed like an eternity. He talked in a way that in the book, in chapter 7, it talks about how to approach a new man. And he did that with me. I didn't know he was doing that, but that's what he did. Talked about himself, sharing in a general way, talking about his stories. As you could see, he was hooking me, he was upping the ante, getting more and more stuff going. And see, I was in a desperate condition when I met him, to the point that actually in an hour or so's time I was going to attempt to end my own life. And just that last conversation, that conversation that I had, him talking and me listening to him, was enough to tip me over the edge. It was almost like, because I felt like he could see through me. There's always that last vestiges of pride. Because if you think about it, suicide is a prideful act, isn't it? It's done out of desperation. But also it's about saying I'm still going to control the outcome here. I'm not going to surrender. And he said to me you need never feel this bad ever again son if you do one simple thing. I said what? He said get on your knees and pray and ask for help. He said, what have you got to lose? I had to concede to him on that night I probably wasn't the greatest power in the universe. And after he left me I said the first honest prayer I'd said since I was a small child I said, please God, if you'll help me I don't know what I'm doing. And that promise has come true. I've never felt that bad since that night. The rest of the conversation he had with me was that this program's not broken you don't have to try and fix it it'll work for you the same as it's worked for a couple of million other blokes. All you've got to do is have a go. He told me my recovery is my responsibility. He said, no one gets saved on your behalf. No one can go to meetings on your behalf. You're the one that has to go and sit in the chair. He said no one can say your prayers on your behalve. You are the one who has to do that. He said nobody can write an inventory for you. You have to do that and when the time comes to make them amends, you're the ones that's going to have to go out and do that stuff as well. Nobody can do it for you. And rather than being frightened by that, I thought about it the following day and it empowered me. Because I realised, I had a moment. See, what happened to me that night when I surrendered? See, I'd had a moment of complete ego deflation. Just a moment where I was able to surrender and ask for help and mean it. And it just shifted my consciousness enough to start to see things differently. So rather than getting angry about this being passed to me, this idea of being responsible for my own recovery, I realised it was empowering. At this moment, I realised that what would happen to me would not be dependent upon what you did, any of you, said to me or did for me. It's entirely dependent on what I was prepared to do. And I came back to AA properly, with a different attitude. Took it seriously. I came to meetings every day for quite a long time before I came home. You know, I've got service in the meetings, you know. And that bloke lived a long way away, so I figured he couldn't be my sponsor. So I didn't ask him. And so I started looking in the meeting. He said to me, look for somebody local then Dave, that's what you want. Look for someone local. Go to meetings, listen to what people say, you now. Listen to what they're saying. When you find someone that you think has got something that you want, then ask them. Which I think is a dangerous thing to say actually, you know. Has he got something that you want? You'd have a look and see what his bird's like. Whether he's got a nice car. That's the way I was thinking at the time. And I did hear a bloke, you shared a lot about his experience of being adopted as a child. Because I've been adopted as child I thought that that was a connection with him I had. And so I asked him if he'd help me, this bloke. And we met up a couple of times. And on some level I knew it wasn't for me, you know. I can't say why, I don't know why really. I just knew. I said an instinctive thing. There's nothing wrong with him, he's still sober as far as I know. And I just know it wasn'T for me. What it did when I had that experience with him is I realised I needed to go back and ask the bloke to help me. You see, the bloake had the courage of his convictions not to say to me after that meeting, just don't pick up the first drink son. Go to more meetings. Do nightly and nightly. He never said none of them things. He 12-stepped me in a way that meant he showed me what the solution was. He wasn't afraid of his own experience with God and he offered that to me. And on some level I wouldn't have had them words to describe it but instinctively I knew that that was the person I needed to go back to. And so I did. I rang him up and I asked him. And he said well I've been waiting for you to ask son. So he believed you had to ask, act of humility. He said to me, you need to pray every day. He didn't suggest it, he said you need to pray everyday, that's his word, you need to pray every day. So I did. As an atheist, pray every day. I'll ring him up sometimes and say, Tyrone, don't think it's care if you believe in something, just do it anyway. Carried on praying and started to engage myself in the step work and things started to improve. I couldn't deny it was a tangible difference