Readiness to Sponsor – Came to Believe – Part 3 of 4 – Sandy B.

Thanks, Becky. My name's Dave and I'm an alcoholic still. So the second hour I hope everybody's had a nice lunch The second hour I'm basically going to ask myself questions and answer them The reason I'm going to do that is when I've done things like this before quite often when you have to question and answer people get embarrassed to ask a question in a group so they don't ask or what they do is they forget what question it is they want to ask and they just end up sharing experience because you're in AA mode. So they'll spend five minutes or so sharing around the question without asking the question. I think it can be most useful really if I just go through the common questions that I've been asked over the years that I have been a sponsor and maybe that answers some of the questions that people aren't able to ask themselves. And then at the end of the hour we'll have a bit of hands in the air stuff. I know at the end of day there's going to be a half an hour window for people to share back. So I suppose in that sharing back time as well, if you want to, you can ask a question if you want to or tell us about the kind of stuff that you do with people you work with. So the first question I've written down is how will I know when I'm ready to be a sponsor? That's an interesting question. Because I don't think I ever knew when I was ready. You know, I certainly wasn't ready when I became one. I didn't feel like I was already ready. And probably even after three or four years of being a sponsor I still didn't really think that I was doing it properly or that I wasn't any good at it. So I think if I'd have waited until I felt that I Was Ready I would never have done it. I don't think I'd ever you know felt secure enough where I was to have embarked upon that journey. So I think the reality is that most people certainly the people that I've worked with embark on it where you are in recovery and I think that, like I alluded to earlier on, that for me it was about I was willing to help I was prepared to put myself in a situation where I could be of help and as a result of that I think maybe the higher power comes into that relationship and enables me to help do the best I can at that time. I think the other thing to remember is that I've never offered sponsorship to anybody. I've always waited for people to ask. So again, if you're somebody that you're thinking am I ready to sponsor? If somebody's asked you that's possibly a really strong indication that you are. Because it's something about what you're doing or the way that you Are or the things that you'll say that has attracted somebody to come to you and ask what is often quite a difficult question. You know, the fear of rejection and kind of, you know, that kind of stuff that can be around asking anybody to do anything. But specifically that. Will you be my sponsor? It's a difficult thing to ask. I know in the early years of AA it wasn't really optional to sponsor. You was expected to sponsor immediately after you'd worked the steps. And people who worked the steps, pretty much all the people got sober in the early years of AA worked the steps within a month of being sober. And so they were sponsoring people at a month's over, two months' over. When Ebby Thatcher went to 12 Step Bill Wilson, he was two months sober at that time. So I don't think that a time period is necessarily indicative of whether you're ability to sponsor or not. I know that in some sponsorship lives people talk about being two years sober before you become a sponsor. and I think that's often unhelpful you know I understand why there is you know because if you are going down the line of sponsorship where you're going to be managing people's lives or offer them advice on how to manage their life then possibly you're never going to be sober enough to do that so two years is kind of an arbitrary time scale but what happens at two years I don't know so it happened at two year and that was you then to become a sponsor that you didn't have before you know I don' t know any answer to that So, you know, my suggestion would be is that if someone's asked you, right, whether you're a month sober, two months sober or two years sober, that's possibly an indication that you're ready. And obviously there, you know the fears around that are kind of then the things that you have to deal with. You know. I found that the only way I learned how to peer sponsor was by being one. It's like riding a bike. You learn to ride a bike through riding a bike. So there we go. That's the first question. the second one I've got is I can't seem to find anybody to help when they look at me like that I'm willing, I want to be a sponsor, but I can' t find anyone so the first thing I'll say to that question is where are you looking? what are you doing in your recovery? are you going to meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous? because to me that's a very obvious place to find alcoholics and if they say well I'm going to one meeting a week so maybe there's a suggestion there you know if you went to more meetings a week maybe you'd come into contact with more alcoholics what are you doing in meetings? are you sharing? we'll say well, no well then how will people know whether you've got anything that they might be attracted to what are you transmitting to your fellows are you saying to them I'm somebody who's found a solution I can offer help is that part of the things that you're communicating when you're sharing otherwise how are people going to know if you're a newcomer you're sat in a meeting and you're thinking I need to find one of these sponsor blokes are you going to go up to a bloke who says nothing at all ever Probably not. Are you engaging with people in the fellowship? That means are you talking to people before the meeting and after the meeting? Are you asking people how they are, maybe exchanging phone numbers if that's appropriate? Are you engaged in them kind of personal relationship dynamics that maybe at some point will lead to a sponsorship relationship? Often the answer is, no I'm not doing that. What I'm doing is I'm going to the meeting and I'm sitting there and then I'm leaving. But I avoid talking to people because I find it difficult. So it's not that you can't find people it's about what you're transmitting as an individual. Are you offering that energy out for it to come back in? For that to come to you? I was out for a curry with a mate of mine a while ago and he's been sober a long time and he was just talking in general about our current