The Mechanics of Sponsorship – Sponsorship Workshop at Central – Part 2 of 2 – Mary C.

Starting once, starting twice. Okay, we're going to have Cecilia come back up. Okay, now we're going to talk about the part of sponsorship that most of you know about, most of you have probably dealt with and you've also probably had the most questions about because if you were like me, the first relationship I had in AA was with my sponsor and I had never had one with another person before that was based on anything that you're supposed to have when you have a relationship with another person so it was the most significant for me and I've asked one of my sponsees and I will tell you that I do have sponsee's here because when I said we're doing a workshop they said they would be here. So I do know that if you make it fun and you set an example that people do follow you. So, I'm going to ask Mary P to come up now. Hi, my name is Mary and I'm an alcoholic and a card carrying member of Alcoholics Anonymous I'll talk a little bit about that later My home group is the Sobriety in the Country group in Mims, Florida It's a relatively new group if you ever get over to Mims We got us a group there now. I'm also the GSR for that group. When Annette talked about service and there was a question over here about the origin of the term service sponsor or service sponsorship, I can relate to that. I got sober in San Diego. I spent the first eight years of my sobriety in San Francisco Diego and I never heard that used until I moved to Florida um I think I had a service sponsor the whole time I think that my sponsor was um was a service sponsored as well as a you know the traditional step and spirituality sponsor I never knew anything other than being in service I think that frequently we hear when we go to meetings and talk to other alcoholics that we do things the same way as we did early in our recovery or the way that I learned it when I was new. To hear that and the way THAT I LEARNED IT WHEN I WAS NEW was we did things that put us in contact with other alcoholics. And whether it's greeting, whether it is making coffee, setting up chairs or being part of district, you know, that is something that I have always known. But I didn't get a service sponsor until about a year ago. My sobriety date is September 6th, 1993. I am 18 years sober and it wasn't until last year that I got an official service sponsor. Anyway, I'm not here to talk about that. I'm here to Talk About Stuff. Let me share with you what the process was for me when I selected my first sponsor. I had a lot of – my criteria list for my sponsor was pretty long. I too have the pamphlet if you've never seen this or never used it just as my predecessors here have mentioned it's chock full of information about sponsorship but it says in here that one of the questions is should sponsor and newcomer be as much alike as possible and that's one of the questions and if you were to have asked me that in my first couple of months of sobriety I would say absolutely yes 100% we have to have everything in common and that's what I thought I looked for somebody who was close to me in age and at that time I smoked so my sponsor had to smoke You know, we needed to be able to have paths that were similar because I knew enough at that point that I was going to have to be talking about some things that were relatively sensitive in nature. And I didn't want to... I was concerned that if I talked to somebody who was older than me that she wouldn't understand. I had a temporary sponsor but before I had a temporary sponsor let me tell you that the recovery home I went through a recovery home in San Diego it's a relatively it's been around for 50 something years and the director who was a friend of my dad's that's how I ended up in the recovery home my dad was an alcoholic and my dad also was the one who 12 stepped me and got me into the program um and faith was the director of the recovery home at the time that i was there and we were told that we needed to have a sponsor within our first 30 days um and of course you know as as seriously as i took the program i also wanted to do things the easier softer way you know if somebody could do it for me that would be perfect and um i wanted faith to be my sponsor and she couldn't it was a conflict of interest um but she did tell me that she would work the first step with me and so we went out to dinner at a uh you know a place it's called the red fox room in san diego it's an institution in in the san diega area and it was a place where she and my dad used to do a lot of drinking but it's a steakhouse too so we went out there for a steak dinner and I did my first step with faith and I don't know, I think I was maybe 20 days sober at that time and that got me started I got a temporary sponsor because there was a gentleman who said that there was this girl that she needed to you know, she would be the one who would be my sponsor. And she was a friend of his and you know like I said the easier softer way so I asked this gal Tammy to be my sponsor, she lived about 50 miles away from where I did, she was in school I did not have a car but I did my first three steps with her and on the way over here Cecilia we were talking about the third step and And I thought when she mentioned that, I remembered doing my third step with Tammy. In her, she lived down at Imperial Beach in San Diego and she had a trailer down there and I remember that we went into like her office and I member getting down on my knees and saying the third step prayer and having that moment, you know, that is so essential to us. And around that time, you Know, not long after that, she told me that she was too busy with school and that she could no longer sponsor me. And of course, You know, I took that as rejection and oh my God, what's wrong with me? But it was a blessing in disguise and, You Know, one of the things that I know a lot of us have learned is that there are no coincidences in the program. And this was not a coincidence that she was unavailable to me because the woman came into my life. Actually, the woman who was my sponsor had already been in my life, I just didn't know it. And as I said, I had a long list of rules or criteria of what my sponsor was supposed to be like and the woman who became my sponsor for the next four years maybe met one of them. she was about 70 years old at the time and I was 30 and that age gap she used to come to the women's meetings that we had at the recovery home and like I said, I was looking for a sponsor but I didn't know what I was really looking for and a friend of mine who was also in the home with me after the meeting was over she came running up to me and she said Mary I found your sponsor and she drug me into the kitchen where Billy was and she said Billy this is Mary, Mary this is your new sponsor and I