Sometimes, when I have my sponsor hat on, I feel a tug of ego telling me what a valuable and important person I am. My ego tells me my sponsee is lucky (and smart!) to have me as a sponsor, and that I am the only person able to help this poor soul. These thoughts form subtly, but thanks to our program, they don’t often stay and take root.
The AA Pamphlet Questions & Answers on Sponsorship helps keep things in needed perspective for me. On page 14 it says, “The sponsor underscores the fact that it is the A.A. recovery program — not the sponsor’s personality or position — that is important.” So why does my head occasionally tell me that my “goodness” is validated by being a sponsor? Because my head is what got me here in the first place.
The sponsor who saw me through early recovery was asked by a couple of men to be their sponsor after we had started working together, but he opted not to. I asked him why, and he asked me how I would feel about AA if he was “just collecting sponsees.” I learned later that he took pains to see they were introduced to people who would work with them. Our Sponsorship pamphlet captures this principle so well on page 13, “Just as importantly, the sponsor should have capacity for understanding, patience, and the willingness to devote time and effort to new members.”
Years ago, I remember hearing in the rooms that you never say “no” to someone looking for sponsorship. Despite my sponsor’s example, I took that literally. My ego was happy when a newcomer asked me to be his sponsor but was painfully deflated soon after when he fired me because I wasn’t “available enough” for him.
Ego also gets in the way of sponsorship for me when I forget that the primary job is to serve as a guide through the steps, literature and fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. If a sponsee has problems with money, relationships, or employment, ego tells me that it is my responsibility to solve them because “I Am The Sponsor!” On page 13 of the pamphlet, I find the needed reminder that “[A sponsor] does not pretend to know all the answers, and does not keep up a pretense of being right all the time.”
The quiet battle between ego and humility continues for me in sponsorship, and most of time the good side wins. When it doesn’t, the program gives me the 10th Step to set things right. My favorite line in the Sponsorship pamphlet is this, from page 10, “Theirs is supposed to be an easy, open relationship, in which both parties talk freely and honestly with each other.” That’s one of the great joys I find in sponsorship, and the blessing of one alcoholic working with another.
Reprinted from Questions & Answers on Sponsorship, pages 10,13, and 14, with permission of A.A. World Services, Inc.
Bill M.’s Home Group is BYOBook, 9 am, Saturdays, at Faith Lutheran Church in Castro Valley. Hybrid Meeting – Zoom Code is 871-0897-4652. Passcode is 110619.