experiences in recovery and where we are with steps and things like that and it was good, he was having a nice time and he was saying I just don't seem to be getting asked at all at the moment to sponsor anyone I said oh really so why do you think that is And he said, well where I am in recovery it's maybe I've kind of moved beyond where the newcomer is. I said okay, what makes you say that? He said well because I'm not getting asked at all. I said how many meetings are you going to? He said only going to a couple a week, that's not unusual. And what do you do, do you talk to the newcomers? He said, well no, not really. And he said, the reason why I don't is that he works in a treatment centre, you see. So I work in a treatment centre and I'm with him all day long. So I don' t really want to do that. In the evening. I said, oh right, okay. So what you're saying is you don' T really want to do it? He said yeah. So, sometimes we kid ourselves, you can say to the sponsor the aspects of the ego for pride and whatever, will say, yeah, of course I'm willing to do this. But deep down inside you know that you're not. That's only something that you can address yourself. Nobody can make you be a sponsor. Nobody can say to you that you have to do it. AA suggests it. I think our 12-step indicates it's an obligation if you want to experience AA to its fullest. But nobody can make it. So it's about that desire. Are you willing to take a chance? Are you willing to surrender some of your time? Are we willing to work through the fears about maybe not being quite good enough as a sponsor and not really knowing exactly what to do and kind of stuff like that, like everybody else has had to. I'm no different. I didn't come in and take a tablet and become an automatic sponsor. Automatic sponsoring device. Trial and error, working with people, doing doing the best that you can as you go along. So my experience with that question is that whenever I hear it I know it isn't the truth. Because I think the way the universe works, certainly in a spiritual sense is that if you really want to do that and you offer that out it will come back into your life. But often there's a starting point that I offer to people who kind of find themselves that block of thinking that they can't find people. I'll just suggest to them, put it in your prayers in the morning. If you're on your knees in the mornin', say to your higher power, please God bring somebody into my life that I can help. I'll tell you what, he will. Absolutely guarantee it. Okay. Third question. Can I sponsor people of the opposite sex? Well, the short answer is yes, you can. I don't think there's any rules around that in AI. I suppose there are some caveats to think about with that stuff. The human beings are designed to be attracted to each other. So if you're heterosexual, that would be to the opposite sex. If you're homosexual, that would be for the same sex. And if you spend long enough with people that are attractive to you of the opposite sex, things can happen. Whether you intended them to happen, whether you wanted them to happen, they can. That's how attraction will develop, you spend time with somebody. So you have to ask yourself if you're a man and you're already in a relationship with somebody else, how would that person feel about you spending time with women on their own and listening to their deepest darkest secrets? How does that feel? As a man with maybe long periods of recovery, if you are sitting there with new women, because whether you like it or not. Whether you like this idea or not, this is the truth. As a sponsor you hold a position of power over the sponsee. Because they've come and asked you for help. They've asked you for help to give them help. They're looking up to you. Whether you like it or not that's what happens. So if you're a man and you're sponsoring some young woman things can happen. Your intentions might have been great. All of a sudden she's attracted to you. Then you're in trouble. So think about this stuff before you embark along that path. I've sponsored five women in my time in recovery and none for a long time. My wife's sitting there. Why would I be sponsoring women when I've got a wife who can do that? No need. There's no need for me to do that. There's no need for me to do that. The women I have sponsored, two of them were gay and so I didn't feel like, for me, that was a problem. So if you like, the attraction thing wasn't a problem for them because they're not attracted to me and they found it difficult to actually go to a woman because they were worried about what that would mean for their partner. And the other three were people that I gave a start with the book. So they're people that are in recovery, who were kind of wanting to sponsor other women but didn't know how to do the book stuff in the way that I do it. In the way it's become commonplace in our fellowship actually. It's common now for people to use the big book as a sponsorship tool and take people through the book So a few years ago I took three separate women through the books so then they could do that with other people. I had no ongoing relationship with them three women. It was just for that purpose. Like I say, now if I know there's no reason for me to do that. There's plenty of women around who can carry a message through the big book. Plenty. There's no need for me. There's not a reason for a man to do it. Quite often women will seek a man because they're afraid of the judgment of other women. They don't want to sit down with another woman or have another woman come to their house in case they steal their boyfriend. Things like that. They also know that they can manipulate men. You speak to women, they don't like you to know this, but they can, they can manipulate you. If you're a bit helpless then you carry heavy things for them. Things like that. So of course you can if you choose to sponsor people of the opposite sex. But consider it. Consider what that means. There are no big I am's. There's no burning emergency that if I don't sponsor someone, that they're going to die. I've not seen that. If I don' t do it, someone else can. You understand? So when that woman is sort of saying to you, I'm really desperate and you're the only one that can help me, you blokes. Just so you've got a choice to make, haven't you? You can think, well, I am the big I AM and of course I amthe only onethat can help you. or you can say here's a number of a few women maybe you could ring or I can come round and see you tomorrow night and when you go take a woman with you other ways to manage what you'll find is