was angry you know I was pissed what are you doing telling me who my sponsor is well I didn't say that out loud it wouldn't have been right but Billy gave me her card and I called her and she became my sponsor for the next four years until she passed away. And Billy smoked and that was a good thing. I'd go over to her house and we'd go up into her little office, into her little room. She'd open the window, we'd smoke our cigarettes and we do the steps. And I started all over again although I had done the first step twice and the first, you know, done the second and third with my temporary sponsor. I started it all over at the very beginning with Billy and we did the steps um I remember after I did my fourth step and you know was maybe on the sixth at that point in time late one night I panicked and I thought I you know realized that I didn't I had left something off my list and um and I called Billy I didn t tell you everything I need to talk to you. And I went over to her house and we went up to her room and opened the window and smoked our cigarettes and I told her the thing that I had left off and she just kind of looked at me like, she laughed, is that it? And I'm like, yeah. And she told me something about her experience. And that's how it works. You know, where I would be able to share with her something not strength or hope at that point in time but I'd share with her whatever it was and she would tell me about her experience Faith as I mentioned earlier stepped into the picture again after Billy had a stroke and she was unable to talk and I would go and visit Billy and I could talk to her but she couldn't talk back to me and so I bumped into Faith at a meeting and I told her and I said you know I don't know what to do because I can go and I can see Billy and I could talk to her but she can't talk back to me and Faith said well Mary I'll be your temporary sponsor you know I'll fill in until Billy gets better and Billy never did get better she ultimately passed away and Faith just became my sponsor until I moved from California about four years later, and I still refer to Faith as my San Diego sponsor. I've been gone from San Diego for about ten years, and I've still talked to Faith every couple of months. I've never been without a sponsor. When I moved to Florida, I relocated in 2002, and I knew that the very first thing that I needed to do was plug in. and at eight years sober it felt very awkward because I had been in the same area with the same people for eight years and I didn't really know how to walk up to someone and say hey will you be my sponsor but I knew that I had to do that I didn' t know what it would take for me to drink again I didn't know what that one thing might be. And if it was not having a sponsor, I didn' t want to risk it. And so I went to a women's meeting that was about a mile away from where I lived and met a bunch of women there and met my next sponsor. Asked her to be my sponsor and she was until I left Florida to move to Titusville seven years ago. and then I had to do the same thing when I got here and since I've been in Titusville I have had two sponsors so in the 18 years that I've been sober, I have Had 1, 2, 3 5 sponsors and as I said I've never been without a sponsor I've done the steps a number of times I've Done Them With My Sponsors and I've done them with my sponsees. I've participated in the Back to Basics program that was mentioned earlier, and it's not conference-approved literature, but it was very interesting and enlightening. I went to a meeting in Fort Myers that did the four-week Back to Basic. I did that with a sponsee, and then I went through a workshop when Wally P. came through town, and I left there with a card. and was told that I was now a card-carrying member of Alcoholics Anonymous. I've been to a couple of different Joe and Charlie workshops where we've gone through the steps in the Joe and Charley fashion, and Faith, my San Diego sponsor, used to have all of her sponsees two or three times a year she would have all of her sponsees come to her house and we would use a different piece of literature to do the steps I've done the steps using the little red book which I absolutely love the little read book I've done the steps using the 12 and 12 and then another book that I can't remember the name of right now. But anyway, the point is that doing the steps to me has been something that has just, it's been a natural thing to do and I couldn't imagine my program any other way. When I sponsor people, when I sponsor women, we start all over at the beginning also. Even if I'm sponsoring somebody who has established sobriety, I feel that it's the best thing for me to do to get to know her better is to start at the first step. And we start at The First Step and we go through and we do all 12 steps together. And that's an opportunity for me too. It talks about in working with others in the big book that nothing will so much ensure I'm going to forget it now that I'm standing up here nothing will tell me out so much ensures immunity against an X-Strike except for rigorous work with other alcoholics and that's true not just for the person who is being sponsored but also for the sponsor so anytime that somebody asks me to work with them I tell them, I tell her that I would like to start at the very beginning and I also start with this because this really lays out what it is that sponsorship is and what sponsorship isn't I've heard at meetings and over the years people talk about, you know, their sponsee asked for money. The sponsea borrowed my car and never brought it back or whatever. Whatever it was. And did that happen? And the pamphlet talks about that, about what it's not. And to go back to what I said about whether or not the newcomer and the sponsor should be the same or have things in common, it says in here that often a newcomer feels most at ease with a sponsor of similar background and interests. However, many AAs say they were greatly helped by sponsors totally unlike themselves. recently when I went and asked my current sponsor to be my sponsor she asked me why I was picking because she kind of fits the same mold as Billy and she said well you know what is it that why do you seem to pick older women and I said well a lot of it has to do with how I was raised And when I grew up, I respected my elders and I did what I was told and all. And I knew that if somebody who was, I guess, grandmotherly to me gave me a suggestion, I would be least likely to argue back. and so I know that I'm going to take suggestions from people that I respect and so my list my criteria today are a lot different than my criteria were 18 years ago and I want to know that my sponsor has a sponsor and that my sponsors work the steps and my sponsor is sponsoring other people. And that's the case. Let me see. I had a whole bunch of stuff