What's My Line?

Having become a sponsor recently, I pay more attention when people talk about how they sponsor others. I find the variety fascinating.

My line of sponsorship is very tradition bound. My sponsor told me that ours is an old line, dating from the earliest days of Al-Anon. There was no precedent, so the early Al-Anon members went to the women in AA and asked what it meant to work a step. To this day, we still study AA literature in addition to Al-Anon literature.

That I was part of an old line didn't mean a lot to me at first. Since then, I've come to see myself as the beneficiary of generations of wisdom. I work the steps with my sponsees the same way my sponsor worked them with me. And she works them the same way she was taught by her sponsor.

Being tradition bound also means following a certain code. There are six principles we follow in our line of sponsorship. They are:

1. We are willing to go to any lengths for our recovery
2. We attend meetings
3. We pray on our knees
4. We work the steps
5. We take commitments
6. We sponsor others

Tradition also dictates a few other things. For example, whenever we are at a podium, whether chairing a meeting, speaking at an institution, accepting a chip, we wear a skirt. Old fashioned, yes. But I'm okay with that because when I appear in public, I represent more than just myself.

Practically speaking, these are the nuts and bolts:

Ideally, a sponsee will attend at least one meeting their sponsor attends so they can see each other at least once a week. In my case, I attend two committed meetings my sponsor attends, as well as one open AA meeting.

We have a regular, weekly call time of a half hour. During this time, I can talk about anything that is on my mind. I use that time to talk about what's going on in my life, ask questions, ask for advice. However, my sponsor also encourages me to call any time I need to.

One of the most important roles of sponsorship, for me, is working the steps. We all start by reading "Alcoholics Anonymous," the AA Big Book, up to the personal stories.

The next assignment is to read step 1 in Al-Anon's and AA's "Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions." There is a writing assignment. Then we get together and discuss the writing. It pretty much goes like that through all of the steps.

Some of the writing assignments are short. Some are long. My fourth step took months. There are additional things along the way. A book, a gift. Prayers.

Every other month, everyone in our line of sponsorship gets together for a Big Book study. Interruptions, cross-talk, questions are all encouraged. This allows me to develop a relationship with my whole, extended Al-Anon family, women with long years of recovery and dedicated service.

I learned a lot by being sponsored. It was obvious to me that my sponsor was not flying by the seat of her pants, but was operating from an unofficial play book. There were rules, for example, for making amends. Like everything else, we followed tradition. The rules were old fashioned.

We made amends for our part of things in person. We said we were wrong. We were not allowed to justify or explain our behavior. We had to listen without interruption to the other person.

Tradition dictated what we made amends for and what we did not (the generational wisdom here having to do with doing further harm). Certain acts called for certain types of amends. There are, after all, no original sins. These things had all been worked out.

Tradition even guides our suggestions for action. There are standard "remedies" for whatever ails us.

The sponsee who is stuck in despair is often asked to keep a gratitude list for two weeks. They are asked to list 10 things, each day, for two weeks and not repeat anything.

The sponsee who is spinning out of control is sometimes asked to go clean the bathroom then call their sponsor back. Don't laugh. It works.

The sponsee who can't stop obsessing about their problems is given the assignment of calling other people in the program to ask how they are doing. The sponsee is not allowed to talk about their own problems.

The sponsee who is withdrawn and isolated is encouraged to take a service commitment.

We are taught to pray for willingness. We are taught to pray for those people we resent. The list goes on.

I know there are those who would probably chafe at something so regimented. We are Al-Anons, after all. We are control freaks who have problems with authority.

People are different, I can almost hear you say. What works for one may not work for someone else. And on some level, I agree. But what has struck me the most about this disease is how much we share in common. It's our sameness that binds us, not our differences.

It's comforting to me that there are guidelines. That I don't have to figure everything out. That I have literally generations of wisdom to draw upon.

I used to wonder if my sponsor talked to her sponsor about me. Now I know she does. I do the same. I have a sponsee who is having this type of problem, I will say. How can I help her? She will say something like, when you were going through such and such Karen (her sponsor) and I talked about it and she said....

Of course, there were times when my sponsor didn't have the answer and said so. She'd run it up the chain. Sometimes her sponsor didn't know, and it would go up again. It could be a little frustrating waiting, but I learned patience. It was a lesson in God's time. When I got my answer, it always made sense.

And even though the teaching has become cannonized, in a sense, the relationships are not. The sharing and the way we react to one another comes from who we are. It can't be learned or faked. And we can only give someone else as much as we have.

And that's why I'm glad I don't have to rely on just myself. Like everything else in this program, I can't sponsor someone well all on my own. I am not self-sufficient. But I have a Higher Power, and deep well from which I can draw.