that when the women hook up together and they get over that stuff around the competitiveness and things like that which is slightly different to the relationships that men have I think the generalisation is that they can really form proper decent bonds with each other but they're never going to get with you if you sponsor them. Never. Each to their own. Question four. Can I sponsor someone who is on prescribed medication? Now the AA position on this is that whether someone's on prescribed medication is an outside issue and AA has no opinion on outside issues. And that is absolutely correct. You know, when I've been asked that question doing platform speaking and things like that in the past, that's generally the answer that I give. But more help today, I think, will be to think that why are some of these issues controversial in AA? Because I know AA has no opinion, it's an outside issue. Unfortunately a lot of people in AA do have an opinion about it. Again, the short answer is yes you can. sponsor people on prescribed medication. So why is it a problem if they are? In my opinion, it is that it isn't a problem. And I think that some circles in AA think it is. And the idea is that if you're on prescribed medication, you're creating some kind of barrier between you and the potential finding of a higher power. Somehow the medication's going to block you from finding God. So there's no point in taking you through the steps. And then people will find ways to sidetrack that issue and rather than saying to you outright they're not going to take you through The Steps, they'll say, I have no experience with that. I can't take you, I've got no experience in prescribed medication so I can' t take you Through The Step. It's just a fudge. What they're actually saying is I'm not going take you Thru The Step because you're on prescribed medication I don't think you can recover. and I'm not going to waste my time. That's what he's saying. But he can't say that. So it brings into controversy in AI. See, if the no experience defence was true, a white person would never sponsor a black person, because a white person's got no experience of being black, so why would they sponsor a black person? You wouldn't do it, would you? I support Crystal Palace. I used to have a poor opinion of people who supported Brighton or Millwall. I've got no experience of supporting Millwall, so I could say, well you support Millwall but I've no experience with that, so I'm not going to sponsor you. The no experience defence is just a fudge. That's all. So why do people feel like they need to do that? What is the issue? It's this idea that prescribed medication alters your mood. It's a narrow view. See, I've considered this over the years, where I am with this. What does it mean to me? And in my earlier recovery, I would sponsor people that were on prescribed medication as long as it wasn't benzodiazepine-based. That was my view. See, there's two pure positions. Either you sponsor everybody, regardless, or you sponsor nobody that does anything or takes anything that is mood-altering. So that second position means that if you're going to be honest about that, you sponsor nobody at all. Because the most mood-altering things in society are non-prescribed medications. There's things like sugar, gambling, exercise, relationships. You could argue that them things are significantly more mood-altering than a lot of the prescribed medications that people take. If you're gonna be honest in your position and say you're not gonna sponsor people without a mood, you don't sponsor any of them either. Anybody that eats sugar, anybody that drinks caffeinated drinks, anybody that's in a relationship that's using that relationship to change the way they feel, anybody that's having a bet on the donkeys. You with me? It's a fudge. So I used to sponsor people other than if they were on benzodiazepines because my belief was that benzodiazapines the sedative effect of a benzo would mean that they weren't taking any information. and then God presented me with a man who'd been on the Razapan for 10 years and he said, will you be my sponsor? I said yes. I took him through the program and he recovered. He eventually stopped using his medication because he realised that he could find different ways of doing stuff. He did that gradually over a period of time. But if I'd have said no to that man where would have been his opportunity to recover? See, if you say no to a man that asks you on prescribed medication, are you really giving him a chance? Are you giving him the chance to find a higher power and are you giving that higher power a chance to work in his life? See, I don't know what the outcome is going to be for any of you. When everybody's asked me, I don' t know what's going to happen to that man. Some of the people that I've worked with have gone on, recreated their lives, got married, had children, moved away, had wonderful lives. Some people have got drunk and died. and I don't know what's going to happen when we start so I've gone down the path now I sponsor everybody regardless of what medication you're on it doesn't bother me, none of my business and at any time in the future you want to go and address that with a doctor or whatever that's entirely up to you no pressure from me, it's your business not mine some of the people I work with have been on prescribed medication for all of their recovery some have given up over certain periods of time I was on prescribed meditation the first time I went through the steps hasn't seemed to have impacted my ability to recover. I seem to be okay. But if a man has said to me, sorry son can't do that with you I don't know whether I could have come off their medications at that time because I had no tools for living. Had none. After I'd worked the program 1,000 Tools for Living I had the ability to come off their medications Different. See? So everybody needs to consider that I think. If you've got a rigid belief about that, challenge it in yourself. Ask yourself why have you got that? What is it about these medications that's so special? Some of them aren't mood altering at all, they're mood stabilising. Some of these medications people take for psychiatric conditions can be used for physical conditions. For a period of time in my life, I was on a drug called amitriptyline, which is a beta blocker for anxiety. Some people take that for heart condition. You know people that take medications like carbamazepine or sodium valproate which are used in the treatment of epilepsy. Physical condition. Also used as mood stabilisers for people with bipolar disorder. These