from where I'd been to where I'd, even after a few months of just doing them simple prayers please God help keep me sober things like that, serenity prayer started to feel better. And this bloke, I used to go down and see him once a month for a weekend, stay down at his place. He lived down in Cornwall, always liked surfing and things like that. It was handy really. He worked out really well, it was perfect. He had got surfboards in his garage and stuff. And you know, we gradually started to work through the steps and see that man as a sponsor, So he doesn't sponsor people like I sponsor people now. He had no structure with what he offered. He left it entirely up to me how I wanted to interpret the book. You ever read the book with me? It just wasn't the culture of AA at that time in this country. There might have been people around that did it like that, I don't know. But, you know, I didn't meet them. So there was a few of us. I made a few friends in recovery at that point. and we kind of worked stuff out together. Did a step three prayer on my own, didn't do it with my sponsor, did it on my own. My sponsor said to me that you should write a resentment inventory and I said to him, well there's people up this way Tony that are writing a life story and he says, well do that as well if you want. So I did. I wrote a life story. A life story wasn't a bad thing to do but it didn't really teach me anything I didn't already know. That's the trouble, isn't it? You know, I've lived my life, I know the story. Oh, I'm good at telling stories. You know? I can dress it up. It should be published really. I'm glad I burnt it, do you know what I mean? The temptation's gone. I can remember thinking while I'm writing it, you know, what am I going to do at the publishing house reception when they offer me a glass of champagne? and I thought about what I'd have to say you know in that situation and so he kind of left it up to me you know he talked a lot about the big book my first sponsor and he you know he promoted the big books he used to go to meetings and he'd talk about the book and things like that and well I know I mean if you listen to this tone it's not meant as a negative but I know it's the only book he's ever read in his life the background he came from wasn't one of being educated and things like that but he carried that message to me in the way that he could carry that message to me so he started to try and work it out so I wrote this inventory it was the inventory that I wrote people would be critical of their own inventories it wasn't very good it doesn't really matter it was one that I wrote and I shared it with him and on the day that we decided to do my fifth step he was in one of he had a few caravans on his land and I sustained one of them you know and I went down there and stuff like that and he he said to me have you finished I said yeah he said right okay we made a time so I'm sitting in this caravan and I'm waiting for him to come in and I'm anxious I've got my pages and I know I've missed a couple of things out I feared his judgement I feared all your judgement really but particularly him there was a couple of things that I'd done in my life that I didn't really want anybody to know about he walked into the caravan And he cracked a joke. He said, oh, caravan's tipping up at the end there. Must be the weight of that full step, son, isn't it? He sat down and lit a cigar. Oh, I don't like cigars. He's already pissing me off. Do you know what I mean? Got the tea and biscuits out. And he told me a couple of things, you know, that he'd been meditating. He told me quite a lot of things. A couple of times he told things that spooked me a bit. You know, things that he knew. He said things about me that he couldn't have known. It was strange. He went to a spiritualist church, so he kind of did that stuff and he had what people's spiritual guides were and things. He never ever promoted that to me and said that I should go there but that's part of his spiritual life. So he told me a couple of things. So I'm anxious thinking that I'm going to not tell him these things and then he spooked me out by telling me a cup of this stuff. He told me what my spiritual guides were and he said a couple things. What does this mean to you? Does this mean something to you son? This is what came to me. And I said, how does he know that? He looked at me and he says if you lie to me today son will you hold anything back? He says I probably won't know but you will you'll know and you'll walk away from this feeling terrible. It's how he's kind of making me drop again, do you know what I mean? You know, it's kind oh... And then he told me a couple of things about himself. One of them was worse than anything I'd ever even thought about doing. I felt like I had something on him as well. Just enough. Do you know, I was able to tell him the whole truth. And I think if I'd have done this, I know people go to a Catholic priest or psychologist, the book says you can do that, doesn't it? It says you Can Go and Share Your Stuff. But for me, I think If I'd Have Been Approached in Any Other Way other than with somebody who understood the importance of sharing their own experience, I maybe wouldn't have told the whole truth. I told him the whole true, including the two big secrets, which I now share quite happily with everybody that I sponsor in my exchange with