Sponsorship and Self Will – I,Johnnie H,Peggy M,Dick M – Sponsorship Workshop – Part 2 of 2 – Clancy M.

Well, you can't be hanging around on the fringes out against the walls or standing outside in the parking lot just baiting what them fanatics are doing in there. You know, just go to meetings and keep your eyes open and watch. It's the easiest thing in the world for me because I'm speaking from experience of sitting in meetings for a long, long time. I just sit and watch! His sponsor who is dead now used to say to me, if you don't believe any of this crap Johnny, just sit around here with your eyes opened. Somebody will always prove to you what you're thinking about. That's the answer to that. Thank you. Hi, my name is Alyssa. I'm an alcoholic. Hi. I'm new as a sponsor, and I'm having some problems enforcing Clancy's number one rule, the shut up rule. And I sought advice from my sponsor who gave me what I thought to be really good advice, And she said, you know, when your sponsee is going off on tangents, just steer them back to the steps. Steer them backto the steps, steer themback to the stepstheir them backtothe steps. And I've tried to do that over and over andover. And I guess what my question is, is how long do I keep trying to do this? And at some point when I know I'm not really being of help to her because she's just off in her own stuff. Is it OK to cut a sponseelose or do you not cut a sponsor loose or any advice at all would be helpful, I guess. Peg Martin again. Thanks, Alyssa. I think it's all, for me anyway, the experience that I have with that is that I always think about people that I sponsor in this instance as a kite. You know, you've got a kite, and this kite has got a long string. And you know how kites have a string that just keeps going. You've got lots of tails. Well, it's a string to hold it. They've got tails too, but this is the string you're holding the kite with. And you just keep letting the kite go out. You've Got a certain amount of string that you've got to hold on to, and you hold it very lightly. I'll let people go off over here and off over there, but i still got a little tiny bit of string and i hope that that's the respect that they have me for me and i'm holding on to that string only three times in all the years that i have sponsored have i actually let go of that string i have not reeled them back in again in some ways by pulling them back into the book by pulling them back to the meeting because i cannot fight your self will i can't do it it is totally impossible it's like pushing the wind it's like moving up the river it's it's just i can't do it and i won't do it because you know it's a it it makes no sense it's not good for me it's not good for them it's not good but i have you know as well as anything anyone who's had any experience that we make mistakes all the time I mean, through the years I have sponsored people. I've made mistakes with them. I have been a mistake at times with my own sponsor. But through the year I have learned, and the thing I've learned is that I just have a certain amount of kite string for everybody and only three times in all those years has that run out, which says to me that God will eventually pull most of them back in again. It'll be coming back in. So what I do is my sponsor suggested to me that I sit in a chair when I get very frustrated with people like that, and I close my eyes and I picture myself rising above them. It's kind of arrogant, but that's what she told me to do. And it works because I can let go of that problem and move on to what I need to do, and then when they need the help, then I can reel in the kite string again. I understand what you're saying, but it takes practice. just you'll know when you know my mom used to always say to me i'd say how do i know when i'm in love she'd say you'll no the how do I know you'll note how do I know you'll not when you now and it's the same thing I think thank you thanks hi my name is Lana I'm an alcoholic uh... my question is this I noticed that there's a lot of long-distance sponsorship going on And I want to know, how does that work? You know, my problems don't come to me at a convenient 8 o'clock in the morning. My problems will come at 3 o' clock in the mornig when the mind is going and 150 miles an hour tearing me to pieces and I'm stuck with a problem I can't seem to get out of. And that doesn't happen, it doesn't matter about the years or whatever I've got. Sometimes it just happens. And do you call long distance then and say, hey, now what do I do? Or do you have a sponsor? You know, I was always taught I better have somebody that I'm 15 minutes away from at all times that I can depend on. And when you start getting out here in some years, that's not always good. It doesn't always happen like that. That is a very good question and a good problem. I sponsor a lot of people long distance. Johnny sponsors people long distant. Dick sponsors people who love his pages. A lot of people do. But I would say as a rule, we are not sponsoring new people who just don't know what to do. When you are new, you better have somebody there that you can talk to incessantly or grab onto. I've often said I would much rather see people believe in their sponsor than pretend to believe in the God they don't believe in because you can fool them at 8 o'clock at night but you can't fool that dark at three o'clock in the morning as you say i would say most of the people we spots maybe all of them are people who've