medications have different usages. You can't afford to have a narrow view about this. You're going to be messing with people's lives. Two pure positions, in my opinion. Sponsor everybody or nobody. Otherwise you're playing doctor. Moving on. I have a sponsee who keeps drinking. What can I do? We're lining up a bit now. Encourage him to drink is one really good answer, I think. The book talks about that, doesn't it? If a man's not convinced, encourage him to go over to the bar room, try some controlled drinking. I think the answer to that isn't about what you can do. If you're doing the stuff that kind of is suggested in AA and that you're offering him a kind of a solution out of the big book and you're kind of willing to do that and you are offering him some kind of suggestions around prayer and things, you're offered him that solution there's probably not a lot you can change. The answer is about what he's going to do, isn't it? There's one bloke I've read see I always start we start with people at the beginning. See my experience is a lot of people get drunk in their first few weeks. You know a lot people in AA do get drunk. We'll do him with alcoholics. It's going to happen. And he comes back and he says, yeah, I had a drink. Okay. That's all right. That's what you're meant to do. That's not an excuse. Let's have a look at that. I'll get him to think about what it was the moment before he picked up that first drink. What was he thinking? What was you thinking the moment when you picked up that first thing? And generally say, well, I don't really know. I was thinking maybe it would be alright this time. I was just thinking fuck it. I said there you go, there's any example of that insane idea winning out at that moment. And I always start people back at the beginning just in case we miss something. Start back at The Doctor's Opinion. There's one bloke, I read The Doctor opinion 13 times. 13 times On the fourteenth time, I said maybe you should go and find someone else up. Something about us two ain't really working out. I think I'll give it a fair go. I never get bored reading that book. So you'll only not do that if you think it's boring for you. That's what it is, you know. Well I've read that review but I don't want to do it again. I'm always careful. Just in case we miss something, we start again at the beginning. And if you keep drinking, keep trying. It used to be like some of the rhetoric in AA would be around when I got sober, being quite punitive with people that drank. Why did you do that? And they'd say, I don't know. And people's response to that would be, well it's not really good enough. you know you need to try harder up your meetings things like that that might be true in some cases I guess but the reality is if you understand what alcoholism is or if you really understand what powerlessness is as described in chapters 2 and 3 of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous any one of you can drink on any day because it's a momentary thing I have respect for that I don't have no judgement just offering some concrete suggestions around how he might enable that not to happen in the future. My experience with working with people is that up until they get through them steps, it's a really dodgy time. Really dodgy. The book talks about the freedom coming through the step 10 and 11 and 12 process, coming out the back of step 9. Spiritual awakening as a result of these steps. I guess we can surmise from that that until that happens you're probably on risky ground. Which is why I'm not somebody that believes in taking too much time with working through the steps. There used to be a culture in AA when I first got sober doing a step a year. I don't know how you do that. Don't know. I don' t know how that works. How do you work a step per year? I don''t know. You'll be 12 years sober before you finish the steps Early members did it in a month. Most of the step work was done in a day. I think three months is probably an okay period of time. Most of people I work with, it's about two or three months. It depends on how long it takes them to write the full step. Next question. Should I sack a sponsee who's not following suggestions? So I used to go to meetings and I'd hear things from people saying the sponseee wasn't following suggestions so I give him his P45. Oh, I thought to myself, that sounds good. That sounds like the way forward. And I was working with this bloke, and he wasn't following suggestions, you know. He really wasn't. Not that I was giving him any decent suggestions, really, but the ones I was given him, he weren't following. But I quite liked him, do you know what I mean? He was all right, we were mates, really. And we were in the car one day, driving around, and he was going on and on. I said, well, did you do what I said? What the suggestions, you know, what I give you? And he said, nah. I said well look, I'm going to have to let you go. That's what I told him. You know. You're not following suggestions. There's no point, I'll have to let you know. He said, what? I said yeah. You know, all right then, Dave. And then I dropped him off and was driving home. I felt terrible. You know. I thought to myself, what's that about? Why am I feeling so bad about that? I've heard people saying that they do this kind of stuff and it's the right thing to do. You know? And I realised that the reason why I felt bad is because I'd made that decision for him. When people ask me now if I'll be their sponsor, I'm their sponsor for as long as they want me to be their sponsor. He's the only bloke I've ever given notice to, never done it again. And what I found is that people who don't want to do it just stop coming round. They don't ring you, they go their own way. I don't need to sack them. I don' t need to make a point. You have to make a point to them. Because often that stuff is about control, isn' t it? You're not doing what I'm telling you to do so I'm going to end this and be in control. I'm disciplined with it. I say to people, look, I don''t mind if you cancel an appointment with me but I'm busy. You need to let me know in advance. I'll let them not turn up once, and I'll warn them. I'll say, look, if you do that again, my time is precious. There are other people that want to do this. And they respect that. If you're open with them about that, they understand. Things happen in life. Sometimes you can't make an appointment. You get held up at work or there's things going on at home. Phone call. Just let me know. That's fine. So I don't sack people. A phrase I've heard a few times in meetings and stuff like that