Oh to be a Good Sponsor

I chaired a meeting last night. The topic was "losing it and getting it back," how we "relapse" like our alcoholics and the tools we use to get back on the beam.

I shared an embarrassing story about "losing it" recently over something inconsequential, so I was surprised when I was finished and we were breaking up into our groups and the woman next to me asked me to be her sponsor.

For people who have years and years in the program and have sponsored many people, this may not sound earth shattering. But it is for me. I've never had the privilege of sponsoring anyone before.

So I feel humbled and a little scared.

My sponsor calls her sponsees her "bugs." She told me that one day I would have my own little bug in the room who was attracted to my light.

Now I think I will have to walk a little straighter in my program, because my sponsee will be watching me just as I watched my sponsor.

I have a good role model. I have seen my sponsor attend all her regular meetings (three Al-Anon and one open AA meeting) every week, rain or shine, good times and bad. I've seen her mentor something like 14 sponsees with wisdom, and make each of us feel cared for and loved. I've watched her walk through difficulties at work, the illness of her mother, a death in the family. All with grace and dignity. I will look to her example.

And I know that I don't have to do it alone. The beauty of being part of a line of sponsorship is that it contains the accumulated wisdom of all who came before us. The way we work the steps is bounded by that tradition. And if something comes up that I don't know how to answer, I can ask my sponsor, and she can ask her sponsor, etc.

Of course, I will pray.

Will You Be Mine?

When I first got to Al-Anon, one of the most perplexing issues for me was how to pick a sponsor.

I had attended meetings in another fellowship with my daughter and in every meeting, the chairperson asked who was willing to be a sponsor. That seemed helpful to me, because it at least narrowed the field, and you wouldn't have to suffer the humiliation of being turned down by someone who simply had no interest in sponsorship.

But none of the meetings I attended followed this practice. I asked about it at the first meeting. The person I spoke with said she would bring it up at the business meeting, which was that day. The next time I went to that meeting, the announcement was read that there had been this request and the group conscience agreed and would all those willing to be a sponsor raise their hand.

So many people raised their hands that I couldn't even take them all in before their hands went down again. The number of people able and willing to sponsor someone at this meeting spoke for the strength of that group. But it all happened so fast, I couldn't process it. And then the question was never asked again.

In my daughter's case, the choice of a sponsor seemed obvious at the end of a week. (Unfortunately, I hadn't yet learned that her program was none of my business, but that's another story.)

I asked someone how I should go about finding a sponsor. She told me that I should ask someone who had something I wanted.

Huh?

I had no idea what she was talking about but didn't want to look dumb. Back then I thought I had to know everything.

So I approached looking for a sponsor the same way I had approached looking for the love of my life. I made a list.

The fact that this never worked with men did not deter me. I am reminded of the definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result.

The desirable characteristics of my perfect sponsor were these: She should be the mother of an alcoholic/addict. She should have worked all 12 steps and be well grounded in the program. She should be older than I am. She should be a she.

That didn't strike me as a particularly high bar or an unreasonable set of qualifications. I didn't know how someone who was, say, married to an alcoholic could possibly understand what it was like to be a mother to one.

I wasn't looking for someone to call in a crisis. I thought I knew how to handle those. I wanted a guide to the steps. Someone who had not done them could not guide me through them. Finally, someone younger than I could not possibly have more wisdom. Right? Right?

I wanted to get a sponsor right away so I could get to work. I'm that kind of Al-Anon. Tell me what to do and get out of my way. I thought finding a sponsor would be easy.

By the end of a month, I hadn't found anyone who fit those categories. First, it was hard to evaluate potential sponsors when all I had to go on were what people chose to share. I was looking for a mother of an alcoholic. Frustratingly for me, people in meetings often shared things that did not have anything to do with their qualifiers. They had this annoying habit of keeping the focus on themselves.

I did identify some mothers. Some of them were even older than me, but they hadn't worked the steps. There didn't seem to be a single person who fit.

So I did what I finally did out of desperation in my romantic life. I threw out my list and prayed for God to guide me.

I did that with my husband, who, by the way, possesses exactly zero items formerly on my list, and we've been happily married for going on eight years. If it worked once, maybe it would work again. And anyway, what did I have to lose?

Not long after that, I was in the same meeting mentioned above. My soon-to-be sponsor lead the meeting. She's never done that since.

She was younger than I was, and her kids were all too young to be her qualifiers. But she had obviously worked the steps and seemed well grounded in the program. I don't remember the topic or a single thing she said. But I do remember that she seemed to really know what she was talking about. She mentioned seeing something on a listserve for 12-step groups. I remember thinking that if she was on a 12-step listserve, she must be pretty serious about the program. Finally, there was something about her I was drawn to.