them. I say these are the two things I didn't want to share and I'll share it with them before we do that fifth step there's loads of people who know about that stuff it's not that big a deal really but for me at the time it was I walked out of that caravan feeling like a free man I felt physically lighter I can remember on my board the following day it was like a perfect surf absolutely it was as if I had perfect balance all surfers fall off at the end sea runs out I mean but it felt like that So I had a wonderful experience with that fifth step, with my first sponsor. He allowed me to work through the rest of the steps in any way that I wanted to. He did say to me after that fifth-step experience that I should continue to take inventory. He made it quite clear stipulation. He said from now you should continue taking inventory. He never ever stepped on me about it. And I learnt to continue to taking inventory through not taking inventory. That was my experience. I left that feeling so good that I didn't bother taking any inventory and after a few months I realised that I probably needed to take some inventory. And he carried on being my sponsor and I'd go down and visit him and we'd talk on the phone and we do that kind of stuff and then I was at a meeting one night and some bloke asked me to be his sponsor he came up to me after the meeting because I got fired up you know after I had these experiences with my sponsor you know I got fire up you know I was excited about what had happened to me you know finding a higher power in my life as an atheist was a great turnaround you know and I felt so good I felt like I was so clean for the first time you know I was exciting and so I'd come to meetings and I'd share this stuff I was exited about what was happening. I suppose that was attractive, you know. There was a bloke that asked me after the meeting he said would you be my sponsor? And I immediately thought no. Because I didn't like him. I didn' t like him at all. In fact if I could have picked one person in that meeting that I didn�t want to sponsor it would have been him. I said, I don't know. I'll have to ring my sponsor and ask him. Hoping that Tony would say, no, no, if you don't like him, son, leave it, you know. Ain't going to work out. If you haven't got a connection, it ain't goingto work out, you know, that's what I'm thinking. I could save face, you known, in the meeting and all that with the bloke. And so I got home that night and I rang Tony up and I said you never guess what's happened to me. I said some bloke's just asked me to sponsor him and he says, well why don't you do it, son? It might make you learn this programme you keep going on about. Yeah. So I started to sponsor this bloke. I really didn't know what I was doing, you know. I really did not. But I was willing, you know, I was wiling to try. And he did not stay silent. That bloke died. Right? Yeah. Hopefully not as a result of my sponsorship. It was a while after that he did die. He was somebody who struggled in the fellowship. and things like that. And I got asked by other people. People started to ask me all the time. You know, I ended up sponsoring lots of people not really knowing what I was doing. You know? Didn't have any structure to the way that I was sponsoring people. I was letting people do what they wanted to do you know, in terms of interpreting the book. I had a kind of loose framework of how I'd work the steps. That's all I had really. And most of them didn't stay sober. That's my experience really. Some of them are still sober. There are some blokes around who themselves have got more than a decade of sobriety or are sponsored in their early years, who will have to take through the steps later on as an amends to them because they didn't really know what I was doing. That's not beating myself up and giving myself a hard time. I was a willing participant of Alcoholics Anonymous doing my best. That's all anyone can ever do, really, is doing their best. And then other people started getting sober and things like that and we started listening to CDs and recordings and tapes and things of American speakers and things like that and I got excited about that kind of stuff. There seemed to be other things going on about the big book and stuff like that I didn't really quite understand and all that. And then I started going to a meeting where there was a very kind of direct kind of sponsorship going on, which hadn't been my experience with sponsorship. You know, I hadn't had that. My sponsor, whenever I used to ring him up for life advice, he'd say to me, how am I supposed to know what you're going to do, son? He'd say, get in your knees and pray and ask your God. I don't know what are you going to have to do with that. You know. So he never ever told me what to do in my life. Not once. So I started going to this meeting and then people talking about taking guidance from their sponsor, ringing their sponsor to check what their decision making should be like on a daily basis. Whether they should go out with the girl or not, whether she should take the job or not. Life management stuff. It seemed very different to what I'd been experiencing. I started to question whether I was doing it right. It's very persuasive to sit in a meeting where people all talk in a certain way and you don't have that experience yourself. I felt uncomfortable sometimes in their