been sober quite a while and there's nobody in that community ahead of them stronger that they feel are stronger and it's more of a maintenance program and you talk about the general philosophy of a you talk about the colorations and what do i do in this case and our meeting is going this way and i have these feelings my wife and i're having some difficulty and you can talk about those things it isn't the kind of new where my god the walls are coming in me you know they're looking at me funny on the bus jesus i don't want to do which are real feelings but you need someone close by for that i would say generally speaking long distance sponsorship is for people who've been sober a while uh close-up sponsorship is essential for new people i'm not i'm saying that i've been around for a while i mean i've And I've been around 17 years, okay? To me, that's a long time. It oppresses me. But what I'm saying is sometimes that happens to me. You know, I get in a space... If any of the people I sponsored were frantic at 3 in the morning, they would call me. I would give them permission to call me, but they goddamn well better be frantic. I'll bet you. Thank you. Hi, I'm Aldo, and I'm an alcoholic. Hi, Aldo. I'm a newcomer, so please excuse the ignorance in the question that I'm about to ask. I'm under the understanding that AA was founded in 1935 by Bill Wilson. I'm unter the understanding dat it's been a long time since then, and what drives me wild to know, will there ever be a man born on this planet, somewhere out there that has a way to stop alcoholism without science's help? Without what? Science's help. As in, strictly relying on God? Who knows? And that's a very good answer. You know, even the book that was written in 1938-39, published in 1939 really, it says that science has never been able to figure out this problem. Maybe someday they will. And my answer is maybe someday they well. Okay. I don't think that, you know, we're talking about the physical properties of someone being an alcoholic. You're not talking about the spiritual properties. The spiritual life is the healing from what we did to ourselves. I'm finished with you. Sit down. I want to address this. I'm sponsored long distance. These people aren't, so I'm the only one that can talk about the experience of being sponsored in a long-distance basis. Because Fancy started sponsoring me when I was about 15 years sober. And I call him once a week. I have the responsibility of a phone call every week, and so I call him every week and any other time that I need to or any other times that I want to. So it makes a lot of difference. It's a very simple sort of thing. and I can remember I had an illness and I had some circulatory problems and the doctors were trying to resolve it medically and they were giving me something that expanded my arteries and at the same time it lowered my blood pressure and I seemed to be sensitive to that and she kept telling me I was depressed, and I refused to be depressed because I was still seeing things in color. People who are truly depressed see things in black and white. They don't see them in color, but I was sure down, I can tell you that, and I woke up one night probably about 2 o'clock in the morning. I thought to myself, I wonder how I can commit suicide by bringing the least pain to the people who care for me. I thought, Jesus, I haven't felt like that for years. What the hell's the matter with me? And I thought about it, and the only thing that I'd done is take this medication to expand my arteries so that I had better blood flow. And I said, that's what it is, because that's the only things I've done differently. and I called the doctor the next morning so on and so forth and just as soon as I finished talking to the doctor I called Clancy and I told him what had happened and so on so forth and he asked me he said well how old are you Dick and I said I'm 60 it was 10 years ago and he said when were you 60 and I says last December and he said well let me tell you something he said the watershed year for women is 50 and the watershed year for men is 60 and he says at that period of time people begin to think it's all over and he said Dick I don't want to disturb you by this but he said the question whether it's all over or not the answer is It's all over. And I laughed, and I felt better, and I've felt better ever since. And it's really very just almost that simple. I had to learn to laugh at myself so I could get over the thing that was wrong with me, which was me thinking about me. And I called him the next Wednesday, checked in. He said, How are you doing? I said, I'm doing fine. He said, well, all the information isn't in yet, Dick. But that's the purpose of having a sponsor, being able to talk to somebody to reassure me that I'm doing the right thing or to correct me to do the right things, whichever the case may be. Hi, I'm Kurt. I'm an alcoholic. And I am also a pigeon. And that's okay today? um question i have is my uh sponsor uh is uh typed a it's uh he only sponsors the willing and uh he believes in the 12 steps 12 traditions and 12 concepts and i just wanted to get some clarification on uh when you said something about that you can sponsor someone with two to three days and and uh because i know i can take that and run with it real quick and and i just wanted to get a little clarification on that well I don't think I exactly said that you could sponsor him in two or three days I said I think you could help him in 2 or 3 