Discussion Topic
Discussion Topic: Is everyone in your group being sponsored and sponsoring others?
Editors’ Corner
The road of our recovery started when a more experienced member accepted entry into a very special relationship with us: the relationship of one reco- vering sexaholic helping another recovering sexaholic. We can’t make it on our own.
No Short Cuts to Recovery
For the last four years I have been serving women who have decided to change their lives with the help of the Twelve Steps. During this time, I started working Steps with more than 30 women.
Simply Let God Give of His Abundance
I surrender in a place where I least expected it—sponsorship. I thought that, working on principle, under the guidance of the Twelve Steps and Traditions, I was safe from my character defects.
Sponsorship: Benefits and Challenges
I began sponsoring when I was almost 18 months’ sober and was working on Step Six. I was hesitant because there was, and there remains, no formal guidance on how to sponsor, but my mentor told me it was time for me to step up to the plate.
Stepping Into Freedom from the Obsession
When I first arrived in SA, I asked a man who had several years of sobriety to be my sponsor. A few months later, when I was ready to start Step 4, I discovered that he had never worked the Steps.
A Good Sponsor…
As with a lot of things in the Program, I grew into sponsorship. First, I had to learn to be a good sponsee and work my own program well. Then when I began sponsoring, I learned from my sponsees. Here is what I have learned so far.
Effective Sponsorship
For over twenty years I lived in the merciless downward spiral of Lust. As my disease progressed, the unmanageability increased, the consequences were greater, and I was powerless to save myself. By the Grace of God, over 9 years ago I walked into a meeting of SA and was given the gift of freedom. Yet, that gift of freedom did not happen overnight nor by accident. It took many years of good Step work and quality sponsorship to get to a comfortable and clean sobriety.
Thoughts on Sponsorship
I’ve been sober in SA for four and one-half years, and I believe that my sobriety can be attributed in no small part to sponsorship. The SA program continues to bless me with valuable lessons from the process of both having a sponsor and being a sponsor, and I’m grateful to my Higher Power for putting my sponsees in my life.
The Hard Truth about Sponsors
I have sponsored and been sponsored. Long-sober members often describe their sponsors with reverence. But if they talk long enough, they sometimes admit that the person who first helped them get sober is no longer sober themselves.