meetings. People would openly ask me, who's your sponsor? And I'd think, what's it got to do with you, really? That's how I thought about that. Is that something I need to do? Because the blokes I'm working with, most of them aren't staying sober. That was my experience at that time. I worked with a lot of people, most didn't stay sober. I'd drive around with a car full of drunks everywhere I went, I had a car full of drunks. Me, Vic, car full of drucks. So I thought about it a lot. There were some things that I couldn't reconcile and one of the guys who used to turn that meeting up became friendly with him. I used to go around his flat and he'd talk about what he did as a sponsor and how his sponsor worked with him and things like that. Some of it sounds very appealing to me having that kind of structure and stuff like that but there are things I couldn�t reconcile for myself and I�m not saying that style of sponsorship is wrong or bad or anything like that. There are some people that flourish under it, absolutely flourish. But there are some lines that people would say, things like I defer to somebody that knows better than me. And I say to myself, well what if he doesn't know better than you? How will you know? He's a human being, isn't he? How will you know and how will he know if he's trying to manage your life for you? I couldn't reconcile that. People will talk about deferring up the lines. My sponsor doesn't know, he asks his sponsor. So because I'm a logical thinker I think, well what happens at the top of the line then? Who's that bloke? Where does he go? I couldn' reconcile that and there were some positions that people had around other things and things like that That just didn't sit well with me. So I chose not to go down that path. That's our sponsorship. But I took on board some of the things that they did use. You know, at that meeting that I went to, you know, I used to go to that meeting and another one where they talked about certain suggestions, six suggestions they called it, and they used to give them out in a car. And I could see how they'd be useful. I mean, I could say, you know when you talk to people they say, well what it is is we give these to the newcomers that gives them something to do until they've worked the programme. I think, oh, it makes sense. I mean, I never had them suggestions when I was first sponsored. My sponsor told me that I needed to pray. That's all he told me. So I adopted them suggestions myself. They seemed useful. I started to pass them on to people that I sponsored. I found that people started to stay sober for longer. That's my experience with that. The people that ask me for help, I give them these suggestions. they seem to stay sober for longer. Over a period of time one of the suggestions I dropped one of my suggestions is to ring two newcomers every day and I found that my experience with that was that it wasn't helpful to people because it would become like a tick box thing and be quite insensitive sometimes sometimes a newcomer would end up with ten phone calls from a group in the morning you know it could be a bit overpowering but I know people that find their phone calls very helpful and useful But I stopped offering that as a suggestion to people. If they wanted to take it on board themselves, it was up to them. So I started offering them suggestions because I'd come into contact with them, found them useful. My sponsor never used them, so as far as my way, he still never has, you know, that man. And I carried on that way. And then I met some other people in AA who talked about using the book as a sponsorship tool, you know. Using the big book. I thought, well yeah, I could do that couldn't I? I could use the big book. I started to work with people using edited highlights out of the big books. I'd pick key bits out of chapters that I thought were important and I'd kind of do that with them. And I found actually more people stay sober. So little by little, not through any grand design or anything like that just through saying a prayer or showing me how to be helpful that's what I used to do a lot of the mornings I'd say, dear God, show me how to be of maximum helpfulness to you and my fellows today. I'd be just taken down these paths, find new information all the time and gradually experiment on people and see whether it worked. Some people would say that, I remember people saying to me, well that's a bit dishonest Dave, if you're using stuff that wasn't your experience, isn't that dishonest? Well that's common sense isn't it? If you come across new information that's helpful, isn't it common sense to use that? A little dishonest in the slightest. My experience with the suggestions was that for me they were suggestions. I wouldn't really worry too much if people didn't do them. I still don't actually. There's a line isn't there between offering something as a suggestion and then try to control the outcome. If I'm trying to control the outcome with an individual to make him do the suggestions, they're not suggestions. If I was saying to you that if you don't do them suggestions, I'm going to withdraw sponsorship, I'm not suggesting it to you, I'm telling you. It's a fine line but it's one I think is important for me. So if I offer you a suggestion and you don' t do it, I'm fine with that because I've only suggested it. It's your business what you do. I'm no in the