days there's a big difference the first thing I would do if I was your sponsor tell you remove your hat while you're in a meeting i just got that information from my sponsor it just but that it doesn't you know over and over and again what i i think that the word and the title of sponsors sometimes is blown completely out of proportion i think sometimes people expect more out of me because they say i'm their sponsor that i'm capable of doing i think sometime we think our sponsors are something more than basic human beings and they behave like human beings sometimes in it but the whole concept of alcoholics anonymous is one alcoholic trying to help another alcoholic that's the basic concept of it if you want to put a title on it fine you know sometimes you take two or three guys or three or four days sober what we have a little in our home group in my home group is what we have is like a buddy system, basically. You have two or three guys that you sponsor and they get together and talk about their sponsor. You know what I'm saying? You know that son of a bitch said to me? That's what he told me too. Oh, really? I mean, that's basically what it's all about. It's a buddy, it's a body system, really. When you're new, like I told that gentleman, you know, what do you do if you're two days sober and you've got a guy who's one day sober, you take him to a meeting. And you all go to meetings, and the first thing you know, you're all going to meetings. But that's basic. You don't necessarily have to have the title. It may work into the title of sponsorship maybe, but it doesn't necessarily happen to be that. The whole concept of alcoholics, the way I understand it and the way it's been taught to me is one alcoholic helps another alcoholic. There's no title put in there. There's not essence for having sponsorship in that. you know bill wilson's sponsor never stayed sober but he never denied that he wasn't a sponsor he'd always do it so you know don't don't get hung up on somatics and alcoholics anonymous that's a death grip around here in alcoholic synonymous people get hung up on semantics about alcoholic synonyms which leads them into psychobabble which leads them to depressions which leads him into therapy which leads them into medication which leads them to the death house hi I'm Julie I'm an alcoholic thank you so much it's been really great to see you all and I have a I've got questions sort of two-pronged I know that none of you have flawed sponsors but I was just wondering what you do what you do when you see that your sponsor if you have any experience when you see that you're sponsored you feel your sponsors in trouble because I think that happens I mean I know it's happened in my experience of working with a sponsor and also I'm in a home group where there is a lot of long-distance sponsorship going on when you see your peers in sobriety who are actively working with the sponsor but you perceive that they're in trouble and I believe part of my answer of course really came from Johnny's that we're here to help one another so I just like to hear some of your experience on this Well, I think that that's a difficult circumstance. And obviously it is or you wouldn't be asking the question. uh but i think that i think the best thing to say is if if my relationship with my sponsor uh is so weak that i can't say something to him when i feel it should be done then i should get out of the relationship i think that uh i think it's a it's a difficult thing because you put them in a position of being some superhuman being and you have to remember that none of us are we uh in order for the membership of alcoholics anonymous to swell and get bigger it uh it really uh we have to go out and comb the gutters of the world and we got to remember that those people that sponsored us came to us came to a just as flawed as we are or more so to some degree or another but enough of a degree that they were hurting enough to come to alcoholics anonymous and we're not perfect human beings we're not going to do everything right we're going to be without error we're not going to be perfectly honest human beings. We're not going to be the man of the year on Time magazine, not only from an anonymity standpoint but from the fact that we wouldn't be chosen as the man or the woman of the year because we're human and we're flawed. And if we weren't human and flawed why would we stay here i mean there's a reason for us to be here the reason is you know in the big book it says we have recovered from the seemingly hopeless state of mind and body and that is to say we're no longer mentally obsessed or physically addicted to alcohol that's what it means it doesn't mean anything else it doesn'T mean that we're healed. It doesn't mean that we're cured. It doesn't means that we are going to become fine, outstanding people. It does not mean you are going to be able to play the piano. Before you came here, you couldn't play the piano. It doesn't mean that if you are a horse thief before you get here, you are not going to be a horse thief after you get here. Those things become personality components after a while and they are hard and they ingrained and so every now and then they kick up and say hello and as a result of that just remember you know don't look for someone to be a perfect human being there's only one perfect human he died on a cross and I'm not going to put my sponsor there I don't think it's my responsibility to do that I think that that's his sponsors