Sponsorship
Choosing a sponsor is something very personal that we do for ourselves when we are ready to work the Twelve Steps. This is someone who will come to know our whole story; so whether we are in crisis or celebrating an unexpected breakthrough, our sponsor can find us right where we are in the context of our personal experiences. Using Conference Approved Literature, a sponsor guides us through the Steps which help us set one foot in front of the other along this path to recovery.
Sponsorship is about friendship, about being willing to reach out and ask for help. For many of us, it is a wonderful opportunity to develop emotional and spiritual intimacy with someone we can trust to safeguard whatever we confide; and we do the same for our sponsor. It is a mutually beneficial relationship between equals.
To find a sponsor, it helps to attend as many meetings as we can, to listen to the shares, and to watch how other Al-Anon members interact with each other. We are looking for someone who has the level of recovery we seek, someone with whom we feel most comfortable, and someone who is also proactively working the program with a sponsor.
When you find someone you want as your sponsor, just ask. If that person says no, that’s okay — don’t take it personally. Just go and ask the next person on your list. And if somewhere along the way you find that you are not as comfortable as you thought you would be, you can choose a different sponsor.
Sponsorship is two Al-Anon members learning from one another, reasoning things out as they share their experiences, and practicing a new way of life one day at a time. It is sometimes said that, while working the Steps, your sponsor holds the light while you do the digging. Don’t be surprised if you sometimes enlighten your sponsor — that is how this program works.
Someday, you will be asked to be a sponsor — an opportunity for you to truly be a trusted servant, a more experienced companion along this path to recovery, and an instrument for good in the hands of a Higher Power. Being a sponsor for someone else, in collaboration with a Power greater than yourself, is a humbling and spiritually uplifting experience that strengthens your own program.