Sponsors Stay Sober, Sponsees Relapse — The Best-Kept Secret in the Fellowship – Cameron F.

About This Speaker Tape

Cameron F., a recovered member of Cocaine Anonymous with 26 years of active addiction behind him, opens with a parable: a hopeless addict in a hole is passed by a businessman, a preacher, a doctor, and a psychiatrist — all offering partial solutions that leave him stuck. Cameron was that man. He describes sitting in a basement apartment sharing a dirty needle while his four-year-old son played squirt guns with his needles in the next room, knowing he was dying and knowing he would use again that day.

Since hitting bottom in 2003, Cameron has reclaimed his marriage, rebuilt relationships with his now-adult son and daughter, restored the business he destroyed, semi-retired, and returned to the University of Toronto for a double major in world religions and anthropology. He credits a man who, instead of taking him to another meeting, took him to a coffee shop and walked him through the Big Book together, working the steps line by line with the instructions treated as instructions.

The middle of the tape is a working walk-through of the program. He uses the Doctor's Opinion to show how addicts like the effect but can't tell the true from the false. He reads the moderate/heavy/real-alcoholic diagnostic on page 20 and asks listeners to diagnose themselves. He lists every method of human willpower he tried — exercise, reputation, sex, emotional appeal from his family, remember-when, church, meetings, hugs — and why each one failed. He then takes the listener through steps two through nine the way his sponsor took him: the short surrender question, the Third Step prayer on a coffee shop floor, a four-column inventory done in an hour, steps six and seven on his knees, and a step nine amend to a business partner he had been slandering online for years.

Cameron closes on the twelfth step and what he calls the best-kept secret in the fellowship — that sponsors stay sober and sponsees relapse, because you can't keep it unless you give it away. He has taken nearly 300 addicts through the steps using a four-hour process learned from a man in Arizona, and he tracks every one: 52% are sober today. He ends by revising the opening parable — the recovered addict jumps into the hole with the suffering one and says, I've been here before, I know the way out.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Parable of the addict in the hole — businessman with a ladder, preacher with a Bible, doctor with OxyContin, psychiatrist with questions
• 3:30 Introduces himself as Cameron, recovered member of Cocaine Anonymous, 26 years in the hole
• 5:00 Basement apartment scene — four-year-old son with squirt guns and dirty needles, Cameron sharing a needle knowing he is dying
• 7:30 Life today — reclaimed marriage, adult son and daughter, rebuilt business, semi-retired, studying world religions at U of T
• 10:00 Big Book as a recipe for recovery — mucking, back to basics, Joe and Charlie, primary purpose all get to the same kitchen
• 13:00 2003 bottom — meets the man who asks if he wants to quit for good, takes him to a coffee shop instead of another meeting
• 17:00 Doctor's Opinion walkthrough — like the effect, can't tell true from false, restless irritable discontented, the spree and remorse cycle
• 21:00 Self-diagnosis from page 20 — moderate drinker, heavy drinker, real alcoholic; ill health, change of environment, falling in love, doctor's warning all failed him
• 25:00 Every human-powered method that failed — exercise, reputation, emotional appeal, sex, remember-when, church, meetings, hugs
• 28:00 Steps two and three done out loud — willing to believe, firing Cameron as CEO, Third Step prayer on a coffee shop floor
• 31:00 Four-column inventory done in one hour, then steps six and seven on his knees naming arrogance, dishonesty, selfishness, hate
• 35:00 Ninth step amend to the business partner — pulls slander documents off the internet, asks what more he can do, gets 'Higher Power bless you, I just want the door open'
• 38:00 Ten, eleven, twelve — the four-hour step process learned in Arizona, 300 sponsees tracked, 52% sober, the best-kept secret that sponsors stay sober
• 41:00 Revised parable — the recovered addict jumps into the hole and says 'I've been here before, I know the way out'