Thats what sponsors do. Thats why we're here. I wouldn't feel too bad just for the simple reason that one day you're gonna be a sponsor and guess what you're going to get?
The important thing to remember is that you're in the middle of changing your life. You're changing the things you do and changing the way you think. No one can do that alone. So be a pain in the butt for as long as you need too. Its going to be your turn soon enough.
Greg

I agree with Greg. That's part of the deal. For me personally when someone calls me for help, I feel grateful. It helps me get out of myself. Your sponsor sponors you to stay sober herself:)

Hang in there.

Where is your HP in your life?

I am taking it you would have gone through the steps before and talked through with your sponsor what happened?

The program taught me to be honest so glad you were that with your sponsor...as they would have been.

I've been happily sober and closely involved in AA for almost 23 years now, and I doubt if there's a maxim or stone of any serious worth that I've left unturned. I'm also an unrepentant sociologist, and it's simply second nature with me to sit back and watch the passing parade with the sound off, if I could put it that way, and try not to let what I hear cloud my vision of what I see. As an oldtimer in my home group (86 years old and 42 years sober) puts it, "If you want to know what a man really believes, pay little attention to what he says and very close attention to where his feet go." He also adds that he has never sponsored anyone.

I think there's an important distinction to be made here, and that's between "carrying the massage" to the still-suffering alcoholic and the institution of ongoing sponsorship that has developed over the years. The Big Book itself has a great deal to say about the former and virtually nothing about the latter.

So there's a real dilemma here, and it all has to do with trust. My favorite AA pamphlet is the one called "A Member's Eye View of Alcoholics Anonymous." Published in 1970, it's the text of a graduation speech given in 1968 by Allen Reid McGinnis, who was then himself 18 years sober in AA, to a class of newly-minted alcoholism counselors at a large, well-known university. Here's part of that speech that I think best describes how sober alcoholics can be of greatest service to those who are still struggling:

"If, then, alcoholism is largely a spiritual disease requiring a spiritual healing, does it come as a surprise to you, as it did to me, that there is nothing new in a spiritual sense, nothing startlingly different or unique in this program? Most of these ideas have been around since man crawled out of the cave. Many of them existed in even primitive societies, and every alcoholic no matter how irreligious or unethical he may have succeeded in keeping himself at some time must have used some or all of them as a set of values by which to measure himself. To believe that the alcoholic who approaches A.A. is an unprincipled, untaught barbarian, suddenly transformed by the previously unavailable spiritual illumination of the Twelve Steps, is, to me, utter foolishness.

"Once again, we are confronted with an aspect of A.A.s therapy which has had a totally new impact without, apparently, any accompanying newness of substance. Where, then, could the difference be?

"I believe it lies in the way the Steps are presented, rather than what they contain: They are reports of action taken, rather than rules not to be broken under pain of drunkenness." (Page 16)

I think this is hugely important, because the assumption is too often made that the anyone who's been sober for a while is in a uniquely qualified position to set him or herself up as a teacher or an authority figure in the newcomer's life. And by the time most of us get into any sort of recovery, we've pretty much had our fill of authority figures trying to boss us around anyway.

To make this still worse, there are plenty of sober people who relish this sort of superiority, and we in AA see sponsorship abused in that manner all the time. So right away the newcomer has to make a potentially treacherous decision, which is whether to trust the bossy types or his own instincts about other people and their motives.

But as Allen McGinnis saw it, most alcoholics DO have those instincts, and one of the first demands put on us in early recovery is to learn how to keep our balance in a wide range of dicey social situations. The paradox here is that we ourselves have to grow up fast enough to decide whose guidance to trust and whose not.

It's the first baby step in becoming accountable to the ultimate authority in our own lives, which is to our own individual and intuitively perceived higher powers. This, as I see it, is the goal of recovery.

worth a second read Nemo...thanks. I've been feeling guilty lately of not getting a sponsor to replace the my recently deceased sponsor. It was really great to have someone with more sobriety who believed in the program where I could freely bounce off my thoughts and issues. I miss her and I miss "us". I just haven't found a connection yet with someone else.

