“With the help of our sponsor or spiritual advisor, gradually we learn to trust and depend on our Higher Power.”
Basic Text, Sixth Edition, Chapter Seven – Recovery and Relapse, page 86
Such is the last sentence in our Seventh Chapter, Recovery and Relapse. I read this sentence a few times, I think, before I started to question it. As someone who subscribes to being spiritual but not religious I was met with a bit of surprise, and as I compared it with the Grey Book I found that last sentence wasn’t there.
Of course there have been many changes to the text since then. I figured it was a priest or a guru, and although I found the sentence stood out, to me, I understood it. If we need spiritual guidance from outside sources to better trust my Higher Power, as I myself have sought, then why discourage it?
The idea of this blog post came to me again when a close friend raised the idea of a spiritual advisor, mentioning to me that’s he’s both had some and been one in the program. I hadn’t considered that the sentence could also apply to other members; members who help us live spiritually, help teach us how to connect to our Higher Power, and help us learn what our spiritual life means to us.
With that said, I don’t have a specific member I go to outside of my sponsor to help me live a spiritual life. I feel like I really learn a lot from all of my friends, and I surround myself with members whose guidance and spiritual programs I trust. Don’t take advice from someone if you don’t want their life, you know? (Not to discount how God speaks through all members in the true spirit of anonymity; often new members too, both at meetings and outside of them).
“Our sponsors and friends can advise us on how to work the steps.”
Basic Text, Sixth Edition, Chapter Five – What Can I Do?, page 57
This was the second line in our Basic Text that immediately sprang to mind when I thought of other lines with forgotten experience I don’t really apply, or that isn’t endorsed the same way anymore. I haven’t had a friend advise me on how to work a step… or have I? My sponsor was one of my friends before I asked her to be my sponsor, and I consciously asked a friend to be my next sponsor because I wanted someone I trusted and felt safe with, whose program I had a good understanding of, and whose life I also gladly was involved in. I’m able to share my experience with my sponsor today, too, which I didn’t with my previous sponsor, making it more of the equal dynamic a group of people would create. Because the word sponsors stands out, too.
I’ve understood that before the traditional one-on-one we’ve got going on today, sponsorship, at least for many, was more based off of learning from a group of people. I know many people who are clean today who worked early sets of steps in groups, which adds to the understanding of why this line highlights both friends and sponsors. Those are roots we’ve evolved further and further away from today. I haven’t tried it the other way and don’t think I ever will, because having one person I know I can rely on, and having my support network separate from the vulnerable, bloody insides of my step work, works for me and makes me feel safe.
But I have learned a lot about the steps from my friends or in meetings. Some of the most valuable discussions I’ve ever had have been with friends sharing their experience of whatever step I’m working on, or have been on. It’s really led me to incredible insights and helped me feel so supported in whatever I’m growing through in that moment, and I couldn’t encourage it more.
The closest I’ve come to doing step work in any kind of group is sharing my Tenth Step. I do a daily Tenth Step and gratitude list, still, which I’ve recently tailored more towards God consciousness, but a couple years ago I was asked to join a Tenth Step circle with a group of women. We ended up sharing our Tenth Steps with each other for about a month and were able to draw from what was working for others, and allowed us to build a form of daily intimacy with each other that I found to be really valuable. I couldn’t compare my insides with other people’s outsides when I was seeing all of our insides.
Nowadays I still share it, but only with my sponsor, which still has offered me a lot of support and insight into my character.
“Sponsorship for newcomers is also the responsibility of the group.”
Basic Text, Sixth Edition, Chapter Five – What Can I Do?, page 57
Lastly, this.
I’ve seen this sentence interpreted in two ways: the first being that it is our responsibility as a group to direct newcomers to available sponsors, for example by asking available sponsors to raise their hands during our meetings so that newcomers know who to approach, and the second being that the same way a group used to help and sponsor each other we should sponsor and help the newcomer by freely sharing our experience. I don’t believe either interpretation to be wrong, necessarily; the most important thing is that a newcomer is learning about our message of recovery, however that may be. But I do think it’s easy to forget, sometimes, that we should be available to newcomers in this way, or that we potentially are sponsoring newcomers every time we share.