responsibility and it's It's my responsibility to take care of the people that I sponsor, and it's my sponsor's responsibility to call me. I'm not going to call him on what I see to be his failings because I may or may not be right in the first place and maybe a perception of mine because I'm feeling goopy or strange or something's wrong with me. And I just trust that I'm going to get good direction. If my sponsor doesn't take good direction himself, that's tough shit. As long as I get good direction, that's what I'm concerned about. That's what i'm here for. This is a very selfish and a very self-serving sort of a thing, Alcoholics Anonymous is, because we should be sober first, and we should be comfortable first. And if we're sober and comfortable, we can pass on that sobriety and that comfort to the new guy who comes along. And we're not supposed to do other things. We're not suppose to make perfect human beings out of anybody. And we are not going to be able to do that. So you may as well give up on that. But if somebody is hurting and you think they're hurting, say so. You don't seem to be with yourself today. Well, I wasn't with myself yesterday either. But this isn't a cure-all. Alcoholics Anonymous is to help us recover from this seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. That's what it's for. and if you take people who are perfect when they walked in here they're not going to stay in here anyway thank you applause applause hi I'm Jean I'm an alcoholic I have a woman who asked me to sponsor her she's been in my home group for the last like five years and she has had lapses in her sobriety she'd gone through a halfway house. Recently, very recently, the last couple weeks, she asked me if I would be her sponsor. And about three or four days later, I had a call from her from an emergency room of a hospital where she was asking me to come pick her up and sign her out because they wouldn't release her because her blood level was too high. So she couldn't leave on her own. And I kind of thought about it. And, you know, I kind OF felt like she was where she needed to be. And so I told her I would not sign her out. Anyway, she ended up getting somebody else to sign her out and take her home. And when we talked the next day, she told me that she hadn't been drinking, though she had admitted that in the emergency room, that she had had an asthma attack and had just taken too much cough syrup and couldn't believe that she... had found out that this cough medicine had alcohol in it, and so she threw it away. And then a little bit more explanation. But anyway, I really feel like she might be one of those people that it talks about in the big book that is quote-unquote constitutionally incapable of being honest with herself. I mean, because I confronted her, gee, you know, the nurses said that you had admitted You were drinking beer. Gee, you're not going to be able to get to 4.0 blood level on one bottle of cough medicine. How many bottles of cough medication did you drink? So I told her I was uncomfortable and that I wasn't sure I could sponsor her. And yet at the same time, I feel like this is a person who's killing herself, and I care. What do you do in a situation like that when someone is having that much trouble being honest with themselves? I'll answer that. What did he say? I'll ask him. That is a difficult situation, and I understand you. In my early sobriety, I went to the wall with a lot of people and beyond the wall. Now, as some of you know, I'm in a different situation. I've used this phrase many, many times. I'll use it one more time because I don't know a better way to put it. When I go to work in the morning, I have to step over the bodies of men and women dying from alcoholism to get to my office. When I Go Home at Night, I Have to Step Over the Bodies of Men and Women Dying from Alcoholism to Get to My Car. Now you would think as a long-term practitioner of AA, as a successful sponsor who had been everywhere and done everything, I really should be able to help these people. And when I first went there, I thought I could, and I tried. And I was nearly always unsuccessful. Now, there's a theory of why would you be unsuccessful if people really need help? And I could give you psychiatric and psychological and all kinds of reasons, but I can synthesize it into one sentence as far as I know. They are unwilling to take actions they disagree with. It's that simple. and when they are unwilling to take actions there's no way I can get into them or you can get in to them because unless they begin to act differently they must certainly stay in this pattern and this woman I know that your heart goes out to her because she's a sad tragic case and I know all kinds of people like that and I would give anything to help them but I can't help them because this is shut that door to their armor opens from the inside I mean, just a little bit you can do something. But no, I want you to take care of me. Bail me out. Do this, do that. He said, I really, when you want to stay sober and do what I suggest, I'll be glad to sponsor you, honey. But until then, you're just going to die. Play it right out there. Okay. Thank you. We have about ten minutes left of questioning, and then we'll be closing the meeting. Good afternoon, friends. My name is Jim, and I am an alcoholic. I understand this portion of the conference is a Q&A on sponsorship. I was wondering if the panel would field a question on the history of AA. We'll make up