is that He became unsponsorable. What does that mean? I don't know. He became unsponizable so I suggested he move on somewhere else. Became unsponzorable. Next question. I have a sponsee who is acting out on other addictions. I've taken him through the steps but it does not seem to work. Good, good question. My experience with other addictions is that I put down the drink always 24th night and night the 8th is the last drink I had and everything else has dripped away gradually over many years of recovery. I'd a tug from the customs of exercise I was about two years sober, so I was importing cigarettes illegally from Spain and selling them in the meetings. An honest program. I knew it was an honest program, I worked steps. People find this stuff in their own time. I used to compulsively spend money to change the way that I felt. Love the credit card man. Great, isn't it? Great powerful thing, isn' t it? Have a piece of plastic and get you anything you want. Marvellous stuff. He's like going bankrupt in recovery. So when people say to me, I want some financial advice, I'll say, look, you're barking up the wrong tree here son. Bankrupt in recovery I ended up going to Debt is Anonymous. Other 12-step fellowships, you see, can be useful. See, I've worked the steps, remember, at this point. Yeah, I work the steps. But I've done it twice or something, you know. With Debt Is Anonymous, I got some identification. Picked up some of their literature, which gave me useful, practical things I could do about monitoring what I spend, recording what I spent. Powering tools, you know. My wife hates my spreadsheet. But do you know what? It stops me getting in debt. Other areas, you now, smoking. I had my tribulations with smoking and recovery. After about five years, six years sobriety, I put it down. After several failed attempts at stopping and stuff like that. And it just came because I became so sick of it. So sick of that, I reached a point where I had to surrender. Surrender. Sex and pornography and things like that before I was married. Huge problem for me. Massive problem. I was never faithful to anyone. And if I was faithful to them, I was using pornography as well instead. So that's not being faithful. Because I'm pretending all the time, trying to fix myself. I never went to SLA and stuff like that, but my current sponsor gave me some things to do around that. An extended inventory process that I had to go through. Generated enough awareness about myself for me to be able to take that truth to my higher power and surrender and become free from that. So if you're a man that you're working with, your woman that you work with is engaging in these other things that happen. You know, all these kind of we call them secondary issues don't we? Food and things like that. You know. Encourage them to seek other fellowships. You know? Just encourage them. Because it's normal actually. Lots of people who are non-alcoholic non-drug addict engage in that kind of mood altering stuff. And the point where we will change is when it becomes is either insufferable for us to continue to do it or we become aware enough to be able to do it. It's my experience. You know, Myers tells a great story doesn't he about his thing with topless bars and there just came a day where in America there are loads of toplessbars and there came a day where you just couldn't even cross the threshold. He took a step in and he just felt freezing cold and he stepped back out and he was alright. And it is like that. There comes a day where it shifts. Make use of the tools that are on offer. Maybe you don't want to go to 101 different fellowships, but literature is available for all fellowships. I find that knowledge is immensely empowering. Knowledge is often underrated in our fellowships because we talk a lot about experience to strengthen hope. It's knowledge that often will be the catalyst for change for me. Knowledge gives me understanding. With knowledge and understanding I can change. I can surrender and change. None of my sponsees are staying sober. Am I doing anything wrong? Possibly. You might be. You might not be. And again, that's part of the individual journey as a sponsor, is to ask that question. see I think that asking open ended questions of myself has been one of my greatest teachers in recovery just to question myself and sit with it not provide an answer immediately just to ask is it possible that there's something more I could be doing and sit without see what comes just see if they keep drinking it's probably because they're an alcoholic. Controversial, I know. Are you willing to help? Are you offering them a solution that's kind of grounded in this stuff? Not your own opinions. If you've given them some other version of recovery then it could be your fault. And you have to own that. So if you're somebody that goes to meetings and says to blokes just don't pick up the first drink one day at a time. If you're one of them people that do that God bless you. But you could be responsible for people believing that they can do that trying to do that and failing. See the true alcoholic the real alcoholic as described in our book he cannot rely on choosing not to drink. He might be able to for a period of time but he can't rely on it. Because at some point there'll come a moment at a time where he'll have no effective mental defence against that first drink. He'll be unable to bring into his mind the sufficient pulse the memory of the suffering of even a week or a month ago and he'll pick up a drink as though it's the most natural thing in the world. Powerless. And if you're telling him that he isn't then possibly you're causing him harm. Because if he's powerless and you're saying and then just don't do it. It's not really helping. So I know, you know, I forgive myself and I know the people that I work with forgave me for kind of not really knowing what I was doing when I was first a sponsor. And I made amends for taking a lot of them early blokes back through to work later on, things like that. I never said that to them. I was always trying to offer them a spiritual solution. I didn't imply that they could just do it if they really tried hard. Could just not drink, they've really tried hard. You'll hear that in meetings. You will hear that. You'll have sponsors that will promote So it might well be their fault that people drink. I'm glad I don't have that on my conscience. I have a sponsy who is very demanding of my time. What can I do? And that's the bloke that you think, maybe the P45 comes in handy now. But all things in recovery, it comes back to you. You've allowed