to say and now I feel like I've run out of gas. How much time? You've got about 15 minutes or so. Ha, ha, ha. The Little Red Book, yes. It came with stools and bottles and the 24-hour. Yeah, it's again not the conference approved. But I love that book. And I don't know what it is about it. I guess maybe for me the big book the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous is where it's at there's no question about that you know everything that I've learned in the program has come from the big books and it's come to life through other members of the program so you know I have gotten kind of like a living example of what's in the bigbook from other people in the programme you know and I've been able to watch the steps faith used to always ask me ask me when i would call her and and say you know what's going on today she would say mary what step are you living today because i'd never thought about it like that you know we always talk about working the steps you know work and and the word work of course has a negative connotation to it but you know faith kind of turn that around for me and would say what's what step are you living today and i started to view that and my life and other people in the program in the same way what step is that person living today what can i learn from that and and so other people would bring that the big book to life for me but at the same time the 12 and 12 gives us a different perspective of the steps and then And the Little Red Book kind of does that also for me, you know, with yet another take on it. It's kind of like I guess as a newcomer I would go around and I would ask four or five people the same question until I got the answer that I wanted. In addition to my official sponsor, I had a whole lot of unofficial sponsors. You know, we call it a support group. You know, I have a support group today. Today my support group doesn't necessarily consist of all alcoholic members. You know my husband is not a member of Alcoholics Anonymous and he doesn't belong in AA. But he's part of my support groups. My sister, the same thing. So my family members today are part of our support group. They weren't necessarily you know 10 years ago or 15 years ago. It's not that we were estranged, it's just the relationship has evolved over the years as I have. So I had a whole lot of unofficial sponsors, people that I would be able to ask in the event that Billy or somebody wasn't available to me. I didn't know it at the time, but my sponsor, Billy, she suffered from depression. and there was a time it might have been about two years into our relationship that she kind of went into hiding I guess she kindof checked out she had quit driving by that point and I would pick her up for meetings because by that moment I had a car and I would pick her up for meetings and when I would call her and ask her if she wanted to meet oh, I'm not going to go tonight and so we didn't talk as much as we had been and she wasn't going to as many meetings and like I said I didn't know why but it turned out the reason was because she suffered from depression at that point in time it was really bad and she told me sometime later about this and she told me that she had considered very seriously and had picked up the phone a couple of times to call me to tell me that she couldn't sponsor me anymore but that she never did, she never followed through on it and she was grateful that she didn't because our relationship to her was that important you know and it wasn't me necessarily but it was that relationship it wasthat relationship between sponsor and sponsee that for her she needed and she didn't know how much at the time that she needed that so I remember thinking of course you know a lot of times back then it was all about me and I remember thinking what did I do why was she mad at me why didn't she want to talk to me but as I said that wasn't the case Sponsorship is important and working with staff is important and today I'm sponsoring a couple of women and I remember talking with Cecilia a little while ago about this and I feel like I'm at a crossroads right now with one of the gals that I'm sponsoring and again it's come back to it's all about me I must be doing something wrong and I remember talking to Faith about it and she said is she still sober and I said well yeah and she says well you're doing something right but in my mind I'm not You know, we're not getting together enough. We're not talking enough. We're nicht, you know, da-da-da, da, da. And the pamphlet talks about could your sponsor, you know could a sponsor be too firm? Can a sponsor to casual? and I think about my experience with my sponsors and we were always doing the steps. In some way, shape or form we were all doing the same thing. We were always taking the steps and that's not happening right now and that is why I feel like a failure as a sponsor with this particular gal is because we're not constantly working on the steps. And I don't mean that we get through all the 12 steps and then we start all over, you know, at number one. That's not what I mean. I just, you Know, we need to kind of get going on some things. So, You know, when I talked to Cecilia about that, she shared, You Know, an experience that she had with me and I thought, Wow, okay, well it's not, it's okay, it's cool, it is not just me and other people have similar concerns and similar questions and I can go back to what Faith asked me and that is, is she still sober? are you still sober, yep well things must be good and with that Are there any questions? Do you have, or what's your experience with working for Sponsy and the amount of time to get through the steps? Because I'm sure it's what you're saying about her, that sometimes it changes the scheduling. I feel like if I want to, I'm feeling like I'm losing momentum. Yeah. So I don't know if there's an advisable, I mean, I've seen rules, but I don' t know if I can do it again. well I feel like there should always be some movement okay and so and different people take different lengths of time I think to complete the steps so you know I think a lot of it depends on your sponsee and how that's going both of us are very busy and so that's part of it but I feel like I've asked her half a dozen times have you finished your fourth step yet? how's it going on the fourth step? and I finally decided that I was going to back off and that I wasn't going to say anything about it anymore I'm here, I'm available and when you're ready let me know and that's how I left it and I didn't say anything for two months maybe and just recently how's it going on the fourth step and I kind of saw this look a very quick when you are ready I'm here. So I think it depends. There was, yes? I think I'm rather new in the program, two years. But I asked my sponsor, a young woman asked me to be her sponsor. And I