an answer if we don't have one. I just read a transcript from Bill W. I guess he spoke in 1954, and he was talking about the writing of the big book. and in there I read that a third of the certificates of the works publishing went to a guy named Parker and I'd never heard this name before and I was wondering what his services rendered were and what became of those and who he was. It's not Parker, but it's close. His name is Hank P. Hank Parkhurst, I believe, was the correct name and he was Bill's first assistant in New York. He had a little office. Bill went to New Jersey every morning and wrote the big book in his office dictated to Hank's secretary and he became an integral part he had a third of this because he was furnishing much of the things they gave him the stock which turned out to be a joke Enron circa 1939 but anyway Bill and Hank had a falling out and then for the next couple of years Hank Drunk went around to all the A means he could find and tell everybody what a dirty, rotten fink Bill Wilson was. He was a liar. He was an cheat. He made a special trip out to Akron to tell the people out there he really was something. And he wound up dying drunk. Thank you very much. Go Bears. Hi, I'm Leanne. I'm an alcoholic. Hi, Leanne! My question is, what do you guys think about having more than one sponsor? What do you think about, I'm sorry, I have laryngitis a little bit. And what do you thing about having more than one sponsor, like two sponsors, dual sponsorship? Well, I guess if you have enough, you can get the answer you want. that i have enough voices going off in my head with having some extra ones going on there i have to have period and you know and i've been sober a long time i have to have one set of instructions if i i've known these people ever since they've been sober, and I love him very dearly. And a lot of people in here I've known since the beginning, I love them very dearily. And if I took any of my personal problems and started with Dick, and asked Kim, asked Peggy, asked the human hummingbird, sooner or later i would get the answer that i wanted not necessarily the answer that i'm needing or that will be helpful but the one that will soothe my ego and make it seem to me that it's the easier softer way it's a thing i want to do anyhow that's the best benefit that i know of having one voice one set of instructions and one thing to follow that's that's one of the things that's things that i get from people i sponsor who are long distance or close distance or whatever they answer to one voice and one set of answers because i don't know about a lot of personalities but my personality is you know i just keep asking i'll find it so i'm saying that's the danger point of having two sponsors i know somebody people that have three or four sponsors you know what And they just keep working on them until they finally get the one they want. But I don't think it's a good idea. My name is Bill. I'm an alcoholic. Johnny, I think you just answered the question, but I'd like you guys to speak to the topic of service sponsors. I think we need one sponsor I don't think we need two or ten I think that there are a lot of people that you're going to learn from in Alcoholics Anonymous people have been involved in service before in that particular service before you were involved in it can pass that on down to you because it's a matter of passing it on from one person to another and if you still have questions in this arena then you can go to your sponsor and say hey what do I do about this you know what you know i'm getting these conflicting reports on this what do you think the best thing for me to do and do what your sponsor says it's really very simple i don't think that you need a service sponsor and uh there are some people that need a spiritual sponsor an emotional sponsor and a relationship sponsor i don' t have one of those financial sponsors oh jesus christ you know I mean, next thing you know, you're going to have to have one that... I need a masturbation sponsor. I don't think you need any guidance on that, do you, fella? The point about it is that, you know after a while, what you're doing is you're involving yourself in what's fair and what's true and what' s good what's going to help the newcomer to recover from the seemingly ill-fated state of mind and body. If the effort that you're involved in in service is going to help the newcomer, then it's right. And if it's not going to health the newcomers, then why do it? That's not the purpose of it. It's not for alcoholics to know us. The purpose of alcoholics' knowledge is for us to be able to stay sober and help other alcoholics achieve sobriety. If it fits that category, then its good. If it doesn't fit that category, then it isn't service as I understand it. Thank you. Thank you all. I wanted to say something else. I think we're hung up on the title sponsor. Don't get hung up upon that. There are many people I go to who have experience in different areas that my sponsor is fully aware that I am going to talk to and gives me the blessing to. it is that just in those essential things of my recovery i need one voice i can get help from all kinds you know i even learned a new word there was a guy in our group who used to sing to people when he was drunk he would go outside their houses and sing to these girls in the street you know he was a nut you know but he's been sober now for 15 years and he coined a new word. He calls, he said he was humilified and I learned