him to do that. You've allowed that to occur. Some people want to see you every week, sit down and have a counselling session with you. that they don't have to pay for. Which might be great for them, but I don't want to hear it. I haven't got time. So I set my stall out at the beginning and I tell them I don' offer that. When you ask me for sponsorship, I do not offer counselling. What I offer is a journey through the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous 12 Step Recovery Plan. If you want to counsel, you can find somebody else. There are sponsors that offer that. They like doing that. That's part of what they do. And it's up to them what they're going to do with me. But I don't want to do that. And I learnt that through having people that wanted my time all the time. And because I'd never given them the boundary at the beginning, it was my fault. I'd allowed that to happen. Some people are very good at it. They're very, very good at drawing you into their drama. It takes a lot of discipline as a sponsor, if you want to kind of keep your time. I like watching football. I don't like things encroaching on that time. It takes lots of discipline without being rude to people to enable them not to do that to you. One of the things I've realised over the years that I've been sponsoring people is quite often when they're new, they're just confused. They just want to talk a lot. And if I thought it would help them to talk to me a lot, I'd facilitate that. But what I've realised is the best use of the time they have with me is to take me through the programme. That's what they've asked me for. And so sometimes they come round and they say, I've got this, this and this going on and you can see they want to explore all that stuff. And I say, look, I know that that's difficult at the moment but what we need to do is get through this work. Because I know And once they get through that work, they start to see a lot of that stuff differently anyway. A lot of the stuff that they think is a real problem doesn't become a problem anymore. It's really not an issue. The way that they see the world, the way they perceive things as difficult, the way that you see people as being difficult can change as a result of working these steps. I know that. They don't yet. So I politely just redirect them all the time to what we're supposed to be doing. I might have like a ten minute kind of catch up whilst we're making the tea and then we sit down and we open the book discipline with it I had one bloke who was a past master sponsored him for a long time and he'd come round on an excuse or anything really he'd have one opening sentence about how are you and so you'd say I'm normal, I'm not too bad and then he'd talk for an hour Sometimes it's easier said than done, but again you have to manage them things. In the end if you don't facilitate that they will go somewhere else or they change. So anybody is welcome at my house that I've ever worked with or even those that I haven't. Because you're in real trouble. Relationship's gone tits up, lost your job, serious illness, things like that. These stuff happens in life. I never feel like you can't come round and have a cup of tea and a bowl of ice cream with me because you can. If you want to come round once or twice a week for an hour and tell me about your week and your resentments, bark out the wrong tree. So it's down to you. How do you set up the dynamic with people in the beginning? Next question. I have too many sponsees now who keep ringing me up for inventory. I have no time of my own. Question for those of you maybe in late recovery, been around a while, things like that. It could be a problem. you know, we talk in step 10 about sharing things immediately. Talk in step 11 about doing nightly reviews and things like that. Ongoing inventory processes. And quite naturally when people are new and they've gone through the program with a sponsor feel like that person knows them. That person knows where they're coming from. So that's the person that they need to share this stuff with. That's a normal thing to go through that. I used to think like that. I need to share this stuff with somebody who knows the background. It needs to be my sponsor, he's the only man that knows everything, so that's the man I need to share it with. And as a sponsor if you facilitate that on an ongoing basis eventually you'll end up in a situation where you have no time for yourself because you'll be taking ten phone calls every night from people wanting to share their day with you. unmanageable, doesn't it? So I always encourage people. You know, I accept that for a period of time they will be reliant on me. But my job as a sponsor isn't for them to be reliant upon me. That isn't what this is about. That's not what we're supposed to do. You see? What I'm supposed to do is show them how to find God. And when God shows up in their life that's who they've become reliant upon. there can be a gradual eking away because whether you like it or not if you sit down with somebody with a book and you go through that process with them and they tell you their whole life story and you're involved in their amends process and you kind of help them with all that stuff there's going to be a bond, an attachment and he's goingto be a little bit dependent on you whether youlikeit or not that's what's goingt happen and there are friends of mine in recovery who kind of stick to a traditional kind of AA route like it was in the early days and they see that as soon as that bloke's through them steps, they sever. Send him on his way. Perfectly valid approach. But it's not what I do. Feels a bit harsh to me that. You know, just to say that we've done this discreet piece of work now you're on your way. And so I gradually eat come away. You know I might listen to a few phone calls of inventory and things like that and little by little I'd just be suggesting to them about finding some people close to them that they can share with. In my sponsorship lines, we call it the immediately people. Find yourself a couple of immediately people, people that may be at the same stage as recovery as you, understand where you're at, people that maybe go to the groups that you go to, or you can just have an agreement between the three of you or the four of you or whatever it is that when there's something going on and burning resentment that needs to be one of your people that you're in. And it will by little I teach them this stuff to move away from me I teach them about becoming reliant upon the tools and the higher power, not on me. And as a result of that I don't