The Following is an excerpt from the chapter “Sponsorship”
As sponsors, the most important, consistent, clear, and effective message we can offer the newcomer is that the AA program of recovery is the 12 steps as presented in The Big Book. It is of paramount importance, truly with most alcoholics a matter of life and death, that we as sponsors carry a clear and effective message. We do not put ourselves in a position of amateur psychologist, social worker, therapist or counselor. When we take on roles other than those we are qualified to share – recovery through the 12 steps – we risk confusing our sponsee and making recovery in AA something it was never intended to be, (a program of recovery relying on human power rather than a higher power).
We do not create a dependent relationship with our sponsees. We need to impress on our sponsees that they are reliant on a higher or greater than human power to relieve their alcoholism. Relying on one’s “network”, or one’s home group to relieve their alcoholism, is also relying on human power.
While we offer a patient and loving ear when our sponsees want to discuss their problems or grievances, we compassionately remind the sponsee that sobriety is not contingent on the elimination of problems. Relief from our daily self-centered problems is achieved through daily inventory by identifying our part in our upsets, asking in prayer and meditation to be relieved of this bondage of self, and service to others.
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