OKaysez

 

Made A Decision

I am responsible for carrying the message. I am not responsible for anyone receiving the message. 

  Working With Others …  But what about those 

                       who only "want to want to quit?"

One of the true joys of being in A.A. is having the opportunity for working with others, to share with them in meetings and as sponsors everything we 

have learned that has changed our own lives for the better. 

This kind of service is the most rewarding we will ever experience, 

and the benefits we will receive from doing it are many. 

Once we have been through the 12-steps one-on-one with our sponsors, 

making us ready to sponsor others, a whole new chapter in our recovery

 begins. We will learn more about ourselves through sponsoring others 

than by any other method, while making lifelong friends in the process! 

But get ready for an emotional roller coaster ride, because it isn't 

always easy.

We often meet our first sponsee at their own very first meeting. 

They're easy to spot with their deer-in-the-headlights expression and 

wary eyes. They aren't sure they should have even showed up to hang out 

with a bunch of low-life drunks. 

They arrive filled with misgivings, fear, and a head full of no information, or 

wrong information, about alcoholism. They think they are perhaps 

over-reacting to their drinking, but deep inside know they don't drink like "normal" people.

We know all that because we were exactly the same.

Our 12 & 12, on page 23, tells it like it is:  

Years before we realized it we were out of control, that our

 drinking even then was no mere habit, and that it was 

indeed the beginning of a fatal progression.

And our Big Book underlines it on page 24 (4th edition): 

"The fact is that most alcoholics, for reasons yet obscure, 

have lost the power of choice in drink. Our so-called willpower becomes practically nonexistent. We are unable, at certain 

times, to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a 

month ago. We are without defense against the first drink."

But here's the part in the Big Book from the Chapter "Working with others" 

that so many of us miss about helping or sponsoring  - and it's the most important part:

If he does not want to stop drinking, don't waste time trying to persuade him.

A lot of people in early recovery in A.A want to want to quit drinking. 

But they don't actually want to quit. 

They want to want to quit, but 

they don't actually want t0. 

You'll know if your sponsee is one by the time you get them to Step Four. 

It's natural for any newcomer to balk at Step Four, because facing doing it 

brings up a lot of fear. But those who truly want to quit drinking will soon

 jump into the deep end of that pool and get it done. 

Those who want to want to quit will diddle around for weeks and months

 (even years!) creating every possible excuse for not moving forward with

 Step Four. 

Eventually, however, that light bulb over our head goes on - but not over 

the procrastinator's head. It lights up over ours when we suddenly realize 

what’s going on. 

Those who want to want to quit are skilled time wasters and, like most 

alcoholics, know how to con and charm others into letting them have 

things their own way. They will manipulate us for as long as we let them. 

I've fallen guilty to hanging on too long more than once with persons I'd

 grown to care deeply about, but I don't do it now. While it never feels good

 having to let a sponsee go (because we know the dangers they face), they'll hopefully learn a valuable lesson when all their dazzling charm fails them. 

Once you've realized the problem the cure is within reach. We must gently

 tell them they must have their fourth step in hand and be ready to take

 their fifth step by the time you meet for your step work again. 

If they again aren't ready, tell them when they are ready to work the steps 

to contact you again, but for now you are going to take on another sponsee. 

Explain there are others needing help willing to do the work and that by you working with someone who isn't willing you are depriving them of the help 

they want and need.

Easy?

Nope. 

But in these cases the truth can sometimes shock your sponsee enough to

 move them into action!

Telling a procrastinator the truth often isn't very easy, but it is necessary. 

Because there are never enough good sponsors for those in need of one, 

so you really are depriving a willing newcomer when you waste your time,

 energy and goodwill on one who merely wants to want to quit. 

They want what you have alright, but they are just not ready or willing to 

do the work that you have done in order to get it.

My friend, Tim, often quotes Vinnie the Slaughterman, his mentor during his own early recovery moaning time:

               "You want sympathy? It's in the dictionary, right between shit and syphilis."

Vinnie, like those old timers in A.A. when I got here, were often just that compassionate, because most of them around back then had been very 

low bottom drunks. They knew alcohol is a killer and they didn't mince words.

I hate alcoholism, but I love alcoholics. 

This, despite the fact, that newcomers to recovery  (and some not so new) 

can be annoying by their incredible levels of self-centeredness and 

readiness to find fault. Thin skin is their super power and instant go to. 

Remembering we were all just as self-involved early on (in my case more

 so than anyone I've ever sponsored) teaches us both compassion and 

patience. 

"This, too, shall pass," I have more than once muttered to myself when 

dealing with a life problem of my own while being totally ignored by a 

newcomer having their own "need to talk right now." They might vaguely acknowledge I was dealing with some issue or other, but were completely 

sure their problem was far more important. 

 

Knowing I had done the same to my first sponsor, the long suffering and 

always patient Mary Z, shames and reminds me I owe the same compassion 

to A.A.'s current crop of babies if for no other reason than to honor her

 memory.

Since sainthood still eludes me, however, I can take comfort in our 

literature which acknowledges how difficult that can sometimes be. 

Our Big Book bluntly states:  

When dealing with an alcoholic, there may be a natural annoyance that

 a man could be so weak, stupid and irresponsible. Even when you 

understand the malady better, you may feel this feeling rising.

And also this:  

Having suffered from alcoholism, I should understand the illness, but 

sometimes I feel annoyance, even contempt, toward a person who 

cannot make it in A.A. When I feel that way, I am satisfying my false 

sense of superiority and I must remember, but for the grace of God, 

there go I.

Alcoholics suffer from a physical, mental and spiritual illness. Recovery 

in A.A. offers us remission and recovery in all three, but it is not an 

overnight process and there is work involved for one to achieve lasting 

high-quality sober lives. 

We begin with baby steps and our progress is often two baby steps forward, 

one backward, with perhaps more than a few steps taken side to side along 

the way. As long as we continue doing the work we are making progress. 

Getting old as long as we’re alive is inevitable, but growing up is optional. 

The blueprint for recovery offered in A.A. is also the blueprint for reaching a decent level of maturity. 

Becoming a grown up, with a modicum of common sense and an ability

 to fully enjoy life, is a notable achievement in our ever more agitated and uncertain world.  

Our achievable goal, always, is progress, not perfection.