You are so correct though, it is not a sponsor's responsibility to keep ME sober..... it is mine, by working the program honestly and to the best of my ability.

poobear,

I will forever be grateful for my sponsor, but when it was time to take the training wheels off the bike and wobble on my own, it was I who had to see where that relationship was headed and take the initiative to end it. I also know one lady I'll call Sally, now in her 70s and sober for well over 30 years, who actually brags that she is just as dependent on her sponsor now as she was in her first week of sobriety. She not only practices this as a model of living sober, but preaches it to all & sundry as well.

Sally often regales us with stories like the day she snapped at someone in the Express lane at the supermarket who had too many items in their cart, went back and apologized profusely to the person and then had to call her sponsor to calm down. Her sponsor's reply was, "Oh Sally, you did just the right thing and you're doing the right thing now by calling me."

Just before a meeting started one morning she tossed me a half-baked insult and a moment later was showering me with similar apologies. She then announced to the group at large, "See, everyone? I made my amends. I'm working my Program!" Everyone applauded, and Sally was glowing like a star receiving her first Oscar. But nobody had the nerve to tell her that the applause was a joke at her expense, and I see something truly sad in that.

In Sally's and her sponsor's case, I'd say it has been a mutual agreement. She doesn't want to grow up and her sponsor seems to enjoy the role of being the parent substitute to a seventy-odd year old brat. I'm convinced Sally deliberately gets into these little jackpots because she knows that her sponsor needs this type of renewed dependence on herself as a stronger person as validation.

When Sally tells these war stories at meetings, with the clear implication that no one has a reasonable chance of staying sober for 30+ years without having that sort of chronic nastiness and an infantile relationship with a sponsor, you can see the trepidation in the eyes of newcomers, especially the younger women.

At the moment we don't have a gent around who promotes the same thing, but we have before and I'm sure we will again. When the last one in this neck of the woods died a few years ago, some of his sponsees were devastated and dominated the meetings for weeks with funeral ovations and dire prophecies of doom for all of us because Good Old Bill B. was no longer here to keep the home fires burning and the rest of us in line.

I had no idea what a fantasy world these guys lived in, and I must say it was quite an eye-opener to find out how far his little empire of fear had actually spread. But to many others among us, Bill cut a rather dour and melancholy figure, a lovable but mirthless Eeyore who stayed sober for 27 years on Antabuse, sin and repentance. To each his own.

Hello Christopher22,

One of the dangers is that people sometimes put their sponsor on a pedestal and a reliance on alcohol can become reliance on a sponsor. This defeats the whole purpose of the programme as the objective should be to learn to stand on your own feet with the help of a higher power.

When I sponsor someone I expect to be fired at some stage if the process has been successful. Sure I keep in contact with them but if their reliance is on me after they have done the Steps then I have not carried the message.

Your relapse is further evidence that you would be better to place your needs in the hands of God rather than expecting your sponsor to sort out every issue. You have not mentioned Steps in your post and that is where you will find the answers. We should neither be too dependent on other people nor allow them to be too dependent on us. The programme of recovery will allow you to find that balance

NEMO sorry all caps...wasn't meant...

are you a sponsor? I never got to be one yet....

bwf,

No,I'm not sponsoring anyone at this time.

As my original sponsor once said, "The habits you form in the first two years of sobriety will be the ones you fall back on when the shit hits the fan in your life."

I have yet to see a case where getting new sponsors later on has put a real dent in that pattern. I've tried to sponsor a few like that.,They literally can't change those old habits they learned in early sobriety, and it really is like talking to a wall.

Chris, its ok to rely on your sponsor, but its better to rely on your HP. Your sponsor may not always be available and in those moments you want to drink, Call out to God to hear you and help you and He will. God will never fail you. Plus,c all another alcoholic, go to a meeting and hang out with some sober people. Good Luck