have ten people ringing me up every night with their inventory. If I'm still inviting that into my life it's because in some way, shape or form I want to be in control of their recovery. Understand that? I'm saying that I'm the person that understands you and I'm also the one I'm not the person that has to be wrong. and rather allowing them to become independent I create dependency. My view on that is that isn't healthy for them, nor me. So I'll go down this other path. I've got about ten minutes left I think of this session. What time are we finishing? Quarter past. Okay, so we'll maybe take a couple of questions from the floor if there's any. I think there's an obvious answer is that you shouldn't sponsor people who are taking drugs. If you're going to go down this road of sponsoring everybody, then that's not an option. So what I tend to do is I will sponsor them and at some point they realise that what they're doing doesn't suit and they leave or at some moment they stop. But what I do is if I start the process, the early chapters take a few weeks the way that I do it. So you're not kind of getting into the nitty-gritties and stuff like that until a few week down the road and during that few week period, either they drop out generally I find, or they stop. You know, and I think that I will share in a general way about how this has been a clean program for me, but I don't think that if I'd continued to deliberately use stuff to change the way that I felt in that way, then I would have been able to recover. A lot of this stuff around mood altering is about intention. So prescribed medications, I don' t have a problem. I'll sponsor anybody who's on medication, it's really not an issue. for that person in terms of what it means for them will often depend upon their motives for taking it. So if you're an individual that is taking anything deliberately to change the way that you feel because you're unhappy with your current circumstances that will be a barrier for your recovery. It might not be a barrier for finding a higher power but it will bea barrier for your recover because you are not willing to address the here and now For somebody who is taking it because they believe if it's treating something for them and they're taking it as a prescription and it's kind of like that. It's the same behaviour, isn't it? In some respects you're still taking the medication but the effect for the individual is very different. So for a man who might be dependent upon heroin, for example, or a methadone script, if he's on that because he's addict and he can't withdraw because he goes into a turkey and he Can't quite cope with that and he needs to do something about that at some point probably. But he's probably not deliberately changing the way that he feels. You know, in the same way that somebody who may have been abstinent from heroin for a long period of time and goes out and gets a hit. Because he's unhappy with his life and wants a hit I think that's broadly where I am I would sponsor people I do sponsor people but I make it quite clear that for me this has been a clean program but it's up to them Quite often I've found I've sponsored quite a few blokes who've been smoking marijuana they've got marijuana maintenance in the room, haven't they? I mean, I didn't know this but apparently AA is quite a good place to come to school marijuana I didn' t know that But, you know, they go a different way generally. I mean, I don't know anyone, I don' t think there's anybody that I've worked with, you know he's probably talking to a couple of hundred people really that I have sponsored over the years, you know to certain varying degrees. I don''t know anyone who has got through the work whilst using street drugs. They've either stopped at some point or they've bailed out. Yeah, combination I think. The reality of life is that I have other responsibilities and things, you know, we've got four children, I work full time, I like watching football, and I go to AA, and life's about balance isn't it? And I have a certain amount of time I can give up to people to do that work with. And what happens when you start to do things like this, so you're the speaker in AA and all that kind of stuff, you get a lot of people that ask you, they come and see you as a solution, like if you're then you must be the best sponsor, so I want you. So I get asked a lot by people and the reality is you can't take everybody. So I'll only work with a certain number of people at any one time. Currently that's one person at a time, just because of the way my life situation is. When I was newly sober I'd be sponsoring five, six, seven people in the book at the same time. No problem at all. It depends on where you are with your life. I think again it's about this thing around intention. If you deliberately make decisions to avoid an opportunity for surface based on selfish motives and needs, that's probably not going to help you in the long run. If you're genuinely making decisions based on your current life situation and what's best for all of them things in your life, then it's probably okay. At the end of the day, you can only be genuinely unselfish by accident. That's my experience. We talk about being unselflish in AA, don't we? Working with others and we're doing all that kind of stuff. But see, I know this ain't See, when I work with others, I know there's a deal in that for me. It's about getting out of self and experiencing that in my life, the flow of the spirit that comes back through giving. So I know I'm getting something out of it, so it's not entirely unselfish. I can only be unselfished by accident. So I'm walking down the road, somebody pulls over in the car and says to me, Dave, can you give me directions to so-and-so? And I haven't planned that, and I haven' expected it, and I get a choice. I can either give him my time, give him some directions, or just say, I don't know mate, walk on. So it's an unselfish act if I give him the time, because I haven't planned it. See, anything we plan has a selfish aspect. So don't give yourself a hard time if you're finding that, you know, for me it's been about learning that. At times I've had too many people and I've sold them short. That's the truth of that. You know, if you've got too much going on in that area of your life with sponsorship, you'll give them a bit of a short deal. You know, because you're always thinking about the next bloke that's coming around or the other priorities in your life that you need to manage and get done. And at times I've probably had too few, where I've added over significance on going to the