from him. I love that word. I was humilify. I can learn from the newest newcomer, but I need one person to sort out and monitor my meeting in my head. I'm Annie. I'm an alcoholic. Um, my question was something you touched on earlier that I feel pretty strongly about yeah um you had touched on the subject earlier of um like medications and i i feel really strongly about that like i think it's terrifying like the number of people that that are thrown on different types of medications for things like antidepressants and all that and i wonder what um i guess my question to you is how do you handle sponsoring people that maybe at the present time are on a bunch of different kind of medications and i don't know i think that there's a lot of people on medications that don't need to be and i wonder how you handle sponsoring people that are in that situation that is a big problem all over the country now everywhere you go it ranges down to uh every level and that's probably as big a question as there is an a what do you do these people had medication because it's become a matter of course that many physicians rightfully or wrongfully just give people medication this keep medical is your new miracle but here in fact there's some doctors named dr. Paul owes now dead who wrote a treatise on this doctors who they they have a neurotic coming and whining just give them something to keep them quiet so I can take care of people who are really sick and they go home and say the doctor wants me to take these no the doctor just wants you out of his office you goof and so often in current treatment centers that's become a big thing you go in there and you get you get the medications and you take them and you feel better boy they they really know how to treat alcoholics i'm gonna get my chip if i can find the podium in my experience what I do is this if a person comes to me and they're on anti-diabetic now there are some things that I think what's the stuff for manic depression what's that salt lithium I know people who are on lithium we try it once without it when they go goofy I put them back on because lithium is just a body salt it doesn't make you feel better just equalize but and some some medications may be called for but i if they're on medications other than antidepressants i tell them to go to their doctors and see if they can possibly begin withdrawing little by little let's just not get awesome because that's lethal sometimes but to withdraw little by little over a period of time i've done that with several people and then although they don't know it we will begin their sobriety the day they're off antidepressants have to be taken off just I watch people go to withdraw unbelievable and the people say but I have to take these I'm not going to see about withdrawing them I got to take it and I want you to be my sponsor and the answer I give is this I'm I don't want to be vicious or cruel so I say I'm sorry I have no experience with taking medications so I can't be your sponsor you need someone with whom you can identify and if you've got people in you're saying to you i want to take this medication you have to tell well i don't have any experience in doing that so i'll have to should find someone else and uh they drift off and you sometimes they come back and say i'm now willing to try it but that's a very common problem and i think that we have to be very careful in aa because the purpose of alcoholics anonymous in its final sense is not to get off alcohol. It is to learn to live in reality. That's the name of the game here. Anybody can get off alcohol, but how the hell do you learn to live reality? And when you start taking medications to soften that, it's just almost a powdered alcohol for people like us in my opinion. I know that's an old-fashioned way to look at it, but that's the way I was trained and that's what I believe. And I've watched so many people go down on those damn pills and little by little, they lose their sense of immediacy. I used an analogy at Johnny's meeting the other night. Up until a few years ago, when you landed at the L.A. airport, in all airports, they had a ground control approach system where if you drifted off to the left, you'd hear a Morse code, da-da-da, da, da. And you drift off tothe right, you'dhear a Morso code, da-dah, da dah, da da. And so they would kind of center in on that. and in many ways that's what pain does for me in Alcoholics Anonymous it tells me when I'm off the course for me to take medications to ease me through that pain is like that pilot taking off his earphones and say I'm sick of listening to that damn Morse code I'll land this big sumbitch myself and you wind up in the Sears parking lot where's the housewares I think I don't think we ought to encourage people or help people to take antidepressants I think it's lethal for them I think we should stay away from them I would like to say on behalf of everyone here since I have the most sobriety and I've been called upon to say this these newcomers have done a good job today but really seriously speaking what they ought to say about all of them they are all very good and successful sponsors when they give you answers Dick or Peg or Johnny, these people are giving you answers based on actual experience, that hypothesis which you can get almost anywhere. On behalf of all of them, we want to thank you for your courtesy and your kindness in having us here. And I hear people warming up at Soldier Field, so we'll go forth and sin no more.