How To Take A Sponsee Through The 12 Steps

By Hamilton B.

The primary responsibility of sponsors is to help their sponsees piece of work the Twelve Steps.  A sponsor and sponsee take an obligation to discuss their common expectations, objectives, and requirements, if whatsoever, regarding the sponsorship human relationship earlier they enter into that relationship. A sponsor shares his or her feel, strength, and hope with his or her sponsee rather than trying to run the sponsee's life.  A sponsor must never take advantage of a sponsee in any style.

What a Sponsor Does

AA defines sponsorship in this mode: "An alcoholic who has made some progress in the recovery program shares that experience on a continuous, individual basis with another alcoholic who is attempting to attain or maintain sobriety through A.A." Every sponsor is different, just every bit each sponsee is dissimilar, but certain activities, responsibilities, and obligations are common in sponsor/sponsee relationships. The primary ways in which a sponsor shares his or her experience, force, and promise to help a sponsee are as follows.

A sponsor helps u.s. piece of work the Twelve Steps by providing explanation, guidance, and encouragement. Helping a sponsee work the Steps is a sponsor'southward most important part. The Twelve Steps are the foundation of AA and other Twelve Footstep recovery programs. The Steps require united states to take action, but they were non meant to be worked alone. In fact, nosotros cannot work them alone if we follow the way the AA Big Book suggests that we work them. The meaning of the Steps and how they are applied to life require caption and interaction. A sponsor tin can help us interpret the full general principles of the Steps (a set of ideas) into the specific activities of our lives (our beliefs). A sponsor can provide some temporary discipline and motivation also every bit the ongoing encouragement that we may need to work the Steps. There are times that call for "tough love" in sponsorship. Our sponsors can aid us resist looking for an easier, softer way than working the Twelve Steps and applying their principles in our lives. They can face up united states of america on our procrastination and on our unwillingness, when necessary, and help us stay focused on what's of import—Fellowship principles and the work of the Steps.

A sponsor is a safe person whom we can learn to trust. Most of the states have a lot of fearfulness, many questions, and more than a few secrets when we come into recovery. In order to become better, we demand to share our fears and our secrets with someone else and notice the answers to our questions. Our sponsor is the person in our Fellowship who feels the safest and is all-time suited to help us practice that. Sponsorship creates a safe surround in which we tin can expose a piddling chip of who we are. Addiction is a disease of isolation and loneliness. Having i person whom we can trust and with whom nosotros can share our feelings and fears helps reduce our loneliness and isolation. A sponsor provides a safe place for united states of america to be honest virtually ourselves and to find the rewards of being open with another person. As the AA Twelve and Twelve says, ". . . We don't have to be alone anymore."

A sponsor can help us in the process of cocky-examination that the Steps crave. Self-examination is a difficult procedure without the assist and encouragement of another person. Self-examination is a crucial part of any Twelve Step program. The 4th, Fifth, and Ninth Steps require it specifically (come across the Steps offset on page 229). Cocky-test in the Commencement Stride requires the states to expect honestly at our powerlessness over our addictive substance or behavior and at the unmanageability of our lives. Later, we will take to examine our character defects and the damage they accept caused. A sponsor can keep us honest in our program by pointing out when we are deluding ourselves about our addiction or our recovery. Being honest with our sponsor also increases our humility and helps us larn to live in reality rather than fantasy. A sponsor tin help us through this painful, but necessary and rewarding, process of cocky-exam.

A sponsor encourages u.s. to read the bones text of our Fellowship and other program literature and to engage in Fellowship activities and service work. As important every bit meetings are, a Twelve Step programme is more just meetings. Working the programme too means using the Twelve Steps, reading the Big Book or its equivalent, changing our attitudes and behavior, doing service work, and carrying the bulletin of recovery to other alcoholics or addicts inside and exterior the Fellowship. A sponsor can encourage united states to exercise all these things and remind us to utilize the diverse tools of our recovery program.

A sponsor tin can monitor our progress, confront us when information technology is appropriate, and mostly help us stay on the recovery path. Our sponsor is in a unique position to keep track of our progress in recovery. He or she can ofttimes discover the warning signs of a slip even earlier we can. When we are on a "dry drunk" or are actively moving away from the program, a sponsor's intervention can often bring us back. Most of united states of america need to be confronted now and then on the kind of negative behavior that brought united states to recovery in the kickoff identify. How else are nosotros going to change? Merely with our sponsor, the confrontation is not an set on. A sponsor confronts our behavior, not our being, and he or she does it with compassion. Sponsors tin can point out our inappropriate beliefs and how it hurts united states without making the confrontation a hostile act. They can do it because of their honey and acceptance of usa, and considering of our willingness to trust them.

A sponsor reminds u.s.a. to employ Twelve Step principles in our lives. The Twelve Steps offer a "design for living" that means much more than not having a drinkable or not using (although not having a drink or not using is the footing of everything else that our Twelve Step program gives us). Our new way of life in recovery requires us to change some of our old attitudes, perceptions, beliefs, and behavior past applying these Steps and programme principles to our lives. Because we are trying to learn to use new tools for living, we need someone to remind u.s. to use those tools and to assist us figure out how to use them. A sponsor can exercise that because he or she knows both us and the tools well.