business of trying to controll anyone. See, I learned through this journey and asking questions of myself and other people that any attempt to control someone is based on my fear. My fear they won't stay sober. My fear that my reputation as a sponsor won't stand up amongst my fellows because all my sponsees are getting pissed. What will they think of me? So I learned about the suggestions. Then my sponsor, he won the lottery. and he won him and his father they shared three and a half million quid. Driving down the road one day had a phone call which was tone he never really rang me often you know I'd ring him you know he didn't ring me very often and he said are you sitting down sir? I said well I'm in the car it's Sunday morning it's a car that he gave me he'd give it to me because my car got smashed up he was a good bloke at that time he was very generous man you know and I didn't have any money to pay him he said he'd pay him whenever I'd got the money so I'm in the car and he says we've had it off son I've won the lottery I said what he said we've had it of I've worn the lottery I said what do you mean I think he's got a hundred quid or whatever he told me and he said on that motor he said don't worry about the money for that son he said you keep it brilliant My sponsor's got what I want. And he's hung up and I'm driving down, and I was thinking, he could have got me a fucking better car than this one. One of the other blokes he sponsored got a Merc, you know. Well thanks Tone, thanks for that. Anyway what happened to him was that over a period of time he eased up on coming to AA and money can do that, you know it changes things doesn't it? And I think he didn't change a great deal, he was kind of quite solid but his whole circumstances around him changed, the way people were with him changed. There was some drift there really So I ended up really for probably a period of 18 months without a sponsor, technically. Because we had a different relationship. He wasn't really going to meetings. Can you have a sponsor that doesn't go to meetings? I don't know, maybe. But at some point that to me became not an option. I knew that I needed to move on. I knew I needed find somebody else. And so I did. I found somebody else I asked another bloke and he said yes he was sponsoring me and he was local I went through the program again and he had a slightly different way of doing stuff and I learnt from him all the time I'm still working with my blokes you know gradually refining what I'm doing working it out eventually I moved on from that sponsor I realised there was nothing left he could teach me I know it's not being arrogant, I think that's part of the journey in AA. For those of you that have been around a while, you may be on your second, third or fourth sponsor. Quite often now, I'm somebody's third or forth sponsor. And I encourage the people that I work with to seek a new experience all the time. My current sponsor now, he lives in America and we have a loose relationship. You know, I certainly don't ring him every day. I think I've rang him three times this year. It's like a spiritual guide really, in some respects. I don't bring my sponsor with inventory unless it's something that's very private. A lot of you know my wife is in the fellowship and so for me to share with my fellows, you guys in here, things about her wouldn't be appropriate. So some things I do take to my sponsor. And because he lives so far away, it's helpful. You know what I mean? It is. Because he doesn't have to see my wife and be involved with her life, knowing stuff about her that you shouldn't know. I'm respectful of that dynamic. But for other stuff, I'll share with anyone. I talk to the band, talk to anyone, it don't matter. I'm quite open really about what's going on in my life and things like that. You know, there was a bunch of blokes around who started working the steps using the Joe and Charlie tapes. I remember speaking to one of them about how he sponsored. And he said, well, I'll read through the book with them. I said, what, all of it? He said, yeah. That's what I do. I sit down with the book, I read it all with them." And I can remember thinking, that's a good idea. I remember thinking when he said it, that's actually a really good idea, why didn't I think of that? I've been doing this kind of edited highlights I said why do you do it that way he said because then I know they've read it and I know that they haven't missed anything common sense isn't it I hadn't even thought of that I was seven years sober at this point so I started to do that started to do that, every new book I worked with sat him down, started with the doctor's opinion started to read through the book I've found that more people stay sober. That's my experience. So I started to think about what it means now for me to be a sponsor. What does it mean? All along that journey I asked that question. Do I want to be somebody that is going to try and manage somebody's life and give them advice? I think, well, I've never had a sponsor that's done that. But one of the sponsors that I've had has ever done that to me. And I seem to be able to live my life quite fine. And I realised actually at some point that I don't need to do that. I don' t need to try and manage somebody's life for them. Why would I deny them the opportunity to make a mistake and learn from that? And their life is their