I'm Glad You're Not My Sponsor

“I’m Glad You’re Not My Sponsor”

 

 

“Most men would rather deny a hard truth than face it.”  George R.R. Martin

 

“I’m glad you’re not my sponsor.”  A patient recently said this to me and I smiled.  I had been talking about one of the steps and mentioning that I had called out one of my sponsees for calling me late for their daily check-in.  The same thing happened to me when I was working the steps so I am simply handing down the process in the same way it was handed down to me.

I was asked if I was willing to go to any length in working the steps and I said “yes”.  My sponsor told me she wasn’t going to ask me to do anything that she herself had not done.  I was to pick a time to call her each day.  I had about 5 minutes lee-way before and after that time and I needed to call her then.  I made it a while before I was late.  I was a half-hour late.  She answered the phone and said, “You’re late calling me.”  I was in a recovery house at the time that had only one phone and even though I had a note on the phone asking that no one be on it at 8:00am, someone had grabbed it while I wasn’t looking. I explained this to her and her answer was, “If your recovery isn’t important to you, then why should I make it a priority of mine?”   

Some people will read that and think it harsh.  It stung a little at the time, but I knew it was coming at 8:30 when I dialed.  She had warned me.  She had told me she was serious about my recovery and she was.  It takes time and effort to sponsor someone and it isn’t a job to be taken lightly.  It is a life and death battle you are fighting and your sponsor is your sergeant major.

Tough love is so hard to reconcile.  It is distasteful in the extreme to the people doling it out and to the people meant to swallow it down.  It is, however, an essential nectar.  People attempting recovery are in their situations because they have an illness that sends them to the depths of “self-will run riot”.  Our thought process will constantly be whispering in our ears that we can control our using.  Our thoughts tell us we can handle it. Our thoughts tell us we aren’t that badly off.  Our thoughts tell us we weren’t as bad as some other addicts we know.  Our mental illness tells us that we should be in control when in reality our taking control of the ship lead to its sinking. 

I had another patient tell me that the kind of sponsor that he needed was someone who would celebrate his successes with him but not to get on his case when he slacks a bit.  I smiled and said to him that that was exactly the opposite of the kind of sponsor that he needed.  If you want a cheerleader, then look to family members and friends (if they are still speaking to you).  If you want to truly get better, then you need a drill sergeant.  You need someone that is going to hold your feet to the flame to make sure you get through this process in one piece.  There is no reason this can’t be done, it has after all, been done by many before us.  But you can’t get through it alone.  And if I am lost in the wilderness, then I want a guide who is a survivalist and knows the terrain.  Someone who will get me out alive, not someone that simply knows how to make a comfortable campground in the midst of the void so we can sit in seeming luxury while we wait for the apocalypse.

So I will move forward making sure that the people who ask for my help get the same kind of help from me that I got from others before me.  The kind of help that enabled me to be where I am today.  Tough love is a beautiful thing, it just isn’t for the faint of heart.