A sponsor models the Twelve Footstep program of recovery. At that place is a Twelve Step saying that "we accept to walk the talk" to stay sober. It is not plenty to conjecture most recovery; we have to alive it. Agreement what a Step means is only half of information technology. The other half is applying it. A practiced sponsor sets an example for us by showing u.s. how to use Twelve Step principles to build a rewarding, sober life. By modeling the principles of the program, a sponsor becomes a powerful instructor. With such a sponsor, we tin learn by doing every bit well as past example.

Our sponsor is available in times of crisis. Peculiarly equally newcomers to recovery, nosotros face fears, crises, and new circumstances that claiming us. We may suddenly want to drink or use. Or we want to know how to handle an unexpected situation. We may just demand to talk. With a sponsor, we accept someone we tin can plow to. Nosotros have someone who knows and cares near us who is available in times of crisis. (Even without a sponsor or when our sponsor cannot exist reached, we tin can e'er plow to someone else in the plan.)

A sponsor provides do in building relationships. Our relationship with our sponsor can serve as a model for other relationships. We tin can do expressing our feelings, revealing our fears, and discussing our expectations with another person. We can also practice albeit when we are wrong, making amends, and being honest. We can learn to trust and to enquire for assistance and to retrieve most someone other than ourselves. What we learn with our sponsor, we can so apply to other people in our lives. In essence, with our sponsors and others in the plan nosotros can learn to experience and limited love and to feel loved in return. Finally, we will come to dearest ourselves. A sponsor can help us achieve a richer, deeper, more enjoyable recovery than nosotros are likely to discover on our own.

What a Sponsor Does Non Do

What a sponsor does non do is every bit important as what he or she does exercise. The following list describes some things a sponsor either cannot or should non exercise.

A sponsor cannot go along us in recovery. Whether or non to drink or use or to engage in compulsive behavior is a decision we lone can make. No ane else tin make it for us. No i else can keep usa sober. Non a family fellow member, non a friend, non a boss, and not a sponsor. Information technology is said in AA that sponsors "don't take the credit when their sponsees stay sober and they don't take the blame when they drink." The decision to stay in recovery is ours alone. We make it one mean solar day at a time with the assistance of the program and our Higher Ability. Our Twelve Footstep Fellowship gives us the power of option.

A sponsor is not our therapist. Sponsors are not psychiatrists, psychologists, or therapists (unless they happen to exist psychiatrists, psychologists, or therapists, but fifty-fifty then, they don't human action in that chapters with their sponsees). It isn't a sponsor's function to provide therapy to a sponsee. At that place is no "treatment plan" other than working the Twelve Steps. All sponsors can do is share their experience, force, and hope concerning their ain recovery. They are not our therapists, and nosotros are not their patients. The Twelve Steps are about spiritual growth, not therapy.

A sponsor should not effort to control our lives or encourage an unhealthy dependence. No Twelve Step Fellowship ever tells a member what he or she has to do. The simply requirement for membership is a want to stop drinking, using, or engaging in compulsive behavior. Even AA's original Twelve Steps are merely "suggested." Whether or not to piece of work the Steps is left entirely up to us. In the same manner, it is not upwardly to our sponsor to command our lives. Advice is a tricky thing because we never really have enough data near someone else to make a decision for him or her. Nor is it our responsibility to practice so even if we could. Twelve Step programs emphasize sharing experience, strength, and hope with one another— not offer communication. In a sponsee's early days of recovery, a sponsor may wish to brand potent suggestions to his or her sponsee well-nigh what to do and what not to do. For example: don't beverage or use, go to meetings, read the Large Book or equivalent, call your sponsor, and then on. Only these suggestions are still suggestions. We are improve off when our sponsor leaves the actual decision to us while describing the program principles and experience that are relevant to that decision. Equally sponsees, each of us should retain the responsibility for making the basic decisions about our lives, including the decision to stay in recovery. A sponsor should not permit, much less encourage, a sponsee's unhealthy dependence. A sponsee'south only dependence should be on the Fellowship and, ultimately, on a Higher Ability of their own understanding. A healthy interdependence, yet, always exists between a sponsor and his or her sponsee.

A sponsor should not accept advantage of u.s. or exploit the states in any way. The well-nigh fundamental responsibleness a sponsor has toward a sponsee is never to exploit him or her in whatsoever way. In practical terms, it means that sponsors should not try to use their sponsees every bit a way to borrow money, brand money, take sex, accelerate their careers, or do anything else that harms their sponsees or puts them at risk. A sponsor has a sacred trust toward his or her sponsee. The human relationship between a sponsor and a sponsee is inherently unequal because the sponsee is seeking guidance and has placed himself or herself in a vulnerable position. Even when there is no difference in the length of sobriety, a sponsor has a psychological advantage. In technical terms, a power differential exists that leaves sponsees vulnerable to manipulation. Morally and ethically, a sponsor may non take reward of that vulnerability in any manner any. At that place are stories of sponsors who have attempted to abuse their sponsees for their personal gain. If a sponsor ever tries to abuse the sponsorship relationship by trying to do any of these things or anything like them, the sponsee should find some other sponsor immediately. A sponsor should never take reward of us in any style. If he or she tries, find another.

The above commodity is an excerpt from the volume 'Twelve Pace Sponsorship – How It Works'. By Hamilton B.

Source: https://12stepphilosophy.org/2017/10/14/12-step-sponsorship-how-it-works/

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