business. The problem as a sponsor if I'm trying to manage other people's lives is that eventually I might start to think I do know better. That's a dangerous place for somebody with an ego. If I know better than other people. I've seen sponsors that go down that path and end up with a hierarchy around them, people that they try and manage or that people account to. But quite often the pressure of that dynamic becomes too much for that sponsor. They begin not to share honestly about what's going on in their life. That they've been unfaithful to their wife, that they've started using drugs on the side. Because they can't lose face to these people that look up to them. Sometimes just the fact that people are always on the phone asking what to do becomes too much for that sponsor. He was okay with it when it was just one or two blokes but now he's got 12, 13, 14 blokes ringing him up every day. He can't cope and often then people leave. Aye aye. Pressure becomes too much and they bail out. So I decided because of my experiences and because of what I see that I don't want to do that. As a result some of the people that I've sponsored have struggled under my sponsorship. They really desperately some problems, want me to tell them what to do. They ring me up and say, I've got this, this and this going on Dave. What should I do? I say, oh, I don't know. I don' t know. What do you want to do? Have you prayed? What's your conscience telling you? I'll never tell them. One bloke once. It's hard. It's harder to keep that discipline. Some people are very good at drawing you into their drama. You know what I mean? It's a discipline I've learned. One bloke once he asked me, I heard Bill Wilson took LSD, seeking a spiritual experience. I was thinking about having a bash at that myself. I just said no. You know, I try and practice non-judgment in being a sponsor today. You know, my sponsor practices that. I learn a lot from my current sponsor in being non-judgmental. I think as a result of that none of the people I've ever worked with are frightened to walk down my drive. They don't fear my judgment. So I might not speak to them for a year, two years, three years, four years sometimes. You know? The blokes come and go. Do you know what I mean? You know. There's not one person that I've worked with that's afraid to come down my driveway if he's in trouble. I'll tell you that now. Because I won't judge him. I'll make him a cup of tea. Tell you what's going on, mate. I have no desire or need to control anyone. I think it's quite arrogant sometimes. As a person in recovery, sometimes you see the idea that maybe they do know better. After a couple of years sobriety, you think you know better, you can manage other people's lives. I still struggle to manage my own life sometimes. I let other people have their own experience. I think it's more respectful and I'm comfortable with that. So really the kind of sponsor that I am, so this whole first hour really has been about defining that. It's about defining what is sponsorship to me. It'll mean different things to all of you. We all have different ways of interpreting this and going about it. So what am I today as a sponsor? What I am is a person that takes somebody through the book of Alcoholics Anonymous. When somebody asks me to be their sponsor that's what I offer. That and that alone. If they want to continue with that relationship beyond that point, I'll then become what's known as a spiritual guide. I'm quite happy to wear that hat. In some ways it's the same thing. It's no different, just the language is different. We use the word sponsor in AA because that's the culture of AA. Outside of AA these people will be called spiritual teachers. That's what you're called. That's who you all are. All of you that are sponsors, whether you know it or not, are spiritual teachers. So that's how I define it. That is where I am currently with my sponsorship practice. And I find that I can be comfortable about that. I no longer have doubts that I give people the wrong information. I no long have doubts I've misled people and maybe contributed to their suffering. I'm very open and honest about what I offer. I offer them the pure, undiluted, original solution that the first hundred used. And as a result of that, I can have a clear conscience. I've not given them advice. I've told them what to do. I've tried to offer them something that's outside of the experience of Alcoholics Anonymous. I just offered them that. So I go to sleep peacefully. Whether or not people stay sober, whether or not they enjoy their life, see my part of that deal's done. What you get, whether you stay sober whether you guys enjoy your life will be based upon what you're prepared to do. As long as I'm comfortable that I've told you the right stuff given you the rights what you do with that is your business. In the same way that Tony said to me, my recovery is my responsibility. It still is today. It's empowering isn't it? It is empowering. You don't have to worry about what your sponsor says, you don't need to worry what the next door neighbour says or whether something's going to turn up for you or whether some random events are going to go your way. Just suit up and take action and you'll get your rewards. That's it for the first hour. Please enjoy your tea break and your lunch I'll see you later. Thanks very much. Thanks for listening.