asked my sponsor do you think i'm ready to do this she said yes go ahead oh my gosh willful quick she's um but not twice now she's back she says seems really yet now and she's fast fast fast especially my sponsor keeps saying be joyful be happy you know she's motivated and i think she's got the notion they say work through step by work steps I mean well would you decide to let her rip she's finished four or five and now she's on six so let me make sure I understood your question are you asking whether or not I would let my sponsee just Yeah, I don't know. I don' t think so. Okay. I think as long as... My sponsor says, she's so motivated, you know. Uh-huh. About fear that her motivation is that she thinks this is granted and it's a cure. We know that this is not going to be the only time she works the steps. Yeah. Okay? so at least I hope not well I need to start saying that I'm sorry? I need you to start saying that to her right yes that's a good idea but I've had different experiences with different sponsors I had a gal that I sponsored in Fort Myers that was very eager and we I would go over to her house once a week I'd go over to her home and we would work the steps and then I've had sponsors like the one I've described that I feel is kind of dragging her feet but you know, it is what it is and she's still sober so I think so yes I feel like I should qualify my question my sponsor's here and we've talked about this and I believe a drug is a drug but I'm curious to know if you've had experience sponsoring women whose primary drug of choice wasn't the same as yours and what your take on that has been in terms of your from your perspective and your ability to be effective as a sponsor i did sponsor a woman when i was still in san diego i sponsored a woman whose drug of drug of course was not alcohol and um she came to aa meetings that was her door into recovery but I had a difficult time relating to some of the things that she would share with me but I did what I could and the thing that I always do when I first sponsor somebody is I need to make sure that she understands that it's okay if it doesn't work out in regards to the relationship if it's not a match, then you're not stuck with me. I mean, I don't want it to be that. I don'T want it TO BE LIKE BREAKING UP. WE'RE GOING TO BREAK UP, BUT I DON'T WANT TO CALL YOU FACEBOOK BREAKUP. AND SO WHAT I USUALLY DO IS I SAY, I'D LIKE TO REVISIT THIS IN A FEW MONTHS. And we kind of sit down and we talk about whether or not it's a match. And if she feels like maybe there's somebody else that she met that's more available or whatever it is, then that's cool. And that's what happened with this gal in San Diego. And she ultimately started to go to NA meetings and she found somebody who was a little bit more suited to her in regards to that. when I mentioned that Faith used to do meetings at her house all of the time she had a meeting one time where all ofthe participants were addicts of different kinds so we all were not members of Alcoholics Anonymous there were a couple of gals that came to the meeting that were members of OA and it was very interesting to have a regular meeting where we just talked about addiction you know, and not necessarily alcoholism but that's something different How did you manage the urge that some sponsors have to fix every little problem how do you find that distance between, okay it's my job to work the steps and help you recover from alcohol, not teach you how to fix your tire, your relationships, so on and so forth? Well, I didn't always have the ability to put that distance there because I don't know if anybody in here can relate to the feeling of wanting to control the situation. um but uh i you know i think the the first time that i sponsored someone um i felt that it was my responsibility to do it all you know and to be available for everything um and it wasn't until you know I I did it a couple of times and I got more time and I talked to my sponsor about it, that I realized what my role really was. And again, you, I, and my sponsee both read this. And we read it together. Because it talks, I need to be reminded about that. If my sponsor calls me in the middle of the night panicking about you know not being able to pay the electric bill and you know okay I'm sorry but it's not my responsibility to run over there in the middle of the night with a check okay and sometimes that's hard because we care about these people yes I mentioned earlier about men when it comes to what do you take on that gay men, lesbians It says in here, would you like me to, I'm sorry, was that all of your question? Go ahead. I interrupted. The first time that I heard about a woman, the first time I heard a woman refer to her sponsor as he, I was shocked. Oh my God, that's just not done. Until I realized that she was gay. And then it started to make more sense. And it does talk in here about usually women sponsor women and men sponsor men, but there are times when it says the AA experience does suggest that it is best for men to sponsor men and women to sponsor women. This custom usually helps our members stay focused on the AA program just like Cecilia said about, you know, the affairs. Some gay men and lesbian feels an opposite sex sponsor is more appropriate for similar reasons. So... No, I didn't mean to say that. That's pretty much all it says. It doesn't really go into, you now, into a whole lot more details for that. But, you know, I was very much a stickler for the rules because of, I guess, where and how I was brought up in the program. And as I mentioned earlier also that I didn't know what it would be that would cause me maybe to drink again, so I needed... And also I wanted to be the perfect AA because I never really did anything very well. and so by God I was going to do this as well as I could and so when I would hear or know that somebody had a sponsor that was not the same gender it was, well that's just not done you can't do that you're going to get drunk or something like that but I don't feel that way anymore well you said you're from california i've been out there too and also live in maples florida and we all know clancy every town i've ever been to lived in he sponsors women all over the country you know and it seems to work out well for them and i just have always thought that because i like you you know i've always heard the same thing and i've i've already adhered to it but everybody doesn't and it does seem to work for some people and California is California yeah right laughter another thing that I was thinking about earlier you know speaking of California is that at AA meetings there newcomers were required to introduce themselves one of the things most groups did at the very beginning was ask if there was anybody there within their first 30 days and to please introduce yourself. And so I and