Sponsorship

Most people look for a sponsor to support their efforts in fundraising for their business, for helping them to be a success as an athlete, to help to promote them or their goals. My experience with sponsorship came when I first went to a family group to get support for my family trouble. I enjoyed having a sponsor right away and I have had several since 1978 when I first started in that recovery program. I am now a woman in long term recovery and what that means is I have had no alcohol or drugs for 41 years and I have been in that family program for 43 years. I have sponsored many in both programs. Never as well as I have been sponsored and never have they received as much as I have by sponsoring them!! Much of the programs I have attended are anonymous and so I thought I might show the anonymity in the picture above. Now days masks do the same thing.

I started out thinking about sponsorship. And thought, what is it, a sponsor of a ship? No… well maybe. It could be. And yet, this is not what I am going to talk about, unless I get a bout of the sillies. I have a sponsor that is working with me on taking my inventory. It is similar to a store inventory. Looking at what I have that is good and positive on the shelves and what I need to do more work on. It could be just a maintenance time of taking a daily inventory if I would have figured this out and fit it into my daily plan for the umpteenth time. After all, I have been around for awhile. She said, it’s okay most of us need a redo, from time to time, so let’s just do that now and it will be done.

Anyhow, I was taught to listen to your sponsor and how would that be if I didn’t and said, I think not. What about if my sponsee said that to me yesterday? I would have to cry and say, let’s meet again another day , we are a free nation and we are free to do whatever we will. Many just don’t do the work and the next thing we know we are fired or they are. Not so formal as that but it happens. A sponsor will walk you through much of living a day at a time. Give you slogans that help you with that. I know as corny as I thought they sounded, I use everyone of them to this day. I remember things from the way they used to be in the seventies and eighties.

I was told this program is a spiritual program by my sponsor and it need not have anything to do with religion. It would help me with my thinking, keep me sane and grounded. If you go to treatment my newest sponsor said, many programs don’t tell you to work the steps anymore as the program has all that God stuff and then there is the singleness of purpose and programs interpret that to mean, you don't teach that in treatment. They will teach more about avoiding relapse, than recovery being about the spiritual journey or lapse in memory that will take you back to the beginning. I’ve been there a time or two and now I’m done. No question about powerlessness and unmanageability, and then there was the fact of having no civility.

You wouldn’t know me then, as I was like a mother hen to a guy that was 6 years older, and still younger too as he was less mature, or at least I thought so. I could see no other way . My sponsor helped me with boundaries by letting me know to take baby steps and not to try making too many changes all at once. I remember how scary it was when I told him that if he was going to drink, then go, but he doesn't need to make a fight with me to have an excuse to drink. I didn't have to be sarcastic and mean to him to give him that excuse. So much better for me and for all that I’ve worked with too. I got rid of my jealousy, control and manipulation and if that isn't enough, there was so much more.

Sponsors have loved me until I could love myself, and I can do that for others, until they get good and loving to themselves. We really should all have sponsors don’t you think? I know without one I would sink. I just can't help but throw in a little rhyme or two. Sponsorship helped me to laugh and joke and tease and poke fun and have fun in recovery. They helped me to remember to breath, and grieve as we all come in with so many losses. Those losses continue well into recovery and it is easy to see then that sponsorship is forever for me.