Also, what is the best way to go about a 'gratitude list'? Apparently I should be doing one daily??!!??

id say yes but i would add that the sponsor should also have gone thru all 12 steps. If not then that person doesnt have the required exp to help you recover in my exp. My sponsor has a sponsor who has a sponsor who has a sponsor add infinitum. also all have been thru the 12 steps out of the BB. All are recovered.

I would just echo what Phil has said about sponsors. Mine also has a sponsor and so does the sponsor. I just express my gratitude to my God each morning.

Hiya Kate, It's like this - if you were my sponsee, Karen (my sponsor) would be your grand sponsor. A sponsor should always have her/his sponsor to go to when necessary. We never have ALL the answers!

I make no secret who my sponsor is and by the same token Karen will tell other people I am her sponsee. Neither of us run around telling everybody either - it is just whatever you are personally comfortable with.

Re the gratitude list - I never made one every day but I did at times when I was feeling bad.

What you should do when you have "done" the Steps is work Steps 10, 11 and 12 on a daily basis. Step 10 is a daily check on yourself and this can be written or just thought through. A lot of rehabs get their clients to do a daily feelings diary for group discussion - which is an idea based on Step 10 to get you into the habit of daily analysis of what you could have done better, what you did well etc.

My grand, grand is one of the first 100, out of Akron. My grand just died of polio. That's why my sponsor is an asshole (severe ol' school AA) but i love him to death!! He was locked in a room to do most of his steps.
I'll echo Phil too, the steps are very important!!

agree with all who posted. my sponsor is very old school as well. he has a sponsor who has 2 sponsors--they are a married couple with 46 and 48 years respectively....d.

Thank you everybody for the information.

Once I do the steps I will get to 10, 11 and 12 then as I was told in the meeting last night 'they are in order for a reason' so I shall be patient and wait.

So...with the 'sponsor being a sponsee' concept, do they tell what you tell them or is it just the 'general concept' they would ask for help on if they didnt have the answer?

If I understand correctly what you are asking Kate, what goes on between my sponsor and me remains confidential, but my sponsor uses his sponsor in the same way as I use mine. That is to bounce ideas, thoughts and problems of.

Kate, are you concerned about confidentiality here? If that is the case, you will find that your sponsor does not divulge your confidences in a chain of chinese whispers to your grand sponsor, great grand sponsor ad infinitum..

We need to have a sponsor for own challenges - like I need to have Karen be a sounding board about my recent "surprise" in the last few days and remind me how I need to use my spiritual tools to cope if I am getting a bit bogged down in my own feelings, which I am at the moment.!

Our own sponsees are our 12 step work and if we take any problem to our sponsor on this it is in a general way - we do not break confidentiality on specific detail but to look at the bigger picture and deal with, for example, a pride issue.

Thank you for reinforcing about the confidentality thing...yes, I was worried Iain and Gail so thank you for putting my mind to rest. I guess, like all us alcoholics, it will take alot for our mind to be cleared and there will be things we would not like people knowing. It is amazing us alcoholics dont get training in councelling too dont you think?

The lady I chatted to last night after the meeting made me laugh.....she said, in reality, AA meetings really are just a group of drunks! That sentence certainly shocked me but it is true :)

Yes, we are all just a group of drunks - but drunks who have turned their lives around and made some amazing changes within themselves by taking the Steps and putting their faith in a power greater than themselves.

Funny you should mention counselling skills, I am trained in counselling skills but there is a distinct difference when it comes to AA.

It is always useful to have counselling training because it teaches you to listen well, help people to open up and guide them to finding a different perspective from which to view their dilemmas.

In AA, however, the counselling skills are gained at the "university of life" and because our disease follows a path and we all to greater or lesser degrees have common "character defects", we have the benefit of experience, having been there ourselves, and therefore can be a more specific and direct advisor.

An AA sponsor will lead you directly on spiritual matters because that is the only source of power for us to rely upon with our unique and faulty way of thinking as an alcoholic. You will find that professionally trained people are often at a loss when it comes to spiritual matters because one's spirituality is an absent consideration in formal training!

A decent sponsor will share some of their own dire truths with you in the process of building trust, no alcoholic has a halo regarding their past. How can we when we all know where it leads us when we are truly out of control. It is a common solution for a common problem.

I was brought up to keep myself to myself - no washing dirty laundry in public and all that. The "work" required in the Steps is realising within ourselves that we have some very fundamental changes to make in the thinking processes that we came to rely on and which always let us down. It is pretty amazing we can do this - and the older we are the harder it is - but it is essential if we are to recover. We have living examples of proof at every meeting we attend.

Your very personal stuff you should always keep just for God - and your sponsor when necessary. A lot of people new in AA do not understand at first that they do not have to make personal revelations when they share at a meeting, it is enough to say that a "certain situation" left you feeling frightened, depressed and hopeless etc or whatever it is for you.

Thanks for your reply Gail. I think that it is great that you have done counselling skills too...must say, it is always a course I have looked at too but so expensive to do.

You are right, the message that was given out last week at my home group was very much of spirituality. Seems to be if you have it and practice it, you get through the day, if you do not you crash and burn.

Hi Kate,

Yes, It is important to find a sponsor that has a sponsor. The reason being that anyone that is sponsoring themselves has an idiot for a sponsor. ;)

I have a sponsor that has a sponsor who has a sponsor. My sponsor has 20 years in AA and her sponsor has 30 years. A sponsor gets help staying sober by giving away what was freely given to them. I would be selfish to not call my sponsor after all she has done for me. I also need her wisdom. I get off the beam still.

Some people tell others who there sponsor is and some don't. It is completely up to you and your sponsor. I'm proud of my sponsors sobriety so I mention her name sometimes.

A gratitude list is a good idea. I was given a gratitude journal until I started to look at life as a blessing instead of a curse. Gratitude comes easy now because my life is wonderful today. A grateful heart will never drink!

It is good that you are asking questions. Just remember that a sponsor isn't a God, Just another drunk to help us stay sober and do the steps. They can have problems and bad days too. That is why they need a sponsor!

There are no rules on what a sponsor has to be. But for me I prefer to have one that has a sponsor herself. I prefer to sponsor only when I have a sponsor myself, this way if I run across something I do not know how to answer I can turn to mine (without disclosing the confidnetiality of my sponsee of course) and ask what to do.

Well I think yesterday reinforced that I need to find a sponsor and soon. As so many say, willpower alone is not enough for me.

Thank you all for your responses. I shall go to more different meetings to find a lady who I think I can gel with (who has a sponsor).