every other newcomer within their first 30 day had to raise their hand and say, hi, my name is Mary, I'm an alcoholic and I'm within my first 30 days. And that, I haven't been to a meeting yet in Florida where that happens. This one does? I've never been to this meeting. Really? You know, that is so cool because that gives us an opportunity to know who the newcomers are so that we can go up and, you know, we don't have to look for them. You know? Because not everybody's going there. Yes? I'm Brian. I'm an alcoholic. Hi, Brian. We ask in this group here, we ask, is there anybody to their first AA meeting, anybody within their first 30 days anybody coming back and visitors so the people who have been here can go up to those people and welcome them awesome ok yes I've heard two different takes on this is it appropriate for somebody to finish their 12 steps and then sponsor or wait a year what's your take on that I think that in order to sponsor, personally for me, I would not feel comfortable sponsoring someone if I didn't complete all 12 steps. And, you know, whether it's a year or so, are you asking if I finish my steps within six months, could I sponsor somebody then? More or less, yes. I wouldn't feel like I was prepared at that point. So that's just me. I have not had a sponsee ask me if they should sponsor someone when my sponseed didn't have at least a year. You wouldn't be here if people had to wait a year, if he wasn't sober a year when he went to the hospital. That's right, that's right. There should be no time for him when you go to the office. If he sponsored you there, it wasn't a year ago. That's true. That's been around a little while. Right here in this report, in this booklet right here, it says happiness, health, security, sanity and life of human beings are things we hold in balance when we sponsor the alcoholic. That's a lot of responsibility for somebody that's in their first year to take a hold of and grasp. They're barely doing it themselves. That's good point. I have a question, and that is, what would be a good reason for a sponsor to fire a sponsee who's still sober? And I hate to use the word fire. But, I mean, it is something that, you know, that's the term that's used. I have talked to my sponsees before. I have talked to a sponsee before and suggested that she find someone who is better suited for her needs. And, you know, like with a lot of things, it's not about me pointing out what her shortcomings are. I just need to be able to convey to her that whatever is going on at that point in time that I'm not best suited to help her. because if my sponsee is not going to take direction about the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, and if my sponsor is not gonna take suggestions that I make about the steps and all, what difference will it make if I say that at that point in time? You know, if I stay the same thing when I'm ending the relationship that I have been saying will she hear it then when she didn't hear it the 20 times earlier that I said it so it's not about me saying you, you,you,you are doing or not doing these things and so I'm leaving but for a good reason and why I have ended the relationship is that my sponsee continually took actions that I felt were counterproductive to her sobriety and that I couldn't help her if she was unwilling to take suggestions. And that perhaps somebody else could step in. My question is Like if you have a, okay I've got a sponsor but I'm not always able to get a hold of her and therefore I talk to another female co-sponsor or whatever. I mean do you still go through the same steps with the co-esponsor or you just, I don't know, or how would you go about doing that? I think that you have to establish the relationship with the person that you're most comfortable doing the steps with. And whether that is your sponsor or a co-sponsor, maybe it's just the terms are not being used correctly. If somebody's willing to take you through the steps, like I did recently, about a year ago, I had a gal who had been having trouble getting together with her sponsor. She asked if I would be available to do the fourth, fifth, and sixth, you know, do the steps with her. And I told her I would because she was ready, she was eager, she wanted to do The Steps, and she was unable to make contact with her supporter. And so I stepped in, and I did The StepS with her and served as her sponsor, and still do. So I hope I answered your question. Okay, just, I got one more. Go ahead. I'm sorry, I've got another question. Is that all right? Yeah, one more thing. One more. I'm new to the spiritual aspects of it, spiritual experience in AA. I feel a lot of confidence in working with Ms. Ponce who has long years of spiritual experience and I think it's good to center on someone else if you don't mind I'm going to put your question on the table for a little while because Cecilia is going to talk about spirituality with sponsorship. And so she can probably... Yeah, that's okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Another great place to find out about sponsorship, go to the digital grapevine, type in sponsorship. This is the 1958 collection of the grapevines. but go through and you'll find a lot of articles on sponsorship in the grapevine and that's a good source to get experience, strength and hope from a lot different people because who writes the articles for the grapevines? We do Digital Grapevine www.grapevine.org I'm an alcoholic my name is Cecilia My sobriety date is November 28th, 1990 coming up I've got my 21st anniversary in two weeks and I have my 21 year tiara all ready so I am ready to go as we know Ebby was Bill's sponsor Bill was Bob's sponsor so it takes one alcoholic to work with another alcoholic and that's how the chain of sponsorship starts. I am very fortunate from the time I got sober till seven months I did everything wrong. I didn't want to be here, I was not one of you, I went to one meeting a week, I swore like a sailor, chain spoke palm oils rode a Harley and was not a vision for you and at seven months without a drink the man I got sober for handed me a bottle of Dewars and said go back to drinking, I like you a lot better drunk than I do sober and I agree with him because I liked me a lot better drunk than dry and that's basically what I was I had no program, I had not support group I had nothing, I just had me and I was not anything I wanted to be with so why would I want to be any place where people who might want to me as well and I looked at that bottle of Dewars and I romanced it. I stroked it. I thought about it. I could tell you what it tasted like. And I was sitting in a bar. It would have been very easy to pour a shot glass of it. And then I remembered that one meeting a week because I thought you guys were a little lame for a while because you couldn't remember anything