The lightbulb flashed.

She had something I wanted.

After the meeting, I said I thought God had been speaking to me. I asked her if she was open to taking on a new sponsee and she said, "Of course. I'm always open to a new sponsee."

Turns out that in our line of sponsorship, we generally don't refuse these requests. We believe that God has brought someone to us for a reason.

But even before I learned that, I realized that her name had come up in my first meeting.

As with so many things, God was talking to me but I wasn't listening.

My sponsor has lead me with grace and wisdom ever since. I have no doubt that she is who God intended for me.

Having a sponsor was huge for me. We had a regular call time. In meetings, I could only absorb what people chose to share on a given topic. Some of it was confusing. With my sponsor, I could ask questions about any aspect of the program. I could ask for advice. Of course, I could have asked anyone either before or after meetings, but I didn't want to impose.

Even though I wanted a sponsor to help me work the steps, I found things went better when I asked for her advice before I did or said something. When I took her suggestions I felt better.

I quickly realize that sponsorship was one of the chief benefits of the program. I couldn't believe I had wasted so much time with my list.

Now, I smile when I see people who are shopping for the perfect sponsor. One woman who has been in the program for a year still hasn't found one. "I'm not looking for the perfect sponsor," she said. "I'm looking for the perfect sponsor for me."

I suggested a temporary sponsor. She worried about hurting someone's feelings if it didn't work out. I could only smile and share my own experience, then let it go. I could hear my sponsor's voice in my ear saying, "She's not hearing you."

Why is it that at times like these, the best advice I can offer seems to come from TV commercials? "Just do it," I want to say. Or "Try it, you'll like it."

New Day, New Year

This morning's reading in "One Day at a Time," an Al-Anon book of daily readings, really spoke to me. It said:

"This year is a book of clean blank pages on which I will write a record of my experiences and my growth through the daily use of the Al-Anon idea.... If I allow myself to be influenced by what the alcoholic says and does, it will make blots and smears on the pages of my year. This I will try to avoid at all costs.

Today's Reminder: I can live my life only one day at a time. Perhaps my confusion and despair are so great that I will have to take it one hour at a time, or one minute at a time, reminding myself constantly that I have authority over no life but my own.

'Realizing that nothing can hurt me while I lean upon my Higher Power, I ask to be guided through the hours and minutes of each day. Let me remind myself to bring every problem to Him for I know He will show me the way I must go.'"



I picked up my daughter (aka my qualifier) from the airport last night. I was on the phone with my sponsor within the half-hour. I might have called sooner--like within the first five minutes--except my daughter and I were in the car together. As soon as I got us to the house, I went in search of a private spot to make the call.

So today, the idea of clean fresh pages seemed particularly appealing to me. I need to remind myself that I need not be influenced by what my alcoholic says or does. I want to remember to stop when doubtful or agitated and ask my higher power for the next right thought or action.

But having a good sponsor really helps me to sort out what the next right thought or action is.

I have to confess that my problem was partly one of expectations. Expectations of what this visit would be like. That she might be different and at least I would be. I had envisioned us coming together cumbaya like, holding hands and singing songs.

What was I thinking?

This disease is cunning, baffling and powerful, and it's been doing push ups in the back of my head just waiting for an opportunity. It nearly threw me. But I picked up the phone and my sponsor answered, and in about five minutes I was back on the beam.

That five minute conversation changed everything. Don't ask me how. It's a mystery to me. But I came out of the room and had a very different conversation with my daughter. She behaved differently when I behaved differently. It's a little spooky really, how well the tools of this program work when you use them.

I can only say that my sponsor helped me sort out what was reasonable, what was my part, what wasn't. She makes it sound so easy, so reasonable, I always hang up the phone wondering why I couldn't figure that out myself. It was so obvious.

And, always, after I talk to my sponsor, I feel calm, my problems right sized.

So today on my gratitude list, item number one is that I have a wise sponsor. That she picked up the phone. That she gave me the guidance that I needed, so that today might, indeed, be a clean page. Fresh, with no mistakes in it.

Later today, my husband, my daughter and I will leave town for a few days. There is no internet service, so I won't be posting. But there is cellphone service. I have my sponsor's number on speed dial. Two more things to be grateful for.

Wishing you a year full of things to be grateful for.

Am I an Alcoholic?

Shortly after I joined Al-Anon in earnest and began working a program, my sponsor suggested I attend open AA meetings to help develop compassion for the alcoholics in my life.

I attended the first meeting as an Al-Anon. I attended the second as an alcoholic.

The question had always plagued me. My parents were alcoholics. My daughter found her way to Nar-Anon. Did I think I was immune? Why shouldn't I be an alcoholic?