gym or something like that. Which is a really useful thing to do and going to The Gym is really great and I enjoy going toThe Gym, but it's not my primary purpose. I think the reality is that for a lot of people it's a struggle. to get sober. We can talk about being sober now, almost matter of fact but the journey into becoming sober can be very, very difficult. I had several detoxes at home and things like that before I finally got to a point where I became sober. So as a sponsor or as a 12-step person how do you manage that? Again, knowing your boundaries it used to be when I first got sober a lot of the old timers were just tell people to stop. I think that most people now, we have a general awareness that often that isn't a useful thing to do. It can be potentially dangerous. What I've done over the years is a number of different things. So there's been people that we've helped taper off. So you basically sit there with a bottle and you feed them alcohol in decreasing amounts over periods of time until they're no longer taking alcohol. But you've got to have the time to be able to do that. Sometimes we've done that with people as a group, so there's been like three or four of us that have done that with one person. We just do it in shifts. Other things that we've gone is that we go to the GP with people So rather than them going on their own to the gp drunk and saying to the Gp I want a detox The Gps thinking no way I'm giving you any tablets You go and have a conversation with the GP yourself And I guess because of my background I'm able to do that maybe a little bit more effectively or confidently than some people can, you know. But I've many times sat with the GP and they're saying, well we don't do prescription detoxes. I'll explain to them, I'll say, look, someone's going to be with him all the time, he's not going to have access to the medication, we're going to administer that and as soon as there's any signs of any difficulty we will take him to the hospital or bring him here. And if he hears that, he's quite often, my experience, he will write you the script, it's a five day detox script and then you can just administer that as it says on the prescription. and again we've done that with groups of people and things like that taking it in turns in shifts get a few blokes around with some DVDs whilst the bloke's shaking the alcohol out of him in the corner and you can do that and it's very rewarding stuff if you can do that. There's a degree of organisation you need to have and support from your fellowships, possible to do it on your own but quite often I know your particular life circumstances means that you wouldn't be able to do that outside of that there's not much else you can do you know the inpatient services are often over subscribed and things like that but you can show them how to access that and the other thing that I have done I did take one bloke I just took him to the A&E I said you need to detox him they said we don't do that here I said well I'm leaving now he's yours let's say we can't do that so that's what I'm going to do I'm telling you what his condition is he's an alcoholic he's withdrawing from alcohol unless he gets some medication he's going to have a seizure see ya they have to treat no choice but you don't win many friends at the A&E if we're doing that and I'd say that's really your last resort and normally they'll only keep them in for a night only for one night so you probably have to go and pick him up the next day but they discharge him with a prescription which is what you want alright how did you get a sponsor? There are a number of ways to get a sponsor. All of them involve asking. So the general route is that you'll hear somebody or see somebody in a meeting and you think, I quite like what they've said. I quite Like the cut of his jib. Or you just might think he's got a nice beard and say, actually, I'd like you to be my sponsor, Jeff. And say things like that. but it's the asking thing really the vast majority of people in AI and recovery will want to help you part of the recovery program is that we give so that we can receive but the caveats of time and availability apply so if somebody used to ask me today I wouldn't be able to do it I'd say actually at the moment I can't because of this, this and this and sometimes that rejection can be difficult but just ask somebody else and eventually you'll find somebody You say, brilliant, bring it on. Come on then, let's get some work done. It's great. So that's a plan now. One more and then we're finished. Any more? Do you think there's any benefit to changing the blood sugar if you've been in recovery while doing the same blood sugar that you do? Is there a benefit to changing for particular reasons change or is it more just a change and I get pressure from the tech team? Would you take that person through the programme again if that was good for the new sponsor? I think the short answer is yes. I always encourage people to seek a new experience so sometimes it might mean that you end up asking somebody and actually they've got very different views to you and you can't reconcile that and it hasn't really worked out when that happens yet. but I think asking in and of itself is an act of humility so what you're saying to yourself is that I'm prepared to have a new experience and learn more one of the things that my sponsorship line work with is a set aside prayer God help me to set aside what I think I know about these steps, this program and you I think that act of asking for a new teacher, a new spiritual teacher can be indicative of that really So it can be very dangerous when you've been around a while and other people start to think that you know a lot and then you start to thinking yourself that maybe you know a lot. And so it can be really useful then to kind of take a step out of that and find a new experience. So I think the short answer is yes. I don't think that there's anything to lose. And if you end up going back to the old sponsor, that old sponsor is probably going to be alright with that. Some of the folks I've worked with over the years, they get fired up from some speaker that they hear and they go and have an experience with that speaker, maybe go through the steps in a slightly different way or something like that. Maybe a few years down the line give me a phone call again and say where are we now? And see where I've moved on to and maybe there's some other stuff we can do together. And that's the work in progress that we all are. Everybody's shifting and changing, hopefully. Okay, thanks everybody. Thank you for listening.