because you kept repeating the same thing over and over and every meeting. you read how it works, every meeting you read the steps, the promises I used expletives when they said are these extravagant promises and I would say blankety blankety because they were I couldn't even understand them but I knew that I had been restored to some sort of sanity at seven months without a drink because I knew where I had slept who I'd slept with, where I'd been if I'd gone to work where my money went I knew those things, I could remember and I couldn't do that when I was drinking but I also knew that I didn't want to stay this way because it was just hell on earth I went home I didnít pick up that drink and I picked up my 12 and 12 my $3200 big book in 12 and 12 because I went to treatment for 3 months and graduated I did the third step and I graduated didnít mean anything to me They just told me that's what I had to do to get out of there. And so I opened up the 12 and 12, and there was a lady's name and number in it. Didn't know her. That book had not left the box they gave it to me in. So I don't even know how the name got in there because I picked it up the first day and then it promptly went where everything else that had to deal with AA went. I didn't throw it away. I just stuck it in the corner. And so, I called that number and her name was Grace and I asked her to be my temporary sponsor because you guys had used that word and she said maybe she goes I need you to do two things I need to know if you will go to any length to stay sober and I want you to pray about it and that was a whole other subject there and she said and if you are willing to go to anything to stay over and you have prayed about it, you meet me at the 7.30 step meeting at the Melbourne Beach Group. So I did to the best of my ability those two things. And I met her at that meeting and she's been my sponsor since I've been seven months sober. The only time she has not heard one of my fifth steps because I've done the steps almost, I probably have done them at least ten times in the 20 years I've had since I was seven months over. Because different things change and life changes and I change and there are some things that I couldn't remember when I was three years sober there were some things I blocked out until I was almost seven years sober I didn't start getting happy, joyous and free until I Was about eight years sober but then I divorced 275 pounds and that helped so there were some things I had to go through in this process but what she did for me is that she told me if I went to a step meeting every day every week for a year whole book including the traditions I will have read the 12 and 12 And if I would do the same thing with the big book Including the stories I will Have read the entire big book And that I needed to do that And then when I got done with that Start over again So for me it's been a continuous process 1994 I went to my first area assembly in Daytona And I sat next to this little redhead From Rhode Island Who was just You don't say no You don' t say maybe You say yes And I asked her to be my service sponsor because that's where I heard it first, was at an area assembly. And they said, you know, you find someone who's doing the service work you want to do and you ask them to sponsor you in that service because they've had that job. Well, I didn't know much about being a GSR and she'd been a GSAR. I didn' t know anything about being DCM and she had been a DCM. So what I did is I asked Rita to be my service sponsor and she said yes and so she has taken me through the service manual. She has taken m through our history and she took me through traditions and she had me put them in the eye. Go home and write these babies in the eye and see what that does to your sobriety. That's what changed in my service sponsorship. Because when I had to start living these, as Mary was saying, when you live these and you live these, there are no excuses for behavior. Those two things will pretty much do it. Bill Wilson talked about his sponsorship telling him how he recovered. But up until Bill was five years sober, he did not have a happy and joyous free life. And we know that because in Tassadon, it talks about, for Bill these were tantalizing days. His hopes to be raised only to be dashed. They still had no home of their own, meaning he and Lois. He had no job. The big book wasn't selling. AA wasn't getting the wide publicity it desperately needed. The Rockefellers hadn't come through. Hank was drinking. Bill was frustrated, impatient, restless, dissatisfied, and depressed. What does that sound like? H-A-L-T. Some even described him as being a dry drunk. In other words, he had all the symptoms of being drunk except the alcohol. What happened next was unexpected and unforeseen. If Bill had been asked what would have made him feel better, he would have hardly thought the name of the gift to come to him apparently at random. On a cold and rainy night in 1940, deep in the winter of Bill's discontent, I was in our little club in New York, which is 182 Clinton Street, the first one to ever open its doors. I was lying there alone except for old Tom M., who you know in the 8th tradition is the guy who was hired to clean up the room. He was our first service worker who made the coffee downstairs. Lois was away someplace. I was suffering from an imaginary ulcer attack. I used to have a lot of those. I felt very sorry for myself. It was a rather bitter night, sleeting outside, and old Tom, a very brisk Irishman, came up and said, Bill, I hate to bother you, but there's some bum from St. Louis here. Well, it was 10 o'clock at night, and I said, oh no, not another one. We'll bring him up. So I heard a painful progress up the stairs, and I thought to myself, this one's really in bad shape. He finally stood at the door of my little bedroom, a terribly crippled figure, coat drawn up around him leaning on a cane and he sat down and turned back his collar and then I saw he was a clergyman He said, I'm Father Dowling from St. Louis I belong to the Jesuits out there and we've been looking at this book Alcoholics Anonymous He was not a member of the fellowship meaning he was not one of us Thus began a conversation that lasted for 20 years Father Downing, crippled Jesuit priest from St.-Louis and editor of The Queen's Work, a Catholic publication said he was fascinated by the parallels he had discovered between the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and the exercises of St. Ignatius St. Ignaitius founded the Jesuits he put together this book on the spiritual essays and where those tabs are are the steps of AA you can find them in here and Father Dowling didn't necessarily come to see Bill because he was happy with him he thought that he had plagiarized the steps from the spiritual essays of St. Ignatius and he was actually coming to give him a piece of his mind this is the spiritual exercises of St.