I had history. Years of binge drinking. Black outs. Things I did under the influence that filled me with shame the day after. My husband and I drank every day.

My AA meetings quickly became my favorites. They were raucous affairs, with much laughter. Coffee and cookies were served. By contrast, Al-Anon meetings seemed somber affairs. Instead of cookies there was Kleenex on the table. There was a lot of crying.

But I was also aware that I didn't fit the pattern. My first assignment from my sponsor was to read the AA Big Book. At the AA meetings I attended, parts of the Big Book were read at the opening of every meeting.

Everything I read about Al-Anons seemed to fit me to a tee. But the readings at AA didn't. For one thing, the AA literature said that alcoholics grow worse, never better. That wasn't true of me. I had to go back 30 years to relate to periods of heavy drinking and feeling out of control.

I had six months of sobriety in AA before my Al-Anon sponsor said she wasn't convinced that I was an alcoholic. She encouraged me to explore the possibility. She put me in touch with other Al-Anons who had partied heavily but who were not alcoholics. I re-read the Big Book and the Merck Manual. It was true. I didn't seem to fit.

One Al-Anon and a friend in AA both suggested "the test" in the Big Book. Non-Alcoholics, it said, could go out, have a drink or two and then quit. A "true" alcoholic couldn't. I knew I could do this. I had done it many times. I had quit drinking for years without missing it. But I tried the test again. I had no problem having a drink or two and stopping.

I quit introducing myself as an alcoholic at AA meetings. Finally, I had an answer. I was not an alcoholic. I felt comfortable in that for the first time in my life. I was not an alcoholic. For some reason, that part of the disease had passed over me. How lucky was that?

Just one more thing to be grateful for.

An Al-Anon Welcome

I grew up in an alcoholic home and had heard people say that "alcoholism is a family disease," but never knew what that meant. I didn't believe I had been affected by other people's alcoholism. After all, alcoholism was their problem, not mine. And that was a long time ago. I was an adult now. I wasn't ruled by the past. I could make my own choices.

I had heard about Al-Anon and even attended a few meetings. But I came to stay after my daughter started having problems. Every now and then, she'd find herself in some trouble and I'd fly out for the rescue. During one of those visits, she had found her way into another fellowship. For the week I was there, I made sure she went to a meeting every day, sampling a variety of meetings so she would find somewhere she was comfortable. There was much talk about getting a sponsor and after a week she asked a woman named Kelly to be her sponsor. Kelly very gently suggested that I attend Al-Anon. "You can work your own program," she said. "You won't have to attend your daughter's meetings anymore."

I took her advice. The day after I returned home, I attended an Al-Anon meeting I had found online. In my welcome, I first heard the three C's: I didn't cause the disease. I couldn't cure the disease. And I couldn't control it. Some people find comfort upon hearing this. Not me. This was my daughter, after all. I wasn't convinced I didn't cause it. Maybe I couldn't cure it. But control? I had spent years trying to control whatever it was that was wrong with my daughter. I gave up my life to it. Having come from an alcoholic home, I thought I knew where she was headed and I was bound and determined to keep her from it.

But nothing I did fixed the problem. It only served to alienate my daughter and exhaust me.

I didn't remember much about what I heard that day. But I did remember the most important thing: to "keep coming back." It was suggested to me that I attend at least six different meetings before I decided Al-Anon wasn't for me. Though based on the same principals, meetings are all a little bit different. Some are small and intimate. Some are very large. There are a variety of formats. It was important that I find a place I felt comfortable and keep coming.

At first, I wasn't sure substance abuse was my daughter's problem. Still, I went to five meetings a week at first. The people in my daughter's fellowship had impressed me. Walking in, many of them looked world worn. But what they said struck me as honest and wise. They radiated serenity. I wanted what they had. I could see that what I had done so far hadn't worked, and I was willing to try something new.

Things started to turn around for me after I got a sponsor and started working the steps. (We follow the same steps as Alcoholics Anonymous. I learned to "mind my own business" and got busy living my own life. I learned a lot about myself along the way.

In Al-Anon, we talk about dropping the rope. The typical pattern is that the alcoholic acts and everyone around them reacts. It's like a game of tug of war. The idea is that if we drop the rope, the alcoholic will have no one to fight with. Many members have reported that once they "dropped the rope," the alcoholic in their life sought help. That doesn't always happen. But what I've learned in Al-Anon is that I can find happiness and serenity whether the alcoholics in my life are drinking or not.

In my case, my daughter is still on her own path. The difference is that today, I know it's her path. In the end, it mattered little whether her problems stemmed from substance abuse or something else. For me the answer is the same. I've learned to love her unconditionally without trying to run her life. Our relationship is better than it has been in years and, yes, I am happy.