-Ignatius and you can still find it and it's not an easy read because to get to all those tabs I had to sit down and read each one and they offer prayers in them as well so if you're not familiar with Catholic faith it will give you a sharp upbringing on it when Bill confessed he knew nothing of these exercises, Father Dowling was delighted and Bill warmed up to him. We talked about a lot of things and my spirits kept on rising and personally I began to realize that this man radiated a grace that filled the room with a sense of presence. Bill had used the term sense of presence to describe the atmosphere at Winchester Cathedral. That evening, Father Dalling shared with Bill an understanding of the spiritual life that was then and ever after seen to speak to Bill's condition. Bill, author of The Fifth Step, would later characterize that evening as the night he took his fifth step and also of a second conversion experience. He unburdened himself of his commissions and omissions all of which had lain heavily on his mind and of which he found until then no way to speak His extraordinary communication his openness to sharing was to be vital for Bill. Father Dowling's spiritual sponsorship would endure, grow and be nourished during the correspondence in a deep friendship that would last for the next two decades The subjects of this interchange although interspersed with business matters of the fellowship, Father Ed was one of its staunchest supporters, and was responsible for founding AA in St. Louis were almost always the questions Will continued through his life about faith and no faith, about the church and its role in human affairs. So basically he did his fifth step at five years. You were asking earlier how much time did you take to do the steps? Well one of our co-founders took five years to do his fifth and at that point the fifth step was written as it was in the big book. But what I liked about what he talked about was that sense of presence And what I would ask you to, if you have a length of time where you've done your third SIP, because the third Sip I did in treatment was blah, blah, bah, blah. I'm gone. Around three years sober, I had the opportunity to go through an AWOL, which is Alcoholics Anonymous Way of Life. It, again, is non-conference approved, and it is basically a week on ASEP. And we went through it with, we had 12 of us that started out. three because it took us eight months to go through the steps and that's where I learned that you go through line by line by line. You don't read a whole chapter at a meeting you go line byline by line and I found a woman that had been significant to me in my early sobriety and I asked her to do my third step with me so I want you all to go back to the person you did your third step with when even though you practiced it for weeks so you would know it when you closed your eyes the words just came out of your mouth because you knew it and we got on our knees and we did the third step prayer and the the tears that came down my face were tears of joy tears of surrender of knowing that my higher power had me in his hands or her hands or its hands it didn't matter and that those hands were not going to do what most of them had done my entire life which was this those hands where locked and they were never going to pull apart and I was home and Iwas safe I've called her my spiritual sponsor she's since passed away we called her Peppermint Patty um but she she is the woman that is my spiritual sponsor because i could go to her with any questions any anger any resentment towards my higher power and she would just unfold it like like a paper shredder you know it would just come apart like confetti and there would be nothing left but me going why was i so pissed or you know what was blocking me you know and she had that way she had that presence, she had that voice where you would just sit there and you would just know so when you think about who your spiritual sponsor was, think about who that person is you took your third step with, not necessarily a fifth but your third steps because that's where you first got your contact and that's the person that your higher power used as a conduit to that spiritual sponsorship I've had to find other women to kind of take her place and it's funny because we're all interchangeable as far as I'm concerned because I'm like Mary if I have a sponsee that can't get to me she knows three other people she can call today and they can talk to her right now because life gets a little hectic for me sometimes I'm the same way if I can't even get a hold of Grace right now I call Rita I also have found that I needed some sponsorship that was of a higher level as far as service was concerned because my service sponsor has never been area chair, area secretary, area registrar, area secretary or area delegate. And so I had to find someone who had done some of those jobs before. So I have a male sponsor in my life that has had experience with certain parts of the service structure that I needed to have experience with. And soI did avail myself of that. He's a young people, got sober when he was 18. and my grand sponsor got sober when he was 15. So, you know, I have... And he was the youngest delegate ever elected from Illinois. So I have people in my life that are available to me on all levels of experience. And that's why, yes, I need one person that knows me, knows the closet, knows the garbage can, knows where I threw the trash bags away because that's the person that I got brutally honest with. You know? and even when I have to call someone else and dump I still call Chris and say I dumped about this a couple weeks ago I hadn't been able to talk to you and this is what we talked about and she does the same thing that Mary's sponsor does what step are you working what step of your living where are you you know so even though she may not necessarily be around all the time the spiritual sponsor that I have today is that same person that had the qualities that Patty had just in a different way. She's much more organized in religion and I'm much more disorganized in religion. You know, I'm an ex-Catholic. I was named after the patron saint of music. My father plays dominoes better than your father. You know I was brought up with all the traditions and I was bought up with the tradition and I brought up with all of the ritual and I appreciate the fact that she has that but I don't necessarily have to have that. What she has is what I want And what she has is she has that pipeline to a higher power. I just know it. You can see it. She's got that aura about her that you just know that her and God have been having coffee. And every time I look at her and say, I wish I could just email God. So one day she sent me an email going, hello? And I went, you know, as a joke to me, she goes, you want to talk to God, talk to Gott. You don't need an email from God to tell you what to do. and the one part of sponsorship we haven't talked about is online sponsorship and we're not going to because that's a topic we don't have any history on and it's a very new type of thing but we probably ought to in the near future start talking about what happens when you sponsor someone you never see someone that you never talk to but just someone you type to because there is sponsorship of that kind going around what kind of sponsor was Dr. Bob? John S., an Akron member beginning in 1940, remembered? He pointed his finger at me. He had a finger like a yardstick. Skin and bones, all it was, and said, you want to do something about your drinking, do you? He was kind of rough and tough, you know. There was no warm or gentle fuzzies about Dr. Bob. He said, you got any dough? This is for the book. I didn't know what he was doing. I thought maybe he was a book agent or something. Dr. Robb said, you read the book, then you come talk to me. Then he'd come into a room after I'd read the work he'd ask me a lot of questions. It was like a second grade teacher coming in and asking me about the lesson and you better have the answers. He then asked me if I was going to take the steps. Right now is as good as any. I said this was as many to God and yourself and another person. And that's what I did. Dr. Bob believed that you didn't wait around. You honestly admitted. You confessed to what you... You established your relationship with a higher power. You confessed your sins and admissions. You got on your knees and asked them to be removed. You made your amends and your apologies to those that you had harmed. And you started working with others. And this was not a four-month process. This was a four hour process. Once you came in and read the book, you went upstairs to Dr. Bob's house. There was a 20 minute third step prayer. And 20 minutes on a hard pine floor. If you're not believing in God, you're Not Believing in Anything. Because at that point, you can't feel your legs. The archivists do it every year. and then we did the third step part of the way Dr. Bob did and then you go downstairs and you write down your fourth step you talk about your fifth and then be done make your amends Dr.Bob did a little bit out of order we know that because he made his amends on the way back from his last drink and that's why they couldn't find him and they were in order for a reason because we did tend to do things a little out of whack this is a great article if you go to aa.org and you type in box 459 you'll see the article on Father Dowling and this really goes to the heart of what a spiritual sponsor is and there's copies up here you can come up afterwards and pick some up but it really talks about what Bill felt was a spiritual sponsor and what kind of gives a better explanation of it and that's in box459 which is also online it's free from aa.org AA comes of age there's a whole section in the back religion looks at alcoholics anonymous And Dr. Sam Shoemaker, who was also instrumental in the Oxford Groups in New York, who was instrumental in Ebby's recovery, is also in here. Also, Father Dowling is in here as well. So there's lots of places you can go to get information, not only on step service but spiritual sponsorship. And do we have any questions? And then we're going to give away things. So any questions on spiritual? Yes, ma'am. I have recently had a spiritual life out here. My head, my heart, and my gut all have to be in the same place when I make a decision. My head and my heart and my guts. Because if my gut's not happy, the rest of me is going to know it if my heart's not happy I'm going to understand that too and if my brain's conflicting with the rest then that pretty much tells me that I'm not in a position to make a decision I don't see where there's a qualification about what somebody knows about religion what somebody doesn't know about religion I sponsor an agnostic we don't have a problem I don't think that there's a qualification on what we believe and how we got there the qualification is do we follow the tenets of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous which means do we carry the message to the alcoholic who's still suffering whether by our example which is how we normally get it or by our service, which is how we see it, or by our words, which is what we do when we write articles or we share our experience, strength and hope Thanks So where do you go to to find out how Dr. Bob did third step and how is it different well there's two different ways to do it I'm trying to remember we did it when I do the steps we do it the way they did it back in the 40s and basically it's a step by step line by line through the 12 and 12 process and we tie in the parts of the big book that relate to it. There is a workshop called Back to the 40's that's put on by Ray Grimley who's also a past archivist in Dr. Bob's house, they do it there as well I don't know that it's published anywhere I'm the past archrivist in the North Florida area and I've been involved in archives for a long time and that's how I was exposed to it is I went up to Dr. Rob's house for an archivists workshop and we went through everything they did for the first four years in AA in Dr Bob's House same books, same ritual same coffee pot and it was an awesome experience Dr. Bob's house there's not actually an established place to do it but the closest thing I can think of as far as a workshop kind of like what the back to the basics is, is the back to 40s and they do that around mostly from the west east coast, from Ohio to the east coast and down because Ray Summers, or Winters in Sarasota, so he's on the west coast where did you find the 20 minute third step that's what this gentleman was just asking me about it's not published anywhere it's what the archivists do when we go to Dr. Bob's house and basically it's not really published per se okay any other questions how many people in this room have a sponsor how many people sponsor people for the ones that don't sponsor someone yet you have all the tools now to be a sponsor and another question was asked earlier how sober do you have to be to sponsor someone if the person sitting next to you has got 10 days and you've got 12 you've Got two more days that you can give them I need to be around women like Annette because at 21 years I'm not seeing the 25 and 27 year old women in sobriety I need to see the women with 30 years because she has what I want she's got that quality of what I want to be when I grow up and so I need define it, how do I do that? I go to meetings, I'm of service I talk to other people I do workshops I drive a delegates bus we have a lot of fun ok Katie, you got tickets? yep